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)
Iingcinga ezingundoqo
ZNet (main website)
Julayi 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.
ULingano xa kuthelekiswa neThuba eliLinganayo
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.
Idemokhrasi Versus 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:”
“Andithethi ngethemba elimfamekileyo apha-ukungazi ngabom okucinga ukuba intswela-ngqesho iya kuhamba ukuba asithethi ngayo, okanye ingxaki yezempilo iya kuzisombulula ngokwayo ukuba asiyihoyi. Ndithetha ngento ebaluleke ngakumbi. Lithemba lamakhoboka ahleli emlilweni ecula iingoma zenkululeko; ithemba labaphambukeli abaya kunxweme olukude; ithemba lomkhosi wasemanzini oselula ojikeleza ngenkalipho iMekong Delta; ithemba lonyana womsebenzi wokusila onobuganga bokumelana nezinto ezingathandekiyo; ithemba lomntwana obhityileyo onegama elihlekisayo okholelwa ukuba iMelika inendawo yakhe, nayo…Ekugqibeleni, eso sesona sipho sikhulu sikaThixo kuthi, ilitye eliphantsi kwesi sizwe; ukukholelwa kwizinto ezingabonwayo; inkolelo yokuba kukho iintsuku ezingcono ezizayo.”
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 ([imeyile ikhuselwe]) 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)
Juni 16, 2006
Obama’s Path to Hell
ZNet Sustainer Commentary
NgasePaul 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)
Ngomzuzu apho waphosa umnqwazi wakhe kumsesane ophumeleleyo wokuthatha bonke ubumongameli, uKumkani wayesazi, uya kukhuthazwa ukuba alahlekise umyalezo wakhe wokungasekhohlo kunye nokuziphatha ngokusisiseko ngokuchasene nobuhlanga, ukungalingani kwezentlalo, kunye nomkhosi. Ebonakalisa ukohlwaya kwakhe intlupheko egxininisekileyo yabantsundu kunye nengcinezelo yodidi kwindawo “ekhululekileyo” yedolophu yaseMantla kunye nokoyikeka komgaqo-nkqubo wase-US kuMzantsi-mpuma we-Asia, uKumkani uye wafikelela kwizigqibo ezinzulu. "Iminyaka ndisebenza ngombono wokucoca amaziko akhoyo oluntu, utshintsho oluncinci apha, utshintsho oluncinci apho," uxelele intatheli uDavid Halberstam ngaloo ntwasahlobo. Ngoku ndiziva ngenye indlela. Ndicinga ukuba kufuneka ube nokwakhiwa ngokutsha koluntu luphela, ukuguqulwa kwemilinganiselo”
Umbutho wenkululeko yabantsundu, uKumkani uxelele isihlwele kwiyunivesithi yaseCalifornia-Berkeley, ukuba sele esukile kumalungelo oluntu aye kumalungelo oluntu, ebandakanya "umlo wolingano lokwenyani" othi "ufuna ukwabiwa ngokumandla kwamandla ezoqoqosho nezopolitiko." Kuya kuba nzima ukufumana inkxaso yezopolitiko enkulu kule njongo, uKumkani wathi, "kuba abantu abaninzi baseMelika abamhlophe bangathanda ukuba nesizwe esinedemokhrasi kwaseMelika emhlophe kunye nolawulo lobuzwilakhe kubantu abamnyama baseMelika" (2).
Ngeli xesha, uKumkani wayechonge urhulumente wase-US "njengoyena mbhexeshi mkhulu wobundlobongela" emhlabeni kwaye wayigxeka inkxaso yase-US kulawulo lobuzwilakhe lweLizwe leSithathu olulungele utyalo-mali, yonke inxalenye yento awayibiza ngokuba "bububi obuthathu obunxibelelene": ubuhlanga, ukuxhatshazwa kwezoqoqosho [ubungxowankulu], nobugorha (3).
