Great Brown Hope

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Chicago-based historian and activist Paul Street cuts through the fog of fantasy and wish-fulfillment that makes up much of political discourse in the U.S. left for a sober assessment of the Obama administration in the real world of power and empire.  The Empire's New Clothes uniquely measures Obama's record against the expectations many of his supporters hoped he would live up to.  Taken together, it is a startling indictment not just of the current president and his people-proof, reform-proof but an indictment of what passes for the U.S. left.

Was the US and NATO's Libyan intervention a humanitarian campaign to protect Libyans against Muammar Gaddafi’s threats of mass violence and genocide, or was it a cynically “rehearsed military expedition” to force regime change and wield Western authority in the region? Far from being an action to save lives, NATO’s “indiscriminate” bombing of civilian targets and cities such as Sirte (Gaddafi’s birthplace) resulted in genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and civil war..

The year that saw an African American run for the presidency as a viable contender also witnessed a truly remarkable silence. While millions of words written about the political ascent of one black man, there was virtually nothing about the descent of black leadership into well-nigh total ineffectiveness. Barack Obama’s personal itinerary was mapped in the minutest detail. The larger itinerary of African Americans was mostly ignored.