Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?

Most people haven’t heard of him.

But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million Africans in the Congo.

His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.

He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his “business transactions” as philanthropic and scientific efforts under the banner of the “International African Society”. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, and his private army.

Most of us - I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high - aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide of the African continent that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a curriculum which trains young white people to be, as my friend puts it, “little racists”. Its bad to “say racist things”, but quite fine not to talk about African genocides perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.

Mark Twin wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. Its 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolution of a different kind - this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid. We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on Animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.

There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Afirca), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking who’s interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where Africans were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of Africans are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut.

You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of Lucifer. Your name and your picture doesn’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But this don’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, all the privileges that white people gained from the Congolese genocide is hidden. Privilege is made, like usual, invisible.

If you haven’t heard of Leopold, its because of white supremacy.

Note from Brian: The following is an article by X from New Brunswick. Its a very interesting analysis of the multi-class alliance that elected Obama and the potential for that alliance to aim more progressive aims on a path to revolution. I’d like to see a discussion of the class analysis in this article, so comment if you have ideas. Beyond that, I’ll note that I do not agree that the development of the “new SDS” is a positive development. From my experiences as an organizer and founder of the group, I think it has taken a very backwards turn. Any strides it has made are stuck in the culture, politics, and “strategies” of the 20th (or 19th!) century. But beyond that, this article is superb i think. Here it is:

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The Obama movement is a spontaneous upsurge of the most advanced workers in the country. It is an emerging class alliance of the progressive social forces of the new economy.[2] Whereas Clinton and McCain supporters desperately cling to the old economy of the 20th century (each in their own way), the diverse constituencies uniting around the Obama campaign are natural economic, political and cultural allies in the 21st century. The millions of students, Afro-Americans, Latinos[3], grassroots and netroots activists, unions in expanding industries, technicians, artists, engineers, and other professionals that support Obama’s candidacy all share an unyielding commitment to democracy, creativity, productivity, diversity, collaboration and progress.[4] They also share uncanny abilities at self-organization, mobilization and networking (each in their own way). They represent the potential for a revolutionary democratic coalition that could challenge the unfettered rule of capitalism in the US if we, as progressive and revolutionary organizers, recognize the opportunity before us and do all that we must to empower this movement to come into its own, strike independently and realize its aspirations of freedom for all.

Waiting for Lefty

We cannot succeed in this critical task unless we shake off the ideological hangover of the traditional US Left that remains mired in 20th century worldviews rooted in the disappearing old economy. Among the “established” groups contending today for the title of “leadership” on the grassroots activist Left, proposals for activity in this landmark election year range from timidity to wishful thinking to nihilism.

Some recommend that we support Obama unconditionally so as to not jeopardize his chances to defeat the Republicans (and we know how well this worked out in 2004 with the Kerry campaign). Others propose that we give Obama only “conditional” support while criticizing him from the “left” (as if the Obama campaign cared about the support of hopelessly fragmented and isolated activists). Others yet remain on the sidelines as armchair critics of the two-party system (stating an obvious problem and offering no viable solution). Worst of all, the most recklessly self-important propose to “recreate 68” and glorify pointless disruptions with dangerous consequences at the hands of police well trained in “crowd control.” This last and most reprehensible proposal willfully ignores that 1968 saw the assassinations of the most progressive mainstream political leaders (Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy), ushered in the collapse of the revolutionary Left (from Students for a Democratic Society to the Black Panther Party) and gave us the Nixon White House that served as the training ground for the maniacal Neo-Cons currently misruling the country (Cheney anyone?).

The common thread in the traditional US Left narrative is the failure to comprehend – or even to attempt to comprehend– the profound political, economic, cultural and social changes that have taken place in the capitalist system in the past decades. This revolution in the production process transformed the US economy from an industrial “old economy” mostly based on physical labor to an information-based “new economy” mostly based on mental labor. Each of these economies is powered by very different classes of workers and capitalists. For the past several decades, these various class forces all contended over who will control the future. The forces of the “new economy” steadily grew along with relentless technological development while the forces of the “old economy” desperately clung to power in one incarnation or another.[5] And whereas this complex struggle mostly took place between different sections of capitalists financing the political campaigns of Democrats and Republicans, the sudden rise of the Obama movement represents not only the final ascendency of the big capitalists of the new economy in the US but also the first mass mobilization of the workers of the new economy whose newfound means and ability to produce and reproduce our society has emboldened them to stake their own claim to the future (if still so tentative).