Ezi yayingezozimvo eziphumeleleyo kwinkqubo yonyulo yobuhlanga, i-plutocratic, kunye ne-corporate-imperial yase-US. Yayiziingcinga zokuziphatha ezisekelwe kwinyaniso eziqulethe iimpembelelo zemigaqo-nkqubo evunyiweyo ngokuphandle. Babevumelana ngokutyebileyo noko uFrederick Douglass wakubiza ngokuba “bubuKristu bukaKristu,” obahluke kakhulu koko uDouglass wayebugqala ubuKristu bobuxoki baseMelika obabuthethelela ubukhoboka, ukususwa kwamaIndiya, kunye namanye amasikizi kunye neendlela zengcinezelo (4). Njengoko umphengululi ongumKatolika ophum’ izandla uGary Wills esitsho kwincwadi yakhe yakutshanje ethi What Jesus Meant, uYesu ophuma ekuzifundeni ngenyameko iincwadi zevangeli ulutshaba olungalalanisiyo lobutyebi noorhulumente owathi “kulula ngenkamela ukuphumela kwinaliti yenaliti. iliso kunokuba isityebi singene ebukumkanini bukaThixo” ( Marko, 10.23:25-13.15 ) waza waluleka abalandeli bakhe ukuba “bazikhusele kuko konke umnqweno wokufuna ukutyeba” ekubeni “ubomi abumi ngabuninzi bezinto anazo” ( Luka 5:14.11-XNUMX ) Ngoko ke, “ubomi obungunaphakade” ( Mat. XNUMX). Echasa zonke iintlobo zolawulo lwabalawuli, kungekuphela nje ukungalingani kwezoqoqosho, uYesu “wabakhalimela abo balandela igunya phezu komnye nomnye naphezu kwabanye” (XNUMX), esithi “wonk’ ubani oziphakamisayo uya kuthotywa, yaye wonk’ ubani oziphakamisayo uya kuthotywa. nabani na ozithobayo uya kuphakanyiswa” (Luka XNUMX:XNUMX).
UWills uthi: “Akukho myalelo ucacileyo wabalawuli balo naluphi na uhlobo,” wongezelela ngelithi uYesu “wayeluchase ngokupheleleyo ugonyamelo” (6) yaye wayengazikhathaleli ngokuphawulekayo izinto zobupolitika, esithi “imibandela kaKesare yiyekele kuKesare” ( Marko, 12.17 )
Ukulandela umyalezo weendaba ezilungileyo, awayewazi kakuhle (7), uKumkani akazange afune ukufana noBarack Obama odidayo.
Owayesakuba ngumququzeleli wendawo kwindawo yaseChicago ehlwempuzekileyo yeSide, u-Obama uthi unyanisekile kwiinjongo zikaYesu noKumkani. Ngapha koko, yena:
* "uyala ukuthatha naziphi na iinketho," kubandakanya isicwangciso esinesono esikhulu semfazwe yenyukliya, "etafileni" ekuzameni ukunqanda i-Iran ekwenzeni into iqhinga lehlabathi lase-US libonakala licebisa ngamandla elo lizwe: ukuphuhlisa izixhobo zenyukliya.
* uvotele ukugcwalisa imisebenzi yozakuzo yelizwe (kuzo zonke ii-ofisi) ngesikrelemnqa semfazwe esibizwa ngokuba nguCondaleeza (“Chevron”) Rice.
* uyala ukucela ukurhoxiswa kwemikhosi yase-US eIraq ngokungekho semthethweni nangokubulawa kwabantu abaninzi, ebeka ixabiso elingakumbi ekugcineni “intembeko yomkhosi” yaseMelika ezele ligazi kunokuqaphela imilinganiselo yehlabathi yokuziphatha kwelizwe eliphucukileyo okanye ekuhlonipheni ukuzibophelela kukaYesu noKumkani. Ukungabi nabundlobongela.
* wazikhwebula komnye uSenator wase-Illinois uDick Durbin (D-Illinois) ekugxekeni ngenkalipho izenzo zokungcungcuthekisa zase-US ezingekho mthethweni eGuantanamo Bay.
