A specter haunts liberal and progressive America: Obamania. With BaRockstarObama appearing on Oprah, the Today Show, the covers of Men’s Vogue and Vanity Fair, conducting a 13-city book tour, being featured in New York Times op-eds by (a fawning) David Brooks and Frank Rich and now having finally gone public (on the NBC Sunday morning show “Meet Tim Russert,” formerly known as “Meet the Press”) with his long-obvious presidential ambitions, it’s a good time for an Obama intervention.
Few things are more indicative of the desperation and myopia that weak minds, battered hearts, and limited electoral choices instill in some leftists and left-liberals than the success the openly “Hamiltonian” (Brooks’ gushing description) Obama has achieved in convincing progressives that that he’s one of them.
I’m writing a piece on the Obama record to date, one that looks at his state-level legislative record and incorporates key information from other critiques (including one that David Sirota did for The Nation earlier this year)and from Obama’s latest book (which appears to be a quick read…looks like I can knock it off in a couple of hours at the Barnes & Noble).
Here (below) I have taken the liberty of pasting in two past ZNet essays I’ve done on the 2008 presidential hopeful. The first one – a rapid response to the sickening 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote address that did so much to crystallize Obama’s national prominence – received an astonishing outpouring of response (about 95 percent positive) from literally hundreds of ZNet readers (truth be told, it had me feeling a little bit like an Internet rock-star for a couple of days). The second, annotated one (with an oddly religious approach that might falsely suggest that I am a Christian…I am no such thing) is from ZNet’s paying Sustainer system and received a nice but smaller response.
1. Obamania Intervention Number One (2004)
Keynote refleksioner
ZNet (main website)
Juli 29, 2004
I come from the same Chicago neighborhood (Hyde Park) as the nation’s official new political rock star Barack Obama. I work in urban policy and civil rights and I’ve recently been telling leftists to engage in “tactical” presidential voting – for Kerry in undecided states and for leftists like Cobb or Nader in “safe” states. So I must have really liked the charismatic former civil rights attorney Obama’s much-ballyhooed keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, right?
Not really. Sorry, I might be (rather unenthusiastically) advising people to vote Kerry in some jurisdictions next fall but I’m still a leftist – the real thing, not the mythological sort created by the crackpot right, which conflates the disparate likes of (say) Bill Clinton, The New York Times, Tom Daschle, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and Che Guevara as part of the same ideological vision.
Ligestilling versus lige muligheder
And as a person of the radical left, I am opposed to social inequality in and of itself, whatever its origins. The massive socioeconomic disparities that scar American and global life would be offensive to me – and supremely damaging to democracy and the common good in my world view – even if all at the top of the pyramid had risen to their positions from an equal position at the starting line of a “level playing field.” There is no such field in really existing society, but the creation of such an equal beginning would not make it any less toxic and authoritarian for 1 percent of the U.S. population to own more than 40 percent of the nation’s wealth (along with a probably higher percentage of America’s politicians and policymakers). As the great democratic Socialist Eugene Debs used to say, the point – for radicals, at least – is not to “rise from the masses, but to “rise with the masses.” Serious left vision is about all-around leveling before, during, and after the policy process.
The world view enunciated in Obama’s address comes from a very different, bourgeois-individualist and national-narcissist moral and ideological space. Obama praised America as the ultimate “beacon of freedom and opportunity” for those who exhibit “hard work and perseverance” and laid claim to personally embodying the great American Horatio-Algerian promise. “My story,” one (he says) of rise from humble origins to Harvard Law School and (now) national political prominence, “is part,” Obama claimed “of the larger American story.” “In no other country on Earth,” he said, “is my story even possible.”
Obama quoted the famous Thomas Jefferson line about all “men” being “created equal,” but left out Jefferson’s warnings about the terrible impact of unequal outcomes on democracy and popular government. He advocated a more equal rat-race, one where “every child in America has a decent shot at life, and the doors of opportunity [the word “opportunity” recurred at least five times in his speech] remain open to all.”
Sorry, but those doors aren’t even close to being “open to all.” America doesn’t score particularly well in terms of upward mobility measures, compared to other industrialized states (and Brazil’s current chief executive was born into that country’s working-class). Every kid deserves “a decent life,” not just “a shot” at one. And such a life isn’t about living in a world of inequality or (see below) empire.