Whether they call themselves anarchists, socialists, communists, radicals or situationists; whether they are committed to identity politics or to organizing “industrial workers”, the “poor”, the “oppressed” or the “alienated”, most leftist activists cannot account for –and much less take an active role in – the rising 21st century progressive class alliance because they rely on outdated understandings of what makes people revolutionary. They do not grasp that all of the diverse constituencies coalescing in the Obama movement play key roles in the new economy. They do not grasp that all of these constituencies are natural allies because together they possess the means and the ability to empower the great majority to take control of society, rescuing it from the capitalist system that can never deliver on the promise of democracy. Predictably, traditional leftist activists do not offer any plan to engage the Obama movement in any concrete activity (beyond tailing the Obama campaign and encouraging voter registration or protesting it to no avail), vainly hoping to draw a few stragglers to the musty old leftist political programs of yesteryear.

Revolutionaries actually interested in building a new society based on the principles of democracy, equality and progress need to do more than talk or posture about challenging the absolute rule of capital (or imperialism or the “system”). The Obama movement gives us a first glimpse of the extraordinary potential of the rising 21st century progressive class alliance coming together at breakneck speed before our eyes (and hinting at the potential speed of radical changes to come in the near future). Our primary concern should not be Obama the candidate, and much less the Obama campaign. We must focus on the role we must play in the Obama movement. And in a much broader sense, we must focus on the role we must play in the 21st century progressive class alliance that began before, currently energizes, and will outlast the Obama movement far into the future.

It is incumbent upon those of us committed to revolutionary democracy to:

• understand what 21st century progressive class forces are coalescing in the Obama movement, how they came to be, why they are revolutionary and what they could accomplish should they consolidate into a revolutionary democratic coalition independent of the Obama campaign;
• understand what we as revolutionary organizers must do to facilitate this consolidation and empower the Obama movement to become fully conscious of its own revolutionary potential;
• develop and put forth our own proposals, analyses, plans for action and strategy for revolutionary democracy and engage the Obama movement in concrete activity to build and seize revolutionary democratic political, economic, cultural and social power wherever they are.

Obama’s candidacy has revealed and greatly accelerated the unification process of the 21st progressive class alliance. It is up to us to organize and empower this alliance to become conscious of itself as a revolutionary democratic movement that can lead us into the future.

[Read more →]

November 12, 2008

Maybe it’s my fault. I think I write pretty clearly, but perhaps I don’t. In the last few days, ever since I counseled both excitement at the post-election possibilities for progressive activism, and caution at the risk of over-exuberance, it seems as though some on the left with a heavy investment in their self-righteous sense of radicalism have allowed their personal hatred of all things Democrat and all-things-mainstream-politics to get in the way of deciphering words on a page.

So although I made it very clear that Obama’s election by itself would change very little, and that it was up to us to steer Obama’s supporters into progressive activism, to hear some tell it, I am a starry-eyed bourgeois liberal who refuses to see the inherent evil of Barack Obama. Whatever. I haven’t the time or inclination to play a game of who’s the bigger radical with some of these folks: people who have told me that rather than voting, voluntary dumpster-diving is a revolutionary act (or who miss how whites who do it are abusing their privilege, since folks of color who do that shit are prosecuted for trespassing), or who still use words like bourgeois, and yet can’t understand why regular folks can’t figure out what the hell they’re talking about.

