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)
Maikutlo a Sehlooho
ZNet (main website)
July 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.
Tekano Ha e Bapisoa le Monyetla o Lekaneng
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.
Demokerasi Khahlanong le Polyarchy
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:”
"Ha ke bue ka tšepo ea bofofu mona - ho hloka tsebo hoo e batlang e le ka boomo hoo ho nahanang hore ho hloka mosebetsi ho tla fela ha re sa bue ka hona, kapa koluoa ea tlhokomelo ea bophelo bo botle e tla itharolla ha feela re ka iphapanyetsa eona. Ke bua ka ntho e 'ngoe ea bohlokoa. Ke tšepo ea makhoba a lutseng ho pota mollo a bina lipina tsa tokoloho; tšepo ea bajaki ba eang mabōpong a hōle; tšepo ea molefothenente e monyenyane oa sesole sa metsing a lebela ka sebete Nōkeng ea Mekong; tšepo ea mora oa leloala ea itetang sefuba ho hanyetsa maemo; tšepo ea ngoana ea mosesane ea nang le lebitso le qabolang ea lumelang hore Amerika le eona e na le sebaka sa hae… tumelo linthong tse sa bonoeng; tumelo ea hore ho na le matsatsi a molemonyana a tlang.”
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 ([imeile e sirelelitsoe]) 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)
June 16, 2006
Obama’s Path to Hell
Tlhaloso ea ZNet Sustainer
E ngotsoe ke 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)
Motsotsong oo a ileng a akhela katiba ea hae ho lesale la bopresidente la Moamerika ea hapileng bohle, King o ne a tseba, o ne a tla khothaletsoa ho sekisetsa molaetsa oa hae o ntseng o eketseha oa lets'ehali le oa boitšoaro khahlano le khethollo ea morabe, ho se lekane sechabeng le sesole. Ho bonts'a khohlano ea hae e matla le bofuma bo neng bo le teng ba batho ba batšo le khatello ea batho ba maemo a phahameng "teropong" e ka leboea ea toropo le lits'oants'o tse nyarosang tsa leano la US Asia Boroa-bochabela, King o ile a fihlela liqeto tse matla. "Ka lilemo tse ngata ke sebelitse ka mohopolo oa ho ntlafatsa litsi tse teng tsa sechaba, phetoho e nyane mona, phetoho e nyane moo," o bolelletse moqolotsi oa litaba David Halberstam nakong eo ea selemo. Hona joale ke ikutloa ka tsela e fapaneng. Ke nahana hore u tlameha ho tsosolosa sechaba sohle, phetoho ea litekanyetso "
Mokha oa tokoloho ea batho ba batšo, Morena o ile a bolella letšoele la univesithi ea California-Berkeley, hore le tlohile litokelong tsa botho ho ea litokelo tsa botho, tse kenyelletsang "ntoa ea ho lekana ha 'nete" e batlang "kabo e matla ea matla a moruo le a lipolotiki." Ho ka ba thata ho fumana tšehetso e kholo ea lipolotiki bakeng sa sepheo sena, Morena o itse, "hobane ma-Amerika a mangata a makhooa a ka rata ho ba le sechaba seo ka nako e le 'ngoe e leng demokrasi ea White America le bompoli holim'a Ma-Amerika a Matšo" (2).
Ka nako ena, King o ne a tsebahalitse mmuso oa US e le "mohloekisi e moholo oa pefo" lefats'eng mme a nyatsa tšehetso ea US bakeng sa bompoli ba Lefatše la Boraro le ratang ho tsetela, kaofela e le karolo ea seo a se bitsitseng "bokhopo bo hararo bo amanang": khethollo ea morabe, tlatlapo ea moruo [capitalism], le sesole (3).