* walandela isiluleko samadoda azizityebi eMerika ngokuxhasa “uhlaziyo lwenkohlakalo” olwenza kube nzima ngakumbi kubantu abaqhelekileyo ukufumana imbuyekezo kushishino oluqhathayo nolonakalisayo.
* wavotela ukuvala iinkqubo zefilibuster ebeziza kuzama ukuthintela ukuchongwa kukaJaji u-Alito ophikisayo – utshaba olwaziwayo lwamalungelo oluntu nabasetyhini.
* uvotele ukugunyazisa kwakhona uMthetho wePatriot, osebenzisa izoyikiso zokwenyani nezicingelwayo zangaphandle ezenziwe bubukumkani ukubuyisela inkululeko ekhaya.
*wabaleka isindululo sikaSenator uRuss Feingold (D-Wisconsin) sokugxeka ngokusemthethweni ulawulo lukaBush ngezenzo zalo zolwaphulo-mthetho olukhulu ekhaya naphesheya. * usebenzisa imali yakhe yephulo iMidas touch kwiinzame zokuphinda kunyulwe “umcebisi” wakhe, uSenator waseRiphabhlikhi uJoe Liberman (“D”- Connecticut), ihlakani elisondeleyo lokuhlala kukaBush, kunye nomyili ophambili wengcinezelo nocalucalulo lwesizwe. uhlaziyo lwentlalo-ntle,” olwanciphisa uncedo olusisiseko lukarhulumente kumalungu ahlwempuzekileyo elona butho lehlabathi lihambele phambili kwezoshishino, nelinobutyebi obuphezulu.
Kwintetho eyoyikisayo yeNgqungquthela yeDemokhrasi ka-2004 ethe yenza okuninzi ukumenza adume kwisizwe, u-Obama wabeka ithoni ye-centrist malunga nokungcatsha kwakhe okuqikelelweyo kwemigaqo kunye neenkokeli ezixabisekileyo. Kuloo ntetho ibhiyozelwa ngoko nangoko, u-Obama:
* yabanga ukuba i-US yeyona "isibane senkululeko kunye nethuba," "ilizwe ekuphela kwalo emhlabeni" apho "ibali lam" (ibali ekuthiwa yiHoratio-Alger-esque lokunyuka ukusuka kwintlupheko ukuya kwindawo ephezulu kwaye ngoku [enkosi kwabanye abanesisa. book deals] impumelelo) “inokwenzeka.” Oku ngaphandle kwenyani yokuba i-US eneneni lelona lizwe lingqongqo kulawulo lwelizwe kwilizwe elihambele phambili kwezoshishino, ikhaya kulawulo-melo lwenkampani, ukuzingisa okukhulu kunye nentlupheko enobuhlanga obuphezulu, amazinga amangalisayo okuvalelwa (ekwahluke kakhulu ngokobuhlanga) kunye nokuhamba okuphantsi ukusuka kumacandelo asezantsi ukuya phezulu. kwiphiramidi yayo engumnqantsa yentlalo noqoqosho.
* Wathi “wonke umntwana eMerika” ufanele “aphile ngendlela efanelekileyo,” kungekhona ukuba wonke umntwana ufanelwe bubomi obanelisayo nobunesidima ngoku nasemva koko.
* wayelindele ukuba abantu baseMelika babe nemincili ngenxa “yommangaliso” (!) wokuba abaphili phantsi kwesithende sentsimbi yengcinezelo karhulumente evulekileyo (akazange akhethe ngaphandle kwamabanjwa esizwe azizigidi ezi-2, phantse isiqingatha sabamnyama), ngokungathi idemokhrasi ilungile. ukungabikho kombuso wamapolisa kwaye ingengawo amandla abantu okulawula uluntu lwabo ngendlela elinganayo (thetha malunga nolindelo oluphantsi lwenkululeko).