Anyway, I never suggested that Obama was likely to usher in much in the way of progressive reforms or changes. I do believe he will be nominally liberal, and far preferable to McCain/Palin. But ultimately, I am of the opinion that he (as with any president) will only move left if forced to do so. That work is ours to do, but instead of reaching out and speaking to Obama supporters in a way that recognizes their exuberance, honors it, and tries to move them into more productive activity than mere electoral campaigning, these folks would prefer to mock them, suggest their stupidity, and call them names, such as “listless hipsters” (my favorite), “cultists,” “Obamaniacs,” “Limousine LIberals,” or “shills” for the system. Good move: insult millions of people who–like it or not–have been inspired by Obama, and expect them to join your movement for real social transformation. Good luck with that. Just because we on the left haven’t been able to inspire much lately is no reason to hate on those who have, just because they aren’t sufficiently down with our view of the world.

Sometimes those who have harshly condemned my position on this matter prove themselves to be rank hypocrites as well. So, for instance, consider writer and activist Paul Street, who has said my criticism of those who see no difference between McCain and Obama is evidence of my being “increasingly unglued.” This, coming from a guy who four years ago penned a piece in which he warned the left about making arguments of equivalence between Bush and Kerry. In other words, in 2004, Paul Street thought the left should recognize the real differences between the two parties, even though he (and I) both know those differences are not large enough, but apparently that recognition is no longer valuable. Street even suggested back then that the reason the left should be careful about equivalizing the two candidates in 2004 was because doing so would royally piss off black folks, who were quite clear that there was a difference. Oh, but acting like there is no difference between McCain and the black guy should play well with them Paul. Thanks for that clarification. Moving on.

In my previous pieces I made the point that just as JFK was center-right in orientation, and yet, young people inspired by him moved much further to the left over the next fifteen years and made a huge difference in this nation, so too could that happen now. No one who has criticized my previous pieces has seen fit to respond to that. Because they can’t. It is historically inarguable and so they must ignore it. Rather, they point out that when Bill Clinton was president the left didn’t sufficiently pressure him to do very much (and even caved on some things). While this is true, they ignore both the possibility that we may have learned something from that sorry capitulation, and that Obama is far more like JFK in his effect on the public than he is like Clinton. Clinton never inspired this much enthusiasm, which is likely why he seemed so bitter on the campaign trail, even on those few occasions when he managed to say nice things about Barack Obama. He knows the difference quite well, apparently, and that’s why he’s angry.

More to the point, I find this line of argument–that the liberals and progressives will just fold up like a cheap tent in the face of Obama because he promises “change”–to be not only condescending but problematic in terms of where it leads us. If that position is followed to its logical conclusion, one would then have to support only the most right-wing, even fascist forces for president, just on the hope that the obvious clarity of their pernicious plans would “wake up” the masses, as opposed to how they will be lulled to sleep by a well-spoken liberal. In other words, this thinking leads to the classically stupid and venal position that things have to get worse before they get better, and that any reformism is bad because it only props up the system. Not only has this position not been vindicated even once in history–not even once–but it is flatly contradicted by it. When things get worse, they just get worse. People don’t become revolutionaries when things are really bad. They are too busy trying to stay alive at that point. Of course, the kinds of people who make up the more-radical-than-thou part of the left tend to be well-educated, and if poor, only so as a lifestyle choice, rather than as a result of systemic oppression. So they won’t be the ones impacted most by the kinds of leaders they seem to think will be best, if only because they will highlight for all to see the horrors of the system. It will be someone else who suffers for the fulfillment of their dialectic. How convenient.

And what’s especially funny about this “Oh now the libs will all go to sleep and movements will be weaker than ever” routine is that those performing it seem to be suggesting that activism is much bolder and more effective when the enemy is clear. But is that so? Have I missed the ass-kicking that the left has given to Bush these past eight years? Exactly what have we accomplished against this very obvious enemy of the Constitution, and economic justice, and a just foreign policy, which couldn’t have been accomplished against, say, Al Gore or John Kerry? Nothing, absolutely nothing. There is virtually nothing on which he has not gotten his way, and none of our epic and redundant (and predictable) antiwar protests have done a thing to change the course of these wars we’re in. That Obama may not be pressured any more effectively than W has been (though that remains to be seen) isn’t the point. The point is, we haven’t built a mass movement in the repressive and reactionary environment that has existed since 2000, so how could it get much worse?