Mehopolo ena e ne e se ea bohlokoa tsamaisong ea likhetho tsa Amerika ea khethollo ea morabe, ea plutocratic, le ea k'hamphani ea mmuso. E ne e le litlhaloso tsa boitšoaro tse theiloeng ’neteng tse fupereng ka ho hlaka litlamorao tsa leano le tiileng. Li ne li lumellana haholo le seo Frederick Douglass a ileng a se bitsa “Bokreste ba Kreste,” bo fapaneng haholo le seo Douglass a neng a se nka e le Bokreste ba bohata ba Amerika bo neng bo lokafatsa bokhoba, Ho Tlosoa ha Maindia, le manyala a mang le mefuta ea khatello (4). Joalokaha setsebi se seholo sa Mok’hatholike Gary Wills se bolela bukeng ea hae ea morao tjena What Jesus Meant, Jesu ea hlahang ha ho baloa likosepele ka botebo ke sera se sa sekisetseng sa leruo le sehlopha sa baeta-pele ba bolumeli se ileng sa re “ho bonolo hore kamele e tsoe lesobeng la nale. leihlo la hae ho feta hore morui a kene ’musong oa Molimo” ( Mareka, 10.23:25-13.15 ) ’me a eletsa balateli ba hae hore ba “itšireletse khahlanong le takatso e ’ngoe le e ’ngoe ea ho ba le ho eketsehileng” kaha “bophelo ha bo tsoe letlotlong la lintho tseo motho a nang le tsona” ( Luka 5:14.11-XNUMX ) Ka lebaka la lintho tse ngata tseo motho a nang le tsona, bophelo ba hae bo ka ’na ba e-ba teng. XNUMX). Jesu o ne a hanyetsa mefuta eohle ea baeta-pele, eseng feela ho se lekane moruong, o ile “a khalemela balateli ba qhekellang e mong bakeng sa bolaoli holim’a e mong le holim’a ba bang” (XNUMX), a re “e mong le e mong ea iphahamisang o tla kokobetsoa. mang kapa mang ea ikokobetsang o tla phahamisoa” (Luka XNUMX:XNUMX).
Wills o re: “Ho ke ke ha e-ba le taelo e hlakileng haholoanyane ea mofuta leha e le ofe oa baeta-pele, ’me a phaella ka hore Jesu o ne a “hanyelitse pefo ka ho feletseng” (6) ’me a sa tsotelle lipolotiki ka mokhoa o tsotehang, a re “Litaba tsa Cesare li siuoe ho Cesare” ( Mareka, 12.17:XNUMX )
Ka mor'a molaetsa o matla oa likosepele, oo a neng a o tseba hantle (7), Morena o ne a sa batle ho qetella a tšoana le Barack Obama ea nyonyehang.
Eo e kileng ea e-ba mohlophisi oa tikoloho sebakeng sa South Side e futsanehileng ea Chicago, Obama o bolela hore o tšepahalla maikutlo a Jesu le Morena. Leha ho le joalo, o:
* "E hana ho nka khetho leha e le efe," ho kenyelletsa le leano la boetsalibe le leholo la ntoa ea nyutlelie ea pele ho nako, "tafoleng" ho leka ho thibela Iran ho etsa ntho e 'ngoe leano la lefats'e la US le ka bonahalang le khothalletsa ka matla ho sechaba seo: ho hlahisa libetsa tsa nyutlelie.
* o ile a khetha ho tlatsa mesebetsi e kaholimo ea naha (ea liofisi tsohle) ka senokoane se kotsi sa ntoa se bitsoang Condaleeza (“Chevron”) Rice.
* e hana ho kopa hore masole a US a tlosoe Iraq e hapiloeng ka tsela e seng molaong le ka lipolao tse ngata, a beha bohlokoa ba ho boloka "ts'epo ea sesole" ea Amerika e tletseng mali ho feta ho ela hloko mekhoa e tloaelehileng ea lefatše ea boitšoaro ba naha e tsoetseng pele kapa ho hlompha boitlamo ba Jesu le Morena. ho hloka dikgoka.