* wancoma uManzi waseLwandle owayebhalisele ubuhlanga kunye ne-impiriyali yokulawula ioli e-Iraq ngenxa (yazo zonke izinto) "ekhusela i-United States of America" kwaye (ecingelwa) ebonisa "ukholo olupheleleyo kwilizwe nakwiinkokeli zalo." Ngoku kukho uvakalelo oluhle lwedemokhrasi: “ukholo” olothusa ngolo hlobo zizinto zelizwe lamapolisa elingabikho e-US u-Obama abize “ummangaliso.”
* wanyusa amaqondo amatsha okuphembelela isicaphucaphu okuthand’ izwe ngokwenza “ithemba” elinxunguphalisayo phakathi: “ithemba lamakhoboka ahleli phezu komlilo ecula iingoma zenkululeko:” “ithemba lomkhosi wamanzi oselula owayejikeleza ngenkalipho kwiNtlambo yaseMekong; ” kunye "nethemba lomntwana obhityileyo onegama elihlekisayo okholelwa ukuba iMelika inendawo yakhe."
“U-lieutenant” ekubhekiselwa kuye kwintetho yakhe yayingumgqatswa kamongameli weDemokhrasi uJohn “Ndithathe inxaxheba ekubethelweni emnqamlezweni we-Asia-mpuma ye-Asia” uKerry, onelungelo likarhulumente lakhe “lokugada” imilambo emikhulu kwelinye icala lehlabathi ngeminyaka yee-1960s u-Obama wathatha njenge-axiomatic. . "Umntwana obhityileyo" ubhekisele ku-Obama oselula, ezilungiselela imfundo yaseHarvard ngelixa ekhula nootatomkhulu bakhe abamhlophe eHawaii enelanga.
Ukunxulumana “nenkululeko” yamakhoboka aculayo? Inkolelo ekwabelwana ngayo kwinto u-Obama ayibiza ngokuba “sesona sipho sikhulu sikaThixo kuthi, ilitye eliphantsi kwesi sizwe – inkolo yokuba kukho iintsuku ezingcono ezizayo.”
Ewe, amakhoboka amnyama akhohlakeleyo e-antebellum yaseMelika ayejonge phambili kudlwengulo oluzukileyo lwama-impiriyali amhlophe e-Asia-mpuma ye-Asia, xa ukholo lwabo "kwiintsuku ezingcono" lwaluza kufumana ukuzaliseka okuzukileyo kwi-napalming yabantwana baseVietnam, imifanekiso eyothusa uMartin King. ukugxeka imfazwe yaseVietnam ngokungqongqo nangokwemiqathango.
Indlela engathandekiyo kwaye eyothusayo. Ukuze ufumane ukugxekwa okuthe vetshe ngentetho enempumelelo ka-Obama, jonga inqaku lam [elona cwecwe le-Intanethi lidumileyo endakha ndalipapasha kude] “I-Keynote Reflections,” iZNet Magazine, Julayi 29, 2004 (ifumaneka ku-http://www.zmag .org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=33&ItemID=5951)
Kwisiqwenga samva nje saseNew York, u-Obama ucatshulwe ixesha elide njengomzekelo weDemocratic Party centrism. Umququzeleli-wajika-uSenator wase-US uphendula ngolu hlobo lulandelayo kumbuzo wombhali uJeffrey Goldberg malunga nokuba ngaba iidemokhrasi kufuneka zigxile ekukhuseleni uluntu lwaseMelika ngokuchasene nohlaselo lukarhulumente wase-US kwinkululeko yakhe: “Abantu baseMelika bafuna ukuziva kamnandi ngabo nangorhulumente wabo. . Banokubizwa ukuba banikele kwaye banokuba neentloni xa sisilela kwiinjongo zethu kodwa abakholelwa ukuba esona sifundo siphambili sale minyaka mihlanu idlulileyo kukuba iAmerika likrele elikhohlakeleyo”(8).