If these barbiturate leftists would take even a momentary glance at history they would notice that the most effective organizing in this country’s past occurred in the ’30s when a relatively liberal administration was in power, and in the early-to-mid-’60s, when the same thing was true. And why? Because of an uptick in hope, which allowed people to believe that pressure might pay off for once. It’s called rising expectations theory: when expectations begin to rise, people become more active, not less so, and even if those expectations are somewhat dashed, this can often lead to positive outcomes, as frustration mounts, the gap between aspiration and ultimate achievement becomes obvious, and folks decide to ratchet up the protest even more than before. This is why the left was stronger in the moderately liberal ’60s than the relatively repressive ’50s, for instance.

What is most fascinating to me is that the leftists who rail on Obama seem to be making two oddly inconsistent arguments: on the one hand, that Obama is a shill because he doesn’t embrace a left agenda, but on the other, that real change comes not from presidents but from the people. The last of these is correct, but to the extent it is, there is no point in making a big deal of Obama’s inadequacies. If it’s not about him in the first place, then all that remains is for us to get busy, and meet liberal Democrats where they are. Or, we can preen as moral superiors because we’ve read Bakunin, and Zerzan, and Chomsky, or because we once called a cop a pig to his face in Seattle or some such thing.

Here’s something for the Obama-bashers on the left to ponder: old-line civil rights activists (who have put their life on the line for justice far more often than the critics have in most cases) believe Obama’s win is meaningful. Many black nationalists and Afrocentric scholars believe it to be meaningful. Radical scholars in the black community think it’s significant. Community organizers in oppressed communities, even though they know that the real work is yet to be done, are overwhelmingly saying it matters, all over the country. Perhaps they’re all suckers. Perhaps they, and the millions of folks of color in particular who are excited about this moment, are just stupid. Perhaps the Greens are just smarter, perhaps the white radical anarchist or other left collective down the road has figured it all out in ways the silly folks of color just can’t manage to accomplish, or perhaps the Revolutionary Communist Party is every bit as brilliant as they believe themselves to be. But I doubt it.

I just wish that I knew what the barbiturate left’s strategy was for building the movement. Hell, at this point, I’d be glad just to know what the hell they even think the movement is fighting for. It doesn’t appear to me that even this little detail has been figured out yet. And we wonder why the right has been getting the better of us for years?

Some things just aren’t that difficult to understand.

I’d like to direct people’s attention to two on-going issues currently being discussed in California. The first is the battle to overturn Proposition 8, the homophobic initiative which was meant to end marriage equality in California. The second is efforts to embrace a sane approach to drugs and legalize marijuana statewide.

There is a very good argument to be made that if Proposition 8 is overturned and marijuana is legalized, that similar efforts might succeed in other states. For example, while other big states like New York have yet to legalize same sex marriage, they have passes measures saying they will recognize marriages from other states that do allow them. A victory for marriage equality in California will send ripples throughout the country and be a significant blow to the rightwing cultural agenda. It will be, similar to the Obama campaigns shift away from overtly oppressive and demonizing language, a significant blow to patriarchy in the United States - both culturally and institutionally.

Similarly, the legalization marijuana will be a significant win in the battle against racism and elite cultural supremacy. Over 60,000 marijuana arrests were made in 2001, over 60% of them being of people of color. Lowering this number essentially to zero (taking into account that some of those arrests probably had other charges as well), would be a tangible win that all progressives and anti-racists should celebrate. Like the precedent that would be set by overturning Proposition 8, it would undoubtedly being a cultural and institutional shift around the country.

Race will play a significant role in both struggles. Undoubtedly the Right will wage a racist campaign to prevent the legalization of marijuana and other substances. Progressives will need to position themselves to counter these claims and lies. Specifically, our message must be positive, accessible, and relevant if we are to overcome the rightwing anti-drug narrative.

