First Mike:

<blockquote>”In many ways, the choice of new “commander-in-chief” flowed from the emergence of a wind (in the ruling class) favoring changes — some changes in policies, and certainly major changes in image. Obama was the chance for an imperialist reboot, after a period of disasterous overreaching, real setbacks and glaring strategic miscalculations.
In importance ways, the possibilities and objective need for policy shifts are struggled out in the ruling class, and elections serve them as a vehicle for picking point-men who can best carry through a newly emerging consensus.”</blockquote>

Then Stanley:

<blockquote>But it was also the pressure put on the establishment by the massive anti-war protests in 2002 and 2003 that broke the consensus for torture and orange alert hysteria.</blockquote>

I think there is some truth in both statements above. The imperialists definitely needed a re-boot, and still do. But the need for policy shifts are not simply struggled out in the ruling class—but maybe that isn’t what Mike was implying. And Stanley’s comment is very relevant to not only the shifts in policy, but how the shifts amongst the people are effectual.

But Reali’s comment hit home.

While I think there are nuggets of truth in even David Brooks’ piece, to post the photo of Geo. Bush’s ugly and sinister face as a transformation into Obama’s is simplistic and superficial. IMO, probably what was the most offensive line of attack from some Leftists, was to say that all the people who supported Obama drank kool-aid. Instead what Nando acknowledged, about what Reali said is true -- “you are describing something real and deep.”

To get personal, my nuclear family is almost totally multi-national, but if there were to be an identity amongst my crew, that identity is African American. And my family, including the younger set of grandchildren, the ones who are old enuf to have opinions, are very progressive, radical, some revolutionary nationalists, etc. We have had endless conversations about Obama, both during the campaign and after his election. (One of the mother-in-laws felt so passionate about what Obama’s election meant for African Americans in particular, but other oppressed nationalities, she actually went to Kenya for the inauguration.) All the while, I have had criticisms and arguments around Obama, as a new representative of say imperialist designs, particularly in and around Afghanistan/Pakistan.

But to get back to Stanley’s remark, I think the most fruitful discussion I had with my family, and especially my two oldest grandsons, was after the election, which also happened to coincide with Black History Month. What we talked about was not Obama per se, but the history of all the life and death struggles against national oppression that were part and parcel of Obama being elected; and that national oppression will continue, whether or not Obama is president. (The younger of the two was enamored with MLK, the older, Harriet Tubman, and I spoke about Malcolm X.) But the popularity of Obama, at least for now, is coming from different sections of the people (and not just in the U.S.), and for different reasons, with some of those reasons being ill-defined. But Obama is not Clarence Thomas, nor is he Condi Rice. Or as Chris Rock pointed out, when asked if he was voting for Obama because he is Black, said, “Hey I’m not voting for Flava Flav.”

There is much contradictoriness surrounding Barack Obama, and I don’t think it helps to understand those contradictions by simply dismissing him as just another imperialist. Nor is it helpful to simply be content that a Black person has been elected president.

What I do think might be helpful is to revisit the post on Kasama:

“John Steele: Where is our Mississippi?”

http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/where-is-our-mississippi/#more-746

<blockquote>“What swept me into the civil rights struggle was in large part the utter moral clarity of what was involved: the clear evil of institutionalized white supremacy, and the courage and nobility represented by the movement which was going directly up against it. Is such clarity possible today?”</blockquote>

I'm not sure what the author is expecting here.

Right off the bat he/she points out that this is still imperialism but asserts that its different because of this he and some other black people feel different and 'look at each other differently'. Different how? So yo feel better walking down the street? Great, I'm glad to hear it. What exactly do you feel?

