“Despite the Power of Money”: Reflections on the Vapid Obama Commentary of Professor Angela Davis
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by Paul Street
Angela Davis recently told television audiences that Barack Obama won the presidency “despite the power of money.” Any knowledgeable person – much less a learned academic and activist heroine – should know better. The reality, which is not in serious dispute, is that Obama “set new corporate fundraising records, receiving many millions of dollars from powerful Wall Street firms and other profit-based economic giants.” Prof. Davis is spouting discredited 2008 campaign propaganda, as a cover for the collapse of Left opposition to Obama’s pro-war and pro-Wall Street policies.
“Despite the Power of Money”: Reflections on the Vapid Obama Commentary of Professor Angela Davis
by Paul Street
“Obama developed just as plutocratic (with the same disproportionate weighting toward large scale contributions) a campaign finance profile as George W. Bush’s in 2004.”
We were recently given a revealing glimpse of how limited what passes for radical commentary can be in the United States during an interview of Sixties radical turned academician Angela Davis on Amy Goodman’s left leaning television show “Democracy Now!” Asked by Goodman for her thoughts on Barack Obama’s election two years ago and “where were are today,” professor Davis started by saying that “Well, of course, initially, few people believed that a figure like Barack Obama could ever be elected to the presidency of the United States, and because there were those who persisted, and, you know, largely young people, who helped to build this movement to elect Barack Obama, making use of all of the new technologies of communication….on…November 4th, 2008, Obama was elected…”i
Those reflections were fundamentally wrong on numerous levels. I myself and many others on the left thought early on that a slippery, squishy, expertly marketed, telegenic, “eloquent,” charismatic, fake-progressive, “deeply conservative” and corporate-neoliberal politician and media star like Barack Obamaii could definitely be “elected” – well, selected and elevated by the “hidden primary of the ruling class” (Laurence Shoup) that really chooses the nation’s top officeholders beneath the pretense of populace governanceiii – “to the presidency.” Listen to the following interesting reflection from Black Agenda Report’s Michael Perez Hureaux in early 2008:
“I had a hunch this was coming when I watched his speech at the convention four years ago, my wife and I both sat and took it in and looked at each other and said, almost word for word, ‘He’s good, he’s very good.’ The rakish JFK style jabs, the clearly studied rhetorical grace. What better gift to the empire than JFK in sepia? All last year, numerous discussions with people from the old new left who told us, “He’ll never get a shot at it because of racist US, etc.,’ to which we maintained, ‘But what better figure to have out there than one to restore faith in the imperial project, but someone with a black face? They managed to live with Powell and Rice, why not Obama?’”iv
“What better figure to have out there than one to restore faith in the imperial project, but someone with a black face?”
After noting that Obama is “backed by the biggest Wall Street firms,” the brilliant Left Australian author, journalist, and filmmaker John Pilger made a similar point in his usual eloquent and deeply informed fashion at the end of May 2008:
“What is Obama’s attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy’s [in 1968]. By offering a “new,” young and apparently progressive face of Democratic Party – with the bonus of being a member of the black elite – he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell’s role as Bush’s secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US antiwar and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent v
Those were my sentiments from early on and such instincts were less uncommonvi than Dr. Davis may know in radical circles beyond the stultifying mindset of the corporate university. We figured the time was right for a certain kind of nonwhite president, just the re-branding medicine that Uncle Sam’s doctor ordered after the damage done to America’s public image and the American system by the long national Bush-Cheney nightmare.
And clearly a large number of Wall Street and K Street insiders thought early on that Obama could possibly prevail. They invested heavily in his campaign after vetting him and finding out that “a figure like Barack Obama” was completely safe and inordinately useful for existing dominant domestic and imperial hierarchies and doctrines. Professor Davis is free to think that college kids on the Internet pushed Obama into the White House but the real story has far more to do with more mundane, traditional and timeworn factors: Wall Street backing, establishment approval, corporate media love, and a bad economy that worked against the incumbent party.vii
So where are we and the president today?
“Now, here we are two years later [professor Davis said] and many people are treating this as if it were business as usual. As a matter of fact, many people are dissatisfied with the Obama administration, because [it] fail[s] to fulfill all of our dreams. And, you know, one of the points that I frequently make is that we have to beware of our tendency here in this country to look for messiahs and to project our own possible potential power on to others. What really disturbs me is that we have failed. Well, of course, I’m dissatisfied with many of the things that Obama has done. The war in Afghanistan needs to end right now. The healthcare bill could have been much stronger than it turned out to be. There are many issues about which we can be critical of Obama, but at the same time, I think we need to be critical of ourselves for not generating the kind of mass pressure to compel the Obama administration to move in a more progressive direction, remembering that the election was, in large part, primarily the result of just such a mass movement that was created by ordinary people all over the country.”