The marriage equality movement will also need to transcend reactionary myths around the racial character of the “Yes on Prop 8″ vote. Intentionally planted and promoted by the Right, they would like nothing more than to see white advocates of marriage equality attack people of color who might be neutral or passive opponents on the question instead of reaching out to move them leftward and speaking to their progressive values on other issues. They would love to see a white-dominated anti-prop 8 movement which ignores, alienates, and refuses to elevate the voices of LGBT people of color. And finally, the Right would love to see a LGBT rights movement which sees marriage equality as its only issue, which ignores larger issues of patriarchy, heterosexism, and transphobia. Only justice-minded progressives, well-trained in messaging, effective strategy, and a vision of a post-patriarchal society can lead this movement in the direction it has to go. Will they take up the charge?

Over all I’m quite excited. While I haven’t heard enough about either issue to have any reasonable guess about where they’ll go, I’ll blog more on this issue as things develop.

My political entry into the left (and by this I mean the real left, beyond the Democratic Party) came a little more than twenty years ago in New Orleans, when, as a college student I became involved in the fight against U.S. intervention in Central America. In particular, the groups of which I was a part sought to end military aid to the death squad governments in El Salvador and Guatemala, and to block support for the contra thugs our nation was arming in Nicaragua, who by that time had already killed about 30,000 civilians in their war with the nominally socialist Sandinista government.

It was the first place where I came into contact with folks who defined themselves as radicals (I had grown up in Nashville, after all, where at that time, even finding “out” liberals was sometimes a challenge), and where I got to experience all the fascinating permutations of Marxism that the left had to offer. In addition to unaffiliated socialists (which I considered myself to be at the time), there were Trotskyites, old-line Leninists, Maoists, and even some bizarre Stalinists in the bunch. Excluding from consideration those among this number who turned out to be FBI spies, there were still plenty of real and interesting ideologues who had valuable insights to offer, even for those of us who didn’t swallow their particular party line.

But despite being interesting, these folks also managed, at least for me, to demonstrate one of the key problems with the left in the U.S. Namely, for the sake of ideological purity few within the professional left expressed any joy about life, or any emotion whatsoever that wasn’t rooted in negativity. They were like the political equivalent of quaaludes: guaranteed to bring you down from whatever partly optimistic place you might find yourself from time to time.

This was never so evident as the day I hopped into a car with one of the Stalinoids (a member of something called the Albanian Liberation League, which viewed the brutal regime of Enver Hoxha as a worker’s paradise), and headed downtown for a rally to protest Contra aid. Once in the car, I asked about the music playing from his stereo. What was it? I wanted to know. He quickly explained that it was Albanian folk music, and the only music he listened to. I made some joke about how strange it was to be living in one of the greatest musical towns on Earth and yet to restrict oneself to a single genre of music (especially that favored by Albanian sheepherders), to which my revolutionary friend responded with a grunt and a scowl. Of course, because Comrade Stalin never much liked jazz.

The humorlessness of the far left–to which I remain connected ideologically if not organizationally–has always struck me as one of its greatest weaknesses. People like to laugh, they like to smile, they like to be joyful, and an awful lot of hardened leftists seem almost utterly incapable of doing any of these things. It’s as if they have all taken a pledge that there should be no laughter until the revolution, or some such shit. No positivity, no hope, no happiness so long as people are still poor and exploited and being murdered by cops, and victimized by United States militarism, or performing as wage slaves for global capital, or eating meat, or driving cars. And they wonder why the left is so weak?

Now, in the wake of Barack Obama’s victory these barbiturate leftists are back in full effect, lecturing the rest of us about how naive we are for having any confidence whatsoever in him, or for voting at all, since “the Democrats and Republicans are all the same,” and he supports FISA and the war with Afghanistan, and all kinds of other messed up policies just like many on the right. Those of us who find any significance in the election of a man of color in a nation founded on white supremacy are fools who “drank the kool-aid,” unlike they, whose clear-headed radical consciousness leads them to recognize the superior morality of Ralph Nader, or the pure “scientific wisdom of chairman Bob Avakian,” or the intellectual profundity of their favorite graffiti bomb: “If voting changed anything it would be illegal.” Yeah, and if body piercings and anarchy tats changed anything, they would be too, and then what would some folks do to be “different?” (Note: there is nothing wrong with either type of adornment, but getting either or both doesn’t make you a revolutionary, any more than voting, that’s all I’m saying).