Demokrati versus polyarki
Real leftists are radical “small-d” democrats. They believe passionately in substantive, many-sided, root and branch democracy. By democracy they mean one-person, one-vote and equal policymaking influence for all, regardless of class, wealth, ethnicity, and other socially constructed differences of privilege and power. They are deeply sensitive to the core Jeffersonian contradiction between democracy radically defined and capitalism’s inherent concentrations of wealth and power. They advocate a political and social life where real, regular, and multi-dimensional popular governance is structured into the institutional fabric of daily experience and consciousness.
They are hardly enthralled by what passes for political “democracy” in the United States, where highly ritualized, occasional, and fragmented elections are an exercise in periodic pseudo-popular selection of representatives from a “safe” and small circle of privileged “elites.” One term to describe really existing US “democracy” is “polyarchy,” what left sociologist William I. Robinson calls “a system in which a small group actually rules and mass participation in decision making is confined to leadership choices carefully managed by competing [business and business-sanctioned] elites.
The polyarchic concept of democracy,” notes Robinson, “is an effective arrangement for legitimating and sustaining inequalities within and between nations (deepening in a global economy) far more effectively than authoritarian solutions” (Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy – Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 385).
Obama’s address advanced a truncated, passive, and negative concept of democracy, one where we are supposed to be ecstatic simply because we don’t live under the iron heel of open authoritarianism. It is an American “miracle,” he claimed, “that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door” and that “we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — or at least, most of the time.”
Never mind that what we say and think is generally drowned out by the giant, concentrated corporate-state media cartel and that our votes – even when actually counted – are mere political half-pennies in comparison to the structurally empowered super-citizenship bestowed upon the great monied interests and corporations that rule our “dollar democracy,” the “best that money can buy.” Jefferson and Madison tried to warn us about that power disparity.
“Pleding Allegiance to the Stars and Stripes”
Real leftists are suspicious of those who downplay internal national divisions, “patriotically” privileging “homeland” unity over class differences and over international solidarity between people inclined towards peace, justice, and democracy. We are deeply critical, of course, of war and empire, which advance inequality and misery at home and abroad. Global humanity – the species – and not “fatherland” or nation-state, is the “reference group” that matters to us.
That’s why many leftists cringed when they heard the newly anointed Great Progressive Hope Obama refer to Americans as “one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.” Its part of why I was uncomfortable when Obama praised “a young man” named Shamus who “told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week.” One of Shamus’ endearing qualities, Obama thinks, is “absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service.” “I thought,” Obama said, “this young man was all that any of us might hope for in a child.” Not me. I hope for children who regularly and richly question authority and subject the nation and its leaders/mis-leaders to constant critical scrutiny.
Many of us on the left should have been disturbed when Obama discussed the terrible blood costs of the Iraq invasion and occupation purely in terms of the U.S. troops “who will not be returning to their hometowns,” their loved ones, and other American soldiers dealing with terrible war injuries.
What about the considerably larger quantity (into the tens of thousands) of Iraqis who have been killed and maimed as a result of U.S. imperialism and whose numbers are officially irrelevant to U.S. authorities? One of the problems with the American exceptionalism that Obama espouses is that it feeds indifference towards “unworthy victims” among peoples and nations less supposedly favored by “God” and/or History than “beacon” America. This racially tinged coldness goes back to the nation’s founders, who thought their “City on a Hill” had been granted the Creator-ordained right to eliminate North America’s original, Godless and unworthy inhabitants.
In the part of his speech that came closest to a direct criticism of the Iraq invasion, Obama suggested that the Bush administrated has “shad[ed] the truth” about why “U.S. troops were sent into “harm’s way.” He added that the U.S. must never “go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.”
It’s hardly a “war,” however, when the most powerful imperial state in history attacks and occupies a weak nation that it has already devastated over years of deadly bombing and (deadlier) “economic sanctions.” “Securing the peace” is a morally impoverished and nationally arrogant, self-serving description of the real White House objective in Iraq: to pacify, by force when (quite) necessary, the outraged populace of a nation that understandably resents an imperial takeover it rightly sees as driven by the superpower’s desire to deepen its control of their strategically super-significant oil resources.
And “shade the truth” doesn’t come close to doing justice to the high-state deception – the savage, sinister, and sophisticated lying – that the Bush administration used and is still using to cover their real agenda, understood with no small accuracy by the people of Iraq.