“Professor Davis is free to think that college kids on the Internet pushed Obama into the White House but the real story has far more to do with Wall Street backing, establishment approval, corporate media love, and a bad economy that worked against the incumbent party.”
There is much that actual leftists can agree with in this passage. Of course serious progressive change is about pressuring major party state capitalist office-holders from the bottom up. Naturally we should not look to politicians and officeholders to fix contemporary messes; we’ve got to do it ourselves as citizens. Yes, the struggle continues. As Howard Zinn used to say, “it’s not about who’s sitting in the White House; it’s about who’s sitting in.” Fine. But it’s sad to see Davis ignore the elementary facts that (i) the corporate-imperial Obama campaign worked expertly and overtime to seduce “progressive” voters (and every other kind of voter they could attract with Brand Obama) to “project [their] own potential power” on to Obamessiah; (ii) the business-friendly and militaristic Obama presidency has worked consistently to undermine, deflect, and intimidate serious progressive protest of its corporate and imperial agenda, using threats, mockery, denial of access, surveillance, and raids to those ends.
The outrageous corporate health bill “could have been much stronger” and “there are many issues about which we can be critical of Obama”? Wow. This is egregious under-statement from a self-respecting left perspective! Let’s be real about the depth and degree of “business as usual” (yes, many people DO see that, professor Davis) under Obama. Consistent with the predictions of my 2008 book Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (written in late 2007 and early 2008, carrying accolades on the back cover from the nation’s leading Left thinkers but never featured or even mentioned on “Democracy Now”), the administration has been a great monument to the old French saying plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose (the more things change the more they stay the same). With its monumental bailout of hyper-opulent financial overlords, its refusal to nationalize and cut down the parasitic too-big (too powerful)-to-fail financial institutions that have paralyzed the economy, its passage of a health reform bill that only the big insurance and drug companies could love (consistent with Rahm Emmanuel’s advice to the president: “ignore the progressives”), its cutting of an auto bailout deal that rewards capital flight, its undermining of serious global carbon emission reduction at Copenhagen, its refusal to advance serious public works programs (green or otherwise), its disregarding of promises to labor and other popular constituencies, and other betrayals of its “progressive base” (the other side of the coin of promises kept to its corporate sponsors), the “change” and “hope” (Bill Clinton’s campaign keywords in 1992) presidency of Barack Obama has brilliantly demonstrated the power of what Edward S. Herman and David Peterson call “the unelected dictatorship of money.” As Bill Greider noted in The Washington Post last year, “People everywhere [have] learned a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn’t. They [have] watched Washington run to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They [have] learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it.”viii
“The business-friendly and militaristic Obama presidency has worked consistently to undermine, deflect, and intimidate serious progressive protest of its corporate and imperial agenda.”
The “right people” include the top military contractors and the Pentagon, of course. The “new” White House has escalated Superpower violence in South Asia, passed a record-setting “defense” (Empire) budget, rolled over George W. Bush’s not-so counter-terrorist assault on human rights (in the name of “freedom”), extended the imperial terror war to Yemen and Somalia, disguised escalated U.S. occupation of Haiti as humanitarian relief, aided and abetted a thuggish right wing coup in Honduras, expanded the Pentagon’s reach in Columbia/Latin America, and…. I could go on and did in my new book on Obama’s first year in office: The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010) ix
The last point in Davis’s paragraph quoted above is, I am sorry to say, hopelessly inaccurate. The Obama campaign was not a grassroots social movement created by ordinary people struggling for progressive change from the bottom up any more than a fish is a cat or than war is peace. It was a top-down, candidate-centered operation in which “rank and file” activists got their marching orders from distant campaign elites, themselves equipped with the latest technologies and marketing techniques that record-setting corporate and other big money campaign contributions could provide.
“Again,” Davis told Amy Goodman, “I would return to the election of Barack Obama. Barack Obama was elected despite that kind of a [business and prison] lobby, despite the power of money. And so, we have to continue the campaign for a better world, drawing upon all of our resources.”