Don't read this as a dismissal. I know that the election of the first black president in the US is extremely significant, there's no denying this. But if you don't articulate what is significant or different, there's really no room for discussion.

whats significant about obama is not really what he or is not doing because the political shift is minute. his entrance into the post of president is a signal of something that already exists, not the creation of something new. its a data point, a dot on a radar screen of american society. it visibly marks changes in american society that most of us knew about but had the luxury of sweeping under the rug because of the lack of blatant indicators. we used to be able to make square pegs fit in circle holes bc our narrative hadnt been so powerfully negated until a black man became president. now its out in the open: since the limited success of the civil rights struggle racism is primarily about class, its legal and customary facets (discrimination) having been challenged and over the decades significantly eroded at certain layers of the class structure (mostly the middle and upper middle layers).

now that we all know that its mostly the economic system that drives racism, rather than outdated cultural values or legal structures, we have to reorient our organizing. toward what? multi-racial direct class struggle, mostly at the point of production/distribution (workplace).

if it feels good for black people to know that obama is in the white house because people of other races respect you more now, im not gonna be mad at you for feeling like that. but you know what got us non-black folks to even be at a psychological stage where we could vote for obama? the articulate, professional, black militants like MLK and Malcolm X who never would have dreamed of entering political office or dropping bombs on third world people or handing hundreds of billions of dollars to a fuckin banker.

please separate your feelings from your analysis and realize that obama is a mis-leader, a wolf in sheep's clothing. in fact, look at things from a system-wide perspective, not just as individual personalities. look what obama's doing: bailing out billionaires, bombing on afghanis, iraqis, palestinians, and pakistanis, AND setting up a military command center to wage future wars of the afghanistan-type in africa (probably somalia cuz of the pirates, nigeria cuz of the oil militants, or kenya cuz of the political unrest). he isnt doing shit to reverse the prison industrial complex (the biggest and most concentrated 'black community' in the US is in prison!) and he's militarizing the border.

when you think of all that - how do you feel? if you still feel good about your man, you and the backward ass rednecks both are EXACTLY whats wrong with this country.

Well said Ramon. (I wouldn't do the blaming at the end though.)

OK so I keep bringing this up &amp; I realise it's not the main issue at all, but I just have to say it again : Obama is not 'Black' as is commonly meant in the US. It means Afro-American, a descendant of people taken from Africa &amp; forced into slavery in North America. Obama is not connected to this history personally. Therefore he has not overcome any of those obstacles because they were not there. He has overcome the obstacle of general racism against anyone from anywhere having dark skin (which is the UK definition of 'Black' by the way). His mom is white &amp; his dad is from Kenya. Perception of him as 'Black' no doubt also occurred in his whole life &amp; maybe some people called him the n word &amp; whatnot. But it's a whole different story from that of folks living in Chicago ghettos or run-down rural towns in Mississippi. Being the son of a non-white immigrant puts him in a social category as a Japanese-American, not a Black (Afro-American) per se.

It still 'visibly marks changes in american society' &amp; all that. It still shows the ruling class is more flexible than some people may have thought.

The issues of taking pride in an oppressor who looks like he could be related to you would still come up if Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton became president. But the fact remains that they are Black &amp; Obama is not.

As I listen to Obama criticize North Korea for doing what the US does routinely and I see a continuation of the same old imperialist policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places, I just don’t feel the difference. It is good to be rid of the most evil leaders, such as George Bush. But most of the benefits come only at the local US level. No change seems to be taking place on the international level. What are we supposed to do about that?

Reali,

Not all African Americans feel the same way you do about President Obama.

Admittedly, there <b>IS</b> this sense of Jet Magazine pride in the sense that Obama is "the First".

But, for those African Americans who think of ourselves as revolutionaries, that pride is tempered with the reality that Obama will carry out the will of US imperialism, just like any other US president.

In fact, he'll be able to get away with stuff that McCain never could have pulled off - because, as New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins, once said "they'll take it from me".

President Obama has already shed the blood of innocent people of color - farmers in the Swat Valley of Pakistan and fishermen off the coast of Somalia (interestingly enough, in both cases it was Muslim blood that was shed).

And, of course, there are thousands of African American autoworkers in Michigan who's jobs will be eliminated because of Obama's economic policies - and a great African American city, Detroit, is being utterly economically evicerated by President Obama.

And I could go on...

Bottom line, for African American revolutionaries, that sentimental joy for "the first" is tempered by understanding precisely what Obama is "first" at - he's US imperialism's foremost killer, the commander-in-chief of the American war machine.

