Print this post.Atlanta, Georgia | 5 April 2011
McKinney
PRESIDENT OBAMA promised “change” to the people who voted for him. He told them to hope again and that change would come. But President Obama’s change is really more of the same. Therefore, his elixir that was sold to the world was nothing more than snake oil. The most damage, of course, is being done to those whose dreams were intricately woven into his words, not realizing that words are not policy. In a most deadly treachery, those who believed in our President the most are the ones who are now suffering and dying the most.Some people, to this day, remain tricked by the salve of words for the wounds inflicted by our President. Others have begun to sink into despair while some search for answers. But our President is adept at giving us, in the words of the late, great Fred Hampton, Chicago’s other son, “answers that don’t answer, explanations that don’t explain, and conclusions that don’t conclude.” It is to those searching for answers that I refer to my previous writings compiled on the websites below and to the writings of Bruce Dixon and Glen Ford and the entire BlackAgendaReport.com team and of Wayne Madsen whose writings can be found at WayneMadsenReport.com.
In Rosa Clemente’s and my 2008 Green Party “Power to the People” Presidential campaign, I tried to warn the attentive public of what was to come under an Obama Administration: even I could not imagine that it would get this bad.
I knew that dissent would be intolerable under an Obama Administration, enforced both from the Black political consensus and from the Democratic Party wingnuts–quashing dissent even with all of the attendant special interest burdens that come with any aspect of the Democratic Party.
I knew that the Muslim world was going to be in for a shockingly rude awakening, but even I could not conceive of the carnage this President could bring to that part of the world–either by a policy that encourages Muslims to kill other Muslims, or by the dropping of bombs and the use of depleted uranium on Muslim communities. But not only that, we are seeing the murder of whole countries and the communities and cultures that gave rise to them. The President’s policies are dismantling and dismembering Pakistan and Afghanistan as we watch. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq announced plans to employ a total of 16,000 people, doubling its staff, within the next two years. The only antidote to these policies is unity and I hope that the residents of these countries are able to unite and resist in a much more effective way than have “antiwar” “liberal” communities inside the United States. Of course, some individuals stand out and are leading the resistance now and I can only hope that their voices are heard and multiplied among the masses, both here and around the world.
I do believe that Henry Kissinger was onto something when he marveled at the tremendous good will that this President has around the world and I do believe that Henry Kissinger, among others, sought to use that good will for their own purposes. After all, when you buy a President, like a slave, he becomes yours. It is clear now, that the people of the United States did not buy this President and so they do not own him. There are clear winners from the policies currently being pursued, but they are not the people.
Speaking of Henry Kissinger, let me just say this about him and his minions: When I was in the Congress, I received a phone call from Alassane Ouattara from aboard Henry Kissinger’s yacht. I had received many such calls from people wanting to benefit from my good reputation within the human rights and peace community in the United States and they wanted me to sell their particular potion of iniquity to people inside the United States and to the world. Usually, these people were the kind of people accustomed to buying the consciences of public persons, so my “no” resounded rather sharply to them, and I earned yet another set of crosshairs on my forehead, I guess.
Alassane Ouattara and his Zionist wife, Dominique, were seeking my assistance–or maybe my silence–in his effort to become President of Ivory Coast. I applaud Laurent Gbagbo in his efforts to stave off imperialism in Ivory Coast, one of the few African countries that has not one iota of a relationship with the U.S. military. However, Democracy Now, FOX, CNN, AP, Reuters, and all the rest didn’t tell you that when they ran their many stories about Ivory Coast. While the world will celebrate “democracy” arriving in Ivory Coast once Gbagbo is gone, the exact opposite will actually be the case. Handing Ivory Coast over to Henry Kissinger and his ilk is the policy of the Obama Administration. I guess, President Obama is proving his worth: perhaps no one could have done it better.
But it doesn’t stop there. Look at what President Obama’s policies are in Haiti! When the devastating earthquake struck there, only the fifth in the entire history of that country, President Obama sent in the drones when the people needed food, shelter, and medical relief! How is that any different from George W. Bush and Michael Chertoff who sent men with guns into New Orleans, military and mercenaries, after Hurricane Katrina when the people really needed food? Now, because of President Obama’s policies and his complete prostration before the Vicars of the Imperium–that is, the Clinton Family–who call the shots on the future of the Haitian people, Haiti can only see more struggle against domination in its future. Hillary Clinton went to Haiti to snatch self-determination from the Haitian people in the victory of Jude Celestin and to instead select a musician buffoon who once mooned his audience in a concert for Haiti’s Presidency, all with the smack of legitimacy granted when one can successfully threaten the Election Commission with revocation of visas to the U.S. and control the Organization of American States and the United Nations that has troops of occupation there.
Had George H.W. or W. Bush or John McCain or any Republican done any of this there would be enough hot air to float the Hindenburg! The streets all across the United States would be aflitter! There would be animation in the Congress enough to make John Boehner cry! Instead, however, the very people who wield official power and who could stop this madness because they supposedly represent the interests of the people, silence themselves and let this happen. Unity, again is the antidote–the sand that can be thrown by a few into the gears of the machine.
But, there is also pernicious collateral damage from our President’s policies right here in the United States in the African-American community that brought itself up from slavery and U.S.-styled apartheid. President Obama has hastened the collapse of Black wealth in this country even as he feeds the beast of the bankers. And, although our President can be counted on to roundly condemn Black men on Father’s Day, it seems that is the only treatment for which our President actively searches out Black people–for criticism and condemnation. The so-called Black Farmer “settlement” provides money for everyone but the initial Black Farmers who stood up and filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but who now stand to lose 1.5 million acres under President Obama’s watch. Under this President, Black people can be condemned, but not repaired.
As a result, sadly, Blacks are slipping back more and more into economic and cultural servitude and political irrelevancy. And Michelle Alexander’s clarion call in her book entitled “The New Jim Crow,” reveals the true state of Black America. Just one tidbit from Ms. Alexander: “More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began.” According to a recent Economic Policy Institute report, Black family wealth has fallen to just $2,000 while that of White families rests at $94,600.
But, I have spouted these statistics for the past 20 years as they got worse and worse. I have done everything that I know to do to try and warn the next victims of what these policies all mean for them. And at a time when Japan is spewing radioactive material across the planet, our President goes to India and Chile hawking more nuclear potions while limiting the companies’ liability when there is a disaster! The winners in all of our President’s policies take their rewards to the bank. Woe is unto the rest of us.
Finally, I have said too many times to recall the number, that politics is not a beauty contest, nor is it a popularity contest. Politics is about power and policy. And unless we cast our votes for the candidates who represent our best policy options, then we are practicing the politics of self-abnegation. Nowhere is that more clear than in the case of the Black community where even thoughtful critique of our President is unwelcome. I want so much to change the world, but feel like Harriet Tubman must have felt when she approached slaves who did not want to be free because they didn’t even know that they were enslaved!
Well, I would never think of myself as either a “mongrel” or a “mutt;” and will not accept being subjugated and my country completely decimated by one who does. After all, if that’s the way he describes himself, how can our President think highly of other similarly situated people? 2011, the International Year of People of African Descent, President Obama is perfectly situated to carry out these noxious policies. I am so angry for a moment I was tempted to start cursing. I am writing this piece instead, listening to Carlos Santana Samba Pa Ti (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE), and just like his “Black Magic Woman” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl-qWXosazg&feature=related) divining a bolder way to resist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl-qWXosazg&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXp413NynFk
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Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.