These are people who think being agitators is about pissing people off more than reaching out to them. So they pull out their “Buck Fush” signs at their repetitively irrelevant antiwar demonstrations, or their posters with W sporting a Hitler mustache, because that tends to work so well at convincing folks to oppose the slaughter in Iraq. But effectiveness isn’t what matters to them. What matters to them is raging against the machine for the sake of rage itself. Their message is simple: everything sucks, the earth is doomed, all cops are brutal, all soldiers are baby-killers, all people who work for corporations are evil, blah, blah, blah, right on down the line. It’s as if much of the left has become co-dependent with despondency, addicted to its own isolation, and enamored of its moral purity and unwillingness to work with mere liberals. In the name of ideological asceticism, they spurn the hard work of movement building and inspiring others to join the struggle, snicker at those foolish enough to not understand or appreciate their superior philosophical constructs, and then act shocked when their movements and groups accomplish exactly nothing. But honestly, who wants to join a movement filled with people who look down on you as a sucker?

If we on the left want those liberals to join the struggle for social justice and liberation, we’re going to have to meet people where they are, not where Bakunin would want them to be. For those who can’t get excited about Obama, so be it, but at least realize that there are millions of people who, for whatever reason, are; people who are mobilized and active, and that energy is looking for an outlet. Odds are, that outlet won’t be the Obama administration, since few of them will actually land jobs with it. So that leaves activist formations, community groups and grass-roots struggles. That leaves, in short, us. Just as young people inspired by the center-right JFK candidacy in 1960 ultimately moved well beyond him on their way to the left and made up many of the most committed and effective activists of the 60s and early 70s, so too can such growth occur now among the Obama faithful. But not if we write them off.

At some point, the left will have to relinquish its love affair with marginalization. We’ll have to stop behaving like those people who have a favorite band they love, and even damn near worship, until that day when the band actually begins to sell a lot of records and gain a measure of popularity, at which point they now suck and have obviously sold out: the idea being that if people like you, you must not be doing anything important, and that obscurity is the true measure of integrity. Deconstructing the psychological issues at the root of such a pose is well above my pay grade, but I’m sure would prove fascinating.

The simple fact is, people are inspired by Obama not because they view him as especially progressive per se (except in relation to some of the more retrograde policies of the current president, and in relation to where they feel, rightly, McCain/Palin would have led us), but because most folks respond to optimism, however ill-defined it may be. This is what the Reaganites understood, and for that matter it’s what Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement knew too. It wasn’t anger and pessimism that broke the back of formal apartheid in the south, but rather, hope, and a belief in the fundamental decency of people to make a change if confronted by the yawning chasm between their professed national ideals and the bleak national reality.

In other words, what the 60s freedom struggle took for granted, but which the cynical barbiturate left refuses to concede, is the basic goodness of the people of this nation, and the ability of the nation, for all of its faults (and they are legion) to change. Look at pictures of the freedom riders in 1961, or the volunteers during Freedom Summer of 1964 and notice the dramatic difference between them and some of the seething radicals of today–whose radicalism is almost entirely about style and image more than actual analysis and movement building. In the case of the former, even as they stared down mobs intent on injuring or killing them, and even as they knew they might be murdered, they smiled, they laughed, they sang, they found joy. In the case of the latter, one most often notices an almost permanent scowl, a dour and depressing affect devoid of happiness, unable to appreciate life until the state is smashed altogether and everyone is subsisting on a diet of wheatgrass, bean curd and tempeh.

Hell, maybe I’m just missing the strategic value of calling people “useful idiots,” or likening them to members of a cult, the way some leftists have done recently with regard to Obama supporters. Or maybe it’s just that being a father, I have to temper my contempt for this system and its managers with hope. After all, as a dad (for me at least), it’s hard to look at my children every day and think, “Gee, it sucks that the world is so screwed up, and will probably end in a few years from resource exploitation…Oh well, I sure hope my daughters have a great day at school!”