The low point in Obama’s speech came, I think, when he said the following about his repeatedly invoked concept of “hope:”
”Jeg taler ikke om blind optimisme her – den næsten bevidste uvidenhed, der tror, at arbejdsløsheden forsvinder, hvis vi bare ikke taler om det, eller at sundhedskrisen løser sig selv, hvis vi bare ignorerer den. Jeg taler om noget mere væsentligt. Det er håbet om slaver, der sidder rundt om et bål og synger frihedssange; håbet om immigranter, der begiver sig ud til fjerne kyster; håbet om en ung flådeløjtnant, der modigt patruljerer Mekong-deltaet; håbet om en møllearbejdersøn, der tør trodse oddsene; håbet om en mager knægt med et sjovt navn, der tror på, at Amerika også har en plads til ham...I sidste ende er det Guds største gave til os, denne nations grundsten; en tro på ting, der ikke ses; en tro på, at der er bedre dage forude."
Sorry, but this leftist takes exception to this horrific lumping of antebellum African-American slaves’ struggles and sprituality with the racist U.S. crucifixion of Southeast Asia – “the young naval lieutenant line” is a reference to John Kerry’s “heroic” participation in a previous and much bloodier imperialist invasion, one that cost millions of Vietnamese lives – under the image of noble Americans wishing together for a better future. I suppose “God” (Obama’s keynote made repeated references to “God” and “the Creator”) gave Nazi executioners and Nazi victims the shared gift of hoping for better days ahead.
What told Kerry and his superiors that the Mekong Delta was theirs to “patrol”? The same arrogant sensibilities, perhaps, that gave 19th century white Americans permission to own chattel slaves and allowed the Bush administration to seize Iraq as a neocolonial possession.
Popular Struggle, Not “Elite” Saviors
Need I bother to add in conclusion that leftists believe in organizing and fighting alongside ordinary people for justice and democracy at home and abroad, not in holding up as saviors great leaders from (whatever their alleged humble origins ala Obama or John Edwards) within the privileged “elite”? It was probably inherent in the nature of Obama’s keynote assignment that he would finish by saying that the swearing in of Kerry and John Edwards as president and vice president will allow America to “reclaim its promise” and bring the nation “out of this long political darkness.” It’s inherent in my leftist sense of what democracy and justice are about and how they are attained to say that a desirable future will be achieved only through devoted, radically democratic rank and file struggle for justice and freedom and not by hoping – or voting – for benevolent “elite” actors working on behalf of any political party and/or its corporate sponsors.
Paul Street ([e-mail beskyttet]) is an urban social policy researcher in Chicago, Illinois. His book Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (www.paradigmpublishers.com) will be published in September, 2004.
2.Obamania Intervention Number Two (2006)
16. Juni, 2006
Obama’s Path to Hell
ZNet Sustainer-kommentar
Ved Paul Street
In the spring of 1967, after he went public with his strong and principled opposition to the Vietnam War, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was approached by liberal and left politicos to consider running for the United States Presidency. King turned the activists down, saying that he preferred to think of himself “as one trying desperately to be the conscience of all the political parties, rather being a political candidate…I’ve just never thought of myself as a politician” (1)
I det øjeblik, han kastede sin hat i den amerikanske præsidentring, som vinder-tag-alt, vidste King, at han ville blive opfordret til at kompromittere sit stadig mere venstreorienterede og grundlæggende moralske budskab mod racisme, social ulighed og militarisme. King var kommet til radikale konklusioner, som afspejlede hans tugtende konfrontation med den koncentrerede sorte fattigdom og klasseundertrykkelse i det "liberale" bynord og rædslerne ved USA's politik i Sydøstasien. "I årevis har jeg arbejdet med ideen om at forfine samfundets eksisterende institutioner, en lille forandring her, en lille forandring der," fortalte han journalisten David Halberstam det forår. »Nu har jeg det helt anderledes. Jeg tror, du er nødt til at have en rekonstruktion af hele samfundet, en revolution af værdier"
Den sorte frihedsbevægelse, fortalte King til en folkemængde ved University of California-Berkeley, var skiftet fra borgerrettigheder til menneskerettigheder, hvilket involverede "en kamp for ægte lighed", der "kræver en radikal omfordeling af økonomisk og politisk magt." Det ville være svært at finde massepolitisk støtte til dette mål, sagde King, "fordi mange hvide amerikanere gerne vil have en nation, der samtidig er et demokrati for det hvide Amerika og et diktatur over sorte amerikanere" (2).