Not good! Yes, the struggle continues. But no, no, no – a thousand times no! Barack Obama was NOT elected “despite the power of money!” (Here we perhaps witness the well-known dumbing-down effect of an academic career: surely the pre-tenure Angela Davis of 1969 would never have uttered such a plainly false comment as that). He set new corporate fundraising records, receiving many millions of dollars from powerful Wall Street firms and other profit-based economic giants. He developed just as plutocratic (with the same disproportionate weighting toward large scale contributions) a campaign finance profile as George W. Bush’s in 2004. Here is an interesting and accurate reflection from an anonymous reader commenting on a recent ZNet essay of mine:
Follow the money. Don't know about this year, but look at presidential funding from 2000,2004, and 2008. In 2000 and 2004, we saw Bush and his Pioneers and their massive fundraising machine that raised about $370 million in each election. In 2008, we saw McCain take public financing because he couldn't raise a measly $80 million in the general election. Where did that money go?
“The Obama campaign was not a grassroots social movement created by ordinary people struggling for progressive change from the bottom up any more than a fish is a cat or than war is peace.”
Obama raised $750 million in 2008, nearly doubling the Bush record. OpenSecrets.org says that 1/3 was in small donation (less than $200). But that leaves $500 million in 'big' donations. More than the totals Bush raised in either 2000 or 2004.
We know Wall Street gave about $30 million for their 1)bailouts, 2) protection from prosecution, and 3) protection from real reform. We know that the big health care corps gave about the same $30 million to 1) keep single-payer off the table, 2) get their $500 billion in tax credits, and 3) their mandated customers. And those amounts are just to Obama alone, and don't include their buying of Senators and Repsx.
The real story on candidate Obama’s money was told in my aforementioned 2008 book, written by someone outside the incestuous, academic-addicted celebrity system of “the [U.S.] left,” such as it is.
Paul Street (www.paulstreet.org) is the author of many articles, chapters, speeches, and books, including Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007; Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York: Routledge, 2005); Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008); and The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2010). Street is currently completing a book titled “Crashing the Tea Party,” co-authored with Anthony Dimaggio. He can be reached at paulstreet99@yahoo.com
NOTES
i “Angela Davis on the Prison Abolishment Movement, Frederick Douglass, the 40th Anniversary of Her Arrest and President Obama’s First Two Years,” Democracy Now! (October 19, 2010) at www.democracynow.org/2010/10/19/angela_davis_on_the_prison_abolishment
ii A portrait that is given rich empirical detail in my widely “left”-ignored book Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008). For “deeply conservative,” see liberal-center journalist Larrisa MacFarquhar’s early portrait in “The Conciliator: Where is Barack Obama Coming From?,” The New Yorker (May 7, 2007). For a fascinating description of Obama at the very beginning of his political career, see Adolph Reed, Jr., “The Curse of Community,” Village Voice (January 16, 1996), reproduced in Reed, Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene (New York, 2000). This is how Reed described the 30-something Obama in his 1996 book Class Notes, published eight years before the world discovered the “Obama phenomenon” and before Left commentators activists (the present writer included) began noting its distinct apparent corporate-neoliberal centrism: “In Chicago, for instance, we’ve gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices: one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous to repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program – the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle class reform in favoring form over substances. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics here, as in Haiti and wherever the International Monetary Fund has sway.” An interesting day one take on what Dr. Davis calls “a figure like Barack Obama.”
iii Laurence H. Shoup, “The Presidential Election 2008,” Z Magazine (February 2008).
iv Common http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/barack-obama-and-the-%e2%80%9cend%e2%80%9d-of-racism/
John Pilger, “After Bobby Kennedy (There Was Barack Obama),” Common Dreams (May 31, 2008), read at www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/31/9327/
vi See also the fascinating reflections in Juan Santos, “Barack Obama and the End of Racism,” Dissident Voice (February 13, 2008).
Ken Silverstein, “Barack Obama, Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine,” Harper’s (November 2006);
Pam Martens, “Obama’s Money Cartel,” CounterPunch (February 23, 2008) read online at http://zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16601; Pam Martens, “The Obama Bubble: Why Wall Street Needs a Presidential Brand,” Black Agenda Report (March 5, 2008); John Pilger, “After Bobby Kennedy (There Was Barack Obama),” Common Dreams (May 31, 2008), read at www.commondreams.org/archive/ 2008/05/ 31/9327/; Street, Barack Obama, 1-72.
William Greider, “Obama Asked Us to Speak But is He Listening?” Washington Post,, March 22, 2009.
ix “Introduction: ‘An Instant Overhaul for Tainted Brand America’”
Chapter 1: Business Rule as Usual
Chapter 2: Empire’s New Clothes: Words and Deeds in Obama’s Foreign Policy
Chapter 3: Corporate-Managed “Health Reform”
Chapter 4: Barack Obama, the Myth of the Postracial Presidency, and the Politics of Identity
Chapter 5. Big Brother Lives
Chapter 6: We Were Warned
Afterword: Beyond the Perverted and Deadly Priorities of Empire and Inequality, Inc.