Obama is to the left of Cheney on torture, and has adopted Bush's later term policy.

jaroslav says that i "do blaming" when i comment that someone who puts faith in obama is in the same boat as any typical redneck. if only blamed the redneck as being "what is wrong with this country" would anyone criticize that? but i feel you, i should keep it diplomatic. im sorry.

regarding obama's blackness... leave that up to black to decide. the overwhelming majority of black people consider obama black, i believe them. what jaroslav does when he says real black people live in mississippi or the ghetto, is to point out that most black people are working class, and that they are segregated geographically like every other racial group in the working class. ever notice how the lower you go in US class structure, the more segregated and racist it is? blacks and latinos in the inner city (LA epitomizes this) both occupy the inner city and share many of the same high schools, but block by block it is segregated and within schools there are great divisions and violence. jobwise its just as segregated.

the middle classes tend to be the least segregated and racialized, especially what we call lower middle class (really upper working class).

otto: i disagree that locally obama has a noticeably positive effect. tell that to the auto workers in michigan. tell it to the state of california which is going bankrupt and if obama bails us out, we'll have the same Structural Adjustment Program forced onto us as IMF and World Bank has forced on third world nations for decades. if anything, the obama administration marks the period in which imperialist foreign policy is applied most nakedly (because we drink the koolaid that makes us believe we deserve it) domestically; the convergence of foreign and domestic/local "imperialism" waged by finance capital.

<i>I walk down the street and feel better about myself. I feel more confident. I truly imagine that people-whites, asians, latinos, whoever-see me differently. Do you have any idea what that means? What is means to my little cousins?

</i>

I think there's a distinction to be made between the Obama campaign and the Obama administration.

The Obama campaign was a center left (and ultimately anti-racist) upsurge of people (white, black, Latino, Asian) who hated the stolen election of 2000, hated Bush, hated the war in Iraq. Hillary lost the nomination because she voted for the war. The only way she stayed in the race was by pandering to identity and class politics (working class white women and Appalachia), and even at the lowpoint of her campaign in April, she was still running as the first serious female candidate. Even McCain had to pander to women by picking the absurdly underqualified Palin, because he wanted to win pissed of Hillary voters.

So the campaign was a move to the left.

The administration, of course, will largely be a move to the right, using an elite African American to mask the corporate, imperialist agenda. To be fair to Obama, however, even if Nader, Kucinich, McKinney, even if somebody on the "left" got into the White House by some freak accident (had McGovern won in 1972) it would have been difficult for any of them to govern from the left. The permanent war bureaucracy would run circles around any of them.

<i>In fact, he’ll be able to get away with stuff that McCain never could have pulled off – because, as New York City’s first African American mayor, David Dinkins, once said “they’ll take it from me”.

</i>

I'm not sure if I buy this.

Obama's being slammed by the media on torture, on preventative detention, on civil liberties violations in ways Bush wasn't. The media pretty much let Bush make up any numbers he wanted to on Iraq. But it's watching Obama like a hawk every time he spends money.

Remember when Bush and Wolfowitz argued that Iraqi oil would pay for the occupation of Iraq or that "we" invaded Iraq in order to lure terrorists to Iraq like flypaper?

Monsterous statements both. Obama would never get away with either.

OK. I'm not going to go all out Media Matters/Daily Kos and shift the focus from the fact that Obama's obviously acting like any other imperialist head of state to the way the media covers it.

But I don't think his skin color's giving him a special pass either. OK. Maybe it's giving him a pass in a rather small group of guilty, upper class white liberals. But this is nothing to the pass Bush got in the eyes of the Christian right because they thought he was a "man of God".

I think actually Obama's getting slightly better treatment than Clinton by the media, and much worse treatment than Bush. But the (cable news) media is made up mostly of movement conservatives by now.

i think obama's getting a pass from the people that actually matter, the people upon whom his legitimacy rests: primarily working class people, esepcially blacks and other non-white working class people. but also liberal middle class whites, especially women. he enjoys a free pass still from these groups even if the media dont always broadcast it.

the only thing that might keep him from being as monstrous in office as bush was is the damage that such policies would cause to the legitimacy of the whole system. if he goes too far, these folks will start to create their own alternative political vehicles and abandon hopes in false prophets. when that happens, society could get deeply re-polarized. contrary to RCP assertions, the right wing would actually prefer such a polarization to emerge so they can smash on it again just like they did in the '70s. the balance of forces will be in their for a very long time. we have much building to do.

