( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Glen Ford, Editor of Black Agenda Report wrote this radio commentary, published in BAR on 8/12/09. I reprint the article here with the permission of Glen Ford.
I have sensed the difficulty we/some/who knows who/liberals who hoped — have had in criticizing Barack. It is evident in many areas, blogs, MSM, many places. We had the audacity of hope and are trying to deal with the reality of now, of seven months since the inauguration. And we are struggling with the disparity between our hopes and what is happening.
How do we balance our very real hope and our very real sense of hearing him speak the right words, the feeling that he understands the deep underbelly of this society— how do we balance that with the Faustian reality of the deal which must be made with the power elites, the corporate massahs, if there is to be any chance of ascending in the structure to the point where some modicum of righteous benefit might accrue to the people, might just be possible.
We the people wanted to hear the truth. We were so painfully long overdue for the truth in 2008 that we soaked up the truth Obama spoke like dry sponges.
The Ruling class, however, the corporate elites wanted him only to speak the truth; they were not about to tolerate the truth spoken to be carried into action. And Obama, probably in good faith, tried to do the juggling act. But it hasn’t worked. It is not working. And I think it is up to us. Either we take our democracy back now or we agree to acqiesce into decades more of injustice. Except, this time we don’t have the time to make any more mistakes in the evolution of the human race, human consciousness and the survival of the planet. We need to see the reality and push Obama in the direction of survival, of evolution.
Glen Ford’s “Obama Kidnapped by Ruling Class” commentary is beyond the fold. Please come along….
OBAMA KIDNAPPED BY THE RULING CLASS?
A radio commentary by Glen Ford on Black Agenda Report (BAR), 8/12/09
What else can explain the wild differences between common perceptions of Obama and the way he actually governs? This theory is put forward by a leading luminary of of Black progressive politics. “The military, the bankers, the oil barons, the drug profiteers – all of them ganging up together to snatch Obama.”
Obama Kidnapped by Ruling Class
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“He’s trying to walk between the people who elected him and those who have kidnapped him.”
Going on seven months into the Obama presidency, with all the accumulated evidence that Barack Obama is a thoroughly corporate politician by nature as well as circumstance, much of the Black Left remains mesmerized – and that’s a kind way of putting it. The psychological mechanisms of denial have overwhelmed the thought processes of some of our most valuable and esteemed thinkers. Desperate to hold on to the wishful illusion that the president is an ally and an asset, they convince themselves that their Obama – the one that lives in their heads – has somehow been captured, against his will, by the enemy.
Such mental contortions would be entertaining if they were not being performed by some of the brightest minds in Black America.
On July 20th, in Los Angeles, Pacifica radio station KPFA’s excellent program “Voices from the Front Lines” featured Dr. Horace Campbell, professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University, prolific author and one of the shining lights of the Black Left. The discussion was to revolve around the president’s recent trip to Africa. Dr. Campbell immediately launched into what seemed to be a defense of Obama, although no one on the show had yet criticized the president.
He said that – and this is verbatim – “Obama is trying to walk between two different constituencies. He’s trying to walk between the people who elected him and those who have kidnapped him….” Dr. Campbell then proceeded to list those who had “kidnapped” the president. They were “…the military, the banking, the oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals.”
Apparently, Obama has been kidnapped by the entire ruling class. The military, the bankers, the oil barons, the drug profiteers – all of them ganging up together to snatch Obama off somewhere. What a picture! This mob of rich guys and military men must have beaten each other up trying to get hold of an arm or a leg of Obama. Was the president kicking and screaming?
“They convince themselves that their Obama – the one that lives in their heads – has somehow been captured, against his will, by the enemy.”
My colleague Bruce Dixon suggests it was a real trick for Obama to get kidnapped and paid the ransom, too – considering the millions in campaign contributions Obama got from the same gang on his way to becoming president. And just when did this kidnapping occur? Was it before the Goldman Sachs gang, which had also been President Bill Clinton’s Goldman Sachs gang, replaced George Bush’s Goldman Sachs gang as the guys in charge of the government’s economic policy? Was Obama kidnapped before he decided to keep George Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, on the job, the only time in history that a Defense Secretary has been allowed to succeed himself under a new president? Maybe a kidnapping could explain it, since nothing else does.
Dr. Campbell said lots of other things in the interview that confused me. You can go to the archives of the program, and hear it for yourself. All things considered, Dr. Campbell said he’s “not going to fault Obama.” And I guess I won’t either. Obama never said he was kidnapped. He didn’t mess up some of the brightest minds in Black America. They were done in by their own overactive, desperately wishful imaginations.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford.
