Barack Obama: Faithful Tool of U.S. Imperialism and Empire – Keeping It Real

“And what’s so damn wonderful about Barack Obama’s biography? It’s a story of kissing and climbing up to power in the industrialized world’s most unequal and wealth-top-heavy society. He wouldn’t be where he is if [he] wasn’t willing to play along with the corporate elite, whose funding and media approval are required to make a ‘viable’ run at the White House…Obama’s campaign is based on his desire to be president and on the corporate plutocracy’s judgment that he might be the right man for a key job: safely containing and channeling the demand for progressive change that has been deepened by the reactionary Cheney-Bush regime…”

While certain so-called progressives in this nation shamelessly stumble over one another in their swooning adoration of, and collaboration with, this 21st century colored chameleon imperialist, Barack Obama; America heads into an ever deepening recession as she looks for external enemies against whom to beat the drums of war and thereby once again divert the attention of her citizenry from the increasingly horrible internal economic and social plight of the vast majority of Black, Brown, Red, and White peoples in this nation. To reiterate the insightful words of scholar and author Paul Street; Barack Obama is presently viewed by many if not most in the U.S. corporate / military elite as being “the right man” for “the key job [of] safely containing and channeling the demand for progressive change” in the United States. Who better to thwart real systemic change than the corporate candidate best pretending to offer it?

We must be reminded of the African proverb which states: “Beware of the naked man who offers you clothes.” It is indeed Barack Obama, who in keeping with the famous words from the theatrical production The Wizard of Oz, would have us Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White people of this nation, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Nonetheless, that euphemistic “man behind the curtain” is the corporate-military-prison apparatus, much of which so strongly supports Barack Obama. “That man behind the curtain” is counting on successfully continuing to bamboozle the people of this nation at the horrible expense of its inhabitants, and the peoples of the world.

In their euphoria over the misleading, systemic, corporate-backed candidacy of Barack Obama, some have been diverted from intensifying the much needed fight for justice in the collective cases of Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abul-Jamal, the Angola 3, Reverend Edward Pinkney [not related], Lynne Stewart, the San Francisco 8, Marshall “Eddie” Conway, the numerous displaced victims of Katrina and government criminality & neglect, and the ongoing cases of so very many other women and men of all colors in this nation, and throughout the world. The subliminal message of Barack Obama to Black people (and other people as well) is almost like some science fiction Borg empire creature: “Resistance is futile.” In point of fact, resistance is definitely not futile but absolutely essential in this ongoing struggle for social, political, and economic justice. U.S. Empire and imperialism must be resisted and struggled against on every conceivable level. And ultimately, we the people, will be triumphant.

There simply is no short cut to attaining much needed and real systemic change; and for a certainty neither Barack Obama nor any other candidate within the Democratic or Republican parties offer such change. In fact, very much to the contrary, they offer treachery and betrayal. However, there is a viable alternative and it rests upon and within we the people – we ourselves. I reiterate that we must organize outside of the Democratic and Republican parties. We must build and nurture “third parties” whose platforms and objectives mesh with our own quests and thirst for economic, social, and political justice for all people, here and abroad.

Imperialism and empire must be replaced with the dogged determination to bring about the realization of a just and equitable society based upon human needs not human greed.

The only hope for real change is not to be found in any politician of the Democratic or Republican parties, but in we ourselves organizing day by day in the cities, towns, country side, and rural areas of America. This is the real hope for real change. This is keeping it real, and this is our collective task.