We ought not to cultivate the exceptional or to seek for a hero, who is another form of leader. We ought to uplift the people.

-Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Dream within a dream,

Our dream deferred

-Langston Hughes, “Island 2”

“Barack, he’s talking down to black people on this faith-based - I wanna cut his [beep] off.”

I can understand Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.’s embarrassment Appearing on Fox News, he made this comment to another Black man when he thought the camera and mic were off.

I can understand why Fox News, corporate media in general, relishes this “off camera” remark. This isn’t a story about morals; it’s about the market - the cable television, to be exact! A comment by a controversial figure such as Jackson Sr. about the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Obama - Black man about Black man, in the “bad” Black man segment - has value and can be “sold” as “news” to an audience that feeds of racial tidbits.

Rev. Jackson’s appearance on Fox speaks volumes about the irrational collective of collaborating Black leaders and the Rupert Murdoch capitalist venture “selling” Black issues on the contemporary auction block - cable TV news. Jackson Sr.’s following up statement - “I wanna cut his [beep] off” - “crude” as it may have been, nonetheless, speaks to that unspoken observation that Obama isn’t interested in Black concerns. He seems to have forgotten who he is!

The comment implies that Rev. Jackson is stunned about Obama’s supposed about-face and that Obama’s support for King George’s faith-based program is somehow contrary to an Obama agenda.

But the Obama knows who he is! And he’s always been perfectly clear about his agenda!

But what is more disturbing about this latest “product” for the public’s consumption is the “public confession” of wrong doing. Rev. Jackson must apologizes and it is the SON, Jesse Jackson Jr., member of the Joshua Generation, who stands at the auction block and declares the father’s wrong doing. It is the son who “rejects” and “renounces” the father’s words, publicly. It is the son, seeing himself in an Obama cabinet position, who declares the father’s words “divisive” and “demeaning.”

No, Obama isn’t even talking to or about Black people. He’s cold and unresponsive to Black concerns. But dissenting voices must apology and must promise not to criticize the Obama. He’s THE MAN now!

It’s about political expediency for the sons, marketability for the corporate media, and blind faith in capitalism.

Older brother of Malcolm X, Philbert Little, read a statement in which he “rejected” and “renounced” his brother, Malcolm X. He has insisted that he was ordered to read the statement condemning the wrong doer in front of the cameras.

Some things never change - just ask Obama. He’s all for things staying the same “but better.”

Now, some “progressives” and Black leaders are waking up to find that the New Man isn’t so different from the Old Man.

They are stunned by the audacity of the Obama’s dumping of Samantha Power and Wesley Clark. They are flabbergasted by his support of King George’s faith-based programs because, as fearless-poised-leader-of-the-free-to-do-whatever-world-Obama says, “the challenges we face today - from saving the planet to ending poverty - are too big for government to solve alone” –or bother solving at all! Now, it’s as if Obama has knocked the liberals and the progressives to the ground. The Obama supports King George’s FISA bill! He wants government spying in the U.S. of A?

He’s wearing the flag pin again, too!

Get a grip!

Wrong doing is taking place in the open, but the cameras are absent and no one (not even these liberal Black and white supporters of the farce) is asking for accountability.

Obama has done one thing well: he’s studied the narrative - that white supremist patriarchal capitalist narrative - the foundational narrative of American Empire. It’s never changed, and this he knows. He’s done what the American public refuses to do: he’s studied the narrative that the liberal and progressive American “rejects” and “renounces” even while that narrative, complete with auction blocks, public confessions, denouncements, and rejections, serves to advance the American Empire project. The Obama feast on the contradictions: similar to the capitalists he admires, Obama’s staging his climb to the top seat in the Empire on the basis of the American public’s denial of its own reality! He hasn’t flip-flopped; he’s engaged in calculated play among the Fathers - Reagan, Bush Sr. and King George.

The Obama’s not running to the Right: he is the right! When has he been Left?

The Obama has nurtured his entire political career to institute as his base corporate America. And what is corporate America if not the American Empire, the Manifest Destiny agenda to dominate the world via capitalism and militarism serving as foot soldiers.

The Obama is in love with Pax Americana! The “Constitutional lawyer” worships the power of American power! He makes no distinction between republicans and democrats. Smart man! War for the Obama means America not only maintains but gains in its quest for evermore economic and political control of human and natural resources. The Obama is an astute student of the narrative and the narrative is his agenda! Obama admires his own mastery of the capitalist narrative and those who have served as his mentors. All are destined to adhere to change they can believe in - because they had better believe in it! The it - is the American Empire with capitalism at its core!

Who would think that the Empire would be different from all past empires? Who would think that the American Empire would have the interests of the American people as its central concern? Corporations calculating huge profits and millions for CEO salaries and bonuses, consider health care, education, immigration, affordable housing, energy alternatives, and climate change only in terms of capitalist ventures. You won’t find the expedient community leaders or the Republicrats condemning and rejecting poverty as it is an artificial construct (Mohammed Unis) created by the capitalist of the American Empire. Poverty, no - but war, yes!

You won’t find an open condemnation of the real wrong doer - capitalism - among the cabal of Republicrats and corporate media. There can be no “divisive” and “demeaning” word against capitalism if the goal is to stand at the helm of the American Empire. Denounce the biological father from Kenya - not the American Fathers of Empire.

Already there’s talk about an anticipated dream speech in August at the Democratic convention to be delivered by the Obama. The corporate media and the Obama have been good for each other so far: The media hunts for a wrong doer and points the camera and the Obama lifts his foot. Good old gladiator-like fun at the auction block! Tasty distractions are a good sell and make the Obama look like a king!

Yes, Murdoch and his partner capitalist are preparing the “production,” a feast of apple pie for the American consumer of all things apple pie. All the sons among the Joshua Generation are solidifying their positions and the Obama is readying for another moment before the world’s cameras where he will insist that he is the son of Rev. Martin Luther King. It’s all yummy, yummy, yummy, Obama will say with such charm. Americans will consume the feast set for a king.

But don’t be fooled. King never betrayed us! King offered his rhetorical skills to the people and their interests while the Obama offers his to the American Empire.

Turn the television off!

Left of America - Remember, it’s about the bounced check…insufficient funds, promises not kept, promises this government never intends to honor. It’s about the fight against capitalism, a failed system that imprisons and impoverishes and kills the masses of people on this planet!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has been a writer, for over thirty years of commentary, resistance criticism and cultural theory, and short stories with a Marxist sensibility to the impact of cultural narrative violence and its antithesis, resistance narratives. With entrenched dedication to justice and equality, she has served as a coordinator of student and community resistance projects that encourage the Black Feminist idea of an equalitarian community and facilitator of student-teacher communities behind the walls of academia for the last twenty years. Dr. Daniels holds a PhD in Modern American Literatures, with a specialty in Cultural Theory (race, gender, class narratives) from Loyola University, Chicago. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

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