we should be wise to this and not respond to ruling class excesses with half-baked guerrilla tactics like the panthers and other new left radicals did. we should embrace old left wisdom of building working class collectivity in the form of new mass organizations like new unions and stuff. what we should learn from the new left is the broad scope of what counts as "working class" and our organizations should reflect that broad scope. our action should express this broad scope in terms of the emergence of up to now unseen sites of struggle. but whatever the struggle is, whoever the actors, whatever the organizations that coordinate the struggles, the commitment in the foreseeable era of the resurgence of resistance (i believe resistance will rise sooon, bc obama and the ruling class will not be able to avoid their de-legitimization in the eyes of the people) must be to include massive numbers of people in action. the working class learns first and foremost through action. organization is needed to keep action consistent through its victories and defeats, and to point the way forward. but action is indispensable. without it, we will be thoroughly third world-ized before we know it and living in shantytowns. maybe they'll still let us blog...

<i> think obama’s getting a pass from the people that actually matter, the people upon whom his legitimacy rests: primarily working class people, esepcially blacks and other non-white working class people. but also liberal middle class whites, especially women. he enjoys a free pass still from these groups even if the media dont always broadcast it.
</i>

This seems like a variation on the Thomas Frank argument about how the Republicans use cultural conservatism to get white working class voters to vote against their class interests.

You're arguing that working class non-whites, middle-class liberals and women voted for Obama against their class interests because Obama represented some sort of cultural liberalism.

You don't talk about white working class men. Did they vote for Obama or not? I have to confess, I just don't know. But I would guess that age and region of the country have something to do with it. The 25 year old white working class man in the Northeast voted for Obama. The 50 year old white working class man in the south voted against him.

The class lines in the coming governor's race in New Jersey are breaking down pretty starkly. The Republicans are arguing that white middle class people in the suburbs are being victimized by blacks and hispanics in the cities AND by the Democratic Party.

I don't know if it's going to work or not. Corzine's unpopular but most of the energy of the Republicans here this year seems to come from the Sarah Palin wing of the party. I don't know if enough of the state is willing to vote for the "pro-life" (as he's saying in his ads) Chris Christie.

But there is a lot of class anger from "victimized" rich whites in the suburbs against blacks and immigrants in the cities. It's pretty funny actually to watch MacMansion owners whining. But I guess they've been hit by the mortgage crisis too.

It is moving to read Reali's comment. and you get a sense of how enveloping and deep-seated the oppression of Black people has been (and is). For a century, there has been that struggle (in one sphere after another) to be the "first African American to...." -- play major league baseball, attend Ol' Miss, graduate from harvard law, be a CEO, be a professor of architecture, drink from a bus station water fountain, be a fireman in Philly etc. etc. one post, job, routine function after another were closed to Black people, and had to be opened, one by one, over resistance and the insulting charges of inferiority.

So you can sense the great lifting of a burden when the final post is reliquished -- if black people can be President, who can (with any justification or righteousness or social support) deny them a job as admiral, or quarry foreman, or frogman, or son-in-law or whatever.

And, in a way not lost on anyone, the election of Obama required the conscious support of millions of white people -- and that itself is a wonderful and hope-filled affirmation, because (in a country where Black people are a minority) there is inevitably much more hope of progress is millions of white people array themselves on the side of rejecting racism. (this is not new, as the history of the civil war reveals in the combat of white soldiers against the slaveocracy, but it has to be revisited and reproved with each generation).

So for all those reasons (and more) Obama represents a symbolic culmination of many years of resistance to inequality, and places a very firm social stamp on the public rejection of old-style white supremacy and its justifications.

<b>There are some other points I'd like to raise in regard to Reali's comments:</b>

Reali writes:

<blockquote>"It’s really hard to convey to white people what Obama means. No amount of political understanding or movement participation can translate this perhaps.</blockquote>

This is a major issue -- for us, and for the revolutionary process. Can people understand experiences and oppression other than their own?

There is a school of thought that says no. (And Reali seems to open by nodding in that direction.)