On the web, go to BAR
I will close with my favorite words, “We are moving. we are going forward.” But we can go forward only if we know where we are, where we really are’. You can’t use a map if you don’t know where you really, really are.
Thanks for reading and working!!!
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how to Keep Hope Alive while confronting reality.
What must Obama go through every single morning when he wakes up and knows he has to walk a tightrope?
So many of us seek to find an explanation for the paradox of Obama.
In terms of the wars, I, sometimes, wonder if Obama didn’t/doesn’t simply defer all decisions to Gates, et al., because of what he may feel, himself, as to be an insufficient understanding of the reasons, only those being expressed to him.
It was Bush that demanded and got the $700 billion to bailout Wall Street and Obama followed through on that, as well.
I could go on. But the question will always remain, what happened to the Obama we knew in the campaign who had great wishes for CHANGE and the Obama we see today? Has he been kidnapped? Or, is this the real Obama? Has a family member been threatened? Or is Obama simply weak and spineless? Does he have convoluted plans that we don’t know about in order to make changes quietly?
I’ll say it again, I never thought Obama could be as effective as he would have liked, because he had corporate backing of his campaign. And, of course, any candidate that doesn’t have corporate backing doesn’t make it to first base. But I also never thought he would be as acquiescing as he has become.
I think, if anything, Obama has probably realized that a huge mistake was to have tried to be as bipartisan as he has been, because it is those very people who have spat upon him, who do not want to see him succeed on any level and who look to his failure.
Author
contpostnowlookngorEZeccess//onscereenkeybord//tx
despite the collossal failure of George W. Bush? One’s enemy or one’s “opponent” usually sees the reality more clearly than supporters can, thus Hillary and Bill Clinton were stamping their feet at our enthusiasm for Barack and saying he was “just words” and no reality. They were correct. What does he have to do to alienate the last holdouts in the “left of the left?” It’s like a horror film where the villian must be amazed that his victims still don’t catch on. Day one after the election, he reneged on promises and supported the FISA bill. As noted, he kept Gates and doubled-down in Afghanistan after backing off enough on his Iraq withdrawal schedule to have wiggle room. He picked Wall Street’s puppets Geithner and Summers and clearest of all, he pickeds Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats long-time liason to K Street. And now the public option, as if he doesn’t know about the You Tubes and the Internets. And btw, Robert Gibbs makes Ari Fleischer look tame by comparison. Enough: Sanders/Kucinich in 2012 (unless Hillary throws her bonnet in the ring) then it’s Clinton/Biden for me! and PS: It was my hero Ted Kennedy who brought me to Barack, I wonder what Ted thinks in his heart about Barack and healthcare now?
His “I accept” was his vote the next day on retroactive immunity for the FISA criminal telecoms.
America is a republic. It is not a democracy. Always has been right from the beginning – the Republic of the United States of America. It’s not called the Democracy of the United States of America. If it was then Gore would have been president in 2001.
The oligarchy started to flaunt it under Reagan. Now they don’t even care what we think or do. They control the media. More people will come to know about Tom DeLay by watching Dancing with the Stars than ever heard of him as a politician. That’s our culture. That’s the average political awareness level.
We are the weirdos. We care. It’s now or never – in our lifetimes. The problem is, the longer the oligarchs get away with it, the more violent the solution will be.
It’s been around 300 years since the last wave of revolutions. We’re getting towards the overdue phase.
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keyboord..kerput.
kudos to Ford.
Centrist Democrats–“New Democrats” still fear and dismiss the progressives in the Democratic party. The mindset has been entrenched with that group since Reagan/Bush I won the elections in the 80’s: (emphasis mine)
Is he or isn’t he? Sadly, IMHO, his and COS Rahm’s continual and repeated dismissals of progressives are giving us the answer. It would also answer the question of why these centrist Dems are still so intent on appeasing republicans and acting like republicans themselves–they don’t think they can get elected if they act like Dems.
the ruling class is the ruling class because they rule. No one in public office can escape not working for the ruling class because if anyone goes too far and become a threat then they are eliminated. This is normal in all societies and should not be surprising.
Progressives do not have much pull in ruling class circles because they will not play the power game. In other words, progressives can’t hurt anyone enough to make them fear crossing them. Why are we complaining about power we’ve never bothered to seize? My answer is that we believe we are virtuous and somehow need to convince others of that and then they’ll see the light. Unfortunately most people in or out of the ruling elites are not interested in the least in what we might call virtue when push comes to shove. You either use orgamized force to get what you want or you sit on the sidelines.