[Marxism] The relentless and obsessive opposition to

[Fred Feldman]

Jon Flanders wrote:
Surely we must be clear that from the point of view of the ruling
class, a successful Obama campaign would serve greatly to refurbish the
USA brand in the world?

Then the cruise missiles could be launched against brown people by a
brown president.

The question is, to me, how to present this reality to Obama supporters.

One way to start is to get it straight that Obama is not "a Clintonite with
a Black face" but a Black man seeking the presidency as representative of
one of the two parties.  Not a white man in black face. And trying to get
his color exactly right -- brown or "high yaller" or whatever (I've never
seen the guy close up) -- is just irrelevant.) 

In certain ways, he benefited in the end from the Wright "scandal" because
it demonstrated he is a Black man, and not just a Black man striving to
please white people at all costs. His standing by his friend and teacher on
a personal level was an important contribution to this.  And it has helped
him with a lot of white people, including workers, who think that, whether
Wright was right or wrong (I think he was mostly very right). One of the
things in the Militant article that Walter cited that gave me a twinge of
sadness as well as outrage was my old newspaper treating "God Damn America!"
as a racist slur by a reactionary demagogue.

I'll bet -- I also hope -- that there is noone on this list who hasn't
harbored that thought at one time or another, and probably pretty often.

What is involved in  bourgeois support for Obama, which is growing in my
opinion, is the desire to put a HUMAN face on US imperialism.  That is what
putting a Black man in the post represents.

And in my opinion, they are gathering around him not because they plan to
start five or six more wars in his first six months in office, but because
they see a need to regroup and in some places even partially stand down.  At
the same time, they see Obama as someone who can help them take advantage of
the possibility to make their human rights campaigning in the former Soviet
Bloc, and against Cuba and Venezuela.

The truth is that the description of Obama as a "Clintonite with a Black
face" (where did D Bach Mozart get the bizarre idea that all Clintonites
naturally have white faces, and they just put on Black faces to fool the
masses?) should actually be out of place on this list. That is one thing we
have to grasp in responding to the Obama "phenomenon" and the likelihood of
an Obama presidency. He will have to run the gauntlet of the racist frenzy
the Republicans will try to work up against him, but I think he has what it
takes to make it to the other end.

First is to get that Obama will be the president and the official leader of
US president, not the "Black face" of imperialism but an attempt at a "human
face" for a system that has suffered profound discreditment and a profound
economic crisis at the same time.

Obama cannot be a "Clintonite" coloring his face however, because it is not
just the Bush phase of the offensive, but the whole Clinton-Bush offensive
that has come acropper. Bush simply brought about the collapse by attempting
to push the Clinton offensive across the world-hegemony finish line when
circumstances were beginning to become more unfavorable for it.

The US occupation of Iraq has taken a devastating setback, marking, in my
opinion, the defeat of the surge insofar as it was intended to establish
real control of Iraq on the ground, in collaboration with allied Shia and
Sunni forces.

US policy in Latin America is a wreck. The US has very limited capacity
right now to use human rights and other such campaigning. The Cuban blockade
is at an unprecedented dead end, with the transition from Fidel to Raul
without disturbances, much less popular upheaval. Well, say the resident
mystics in Washington, when Castro actually dies, there will be a big
revolt. But nobody in Cuba imagines Castro is still in charge. And yet the
beat goes on.

The US military is worn down, exhausted, and demoralized.  The top
militarists went along with keeping troops in Iraq, only to find that they
now face the prospect of the Sadrists -- whom the surge was intended to
prepare for death -- winning the next elections, and in currently secure
control of Basra and most of Baghdad (and much more, of course).

If Obama simply continues the Clinton-Bush course, exposing him will not be
a problem for very long.  Especially if the left doesn't concentrate on
denouncing him on the basis of his race in any way, shape, or form.   I'm
afraid the white folks, including the white radicals, are going to have to
learn a little more etiquette.

If there are differences, as I suspect there will be, then we will have to
deal with them concretely and explain how they defend imperialism, and how
and to what extent they change the present imperialist course.

On domestic policy, I expect little real change, because the key here is the
mobilization of social forces for change -- something that exists in Iraq,
Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nepal and a few other significant places but does
not exist substantively in the United States.

Perhaps Obama thinks he will have the muscle to take on Social Security.
Well, we will have to see and respond as things happen.

But no more imperialism in Black face talk, on the list or off (and I don't
care whether you can quote Black Agenda Report saying the same things --
they are different when whites say them, and they are also wrong when Blacks
say them. Black Agenda Report reflects of course the error of thinking that
the election of a Black president in the racist United States is the greater
evil.
Fred Feldman