Those Ever-Shrinking 401Ks and the Theft of Retirement Security

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.

The election of a black president has given the fashionable fantasy of North American color blindness body and wings.  Ostensibly colorblind policies, argues Tim Wise, actually work to widen the persistent gaps between black and white America.  You can't pursue racial justice without confronting the everyday reality of race.  Since race and racism are constructs imposed by whites on the rest of humanity, only privileged whites can afford the pretense of colorblindness.  Solving the nation's persistent problems will mean giving up this pretense.

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.