I begin this part by reiterating some points because of some of the feedback I got for Part One. First, I do not regard Barack Obama to be a superman with a magic wand that he can flash and immediately rectify the countless ills that have been going on in the world for centuries.
I begin this part by reiterating some points because of some of the feedback I got for Part One. First, I do not regard Barack Obama to be a superman with a magic wand that he can flash and immediately rectify the countless ills that have been going on in the world for centuries.
Second, I understand fully the power and ruthlessness of the Moneyed Western class (henceforth Moneyed class,) and the extent they are willing to go to protect their interests. I understand that Obama would probably endanger his life if he “goes too far” in trying to change certain things. There is little doubt that there are people currently waking up every day trying to figure a way to harm Obama for no other reason than who he is. These I understand.
My issue with Obama stems from his lack of leadership in areas where he doesn’t need much help to register a clear break with the past. Specifically, in the moral leadership arena where he has largely been missing in action thus far. The new Republican congress offer a good example of the type of leadership Obama has failed to show. Though everyone knew with certainty that their attempt to repeal the Health Insurance Reform law will fail, they sallied on with the attempt to highlight their difference with Obama’s side. One may not know what the Republicans want, but there’s no doubt about what THEY DON’T want. One cannot say the same about Obama.
In truth, hate or love them, the Republican Party in America is nothing but resolute in the service of its beliefs and agenda. G.W., the last Republican leader is another good example. 90% of the world disagreed with George W. Bush on a wide range of issues, especially on his choice war in Iraq. Bush simply ignored his detractors, and did what he believed. I disagreed with the man’s politics, but I respect his steadfastness. We are yet to see any such doggedness from Obama on any issue he purportedly cares about.
The Barack Obama that drove in a beat-up car from the Northeast to take up an almost payless Community Organizer job in Chicago after college, was a young man driven by conscience to attempt to right what he knows to be wrong. Yet the issues that inspired that mission have never been peculiar or native to Chicago’s South Side. In fact, compared to many parts of the world, the poor people of Chicago’s South Side, have not had it so bad. There are many worse examples of victims of the same people behind the plight of the ones Obama sought to help in Chicago twenty years ago. Obama needs to do some soul-searching to reconnect with his former conscientious self.
Many of the issues Obama raised on the campaign trail two years ago border on the moral. He gained traction with the world precisely because he struck a chord with conscientious people globally. Some of the issues he raised are ones people were yearning to hear. This is why the attraction to Obama goes beyond the novelty of his creed. As candidate, Obama could only inspire with his speeches. As president, even if he lacks the legislative wherewithal to make the necessary changes, he does have the celebrated Bully Pulpit to push the issues to be part of people’s Dinner Table Agendas. Unlike most, Obama is one speaker the Moneyed class cannot shut out of the media. Anytime he speaks, even his enemies are forced to hear him out. And like I stated last week, there are many issues in the “American system” that need serious re-thinking. Regardless of how unrealistic their legislative chances, Obama should push such issues to elucidate what sets him apart from his opponents.
By side-stepping such issues in the futile attempt to placate the forces arrayed against him, Obama is only serving to deflate his support base, while signaling to his opponents that he is a weakling ready for the picking. (Some of his opponents, like Mitt Romney, are already calling him a “weak” president.) How Obama’s current governing model could end up being a winning formula beats me.
On the other hand, even if raising such issues end up making Obama a One-Termer, it would be worth it. His star around the world could only soar. And it would put Obama firmly in the Jimmy Carter box in terms of global respect, gratitude, and admiration. This is the worse case scenario if he opts to follow his conscience.
Also, the irony with the US presidency is that the financial reward comes AFTER one leaves the position. Every retired US president in modern times, has made more money in one year than they have from the salary they received during their entire tenure. Bill Clinton literally made over one hundred million dollars within a few years of leaving the job – from giving speeches. Even George W. Bush, who sometimes come across as someone suffering from some form of dyslexia, commands $200K or more for less than an hour of giving a speech on topics he most likely doesn’t even understand.
For the record, Obama has never seemed overly concerned about making loads of money in the past. His tip-toeing around issues opposed by the Moneyed class seems to be motivated entirely by ambition and ego – the desire to be re-elected to a second term at all cost. This is really shameful. Many of us would rather see a One-Term Obama (who goes down to the Moneyed class for standing up for Small People,) than a Two-Termer without substance, or anything to distinguish him from his predecessors.
Sadly though, it’s the latter Obama that seems to be emerging. The current deck-shuffling he is engaged in, shows clearly where Obama is headed the next two years. The new team members he is bringing on board are almost all well-heeled Establishment types, some with intimate connections to the American Moneyed class. Going by their past, their interest has mostly been at odds with that of Small People. But then, the Master-Servant arrangement in America has always been a mutually exclusive affair: one can only serve Wall Street or Main Street. Not both. Yet, these are the people Obama is now listening to. It’s therefore no surprise or coincidence that Obama has started going back on some of the reforms HE initiated less than two years ago – just to be in Wall Street’s good books.