* o ile a ikarola ho senator 'moho oa Illinois Dick Durbin's (D-Illinois) ho nyatsa ka sebete mekhoa e seng molaong ea tlhokofatso ea US Guantanamo Bay.
* o ile a latela keletso ea banna ba ruileng ba khoebo ea Amerika ka ho tšehetsa “phetoho ea tlōlo ea molao” e etsang hore ho be thata haholoanyane hore batho ba tloaelehileng ba fumane puseletso feela ea khoebo e qhekellang le e senyang.
* o ile a khetha ho koala linyeoe tse ka beng li lekile ho thibela ho khethoa ha Moahloli Alito ea arabelang - sera se tsebahalang sa litokelo tsa botho le tsa basali.
* o ile a khetha ho fana ka tumello ea Molao oa Patriot, o sebelisang litšokelo tsa 'nete le tse nahanoang tsa kantle ho naha tse entsoeng ke' muso ho khutlisa tokoloho hae.
* o ile a baleha tlhahiso ea Senator Russ Feingold's (D-Wisconsin) ea ho nyatsa ka molao tsamaiso ea Bush bakeng sa liketso tsa eona tse matla tsa botlokotsebe lapeng le kantle ho naha. * e sebelisa chelete ea hae ea lets'olo la Midas ho ama boiteko ba ho khetha bocha ba "motataisi" oa hae, 'muelli oa molao oa Rephabliki Joe Liberman ("D"- Connecticut), motsoalle ea haufi oa mosebetsi oa Bush, le moqapi ea ka sehloohong oa mohatelli le khethollo ea morabe " ntlafatso ea boiketlo ba sechaba,” e ileng ea fokotsa thuso ea motheo ea ’muso bakeng sa litho tse sotlehileng ka ho fetisisa tsa mokhatlo oa lefatše o tsoetseng pele o sa leka-lekaneng, o ruileng ka ho fetisisa.
Puong e nyarosang ea 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote e ileng ea etsa ho hongata ho mo etsa hore a hlahelle sechabeng, Obama o ile a beha maikutlo a bohareng bakeng sa bosholu ba hae ba morao-rao ba melao-motheo le baetapele ba bohlokoa. Puong eo e ketekoang hang-hang, Obama:
* e ile ea bolela hore US ke "lebone la ho qetela la tokoloho le monyetla," "naha e le 'ngoe lefatšeng" moo "pale ea ka" (e leng pale ea Horatio-Alger-esque ea ho tloha bofutsaneng ho ea boemong bo phahameng le hona joale [ka lebaka la ba bang ba seatla se bulehileng. book deals] katleho) “e bile hoa khoneha.” Sena le ha e le hantle hore US ke naha e nang le maemo a thata ka ho fetesisa lefats'eng la liindasteri, lehae la puso ea khoebo e ntseng e hola, bofutsana bo ntseng bo tsoela pele le bo khetholloang ka morabe, litekanyetso tse makatsang tsa litlamo (hape li fapane ka merabe) le motsamao o tlase ho tloha tlase ho ea holimo. phiramide ea eona e moepa ea moruo oa sechaba.
* e ile ea re “ngoana e mong le e mong oa Amerika” o lokela “ho phela bophelo bo botle,” eseng hore ngoana e mong le e mong o lokeloa ke bophelo bo khotsofatsang hona joale le ka mor’a moo.
* o ne a lebeletse hore Maamerika a tla thaba haholo ka lebaka la "mohlolo" (!) oa hore ha ba phele tlas'a serethe sa tšepe sa khatello ea 'muso e bulehileng (ha aa ka a etsa mokhelo bakeng sa batšoaruoa ba limilione tse 2 ba sechaba, hoo e batlang e le halofo ea batho ba batšo), joalokaha eka demokrasi e nepahetse. bosieo ba naha ea sepolesa eseng matla a batho ho tsamaisa sechaba sa bona ka mokhoa o lekanang (bua ka litebello tse fokolang tsa tokoloho).
