{"id":18175,"date":"2012-03-26T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=18175"},"modified":"2012-03-26T11:00:42","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T11:00:42","slug":"why-barack-obama-is-the-more-effective-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/03\/why-barack-obama-is-the-more-effective-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford made the following presentation at the Left Forum, Pace University, New York City, March 17 [2012]. The discussion was titled, The 2012 Elections: Lesser Evil or Left Alternative?<\/em><\/p>\n

Power to the people!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me say from the very beginning that we at Black Agenda Report do not think that Barack Obama is the Lesser Evil. He is the more Effective Evil.<\/p>\n

He has been more effective in Evil-Doing than Bush in terms of protecting the citadels of corporate power, and advancing the imperial agenda. He has put both Wall Street and U.S. imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks \u2014 just as he hired himself out to do.<\/p>\n

That was always Wall Street\u2019s expectation of Obama, and his promise to them. That\u2019s why they gave him far more money in 2008 than they gave John McCain. They were buying Obama futures on the electoral political market \u2014 and they made out like bandits.<\/p>\n

They invested in Obama to protect them from harm, as a hedge against the risk of systemic disaster caused by their own predations. And, it was a good bet, a good deal. It paid out in the tens of trillions of dollars.<\/p>\n

If you believe that what Wall Street does is Evil, then Obama\u2019s service to Wall Street is Evil, and there is nothing lesser about it.<\/p>\n

They had vetted Obama, thoroughly, before he even set foot in the U.S. Senate in 2004.<\/p>\n

He protected their interests, there, helping shield corporations from class action suits, and voting against caps on credit card interest. He was their guy back then \u2014 and some of us were saying so, back then.<\/p>\n

He was the bankers\u2019 guy in the Democratic presidential primary race. Among the last three standing in 2008, it was Obama who opposed any moratorium on home foreclosures. John Edwards supported a mandatory moratorium and Hillary Clinton said she wanted a voluntary halt to foreclosures. But Barack Obama opposed any moratorium. Let it run its course, said candidate Obama. And, true to his word, he has let the foreclosures run their catastrophic course.<\/p>\n

Only a few months later, when the crunch came and Finance Capital was in meltdown, who rescued Wall Street? Not George Bush. Bush tried, but he was spent, discredited, ineffective. Not John McCain. He was in a coma, coming unglued, totally ineffective.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s bailout failed on a Monday. By Friday, Obama had convinced enough Democrats in opposition to roll over \u2014 and the bailout passed, setting the stage for a new dispensation between the American State and Wall Street, in which a permanent pipeline of tens of trillions of dollars would flow directly into Wall Street accounts, via the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

And Obama had not even been elected yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue to his word, he has let the foreclosures run their catastrophic course.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Obama put Social Security and Medicaid and all Entitlements on the table , in mid-January. The Republicans had suffered resounding defeat. Nobody was pressuring Obama from the Right.<\/p>\n

When the Right was on its ass, Obama stood up and spoke in their stead. There was no Evil Devil forcing him to put Entitlements on the chopping block. It was HIM. He was the Evil One \u2014 and it was not a Lesser Evil. It was a very Effective Evil, because the current Age of Austerity began on that day, in January, 2009.<\/p>\n

And Obama had not even been sworn in as president, yet.<\/p>\n

Who is the Effective Evil? I haven\u2019t even gotten into his actual term as president, much less his expansion of the theaters of war, his unique assaults on International Law, and his massacre of Due Process of Law in the United States. But I want to pause right here, because piling up facts on Obama\u2019s Most Effective Evils doesn\u2019t seem to do any good if the prevailing conversation isn\u2019t really about facts \u2014 but about intentions .<\/p>\n

The prevailing assumption on the Left is that Obama has good intentions. He intends to the Right Thing \u2014 or, at least, he intends to do better than the Republicans intend to do. It\u2019s all supposed to be about intentions. Let\u2019s be clear: There is absolutely no factual basis to believe he intends to do anything other than the same thing he has already done, whether Democrats control Congress or not, which is to serve Wall Street\u2019s most fundamental interests.<\/p>\n

But, the whole idea of debating Obama\u2019s intentions is ridiculous. It\u2019s psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt that Newt Gingrich and Republicans in general have worse intentions for the future of my people \u2014 of Black people \u2014 than Michelle Obama\u2019s husband does. But, that doesn\u2019t matter. Black people are not going to roll over for whatever nightmarish Apocalypse the sick mind of Newt Gingrich would like to bring about. But, they have already rolled over for Obama\u2019s economic Apocalypse in Black America. There was been very little resistance. Which is just another way of saying that Obama has successfully blunted any retribution by organized African America against the corporate powers that have devastated and destabilized Black America in ways that have little precedence in modern times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Right was on its ass, Obama stood up and spoke in their stead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Obama has protected these Wall Streeters from what should be the most righteous wrath of Black folks. To take a riff from Shakespeare\u2019s Othello, \u201cObama has done Wall Street a great service, and they know it.\u201d He has proven to be fantastically effective at serving the Supremely Evil. Don\u2019t you dare call him the Lesser.<\/p>\n