Anyone who knows anything about the current US financial crisis knows lack of regulatory oversight is one of the topmost causes of the problem. Yet, one of Obama’s current priorities is how to get rid of “burdensome” regulations on the same people whose greed and recklessness brought the economy to its knees. Obama has ripped into George W. Bush countless times for failing to maintain a stringent regulatory regime. Now, he is clearly changing tack, seemingly willing to do almost anything to appease the rich. Watching the brother kow-tow to this class is really embarrassing to some of us. Whatever happened to standing up for one’s beliefs?
And the sad thing is, it will not work. You see, these people for the most part, belong to the 40% of the American electorate that WILL NEVER vote for Barack Obama under any circumstances! So, Obama’s strategy is at best counterintuitive. He seems to be putting off issues - both domestic and global, that are important to his base, ostensibly to appease his opponents. While these overtures would in no way guarantee the lessening of his opponents’ fervent desire to boot him out next year, they’re certain to engender apathy among his supporters. So what is there for him to gain? How does he make up for the support he looses among his base?
That’s just the domestic. Obama’s performance on the world stage, beside the symbolic, is even more dismal. Let’s look at a few things that some of us had hoped Obama would change in the global arena that he hasn’t touch.
Obama continues policies that breed despair in most countries, and hatred of America in others, because of the dogged pursuit of “US interests.” Obama’s policies around the world are generally no better than George W. Bush’s. In fact, in some areas like Somalia, Afghanistan, and many others, he’s are worse.
In the case of Somalia, though the issue is muddled by the general lawlessness of the country, the youngsters -as misguided as many might be, that are being called pirates have their reasons for what they are doing. But their story is being ignored deliberately. Very few care to listen to what they’re saying.
The so-called Al-Shahab group had taken charge of Somalia three to four years ago, bringing order, and normalcy to a country that hasn’t known any for over two decades. Somalia was in fact gradually returning to normal. Al-Shahab’s idea of Islam is no more extreme than the Saudi Wahabis. But because they’re regarded as allies of Al-Qaeda, the Ethiopians, with “US technical support on the ground” were used to kick them out, dragging the country back to the lawless state it has been in since US ally Said Barre was overthrown. The US maintains a military base in Djibouti from where they routinely conduct raids on Somalia groups they do not control. Meanwhile, international shipping and fishing vessels ply and operate in Somali waters without paying any dues to the country.
This is what the young Somalia “pirates” have been complaining about. My conscience tells me, this is a legitimate claim. But not only is Obama not willing to listen to them, he has instituted a policy that allows for these kids to be shot and killed on sight. Even G.W. didn’t go that far.
Further, the current crisis in the Maghreb has only served to reinforce the feeling of déjà vu that some of us now feel about Obama. There’s simply no difference between Obama and his predecessors.
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On Egypt, where events have overtaken him, Obama is still desperately trying to find a token or puppet that he and his handlers can placate Egyptians with. They hit a stumbling block with Omar Suleiman, the man they made the criminal Mubarak to appoint VP. Suleiman is one of the few “acceptable replacement candidates” to the US. And here is how he made the US shortlist:
As with all successful (criminal) “Intelligence Officers or Chiefs” serving dictatorships around the world, Omar Suleiman made his name as a notorious torturer and abuser of human rights in Egypt going back decades. Even by the cruel middle-eastern standards, he is known to be a particularly sadistic fellow.
This is how he won Mubarak’s trust and affection. It is the same reason why when George W. Bush and his neo-con gang came looking for a reliable Intelligence Officer to be their mid-eastern anchor in their illegal Extraordinary Rendition program, Hosni Mubarak immediately volunteered his Torturer-In-Chief Omar Suleiman as that point man. From that moment on, any “job” that was too dirty, or politically suicidal for the Americans to do in the middle east, was outsourced to Suleiman. He took and performed those jobs with alacrity.
Yet, it’s to this twisted, sadistic character that brother Obama let himself be talked into seriously considering handing Egypt over. Until events overtook both. The US knows Suleiman intimately because they trained him at Fort Bragg in the early 1980s. It’s also no coincidence that Suleiman has been on a first name basis with Israel’s Movers and Shakers going back decades. HE is Israel’s candidate.
However, with the choice of Suleiman now all but dead, Obama and his team are working to find an Omar Suleiman-like character. But like I suggested last week, Egypt is not for Barack Obama and his handlers to give! The Egyptian people are sick and tired of being ruled by imposed tyrants –no matter how they’re imposed. They want and deserve a person of their choice regardless of what any foreigner thinks. Barack Obama needs to respect that – not just through lip service. What he has been doing is typical American: he makes reasonable, and conscientious statements in public, while feverishly working behind the scenes to find a puppet who will look after “American interests in the region” – Egyptians be damned. And he doesn’t think ordinary Egyptians know this. They do. And want no part of it.
