Obama's ‘Center-Right' Presidency: The Die is Cast

by BAR executive editor
Glen Ford

"Black folks desperately
needed the Obama of their imaginings."

We already know enough. There is no more mystery as to what
makes Barack Obama tick. He is your garden variety "center-right" American
politician, as rated by no less an authority than the New York Times - the folks who
practically invented the standards by which one is located in the corporate
political spectrum.

There are lots of political appointments to go before Obama's
roster is complete, but the heavy lifting is done. The ideological pillars of
America's first Black presidency have been planted wholly within the parameters
of governance allowed by big capital and the imperial military. Obama's
"transition" is more accurately seen as a "continuity" of rule by the lords of
finance capital and their protective screen of warriors and spies. The Obama
regime, still incomplete, already wreaks of filthy rich thieves and
gore-covered war criminals.

Obama's "national security" and economic lineup is an
infinity of ugliness, more repulsive than I could have imagined back in the
summer of 2003, when Obama's rise to glory was about to begin. The supremely
talented actor/state senator's capacity for obfuscation; his refusal to take a
firm position on any subject of real controversy; his transparently false
denials of fealty to the corporate Democratic Leadership Council, which had
publicly claimed him - all this should have marked Obama as bad news for Black
America. But his was a fatally attractive package, like the shiny little
cluster bomblets that kids pick up in places like Afghanistan.

"The ideological pillars
of America's first Black presidency have been planted wholly within the
parameters of governance by finance capital and the imperial military."

My colleagues and I were most fearful of the effect Obama's
corporate-rigged explosion onto the national scene would have on the Black
polity - both the masses and leadership circles. Obama's phony progressivism
didn't fool us for a second - although we yearned as much as other African
Americans for the appearance of a Great Black Hope. Obama wasn't "The One," no
matter what Oprah said. Rather, he became a menace to Black folks' collective
mental health.

We knew that a mass hallucinatory phenomenon was about to
occur, that would loosen many Black folks' grips on reality no matter how often
and loudly we warned that Barack Obama was a cynical corporate striver who
encouraged whites to believe that his election would mark the end of Black
politics as we have known it. (Take breath, here.) He was the anti-Jesse, the
anti-Sharpton, a fraudulent peace candidate, an eager servant of the rich. We
diligently provided evidence of Obama's true political nature, and at every
juncture before and during the primaries we were proven correct in our
analysis. But no matter. African Americans' pent up hunger to see a (pretty)
Black face in the highest place, would not be denied. They desperately needed
the Obama of their imaginings, and would draw and quarter anyone that
questioned the senator's sainthood.

Were Black folks "losing their damn minds," as comedian
David Alan Grier puts it on Comedy Central's Chocolate News?

Yes, they were.

"Obama became a menace to
Black folks' collective mental health."

Black America became a fortress, impregnable to the truth.
The ever-mounting evidence of Obama's abhorrence of real social change beyond
his own singular elevation; his fawning deference to big business; his call for
an additional 100,000 soldiers and Marines; his early refusal to consider a
moratorium on housing foreclosures; his reversal on electronic spying on
Americans - none of these actual, real world occurrences could puncture the
mass delusion. A kind of collective autism sealed off the African American mind
from reality-based phenomena. The cruelest, blanket insults to African American
dignity issued repeatedly from Obama's mouth, yet were gratefully accepted as
proof of the candidate's "tough love" for "his people."

Fast forward to the present. Obama has awarded his
administration's economic and imperial military portfolios to plundering
investment bankers and their servants (Robert Rubin's derivative-addicted
sidekicks) and endless-warriors (Iran-Contra super-spook and master of intrigue
Robert Gates). Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton is a
socialist-pacifist compared to the men who will run by far the most important
(capital-intensive) of Obama's departments. In this scariest chapter of world
history to date, the Secretaries of War (let's have some truth in language) and
Treasury will be the dominant players in determining the nation's economic and
military place on the planet. That's where the bulk of the national wealth will
be diverted. Everyone else will scramble for crumbs. The store has already been
given away to the military and economic Right. Thank you, Obama. Macro military
and economic adventures and experiments will be the governmental order of the
day - and whatever else happens will be sideshows, dwarfed by the massive
movement of mega-money deployed to salvage the imperial system.

"Macro military and economic adventures and experiments
will be the governmental order of the day."

Which is why it is pitiful - and sad in the extreme - to
hear influential Black activists make a huge deal out of Obama's proposed White
House Office on Urban Policy. "Just you wait and see," these wishful souls seem
to be saying. "Obama's gonna come through for us. Yes, he will." As if a little
advisory outfit tucked into the White House organizational chart will make a
damn bit of difference as the giants of the cabinet battle over trillions.

Our world changed fundamentally between Obama's acceptance
speech in August, and his endorsement of the banker bailout in early October.
The bottom fell out of the global capitalist financial system. From now on,
it's all crisis, all the time. Obama has done everything humanly possible to
assure the Lords of Capital that he is at their service. His appointments prove
it. But some African Americans - far too many - still labor under the illusion
that a solemn pact exists between themselves and Obama. It is a belief based on
blind faith and things unseen - or an imagined exchange of winks.

A prominent and highly intelligent, lifelong New York activist
assures audiences that Barack Obama is winking at Black folks, to confirm the
understanding between the president-elect and his people. White folks can't see
the wink, but if a Black person looks closely - there it is! And Black folks
shouldn't hesitate to wink back at him, to acknowledge the secret we share.

I assume the organizer is speaking metaphorically, though I
sometimes wonder. The point is, although it might appear that Obama has broken
his commitment to African Americans (actually, he never made one), we should
rest easy - his thoughts are with us. Whenever it seems like he's brushing us
off, well, that's just his way of fooling the white folks - in our interests,
of course.

When the psychological need is great enough, people will
believe anything. But chasing mirages is no road to freedom.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at [email protected].

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