* o ile a rorisa Lesole la Metsing le kentsoeng tšebetsong ea oli ea khethollo ea morabe le ea bo-imperialism Iraq bakeng sa (lintho tsohle) "ho sireletsa United States of America" le (ho thoeng) "tumelo e felletseng naheng le baetapele ba eona." Hona joale ho na le maikutlo a monate a demokrasi: "tumelo" e nyarosang joalo ke litaba tsa naha ea mapolesa eo ho se be teng ha US Obama a bitsitseng "mohlolo".
* e ile ea phahamisa maemo a macha a ho hlohlelletsa ho nyekeloa ke pelo ka boikaketsi ka ho etsa “tšepo” e tšoenyang e tšoanang pakeng tsa: “tšepo ea makhoba a lutseng a pota-potile mollo a bina lipina tsa tokoloho:” “tšepo ea molefothenente e monyenyane oa sesole sa metsing a lebela ka sebete Nōkeng ea Mekong; ” le "tšepo ea ngoana ea mosesane ea nang le lebitso le qabolang ea lumelang hore Amerika e na le sebaka bakeng sa hae."
"Leeutenant" eo ho buuoeng ka eena puong ea hae e ne e le mokhethoa oa mopresidente oa Democratic John "Ke Kentse Seabo Palong ea Asia Boroa-bochabela" Kerry, eo 'muso oa hae o nang le tokelo ea ho "lebela" linōka tse kholo ka lehlakoreng le leng la lefats'e lilemong tsa bo-1960 Obama a ile a nka e le axiomatic. . "Ngoana ea mosesane" o ne a bua ka Obama e monyenyane, ea neng a itlhoekisa bakeng sa thuto ea Harvard ha a ntse a hōla le ntate-moholo oa hae e mosoeu Hawaii e chesang.
Na ho amana le “tokoloho”—makhoba a binang? Tumelo e kopanetsoeng ho seo Obama a se bitsitseng "mpho e kholo ka ho fetisisa ea Molimo ho rona, motheo oa sechaba sena - tumelo ea hore ho na le matsatsi a molemo ka ho fetisisa."
E, makhoba a sehlōhō a makhoba a khethollo ea morabe Amerika a ne a lebeletse ka thabo peto e khanyang ea bo-imperialist ea Asia Boroa-bochabela, ha tumelo ea bona "matsatsing a molemo" a ne a tla fumana ts'ebetso e khanyang ha a tšoara bana ba Vietnam, litšoantšo tsa bona tse ileng tsa tšosa Martin King. ho nyatsa ntoa ea Vietnam ka mantsoe a matla le a matla.
Ka mokhoa o makatsang le o makatsang hakakang. Bakeng sa tlhaloso e qaqileng haholoanyane ea puo e kholo ea Obama, sheba sengoloa sa ka [sengoloa se tsebahalang haholo sa Marang-rang seo nkileng ka se phatlalatsa] “Keynote Reflections,” ZNet Magazine, Phupu 29, 2004 (e fumaneha ho http://www.zmag .org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=33&ItemID=5951)
Karolong ea morao tjena ea New Yorker, Obama o qotsitsoe ka nako e telele e le mohlala oa Democratic Party centrism. Mohlophisi oa sechaba-Senate ea Amerika o araba ka tsela e latelang potso ea sengoli Jeffrey Goldberg mabapi le hore na Democrats e lokela ho tsepamisa maikutlo ho sireletseng sechaba sa Amerika khahlano le tlhaselo ea mmuso oa US mabapi le tokoloho ea bona ea sechaba: "MaAmerika a batla ho ikutloa a le monate ka bona le mmuso oa bona. . Ba ka bitsetsoa ho etsa sehlabelo 'me ba ka hlajoa ke lihlong ha re hlōleha ho finyella lipakane tsa rona empa ha ba lumele hore thuto ea sehlooho ea lilemo tse hlano tse fetileng ke hore Amerika ke hegemon e khopo"(8).