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How else does one explain this bizarre tap-dance they have going on, in which they’re trying to exact promises from potential Mubarak replacements on what treaties they’ll respect, or policies they’ll pursue in office. Just like they’ve done in Haiti, they’re pre-screening candidates for the Egyptian presidency in their resolve to block any that they cannot Remote Control. This is wrong, and it has been going on for the past sixty years. Obama can stop it if he chooses to man up.
At the center of this God-playing is Hillary Clinton, the woman who doubles as Foreign Minister for both the US and Israel (Secretary of State is a misnomer.) As Democratic Party presidential contender, her position on Israel was so extreme that some Jewish organizations, and personalities distanced themselves from her. Since her elevation to the Foreign Ministry, she has only ratcheted up her devotion to Israel. Unless Obama stops her, she’ll do to Egypt exactly what she did to Haiti, - ban nationalist parties, set aside the people’s choice, and impose a puppet of her choice on the country. Sadly, nothing about Obama says he’ll stop Clinton. And this is “Change WE Can Believe In”?
Here is another crime that has been going on for decades that nobody discusses: The US Visa Policy as it pertains to Africa. It’s criminal! Let me explain.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of Africans apply to visit the US for different reasons. There is a Non-refundable fee averaging $125 per applicant. US embassies in Africa collect these fees from mostly poor Africans, and go ahead to deny somewhere between 95% to 99% of visa applicants!
In many cases, after denying many applicants, they suggest to them that if those applicants would “correct” or “take care of” certain deficiencies in their applications, they’ll “succeed next time.” Yet, such people get denied over and over without any discernable reason. This is because of the undefined shifting goal post that visa-granting criteria is. Nobody knows what the heck US Consular Officers (who are often young college graduates at an entry level, yet important position,) in African countries are looking for. They apparently have complete free will to change their mind or whatever ridiculous criteria they come up with.
Nowhere else is this the case. People have complained about this to Obama’s officials, as many did with their predecessors. Yet this nonsense and injustice continues under president Obama – as it did under his predecessors. What good is Barack Obama to Africa if he cannot stop something so clearly unjust? And something very much within his prerogative?
And what kills me is the hypocrisy that ensues from this injustice. You see, the money the US collects through this unjust Visa system in some African countries is more than what they give to those countries as “aid!” Yes, you read me right.
Let me break it down for you with a demonstration: the US collects $60M from African country X through Visa Fees collected almost exclusively from people DENIED visas. They take part of that amount and “donate” to that country as “foreign aid,” and use every media outlet known to man to publicize their benevolence to helpless Africa! The rest, they use for their operating budget.
This is how the US has been operating it’s embassies in most of Africa. Much of the money they use for their operations is collected from Africans. Very little American or “outside” money is infused at all.
Their trade, agricultural, and financial policies work exactly the same way. In the US defense, Africa has no shortage of foolish leaders who sell their people and countries for peanuts.
Bill Clinton admitted last year that the trade and agricultural policy that HE helped impose on Haiti in the 1990s is what has displaced Haitian farmers, and is consequently the cause of widespread hunger in that country. That policy benefited Arkansas chicken and Kansas wheat farmers, while killing domestic Haiti agriculture. Yet, the man that opposed and resisted that policy – Fr. Aristide, for which he was branded a “trouble-maker,” remains persona non grata in Haiti. That same trade and agricultural policy continues to be imposed on other poor countries around the world under Obama.
The global financial arrangement is even more atrocious. As documented by John Perkins in his “Confessions of A Economic Hit man” based on his firsthand experiences, the US uses the multilateral financial agencies it has establish to set poor countries up to be permanent dependents. That way, these countries are basically left at the mercy of the US to be dictated to at various fora. They entice countries to take on loans they’re incapable of paying in full. The “Interest Only” or “Surcharges” payments that such countries are forced to make over long periods of time, often supersede the principal they had borrowed many times over. But the principal remains outstanding. The most outrageous case I heard of is one in which the DRC paid a loan 300 times, and still owed on it. As it did under his predecessors, this continues under Obama.
And we’re not suppose to notice. I repeat: what good is Barack Obama to Africa if he cannot stop such things that are clearly unjust?
Even in the advocacy side, Obama falls short. He went to Ghana to regurgitate what countless African public commentators have been saying for ages. What some of us were looking for from Obama is an indication of what he plans to do about the man-made obstacles holding Africa back that he repeated in Accra. We need no help diagnosing the problem. That is something we’ve been able to do on our own a long time ago.
But the truth is, Obama’s message was meant more for domestic consumption (to placate white folks who like to say these things but are afraid to openly,) than the African – the same way he went after the men in his domestic black community in the US, criticizing fathers for failures, while conveniently leaving out the historical context that caused the problem.
So Barack Obama has a choice. He can continue to maintain the status quo, or begin to try and make a substantive difference. There are many who are just happy that “one of us” is head of the US. Some of us don’t care much for symbolism. Neither are we amenable to ignoring our conscience, or being bought in any way. To earn our respect, and continued support, Barack has to break with the past. Otherwise, some of us are ready to reach for the switch to turn out the lights on the brother.
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