På dette tidspunkt havde King identificeret den amerikanske regering som "den største voldsleverandør" i verden og fordømt amerikansk støtte til USA-investeringsvenligt diktatur fra den tredje verden, alt sammen en del af det, han kaldte "de tredobbelte onder, der er indbyrdes forbundne": racisme, økonomisk udnyttelse [kapitalisme] og militarisme (3).
Disse var ikke vindende ideer i det racistiske, plutokratiske og corporate-imperialistiske amerikanske valgsystem. De var sandhedsbaserede moralske observationer, der indeholdt åbent anerkendte radikale politiske implikationer. De var rigt i overensstemmelse med, hvad Frederick Douglass kaldte "Kristi kristendom", meget forskellige fra, hvad Douglass anså for den falske amerikanske kristendom, der retfærdiggjorde slaveri, indianernes fjernelse og andre vederstyggeligheder og former for undertrykkelse (4). Som den produktive katolske lærde Gary Wills bemærker i sin nylige bog What Jesus Meant, er den Jesus, der kommer ud af en seriøs læsning af evangelierne, en kompromisløs fjende af rigdom og hierarki, der sagde, at "det er lettere for en kamel at komme igennem en nåles øje end for en rig at komme ind i Guds rige" (Mark, 10.23-25) og rådede sine tilhængere til at "beskytte dig selv mod ethvert ønske om at have mere", eftersom "livet ikke ligger i den overflod af ting, man ejer" (Lukas, 13.15). I modsætning til alle former for hierarki, ikke kun økonomisk ulighed, "irettesatte Jesus de tilhængere, som jockey[ed] for autoritet over hinanden og over andre" (5), idet han sagde, at "enhver, der løfter sig selv, vil blive fornedret og enhver, der fornedrer sig selv, vil blive ophøjet” (Lukas, 14.11).
"Der kan ikke være et klarere påbud om hierarki af nogen art," siger Wills og tilføjer, at Jesus var "absolut i sin modstand mod vold" (6) og bemærkelsesværdigt ligeglad med politik, idet han sagde "Cæsars anliggender overlades til Cæsar" (Mark, 12.17. )
Efter evangeliernes radikale budskab, som han kendte ret godt (7), ønskede King ikke at ende som den modbydelige Barack Obama.
En tidligere naboskabsarrangør på Chicagos fattige South Side, Obama hævder troskab til Jesu og Kings idealer. Alligevel, han:
* "nægter at tage nogen muligheder," inklusive den yderst syndige strategi med forebyggende atomkrig, "fra bordet" i forsøget på at afskrække Iran fra at gøre noget, som USA's globale strategi ser ud til kraftigt at anbefale den nation: at udvikle atomvåben.
* stemte for at besætte landets top diplomatiske job (af alle embeder) med en falsk krigsforbryder ved navn Condaleeza ("Chevron") Rice.
* nægter at opfordre til tilbagetrækning af amerikanske tropper fra det ulovligt og massemorderisk besatte Irak, og lægger mere vægt på at opretholde USA's blodgennemsyrede "militære troværdighed" end på at anerkende standard verdensnormer for civiliseret statsadfærd eller på at ære Jesu og kongens forpligtelse til ikkevold.
* tog afstand fra andre Illinois-senator Dick Durbins (D-Illinois) modige kritik af ulovlig amerikansk torturpraksis i Guantanamo Bay.
* fulgte rådene fra de rige mænd i det amerikanske erhvervsliv ved at støtte en "tort-reform", der gør det sværere for almindelige mennesker at opnå retfærdig kompensation fra virksomheder, der snyder og skader.
* stemte for at lukke filibuster-procedurer, der ville have forsøgt at blokere udnævnelsen af den reaktionære dommer Alito - en kendt borger- og kvinderettighedsfjende.
* stemte for at genautorisere Patriot Act, som bruger reelle og indbildte udenlandske trusler skabt af imperiet til at rulle friheden tilbage derhjemme.