I want to argue that this is mistaken. Naturally, there is an immediacy and intimacy to DIRECT PERSONAL experience. I can't "know" the suffering of cancer patient the same way that cancer patient knows it. (That is true.) But on many levels THAT MATTER, I can understand what that experience is, and empathize deeply with it.

And similarly I think that it is wrong to assume that white people somehow (inherently and permanently) "can't understand" what Obama's victory means to many Black people. And i think it is wrong to specifically say "No amount of political understanding or movement participation can translate this perhaps."

If we adopted the pessimistic view, we assume that people (inherently) can only understand their OWN pain and experience, then this would have sweeping (and terrible) consequences for our movement. Because we really would not be able to reach common understandings and decisions, and we would never REALLY be able to trust the ability of our common (multiracial, multi-gendered) institutions and movements to reach clear proposals based on clear understandings. We would be inherently balkanized, into a mosaic of mutually incomprehensible fragments, capable of loose alliance, but not mutual understanding and common cause.

Reali writes:

<blockquote>I walk down the street and feel better about myself. I feel more confident. I truly imagine that people-whites, asians, latinos, whoever-see me differently. Do you have any idea what that means? What is means to my little cousins?</blockquote>

This is undoubtedly a moving description of a real phenomenon.

But we also have to ask: What is the function of politics and political leaders?

On one level, there is a powerful symbolic component. People feel that by acccepting a black president, the U.S. says something about what is now acceptable and what is not. It is a verdict on a long history of insults and denial. And it says something about potential for the future.

But I think we also need to ask: what is left undone? How much of the institutional structure of inequality is still in place (the shitty schools, the great differences of wealth and income, the geographic distribution of jobs, the weight of the police, the machinery of incarceration, and more....)?

And how much of the good feeling comes from a believe that (perhaps) these institutional constructs will not bend and fade? And how justified is that hope?

I think that very changes have happened in the life of the U.S. -- based on both changes in production (from sharecropping to urban life) and also great struggles by the people. But that there are fundamental problems that will only be be uprooted by radical changes in power.

The rise of Obama has NOT been such a "radical change in power" -- in who exercises power, and what their program is, and what they accept, and what they don't except.

And so, in the name of "my little cousins," we need ourselves (as revolutionaries) to have a sobreity in a festival of hopes -- and work, patiently, to sort out which excitement is deserved, and which is based on illusions.

REali then gets to an important matter:

<blockquote>"But it’s not real! It’s still imperialism. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. This is true. And it’s not. It is different."</blockquote>

I'm sure Reali didn't mean it that way, but there is a dismissive quality to the "yeah, yeah, yeah...." that is grating, and bothersome.

Obama sends missiles that kill villagers in Pakistan. Yeah, yeah, yeah?

the torturers are protected, the photographs of their deeds are suppressed, the debate continues as if Guantanamo is packed with monsters. Yeah, yeah, yeah?

North Korea sets off a nuke (after sixty years of living under constant American nuclear threat), and the U.S. President has the hypocrisy to say it is intolerable for small countries to have nukes, but not for large countries to rattle them. Yeah, yeah, yeah?

Again, i'm sure Reali did not mean to be dismissive.

Reali writes:

<blockquote>"It means something for Black people."</blockquote>

Yes it does. But it also means something for the people of the world.

The question of imperialism is not just a side issue, something acknowledged but then forgotten. It is, in many ways, the essence of things: that this is the Presidency of an empire, and that presidency is a facelift for that empire. And this is not a good thing, for the people of the world.

And it is important to really look at this: especially when there is a wave of rather open black patriotism, when some Black people are saying "I never felt like this was my country or my government before." It is important to assert that this country is a pillar of oppression in the world, and it is not "our" government or "our" army, or "our" CIA (not matter who sits in the white house.)

And how do we look at things? From the point of view of "what is good for Black people?" Or from the point of view of what is good for all of humanity? Is it from the point of view of Black people finally, finally, finally getting to sit at the "table" of U.S. imperialism? Or from the point of view of overturning and breaking apart that table?

Reali writes:

<blockquote>"i feel and know something. And it is valid."</blockquote>

I hear you. Yes, it is real. The feelings have deep reasons for existing. It is valid.

But it is not the whole picture.