Introduction
There
is ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political
spectrum further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues
Obama has embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor
and in the process devastating what remained of the peace and social
movements of the past decade. Moreover, the Obama Presidency has
laid the groundwork for the immediate future promising a further extension
of regressive policies following the presidential elections: cuts in
Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Incumbents and their opposition
compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding from
wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the post-election period
in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements, anti-labor and
environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put
forth by the Obama campaign but numerous militarist and regressive social
policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign,
playing off of the reactionary proposals of the Romney-Tea Party
alliance: a cover for his own record of unprecedented military
spending, sequential wars, immigrant expulsions, mortgage foreclosures
and Wall Street bailouts.
In
the process, critical liberals have crossed the line, surrendering their
integrity by deflecting attention from Obama’s militarist-socially regressive
policies to focus on “opposing Romney” as a “greater evil”: progressives
and critical liberals have multiplied and magnified the duplicity of
the Obama political apparatus. In the name of opposing the current
‘greater evil’ (Romney) they dare not enumerate and specify the wanton
political crimes and monumental socio-economic injustice perpetrated
by their “lesser evil” candidate (Obama). Will the “progressives”
ever play honest and publically state: we back Obama in “swing
states” because he has “only” murdered 10,000 Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis,
is starving 75 million Iranian’s via sanctions, gives $3 billion for
Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally oversees
the arbitrary executions of US citizens and promises an extended kill
list … because Romney promises to be worse … Expecting honesty from
the proponents of ‘lesser eviles’ is as farfetched as taking serious
their criticisms between elections.
The
political damage incurred by the social movements and US working class
under the Obama presidency is unprecedented and has laid the groundwork
for further social regression and greater imperial bellicosity.
Political Consequences of the Obama Presidency: Past, Present and Future
The
Obama Presidency and the run-up to his past and present electoral campaigns
have had a devastating impact on popular social movements, engaged in
issues of peace, labor, immigrant and constitutional rights and environmental
regulation.
The
peace movement virtually disappeared as its leaders urged its supporters
to turn their activities to supporting Obama’s election. He rewarded
them by escalating military spending, and engaging in sequential wars,
directly or by proxy, in seven countries, wreaking havoc and destruction.
He faced minimum opposition as ex-peace activists, in dismay, turned
away or grabbed a post and apologized for war. By 2012 the follower-
less peace leaders repeat the same mantra to support Obama; but dare
not repeat the past lie (in the name of ‘peace’) rather they claim in
order ‘to defeat Romney’.
The
immigrant rights movements prior to the 2008 election of Obama mobilized
several million…. till it was infiltrated and taken over by Mexican-American
political hacks from the Democratic Party ad turned into an electoral
machine to secure elected posts for themselves and Obama. He rewarded
the immigrants by setting a record: seizing, jailing and expelling 1.5
million immigrants over his tenure in office. The immigrant rights
mass movement has been largely dismantled and now Democratic political
hustlers hire canvassers to round up and register, highly disillusioned
immigrant voters.
Afro-Americans
were the most neglected sector of the US working class under Obama:
they experienced the highest levels of unemployment and home foreclosures
and the longest period of joblessness. They became politically
invisible as Obama bent over front ways to appease rabid White racists
seeking to label him a ‘black president’. The established black
leadership-political and religious and the media celebrities
went all out to block any expression of grass-roots opposition, claiming
it would only “help the racists” ignoring Obama’s embrace and bail
out of White Wall Street and showing his backside to millions of black
households under water. Without movement or leadership, fearful of the
problem (economic racism) and the solution (4 more years of invisibility
under Obama) most black workers are left to abstain or hold their nose
and vote for ‘Oreo’ Obama.
The
Occupy Wall Street Movement, precisely because it was independent of
the Democratic Party and fed up with Obama’s total subservience to Wall
Street, provided a temporary voice for the vast majority of Americans
opposed to both political parties. The local and state Democratic
officials applauded “the cause” and then repressed the movement.
A
spontaneous movement without political direction, and lacking an alternative
political leadership, was incapable of confronting the Obama regime:
the movement declined and disintegrated, many sympathizers sucked up
by the Obama ‘lesser evil’ propaganda campaign. The mass popular animus
to Wall Street was defused by Obama’s claim to have saved “the economy”
from catastrophe by channeling $4.5 trillion dollars into the bankers’
pockets.
Constitutional
rights were savaged by Obama’s defense of military trials, Bush era
tortures, expansion of arbitration executive power including the assumption
of Presidential power to assassinate US citizens without a trial.
While legal organizations fought the good fight for civil liberties,
the vast majority of liberals were notable by their absence from any
sustained democratic movement upholding the rights of 40 million Americans
under police surveillance, especially Muslim citizens and immigrants.
They chose not to embarrass their Democratic President: they placed
the re-election of a police-state Democrat over and above their putative
defense of constitutional rights. No mass marches for civil liberties;
no protests against Home Land Security; no campus-wide free speech movements
against the abrogation of the right to criticize Israel.
For
decades, the trade union confederation and senior citizen movements
defended Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. With Obama in
office, openly declaring and preparing major reductions and regressive
clauses on coverage (raising age qualification) and indexing, there
is no significant protest movement. Programs which for the
better part of a century (social security) or half century (Medicare,
Medicaid) were considered untouchable are now, according to Obama, “on
the table” to be gutted (“reformed”, “adjusted”). The trade union
millionaire bosses hire a small army of campaign workers and raise over
a $150 million to re-elect a President who promises to make huge cuts
in medical programs for pensioners and the poor. Obama has legitimated
the regressive social positions of the far-right while the Democratic
Party neutralized any trade union opposition or mobilization.
Last
but not least, the Obama regime has co-opted progressive liberal social
critics via backdoor support. In the name of “opposing Romney”
the progressive pundits, like Chomsky and Ellsberg, end up in alliance
with Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires, Pentagon militarists,
Homeland Security boosters and Zionist ideologues (Dennis Ross) to elect
Obama. Of course, the support of the progressives will be accepted -but
hardly acknowledged- but they will have no influence on future Obama
policy after the election: they will be discarded like used condoms.
The Future: Post-Election Consequences
With
or without the re-election of Obama, his regime and policies have laid
the groundwork for an ever more regressive and reactionary social agenda:
living standards including health, welfare, social security will be
cut drastically. Afro-Americans will remain invisible except to the
police and racist judicial system. Immigrants will be hunted down
and driven out of homes and jobs: immigrant student dreams will
become nightmares of fear and trepidation. Death squads, proxy
and drone wars will multiply to prop up a bankrupt US empire.
Unaccountable and hypocritical progressives will shift gears and criticize
the president they elected; or if it’s Romney they will attack the same
vices they overlooked during Obama’s electoral campaign: more
cuts in public spending and climate change will result in greater deterioration
in everyday life and basic infrastructure; more floods, fires, plagues
and blackouts. New Yorkers will learn to detox their toilet water;
they might be drinking and bathing in it.
|