* flygtede fra senator-kollega Russ Feingolds (D-Wisconsin) forslag om officielt at kritisere Bush-administrationen for dens monumentalt kriminelle handlinger i ind- og udland. * anvender sin Midas-kampagnefinansiering på genvalgsbestræbelserne fra hans "mentor", den de facto republikanske senator Joe Liberman ("D"- Connecticut), en nær allieret af Bushs besættelse og en førende arkitekt bag nationens undertrykkende og racistiske " velfærdsreform,” som skærer ned på den grundlæggende statslige bistand til de dårligst stillede medlemmer af den industrialiserede verdens mest ulige, rigdomtunge samfund.
I den forfærdelige 2004 demokratiske konvents hovedtale, der gjorde så meget for at slynge ham til national fremtræden, satte Obama en centristisk tone til hans efterfølgende forudsigelige forræderi mod elskede principper og ledere. I den øjeblikkeligt fejrede tale sagde Obama:
* hævdede, at USA er det ultimative "fyrtårn for frihed og muligheder", det "eneste land på jorden", hvor "min historie" (en angiveligt Horatio-Alger-agtig fortælling om at klatre fra fattigdom til fremtrædende plads og nu [takket være nogle generøse] bogtilbud] velstand) "er endda muligt." Dette til trods for, at USA faktisk er den mest stivnede hierarkiske nation i den industrialiserede verden, hjemsted for et udhulende virksomhedsplutokrati, massiv vedvarende og stærkt racialiseret fattigdom, forbløffende fængslingsrater (også ret racistisk forskelligartede) og lav mobilitet fra lavere til øvre segmenter i sin stejle socioøkonomiske pyramide.
* sagde, at "hvert barn i Amerika" burde "have en anstændig chance for livet", ikke at hvert barn fortjener et fuldt og anstændigt liv nu og derefter
* forventede, at amerikanerne var ekstatiske over "miraklet" (!), at de ikke lever under jernhælen af åben statsundertrykkelse (han gjorde ingen undtagelser for nationens 2 millioner fanger, næsten halvt sorte), som om demokrati bare er fraværet af en politistat og ikke folkets magt til at styre deres eget samfund på en ligeværdig måde (tal om lave forventninger til frihed).
* roste en marinesoldat, der var meldt til den racistiske og imperialistiske oliebesættelse af Irak for (af alle ting) at "forsvare USA" og (angiveligt) udtrykke "absolut tro på landet og dets ledere." Nu er der en dejlig demokratisk følelse: sådan en rystende "tro" er sagen i selve politistaten, hvis fravær i USA Obama kaldte et "mirakel".
* nåede nye højder af krybende, pseudopatriotisk kvalme-tilskyndelse ved at lave foruroligende "håb" paralleller mellem: "håbet om slaver, der sidder rundt om en ild og synger frihedssange:" "håbet om en ung flådeløjtnant, der modigt patruljerer Mekong-deltaet; ” og "håbet om en tynd knægt med et sjovt navn, der tror på, at Amerika har en plads til ham."
Den "løjtnant", som han refererede til i hans tale, var den demokratiske præsidentkandidat John "I Participated in the Crucifixion of Southeast Asia" Kerry, hvis regerings imperiale ret til at "patruljere" store floder på den anden side af kloden i 1960'erne Obama tog det som aksiomatisk. . Den "magre knægt" refererede til en ung Obama, der plejede sig selv til en Harvard-uddannelse, mens han voksede op hos sine hvide bedsteforældre på det solrige Hawaii.
Forbindelsen med "frihed"-syngende slaver? En fælles tro på, hvad Obama kaldte "Guds største gave til os, denne nations grundsten - en tro på, at der er bedre dage forude."
Ja, de brutaliserede sorte slaver fra det racistiske antebellum Amerika så frem til den glorværdige hvid-imperialistiske voldtægt i Sydøstasien, hvor deres tro på "bedre dage" ville finde en strålende erkendelse i napalmingen af vietnamesiske børn, hvis billeder chokerede Martin King at fordømme Vietnamkrigen i hårde og kraftfulde vendinger.