Postscript: The Sorry Surrender of the So-Called Radical Left
Comment from “Samson” at 16:32 pm on October 25, 20010 http://www.zcommunications.org/all-of-them-make-promises-reflections-on-the-big-hope-chill-and-the-coming-democratic-debacle-by-paul-street
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Angela Davis
Peace and Blessing Family
I had notice when Ms. Davis spoke at Fisk some years ago. She has changed I thought I was going to hear a great freedom fighter for our people, and when I got there I was shocked at what I heard. I got in one of the long lines to challenge what we were just told. But I didn't get the chance they shut it down before I reached the mike. I wonder what made her change, and I am still wondering why?
History Lesson 101
The President of the United States of America always has and always will be the model, symbol, chief spokesperson, and progenitor of White Supremacy in the form of American Exceptionalism, the root and branch of White Supremacy, the true "Religion" of America. Once upon time Black folks knew this, or intuited it, or discerned it. They could easily conclude it from the long litany of American Imperial adventures which essentially targeted people of color all over the world. They knew it after returning from WW 2, Vietnam, or even the Iraq War and being treated as second class. They knew that the liberties they fought and died for abroad they didn't have at home. This is why the only Presidents in the historical pantheon that have ever been held in some esteem by African Americas were JFK, LBJ (to a lesser extent that JFK though he did more viz the "Great Society" Programs), and Clinton (because he was such a con and the economy was strong, and Blacks were deluded by him). Perhaps FDR can be thrown in on the margins. But nobody had pictures of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Taft, Wilson or others on their mantle, because they didn't identify with these people, they were alien to their experience. But the point is that the Presidency of the United States is not nor ever will be about the liberation and fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of the oppressed and downtrodden, whether here or abroad. For folks to now all of a sudden have this long, extensive, historical memory evaporate in the twinkling of an eye, speaks volumes about the psychological state and health of Black America. Angela Davis deserves recognition for her past good works, just like Jesse Jackson does, just like anyone on the front lines of the historical struggle, but the past unfortunately for Black folks has not translated into prologue. Last face it folks, Angela is the Black female version of Bill Ayres, the "System" is not going to grant you tenure unless you have co opted, and compromised. The days of fiery, radical socialists and communist professors leading student demonstrations are but a figment of our (and Hollywood's) imaginations. Conclusion, the President of the US of A, whether gay, black, white, brown, female, hermaphrodite, transsexual, don't give a fuck who they are, his or her or "its" job is to maintain the machinery and institutions of the Empire. For someone to believe a coward like Obama to be transformative is not "Kool-Aide" drinking it's some Timothy Leary high on LSD shit.
Lastly, what we see here is another vapid manifestation of "celebrity culture" where any person of notoriety somehow has some "gravitas." With due respect to Ms. Davis, she ain't said or wrote shit that I've been inspired or moved by of late, no more than Toni Morrison or Maya Angelou has created some transcendent work of art about the Black condition of late. But the media outlets will run to poor, aging Maya Angelou for some tidbit of wisdom or insight instead of the editors of BAR. Fucking John Legend all of a sudden knows more about education than niggas with Ph.Ds who have been running and managing some of the most esteemed historical Black colleges who can't get a fucking sound bite. White folks gone always pick the "winners" and "losers" if they can help it. And that ain't hard with the go-along get along Negroes existing today.
p.s. Where the fuck is Wyclef Jean now that there is a cholera outbreak in Haiti? Can you hear me now?
Dead-on commentary
Excellent breakdown and much appreciated illumination of the murkiness this caused many of us who were thrown off by Professor Davis' endorsement of Obama, as she is someone with a very respectable history of resistance to the machine only to now seem to be endorsing it!?
Agreed with everything except your reference to Pilger where he equates RFK to Obama as a progressive-looking tool for the Corporatocracy. I don't want to distract from the article so I'll just say that is unbelievably far from the actual case for Robert Kennedy in '68. For reference: the excellent book "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he Died and Why it Matters."
Endorsing Obama in the 2008
Endorsing Obama in the 2008 doesn't equate to endorsing the machine even it was clear even two years ago he wasn't the Progressive many people thought he was.
Davis might have been referring to electing a black president she said someone like Obama. Also, the big money that initially went to Clinton as front runner and later to the Republicans. Davis criticized people who want messiahs and the need for the people to make change themselves instead of waiting for others to do it for us.
