Charles Brown wrote: It's the anti-Obama ultra-lefts who are aiding and converging with the ultra-right
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Let's see where this thinking takes us.
^^^^ CB: Yeah, lets see.
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Apparently when I, or anyone on the left, criticizes the President for his continuation and escalation of the US' war in Afghanistan, I'm an "ultra-left" who is "aiding and converging with the ultra-right."
^^^^^ CB: Although right now we're discussing criticizing the criticizers of the ultra-right. Doing that suggests ulterior or ultra motives. It's one thing to criticize Obama for not ending the war on Afghanistan. It's another thing to criticize Keith Obermann for criticizing the ultra-right who are going nuts right now on healthcare.
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When I criticize the President's economic triage program, which many attentive observers -- including our very own, lemon fresh listserv leader -- slammed for its speculation sector friendly design and its all rhetoric, no action regulatory scheme I'm an "ultra-left" who is "aiding and converging with the ultra-right."
^^^^ CB: Why doesn't our lemon fresh listserv leader, expert on Wall Street and finance capital, focus his fire on the actual _system_ of finance capital. It's kinda looking very criticizable and obviously failing right now , or really so 8 months ago. This is an historic opportunity to essay fundamental failures at a time when a lot of people would have to say "yeah , you are right". Instead, the anti-Obama obsession must be indulged, diverting from the main task.
And as we know , based on John Gulick's bigman theory of history, Obama singlehandedly created and saved the whole capitalist system breaking his campaign promise to bring us socialism in his first year of office.
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When I criticize the President's insurance and pharma sector friendly "health care reform" efforts as being, well, primarily insurance and pharma sector friendly (with very little on offer for the supposed beneficiaries) I'm an "ultra-left" who is "aiding and converging with the ultra-right."
^^^^^ CB: If all you do is criticize and not praise the good things, then yeah , you are leaning ultra-left and onesided in your analysis. Sectarian , too.
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When, in other words, anyone, anywhere with any left leanings criticizes the Obama administration for doing any of the disagreeable things it's actually doing (I forgot to mention the persistence of Bush era surveillance methods and the ongoing care and feeding of that hulking brute: the Dept of Homeland Security) they're an "ultra-left" who is "aiding and converging with the ultra-right."
^^^^^ CB: No, not anyone anywhere with any left leanings who criticizes (mind pointing out where I said that or the equivalent, as opposed to your imaginative modification of what I said ?) but if all you do is criticize and don't praise, and you're sort of bottomline right now is against the Obama administration, yeah ,you are aiding and converging with the ultra-right in typical ultra-left error, comrade.
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Let's review a moment from Doug's 1/3/2008 interview with Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford:
^^^^^ CB: Do we really have to ?
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GF -
About four weeks ago, I was teamed up on Ron Daniels' show on WBAI with Charles Barron - and I'm sure your listeners are familiar with him - he's a former Black Panther, city councilman, quite progressive by any measurement and one of my favorite politicians because he's a black electoral official who is also a political activist so, to me he's the kind of model of what political folks should be if they seek office. Councilman Barron was on the show with me to announce that he had just endorsed Barack Obama for president. Ron Daniels knew our position on that. So I proceeded to outline what we have just talked about on your show point by point to say, how could you [Daniels] support a person who obviously is on the other side of the political line from you? And he couldn't answer...any of it. There was no coherent response. And finally, after ten or fifteen minutes of this back and forth - which actually turned into a debate - he finally says "I just wanna give the brother a shot." And that was it. And that sums it up.
It was pitiful, it was inadequate but it really was accurate in terms of Barack Obama's knee jerk support among black folks in general and more critically, among activists, progressives - life long activists and progressives who damn sure should know better.
DH -
^^^^^^^^ CB: Yeah, I remember this. I probably criticized it then. What's your point ? Ford and Doug were off then , too. Barron has the better of them in the disagreement. Life long activists and progressives were correct to support Obama.
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White leftists like me depend upon the black portion of the population to provide a reliable base of social democratic and anti-imperialist policies...you guys are letting us down here.
GF -
^^^^^ CB: FYI the overwhelming majority of the black portion of the population is not social democratic ( It's Democratic) or "anti-imperialist", though it usually has higher percentage anti-war sentiment than the population at large. Ford expresses a sectarian and sort of utopian Black left position here. Barron, an elected councilmember , is more in touch with the mass sentiment of the Black community.
The notion that they are "letting him down" is kinda weird. I'm trying to think how to express it. Ford wants the Black "portion of the population" to provide a mass base for his ideology, and Barron, being a representative that portion of the population, is supposed to provide support for Ford's tiny, tiny intellectual sect, rather than reflect and represent the actual political sentiments of that "portion of the population." Ford is kind of living in a political dream world.
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Absolutely and that is why it is so important to understand that this not just an intra-black affair - that is very important to those of us who are black and care first and foremost about the health of the black polity. But if the black polity descends into incoherence - and this is already happening and Barack Obama has not yet won a primary [stated before Iowa: .d.] - but it is already underway. If committed,life long activists like Charles Barron can be paralyzed, put into a kind of comatose stupor just by the presence of this corporate funded black candidate then we are in real trouble. And if the black polity becomes fractured or just paralyzed then there really is no hope for anything resembling a progressive movement in the United States.
^^^^^^^ CB; I don't know why you repeat this. Subsequent events don't make Ford look very prescient in these statements. The "black polity" hasn't descended into incoherence, life long activists haven't been paralyzed or put into a comatose stupor ( except in the comatose stupor of Ford's mind), and the black polity is no more fractured or paralyzed than it was before Obama. So , what's up, brother ? The above is "embarrassing" to Ford.
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[...]
full at:
<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#080103>
CB, your blanket condemnations of "anti-Obama ultra-lefts" is lovingly crafted from precisely the sort of incoherence Ford described over a year ago.
^^^^^ CB: Your thinking so is in the same incoherence that Ford was in over a year ago.
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And really, you're going a bit further, equating principled opposition to the very same sorts of things previous administrations have done (things you've criticized in the past) with extremism. The only difference between the bombs falling on Afghans now (which, apparently shouldn't be criticized) and the bombs that fell before the Obama era is the man in the command chair.
^^^^^ CB: I'm not sure the opposition is all that principled. Who was it calling for a bailout of Wallstreet in the fall of 2008 ? The Swedish model is a capitalist model, so to pose it is not _principled_ , as in communist principled , opposition.
Actually, I have been sending statements opposing the Afghan war to the White House email site. If you are familiar with democratic centralism, criticisms of the Obama adminstration should be made "internally" as much as possible right now, to distinguish them from criticisms of the ...ta da !...ultra-right. It's very important not to back into publically uniting yourself with the ultra-right, just as important as it is to make "principled" criticisms.
See Lenin's discussion of "Freedom of Criticism" in _What is to be done ?_
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Any 'progressivism' which defines itself as adherence to a program of 'support our guy, no matter what!' is the playground of fools.
^^^^ CB: Onesided analysis of Obama is not a left or Marxist or communist approach. And we aren't in a "no matter what" situation with Obama's actions as President.
You're obessively and onesidedly focussed on O's weaknesses because you are still trying to show that you , Glen Ford, and Doug were correct in opposing him during the campaign.
.d.