Hvor ufatteligt og uhyggeligt grotesk. For en mere detaljeret kritik af Obamas store gennembrudstale, se min artikel [det mest populære internetværk, jeg nogensinde har udgivet] "Keynote Reflections," ZNet Magazine, 29. juli 2004 (tilgængelig på http://www.zmag .org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=33&ItemID=5951)
I et nyligt New Yorker-stykke citeres Obama udførligt som et eksempel på Demokratisk Particentrisme. Den samfundsorganisator, der blev amerikansk senator, svarer som følger på forfatteren Jeffrey Goldbergs forespørgsel om, hvorvidt demokraterne skal fokusere på at forsvare den amerikanske offentlighed mod den amerikanske regerings angreb på dens borgerlige frihedsrettigheder: "Amerikanerne vil have det godt med sig selv og deres regering. . De kan opfordres til at ofre sig, og de kan skamme sig, når vi ikke lever op til vores idealer, men de tror ikke på, at den vigtigste lære fra de sidste fem år er, at Amerika er en ond hegemon"(8).
Det er svært at vide, hvordan Obama mente, at den afslørende passage omhandlede ulovlige føderale aflytninger og lignende, men hans udtalelse indeholder en afslørende antagelse, der fortjener overvejelse på egen hånd. Antagelsen er, at det vigtige spørgsmål ikke er, hvorvidt "Amerika" (eller måske dets imperiale regering) er "en ond hegemon", men snarere om "amerikanere" (oversættelse: amerikanske vælgere og især amerikanske kampagnefinansierere) opfatter deres nationalstat at være sådan en frygtelig enhed. Politisk beregning overtrumfer søgen efter moralsk sandhed.
But what if “America” (or at least its government) is, well…”an evil hegemon” (probably the majority world view of the U.S. state, for what that’s worth)? If true, that terrible fact, by Obama’s standpoint, should not be openly addressed because it works against Democrats efforts to enhance their chances of election and re-election by helping “Americans feel good about themselves and their government.”
Kontrasten til Martin Kings modige venstrekristne, antiimperialistiske, antiracistiske og demokratisk-socialistiske følelser er ret udtalt. For King var de relevante beregninger meget forskellige. Han var tvunget til at kalde "Amerika" om dets globale vold og dets relaterede uretfærdigheder i hjemmet, uanset de vanskeligheder, de amerikanske borgere måtte stå over for med at anerkende deres egen og deres regerings rolle i håndhævelsen af imperium, ulighed og undertrykkelse hjemme og i udlandet. Imperativet var næppe at hjælpe "amerikanere" til at "føle sig godt med sig selv og deres regering." Det var for at opmuntre dem til at være tro mod sig selv, over for hinanden og over for resten af den lidende menneskehed ved at møde "de tredobbelte onder, der er indbyrdes forbundne."
Obamas nedstigning til helvede handler næsten helt sikkert om et ønske om at være en amerikansk Cæsar. Vejen til Det Hvide Hus er ikke brolagt med na*ve korstog mod de politisk ubelejlige sandheder, som King følte sig tvunget til at afsløre og modsætte sig. Det kræver regelmæssig forsikring til de rige og magtfulde få og til de militaristiske instinkter i Empire, som den overdådige minoritet søger at indprente blandt den marginaliserede skare. Uanset hvad Jesus er ry for at have sagt om, hvem der kan komme ind i himlen, er nøglerne til det jordiske rige forbeholdt dem, der spiller efter reglerne fastsat af rigdommens og krigens mestre.
Obama is what happens when a young leader sells his soul for power, wealth, and personal advancement in a militantly hierarchical society. It’s what happens when you invest your energy in “jockey[ing] for authority over others.” It’s a very old story, making Obama one of many actors in a timeless and tragic drama.
Paul Street ([e-mail beskyttet]) er forfatter, foredragsholder og aktivist i Iowa City, IA. Han er forfatter til Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004) og Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005).
Noter
1. David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King og Southern Christian Leadership Conference [New York, NY: 1986], s. 562).
2. Garrow, Bearing the Cross, s. 562.
3. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here?", 1967, gengivet i James M. Washington, A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco, CA : 1986), s. 250.
4. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), appendiks.
5. Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant (New York, NY: 2006), s. 44
6. Testamenter, hvad Jesus mente, s. 58.
7. Paul Street, "Martin Luther King, Jr., Democratic Socialist," ZNet Sustainers Commentary, 14. januar 2006, tilgængelig på http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-01/14street.cfm)
8. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Central Casting,” The New Yorker (May 29, 2006)
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