Angela Davis is Hardcore
Angela Davis is as hardcore as she has ever been. She is as active and militant as ever. She has harshly criticized Obama on several occasions and is active in the fight against the wars and the Palestinians.She is is still active in the National Alliance against Racism and Political Repression. What do you mean by putting Left in quotation marks and saying that your book on Obama was ignored. That book represented the standard left critique of Obama. What are you attacking the Left for? You ARE the Left.
The Left's capitulation to
The Left's capitulation to the Democrats (lack of willingness to hold Obama accountable for presiding over the third term of the Bush admin and glossing over the reality of Obama/dems) is pushing US politics in this country further to the Right regardless of what political positions or organizational affiliations these capitulators may have. Standing up for the Palestinians, against war and against police brutality is going to be of little consequence if you cannot stand up to those who continue the policies that keep these injustices going. 2010 in this case is certainly NOT 1969.
"Here, Here!"
Agree on all points. In Latin America studies the principal that applies to most Dummocrat supporters in general and Obama supporters in particular is known as "amoral familialism."
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O88-amoralfamilism.html
Some folks would call it "tribalism." If only the big, bad Rethugs would let Obama be Obama, then perhaps he wouldn't rob, cheat, steal, and kill so much. But since he's one of ours, he get's a mulligan.
Historians will note (if there any honest one's left in 5 or 10 or 15 years) that Obama and the Dummocrats destroyed what turned out to be empty "Liberalism" by punking their supporters and embracing the Right Wing. By example, Raimondo at antiwar.com has an article asking where has the antiwar movement gone? Because of amoral familialism, antiwar backers looked the other way when Obama okayed troop escalations in Afghanistan twice, not just once as some think.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/10/26/whatever-happened-to-the-a...
And we knew then, as we know now with greater clarity, that the Af-Pak war is a misadventure of monumental proportions. Ironic, Obama said he didn't oppose all wars-- referencing Iraq which war crimes he later endorsed and adopted wholesale, see Obama's comment "the surge has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams", and digest the recent wilileak docs which show that the surge was a lie as some of us knew all along. There is no intelligent human being in the world who believes there is success to be had in Afghanistan or that the double escalations by Obama have merit. Interesting that the great Israeli Military Strategist Van Crevald called Bush's invasion of Iraq the greatest strategic disaster in 2000 year, and that Bush should be impeached as a consequence. How prescient.
But by Obama's embrace of that Lie, phony Progs embraced it so as it to upset the "team." they didn't want to look like pussies and weaklings to the Rethugs, a friggen horde of draft dodgers. And now these bitches going to cut the social safety like a hot knife on butter as they continue to waste trillions on wars and future Wall St. bailouts (a big bank failure is coming to a theatre near you soon, especially if the States AGs freeze up the foreclosure mills).
I can hear Obama's and the Dummocrats and their RW media enablers now, IRONICALLY, they'll blame it on the "family" here goes: "If only the Democrats had came out and supported us, we wouldn't have to bargain and compromise with the big, bad, mean and nasty Rethugs, so ultimately folks it's your fault." Mark my word folks (I should be a Dummocrat strategist lol).
People, dumb supporters of the Dummocrats, will pretend they never heard of the Catfood Commission, it'll all be "ours" and the Tea Party's fault that there is an endless flood of money for blood letting, but none for COLAs, Medicare, Medicaid or Social Sec. (which is solvent).
I have been searching since Obama's inception for an answer to the question: "How did GWB do wtf he wanted, despite Dems regaining control of house in 2006 and despite being one of the most unpopular presidents in history, despite the GOP controlled senate during GWB's tenure lacking a filibuster proof majority? How did it happen folks? I ain't a heard a plausible answer yet. We got these fucking federalist society pricks, pure corporate hacks in Alito and Roberts thanks to the pussies unwillingness to filibuster, and what fruit did that bear? Why only the Citizens United decision which is the cherry topping to the decimation of what broken democracy we've had. Thanks to the feckless Dummocrats the corporations have won, hands down. Game, set, match to the Facists.
Amoral familialism is when your first born is a mass murderer who practices necrophilia, and suffers an occasional bout of cannibalism, but you still love him because "he's our boy."
Such is the state of the so-called Progressive Movement.
At this point, things are so
At this point, things are so damned dire that any half-assed criticisms of Obama or the Democratic Party establishment just aren't going to cut it, and will actually play into the hands of the elites. The "She criticized him on this and this on this date, but went on DN and gave him a pass, citing high expectations of the public," are confusing to a Left that more than ever needs to clear the thick-as-cotton-candy fog and get in the game.
Groups always want to hide, discount, gloss over political differences and not spend time on these questions for the sake of a false "unity". But like the universities and other large institutions of the non-profit industrial complex, neutrality on these questions upholds the status quo. If these movement leaders cannot be unequivocal in holding any and all accountable who expand war and empire, including the President of the United States, they are doing little good and a whole lot of harm.