Ho thata ho tseba hore na Obama o ne a nahana joang hore ho senola temana e bua ka li-wiretaps tse seng molaong le tse ling tse joalo, empa polelo ea hae e na le mohopolo o senolang o lokelang ho nahanoa ka mabaka a bona. Ho nahanoa hore potso ea bohlokoa ha se hore na "Amerika" (kapa mohlomong mmuso oa eona oa borena) ke "hegemon e khopo," empa hore na "Maamerika" (phetolelo: Bakhethi ba Amerika haholo-holo ba lichelete ba Amerika) ba lemoha naha-state ho ba ntho e mpe hakana. Palo ea lipolotiki e phahamisa ho batla 'nete ea boitšoaro.
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.”
Phapang le maikutlo a sebete a Martin King a ho le letšehali-Mokreste, a khahlanong le bo-imperialist, a khahlanong le khethollo ea morabe, le a demokrasi-socialist e totobetse haholo. Bakeng sa Morena, lipalo tse amehang li ne li fapane haholo. O ile a tlameha ho bitsa "Amerika" ka pefo ea eona ea lefats'e le ho hloka toka ho amanang le eona malapeng ho sa tsotellehe mathata ao baahi ba US ba ka tobanang le 'ona ha ba amohela karolo ea bona le ea' muso oa bona ts'ebetsong ea 'muso, ho se lekane le khatello lapeng le linaheng tse ling. Ntho ea bohlokoa e ne e sa thuse "Maamerika" "ho ikutloa a le monate ka bona le ka 'muso oa bona." E ne e le ho ba khothalletsa ho tšepahala ho bona, ho e mong le e mong ho e mong le ho batho bohle ba mahlomoleng ka ho tobana le “mabe a mararo a amanang.”
Ho theohela ha Obama Liheleng e batla e le taba ea takatso ea ho ba Cesare oa Amerika. Tsela e eang White House ha e na likhohlano tsa bolumeli khahlanong le linnete tse sa thabiseng tsa lipolotiki tseo Morena a ileng a ikutloa a tlameha ho li pepesa le ho li hanyetsa. E hloka tiisetso ea kamehla ho ba ruileng le ba matla ba seng bakae le maikutlong a sesole a 'Muso ao batho ba seng bakae ba ruileng ba batlang ho kenya letsoho har'a matšoele a sotlehileng. Ho sa tsotellehe hore na Jesu o boletse eng ka hore na ke mang ea ka kenang leholimong, linotlolo tsa ’muso oa lefatše li boloketsoe ba bapalang ka melao e behiloeng ke beng ba leruo le ntoa.
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 ([imeile e sirelelitsoe]) ke sengoli, sebui, le moitseki oa Iowa City, IA. Ke eena mongoli oa Empire le Ho se lekane: Amerika le Lefatše Ho tloha ka 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004) le Likolo tse arohaneng: Apartheid ea Thuto ka Nako ea Litokelo Tsa Sechaba (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005).
Notes
1. David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King le Southern Christian Leadership Conference [New York, NY: 1986], p. 562).
2.Garrow, Ho Jara Sefapano, p. 562.
3. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Re Tloha Kae Mona?,” 1967, e hatisitsoe hape ho James M. Washington, A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco, CA : 1986), leq. 250.
4. Frederick Douglass, Tlaleho ea Bophelo ba Frederick Douglass (1845), sehlomathiso.
5. Gary Wills, Seo Jesu a se Bolelang (New York, NY: 2006), leq. 44
6. Thato, Seo Jesu a se Bolelang, leq. 58.
7. Paul Street, “Martin Luther King, Jr., Democratic Socialist,” ZNet Sustainers Commentary, January 14, 2006, e fumaneha ho http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-01/14street.cfm)
8. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Central Casting,” The New Yorker (May 29, 2006)
ZNetwork e tšehelitsoe ka lichelete feela ka seatla se bulehileng sa babali ba eona.
donate