Kunzima ukwazi ukuba u-Obama wayecinga njani ukuba utyhila isicatshulwa esibhekiselele kwi-wiretaps engekho mthethweni kunye nokunye okunjalo, kodwa ingxelo yakhe iqulethe ingcamango evezayo efanele ukuqwalaselwa ngokwalo. Ingcinga ibambe ukuba umbuzo obalulekileyo ayikokuba "iMelika" (okanye mhlawumbi urhulumente wayo wobukhosi) "yi-hegemon engendawo," kodwa kunokuba "amaMelika" (inguqulelo: abavoti baseMelika kwaye ngakumbi abaxhasi bemali baseMelika) bayayibona into yabo. ilizwe-lilizwe ukuba libe liqumrhu elibi ngolo hlobo. Ubalo lwezopolitiko luyayiphakamisa iphulo lenyaniso yokuziphatha.
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.”
Umahluko kunye nenkalipho kaMartin King yobuKristu obungasekhohlo, obuchasayo, obuchasa ubuhlanga, kunye nedemokhrasi-socialist icace gca. KuKumkani, izibalo ezifanelekileyo zahluke kakhulu. Wanyanzelwa ukuba abize "iMelika" kubundlobongela behlabathi kunye nokungabikho kokusesikweni kwasekhaya okuhlobene nokuba bubuphi na ubunzima abemi base-US abanokujongana nabo ekuvumeni indima yabo kunye norhulumente wabo ekunyanzeliseni ubukhosi, ukungalingani, kunye nengcinezelo ekhaya nakwamanye amazwe. Imfuneko yayingenakubanceda “amaMelika” “azive kamnandi ngabo nangorhulumente wabo.” Yayikukubakhuthaza ukuba banyaniseke kubo, omnye komnye, nakulo lonke uluntu olubandezelekileyo ngokujamelana ‘nobubi obuthathu obunxulunyaniswayo.
Ukwehla kuka-Obama esihogweni phantse ngokuqinisekileyo malunga nomnqweno wokuba nguKesare waseMelika. Indlela eya kwi-White House ayilungiswanga nge-na*ve crusades ngokuchasene neenyaniso eziphazamisayo kwezopolitiko uKumkani waziva enyanzelekile ukuba azibhence kwaye achase. Ifuna ukuqinisekiswa rhoqo kwizityebi kunye nabanamandla abambalwa kunye neemvakalelo zomkhosi zoBukhosi ukuba igcuntswana elinobunewunewu lifuna ukubethelela phakathi kwesihlwele esasingasiwa so. Nantoni na ekuthethwa ngayo ngoYesu malunga nokuba ngubani onokungena ezulwini, izitshixo zobukumkani basemhlabeni zigcinelwe abo badlala ngemithetho ebekwe ziinkosi zobutyebi nemfazwe.
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 ([imeyile ikhuselwe]) ngumbhali, isithethi, kunye netshantliziyo kwiSixeko sase-Iowa, IA. Ungumbhali woBukhosi kunye nokungalingani: iMelika kunye nehlabathi ukususela ngo-9/11 (iBoulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004) kunye neZikolo eziHluliweyo: Ucalucalulo lwezeMfundo kwiXesha lamaLungelo oLuntu (eNew York, NY: Routledge, 2005).
amaNqaku
1. UDavid Garrow, Ukuthwala uMnqamlezo: uMartin Luther King kunye neNkomfa yobuNkokheli bobuKristu bamaZantsi [eNew York, NY: 1986], iphe. 562).
2.Garrow, Ukuthwala uMnqamlezo, p. 562.
3. UMartin Luther King, Omnci., “Sisiya Phi Na Ukusuka Apha?,” ngowe-1967, yapapashwa kwakhona kwincwadi ethi James M. Washington, A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Omnci. (San Francisco, CA : 1986), iphe. 250.
4. UFrederick Douglass, Ibali loBomi bukaFrederick Douglass (1845), isihlomelo.
5. UGary Wills, Wayethetha ukuthini uYesu (eNew York, NY: 2006), iphe. 44
6. Imiyolelo, Oko kwakuthethwa nguYesu, iphe. 58.
7. Paul Street, “Martin Luther King, Jr., Democratic Socialist,” ZNet Sustainers Commentary, January 14, 2006, ifumaneka ku 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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