Dire Straits
Other than intellectual exercise and some attempt to "enlighten" folks, my only real question before they bury me in the woods is: "Will there be an epiphany of sorts when the walls come tumbling down?" Will there be ANY event for which Blacks in particular and the Progs in general hold Obama accountable?" Is the Cotton Candy Fog to thick for a wake up call?
Sometimes I muse to myself that perhaps it will take the Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare cuts proposed by BOTH PARTIES in December to wake Black folks out of their stupor, that combined with the continuing crime, waste and failure of the Af-Pak (and other military) misadventures? Will the elders pull out their old MLK words of wisdom, especially the ones that connected Colonialism Abroad with Deprivations at Home, that tied the War on Poverty to Imperial Adventures? Obama has spread the military wider than George W. Bush, but Blacks insanely believe different. (I guess if you don't yell at your kids or dog you can still beat the shit out of them?). If Bush had sent 80 warships to Costa Rica of all places, niggas and Progs would be flipping out.
One of my few hopes (and trust me I ain't got many), is that (in addition to the Tea Partiers being royal fuck ups, don't need a crystal ball for that one) the former civil rights minions, our uncs and aunts and parents or grandparents finally say something. Will they put 2 and 2 together when the digest that not only did they not get a COLA increase in the past 2 years, but "Boy Wonder" is going to put even more pain on their asses?" Only time will tell. And we'll always have White folks to blame? Right? "If only the crackers and the Jews would let Obama be Obama." lol
Davis, etc
Another theme that can be explored here is the Left living in the past to the point of neglecting the present, which is my view, many on the Left do. Angela Davis did some wonderful, wonderful stuff that I still respect her for...but all of that occurred decades ago. Of course, Critical Resistance is a newer org that she helped founded (founded though to the best of my knowledge, she is not heavily involved in it), but Angela Davis got the whole hour (the WHOLE FRIGGIN HOUR) on Democracy Now---sans headlines, of course for who she was decades ago.
It seems to me that there are many of these personalities from the radical/revolutionary Left of the late 60s, 70s who can just run on fumes, even though so may have abandoned their core politics, or have kept their politics and abandoned holding the elites accountable. They can slap their names on the covers of books and they will sell, no matter what the content, and often the content is no longer radical, or softened (in Gloria Steinen's case, the content is no longer even political--I know she was never really radical, her selling out Chishom, liberal bourgeoise politics, etc. etc). These people will get hour slots on shows like DN just because of what they have done a long, long time ago.
Of course, there are those from the past who do deserve this visibility (i.e. Ralph Nader) because Nader is just as active now as he was in the "Unsafe at Any Speed" era. Nader, though not perfect, constantly reinvents himself and is always working with new generations of activists: and of course, and above all, always stands up to the Democratic Party. He is still very much on the scene, in the thick of it, not tucked away somewhere in a tenured gig.
No prison abolitionist anywhere, ever should be supporting Obama: a President who wants the death penalty reinstated for juveniles. But I also think that she is supporting Obama not only because she is fat and happy in the world of tenured academia, but because ideologically, American Stalinists (i.e. CP, she is a former member) support Democrats as a rule---nothing new (But the damaging effects of Stalinism on the US Left are a whole other topic).., though I cannot imagine Davis supporting a President this far to the Right in her heyday.
Point is: why did Davis get the whole entire hour? Because she is an icon for what she has done in the past. But the Angela Davis of the present has little to offer if she is going to support Obama, support which negates her present political stance on prison abolition. And that's the problem of the Left living in the past and former radicals getting cred in spite of no longer being who they were.
Finally, being a "learned academic" means nothing as far as following logic. If anything, it means supporting the status quo, no matter how insane because only the people pleasers (with some exceptions) attain and are able to keep those jobs.
Excellent points, Brandy
Excellent points, Brandy Baker!
I saw the DN interview and left a comment on linktv.org Democracy Now section in response to Davis' incredulous statement about Obummer being elected despite the presence of big money. Huh? Big money from the ruling class got the mofo elected. If Davis can't wrap her curly fro around that fact, she needs to turn in her teaching certificate. Just what IS she teaching her students?
I love your "running on fumes" statement. It sums up the misleaders of the civil rights industrial complex perfectly. I don't think being a tenured, cloistered academic has much to do with Davis' milquetoast comments. Even has-been, misleaders of the past who have more contact with the real streets are just as lobotomized by Obama and the Democratic Party. See last week's BAR article about SNCC having Eric Holder speak at their meeting for example.