He is the More Effective Evil because Black Folks \u2014 historically, the most progressive cohort in the United States \u2014 and Liberals, and even lots of folks that call themselves Marxists, let him get away murder! Yet, people still insist on calling him a Lesser Evil, while he drives a stake through Due Process of Law.<\/p>\n

I have not spoken much about the second half of Obama\u2019s first term in office. That is the period when the Left generally becomes disgusted with what they call his excessive \u201ccompromises\u201d and \u201ccave-ins\u201d to Republicans. But that is a profoundly wrong reading of reality. Obama was simply continuing down his own Road to Austerity \u2014 the one he, himself, had initiated before even taking office. The only person caving in and compromising to the Republicans, was the Obama that many of YOU made up in your heads.<\/p>\n

The real Obama was the initiator of this Austerity nightmare \u2014 a nightmare scripted on Wall Street, which provided the core of Obama\u2019s policy team from the very beginning. That\u2019s why Obama\u2019s so-called Financial Reform was so diligent in making sure that Derivatives were virtually untouched.<\/p>\n

The real Obama retained Bush\u2019s Secretary of War, because he was determined to re-package the imperial enterprise and expand the scope and theaters of war.<\/p>\n

He would dress up the war machine head-to-foot in a Chador of Humanitarianism, and march deep and deeper into Africa.<\/p>\n

He would make merciless and totally unprovoked war against Libya \u2014 and then tell Congress there had been no war at all, and it was none of their business, anyway.<\/p>\n

And he got away with it.<\/p>\n

Now, that is the Most Effective Evil war mongering imaginable. Don\u2019t you dare call him a Lesser Evil. Obama is Awesomely Evil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real Obama was the initiator of this Austerity nightmare.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Obama has advanced the corporatization of the public schools beyond Bush\u2019s wildest dreams, methodically constructing a national, parallel system of charter schools that, in practice, undermine and subvert the traditional public schools. In some places, they have replaced, or soon will replace, the public schools. The hedge funds and billionaires are ecstatic! The teachers unions then endorse their undertaker, foolishly believing he is the Lesser Evil.<\/p>\n

So, what does the Left do in this election? The Left should do what it is supposed to do here in the Belly of the Beast at all times : disarm the Beast. This is their singular duty \u2014 not to advise the Beast, but to disarm it. At this time on the world historical clock, that means ripping the farcical \u201chumanitarian\u201d veil from the face of U.S. wars \u2014 and that face is Obama\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

No genuine anti-war activist can endorse the war-maker, Obama. If you want to resist actual imperial wars, you must fight Obama. Period. Anything else is to endorse or acquiesce in his wars.<\/p>\n

You can attend the United National Anti-War Coalition conference in Stamford, Connecticut, next weekend, where you can meet with an array of organizations to begin a calendar of activities that will stretch past Election Day. You can join with UNAC in working to stop Obama from doing a repeat of Libya in Syria and Iran. If you can\u2019t bring yourself to do that, then I have no advice for you, because the alternative is acquiescence to Obama\u2019s cynical duplicities.<\/p>\n

If the Green Party or any other party firmly opposes Obama\u2019s humanitarian, Orwellian farce, then support them. If they don\u2019t, then don\u2019t lift a finger for them.<\/p>\n

If you are going to fight for anything, you\u2019ve got to fight for the right to fight. That means fighting for the rule of law. So, if you don\u2019t plan to go underground or into exile anytime soon, you must fight the president who claims the right to imprison or kill any person, of any nationality, any place on Earth, for reasons known only to him. The man who excelled George Bush by shepherding preventive detention through Congress \u2014 Barack Obama, the More Effective Evil.<\/p>\n

Fight him this election year. Fight him every year that he\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

Power to the People!<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Glen Ford is a 37-year veteran of Black radio, television, print and Internet news and commentary. He is executive editor of www.BlackAgendaReport.com<\/a> and was co-founder of BlackCommentator.com. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 paulcraigroberts.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No matter how much evil Barack Obama actually accomplishes during his presidency, people that call themselves leftists insist on dubbing him the Lesser Evil. Not only is Obama not given proper credit for out-evil-ing George Bush, domestically and internationally, but the First Black President is awarded positive grades for his intentions versus the presumed intentions of Republicans. As the author says, this \u201cis psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}