Fatherhood hasn’t made me any less radical in my analysis or desire to see change. In fact, if anything, it has made me more so. I am as angry now as I’ve ever been about injustice, because I can see how it affects these children I helped to create, and for whom I am now responsible. But anger and cynicism do not make good dance partners. Anger without hope, without a certain faith in the capacity of we the people to change our world is a sickness unto death. It is consuming, like a flesh-eating disease, and whose first victim is human compassion. While I would never counsel too much confidence in far-right types to join the struggle for justice–and there, I think skepticism is well-warranted–if we can’t conjure at least a little optimism for the ability of liberals and Democrats to come along for the ride and to do the work, then what is the point? Under such a weighty and pessimistic load as this, life simply becomes unbearable. And if there is one thing we cannot afford to do now–especially now–it is to give up the will to live and to fight, another day.

November 10, 2008

Pakistan is pronouced “Pahk-ee-stahn”, or so my Pakistani friends have consistently told me. Tonight during the debate, Barack Obama correctly pronouced the country’s name.

In case you aren’t familiar with the process, after every presidential debates, one of the types of experts that give their analysis are “body language experts”. They tell you how each candidates’ body and verbal language might be received by voters.

After today’s debate, one such “expert”, Lillian Glass, a (white) body language analyst from Beverly Hills, gave her opinion on the Senator’s language. The LA Times reported that:

“She also thought his inflection might be a turn-off to some voters. “He’d say, ‘Pahk-ee-stahn,’ or ‘Tolly-bahn.’ You need to say Pakistan and Taliban like everyone else [sic].”"

Of course she’s probably right. Obama’s inflection might be a “turn-off” to some voters. The major issue is that the implications of Glass’s comment - namely issues of race and racism - weren’t brought up, as has been reguarly the case in this election. There was no question of who would be “turn[ed]-off”, and more importantly, who would be turned-off if he purposefully mispronouced “Pakistan” in his public appearances.

Jason Linkins of the Huffinton Post made a similar comment, throwing homophobia into the mix (because, I mean, why not?), comparing Obama’s inflection to marching in a Leather Pride Parade. (Really now?):

“10:10 - Jason Linkins: Obama hasn’t gotten the memo from every right-wing blog in the universe that pronouncing the word “Pakistan” PAHK-ee-STAHN is the dialectical equivalent of spreading arugula on your body and marching in the Folsom Street Fair.”

Will Obama change his inflection? We can only wait and see. He hasn’t thus far. But we can’t predict the future. We can prepare to call him out on his obvious BS if he does purposefully shift his inflection. And more importantly, we can call out the types of people who bring up such non-issues.

Obama is widening his lead over McCain. Every move McCain has been making is costing him more votes. Obama is playing a near-perfect game. States like New Hampshire are going from the “toss up” category, to “lean Obama”. States like North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri are going from “lean Mccain”, to “toss up”. Most of the swing states are leaning towards Obama - states like Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, and Virginia. Even states like Montana, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and West Virginia are no longer “safe” for McCain. They only lean his way.

Unless something drastic happens, Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. The political context of Glass’s and Linkins’s comments makes them even more disturbing. They aren’t suggesting that Obama needs to use racist language in order to win the White House (not that that would make it any less repulsive). They’re just saying it just because that’s what traditional electoral strategy “wisdom” says, despite the fact that if the election were held today, Obama would win in a landslide of over 364 electoral votes (you need 270). But (white) voters get turned off by non-English words. Best to appease them and be safe the pundits say.

We can do better I think. We’ll see what happens at Hofstra.

White people fear not! You can watch the news, and despite hearing from dozens of (mostly white) Americans who are in deep financial trouble, they will attempt to slightly calm your mood by showing the arrest of one or more people of color at the end of the broadcast. Because its when we enter crisis that people start thinking more - for better or worst - and if they’re questioning capitalism, you certainly can’t have them questioning the white power structure as well.

(For the record I was watching CBS news tonight.)

I disagree with lots and lots of Obama’s proposed policies - especially his foreign policies. But his language is superb - something that radical democrats need to learn from and use if we are to build a truly transformative movement. Here’s Obama talking about race, religion, unity and contradictions in America. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a mainstream politician - let alone someone running for president - talk in this way. Certainly not someone who could be our next president. To win we must first learn how to communicate our values to all of America.