No surprise Goodman gave Davis the whole hour w/o challenging Davis' tepid Obama critique; she gives poser Michael Moore major airtime also w/no serious challenges too. DN does a far better job than mainstream media in reporting news but Goodman is p.c. to a fault and treads lightly when it comes to major criticism of any black issues. She'll have Jesse or another usual suspect black talking head on for a kid glove chat but Glen Ford is minutes away from DN studios and has been on the show once.
Reflections on "academic" careers: what I've observed
On what I've observed about careers in college teaching, as a woman. I had wanted to be an artist from age 10 but got pushed into teaching by a mother, widowed young with 3 kids and only a high school diploma; (which each of us got at age 16, but I had the GI Bill from dead vet dad and she graduated from high school in 1929, only sibling to get to end of high school due to her youth; she went to work selling hosiery). I had enough money left on the GI Bill after college, to go to grad school, if I worked as a sec'y at the university for credits,and to pay rent as well as waiting for the NYC teaching exam to be given. I did the credits for my Master's in Amer. Civ. (an oxymoron) but my advisor told me that I'd never get a job as a college teacher because I am a woman (1963/1964)-- so already teaching, I quit grad school. I took testing for career (on advice of spouse #1) and a couple of adult art classes at the New School. (The testing for women outside of sec'y, teacher, librarian did not exist and I was also given the men's tests. I am not kidding. Later, when asked to participate in testing as an artist by a university, so they could have people to balance in the interest tests ((e.g. what artists like/interests)), I initially refused, telling of my experience in 1963/64. I was told they now had a nongender tests, so I
participated. The test counselor back in 1963 said that while I scored at the top of the chart for art/sculpture aptitude (men's test remember; none for women), I should stay in teaching because I refused to do art for hire/commercial art. I threw the file in a drawer, forgot about it and became a sculptor, doing "outside jobs" to support being an artist. And mostly self-taught in art, with books, now internet. I refused the offer of scholarship for grad degree in art ed. I never considered teaching art (too precious) until a single mother, I took a two plus year job as an artist-in-residence where I had total control of my studio, schedule, budget, etc.in a public elementary school for a foundation. (I was a jr. hi. social studies teacher for 5 years, involved in the beginning of the UFT, leaving for art at 25, 1965).
I met my 2nd spouse while he was getting his PhD in science. (We won't live long enough to pay off the school loans.) He was working in "pure research"* in a university medical lab, school pt time, then got laid off in the fed funding cuts to research in the early 1980s. The university where he worked, private, had been giving some free credits and he also was in the teaching fellowship = not enough money to live on. There was the question of: what to do for income? Teach or work for a drug company. I said I'd never speak to him again if he went to work for a drug company. He went into adjunct teaching and school loans to continue at the private university to finish the PhD, rec'd in middle age. After a couple of decades of adjunct (pt time) teaching, he got a full time job in a community college a few years ago. A great teacher. I have always asked the question: how many women are heads of science departments in the US? (very few) and how many teachers of color are in science departments (not enough)/heads of science departments? (?). On academic careers, that's what I know.
A final note: There is a museum in DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts - if you know a woman artist, tell her to set up a file in the artists archives (easy/cheap). It's been around since the mid1980s, when I heard about it and sent slides of my work. There used to be women archivists until a couple of years ago, then it became a man. A museum to keep women artists from disappearing in history.
Footnote:
* On "pure research" - follow the money is true. Even back in the 1980s, a research study in a university lab could be funded by a drug company. Related: peer review (scientists reviewing research in science or medical journals) was more strict than now. A whole can of worms is the relationship now between pharma, reviewers and journals editorial staff. Also FDA money is in part from pharma = the drug recalls and "bad" drugs not recalled. Recently Dem.Now had a segment on corporate funding (oil/energy I think was example) of university campus labs in CA public university system. It's a big topic. Several fiction books/movies have tackled it: "The Constant Gardener", John LeCarre has a great interview on Dem. Now recently on the book on this topic. There's a film about "60 Min." tv show, and the tobacco company involving suppressed research a few decades ago. Suppressing study results is happening now....
Obama looked like an Outsider but He's Really an Insider...
During the DemocracyNow! interview Ms Angela Davis, was apparently trying to spin something positive from Obama's election for progressives. His run had the appearance of a 'grass-roots' push [or was hyped as such] - w a 'coalition' 'forming' to help elect the first 'Black' Pres. But it cost at 3/4 $billion [Hillary spent 1/4 $billion & lost] for Obama to get to the White House. He claimed that 75-80% of his funds came from millions of donors giving $200 or less, but apparently much / most of that were large 'donations' from the Corp Elite / Wall St Banksters- which were 'chopped' up into pieces & re-bundled to look like they were many small donations. It may be hard for so-called progressive [intellectuals IE: Ms Davis] to face-up / admit to being 'taken in' by Obama - believing him to be a different kind of politician [hoping he was - change they could believe in]. IE: Ms Davis spent much time during that DemocracyNow! interview talking about the prison industrial complex. But she failed to say that Obama / Holder DoJ has done little to address this issue [& haven't even spoken to this trend that has ensnared so many Black men], but rather they're going w the status-quo - even legitimizing many of the abuses of the Bushites - used to imprison non whites in hyped-up & suspicious so-called 'War on Terror' cases [Usually via Entrapment using FBI Informants who cook-up the Plots in the first place].
The Dems have alienated their progressive base & haven't accomplish any progressive agendas & often failing to even really try- even though they have solid control of both houses of congress & the White House w the 2008 election of Obama. Yet they’ve failed - or even worse PRETEND to do something as they SELL OUT to Corp interest - IE: the fake health-care, finance, RTTT school - Reforms [let alone jobs program, fore-closure moratorium, etc] - & then PROCLAIM SUCCESS. Their whole shtick is vote for us cause the GOP is worse - as is happening now & what happened in 2004.
It seems that Obama appeared to be an outsider -but- he's really 'secretly' an insider. He is related to the Bushes, Cheney, Ford, LBJ, Roosevelt, James Madison, & now apparently Sarah Palin & Rush Limp-balls -&- apparently may have been a protégée' of Zig Brzezinsky since he [Obama] graduated in political science w focus on the USSR / Soviet Union from Colombia Univ in 1983, while Brzezinsky was a tenured Prof in Colombia's political science dept & a known expert on Russia / USSR. He then turns up as Candidate Obama's top foreign policy wonk. Old Zig{zag} helped ‘Set It Off’ in Afghanistan in 1979 - leading to the Russian invasion & rise [w US support] of the Mujahadeem / Taliban / Al-Qeada. In 1997 Brzezinsky wrote 'The Grand Chessboard' whose main thesis was that the US as the world's lone super-power should focus on Eur-Asia especially the Stans - which has VAST Mineral / Gas / Oil Wealth. And that US should deploy itself to prevent any alliance - especially between Russia & China [& even Iran & Turkey] that could challenge its objectives [of Full Spectrum Dominance] in the Eur-Asia-Stans. So where is Obama's War on Terror focused - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran [w implications for Tagikastan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc - IE: the 'soft under-belly of Russia & at China’s Eur-Asia-Stan frontier] - IE: right where Old Zig{zag} talked about in /on his 'Grand Chess-board'.
follow the money
Like you said, follow the money. Cooptation through tenure is an effective way of silencing dissent. Falsifying history is worse yet. The irony of her teaching in the History of Consciousness program is not lost on some, least likely on her students, who I imagine dressed her down for her betrayal.
I wouldn't bet too much money
I wouldn't bet too much money on probability that Davis' students dressed her down for her lame-assed remarks. Many of these students are stone cold drunk on Obama kool aid and are loyal subjects of Move On, Jon Stewart, and HuffPo. I envision this class as an easy A - write a couple of papers regurgitating the same psycho-socio-femino, pseudo militant bullshit Davis has been living off for decades.
That transcript stinks like
That transcript stinks like the plumbing in my grandmother's basement. This woman is off her rocker. Thumbs up for your comment, Bev.
Moveon, Huffington Post and
Moveon, Huffington Post and Jon Stewart are not perfect, but they, especially Huffington Post are as bad as you imply. Davis is as firm and militant progressive as Glenn Ford and any other BAR contributer.
"Davis is as firm and
"Davis is as firm and militant progressive as Glenn Ford and any other BAR contributer."
Oh no she's not. You won't hear Glen Ford giving any wimpy commentary on Obama or any domestic or foreign policy issue.
None of Davis's writings are
None of Davis's writings are pseudo anything.
Her writings over the years have been a strong critique of imperialism, racism, and sexism. She is as militant and anti-establishment as she was 40 years ago.
Overall, Davis's comments in the interview, contained a strong Left critique.
I heard it, was shocked/went back & read it; otherwise good
interview. Angela Davis' work on prison "abolition" is important. I was shocked when I heard her say the line re Obama win vs money and went back when the transcript came up on DemNow to read it. Even a wise woman can get something wrong, sadly.
Yes!
NYCartist, that was my exact response. I was skimming the transcript and it caught me and I was very taken aback, had to go back & read it again! WTH??