[lbo-talk] Evaluating the Obama administration

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Wed Sep 22 08:26:43 PDT 2010


Marv Gandall


> http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=15364
>
> By Jack Lessenberry
>
> He should have been doing what his fellow
> elitist Franklin D. Roosevelt did with such great political success
> and effect — class warfare.

All the more so in the case of the Obama administration, which, apart from its own failings, has had to centrally contend with white racism. ^^^^^^^ CB: Well, "its own failings" is a loaded phrase in this context. Obama and the Democrats are down in the polls because of "failings" the Tea Party , right-wing liars, demagogues and racists attribute to him, not because of the left criticisms you make below.

I wrote the following to Lessenberry, and he agreed:

There's a bit of a riddle as to why just two years ago he ( Obama) was such a master of pr and so popular, and suddenly a large segment of Americans have totally flipped on him, and a lot of the flipping is based on lies and half-truths, and nutty stuff like he's a Muslim.

It would seem that a lot of his support was "thin". That's probably due to his skin.

^^^^^

There's every reason to suppose large numbers of white workers would have subordinated their racist impulses to their class interests and identifed with Obama if he had launched a forceful attack on the banks and corporations as the source of the economic distress felt by all working people, black and white.

^^^^^ CB: Sadly , there isn't every reason to suppose this. US working class anti-racist consciousness is no where near this and is the complete opposite of this , in the main. The US ruling class has focused primarily on corrupting US white workers consciousness in this regard since immediately upon the end of slavery right through to the present, from Jim Crow through Reaganism. We say "Black , Brown and White , unite and fight" . They say "Divide based on race at all costs. " Obama's election did not signal the overthrow of all that, though it seems to be an amazing breech of the bunker. Now we are in a certain level of racist backlash against the Obama election advance against racism among whites.

^^^^^^^

As it stands now, white workers perceive Obama as representative both of the white elite and of the black underclass, unmindful of their own needs.

^^^^^ CB: It is not a good approach to make apologies for the white workers' backlash against Obama. Any white workers who have a perception of Obama as "of the white elite" should not be sympathized with but criticized harshly as phony and racist. It certainly is not an excuse to then vote Republican , as the Republicans have demonstrated themselves as a lot more "of the white elite" than Obama.

^^^^^

In retrospect, Jim Webb, the only Democrat who touched on the theme of black and white unity along class lines, would have been the Democrats' better choice as vice-president in the present circumstances. But the dominant conservative wing of the party tied to Wall Street and the corporate lobbies would almost certainly see the party defeated rather than stoking class antagonism, which, in fact, is what lies in store. The multi-hued working class base of the party could, on the other hand, almost certainly be counted on to embrace the notion of a rainbow coalition.

^^^^^^^^ CB: You and Jack Lessenberry have twenty-twenty hindsight. Your final reference to "rainbow coalition" , the name of Jesse Jackson's Presidential campaign, demonstrates that it did not seem in the last few years that there was a great groundswell for the class warfare you describe, because it was clear that white working class masses would not vote for a Jesse Jackson type candidate, and there was no reason to believe that they would rally against the Tea Party uprising based on a militant rainbow coalition administration by Obama. White workers have not een signaling ; if any thing very much the opposite.

At any rate, now that we have thoroughly looked in hindsight, what is to be done right here , right now , in mid-September 2010.

Bernero , the Democrat running for Governor of Michigan, is running an explicitly Liberal campaign, heavy on the Mainstreet against Wall Street theme, no state money in banks that don't participate in mortgage modification, He's an urban mayor, Black woman urban Mayor as his running mate, criticizing his opponent for anti-abortion position, heavy union backing. It will be something of a test of your thesis as to "what Obama should have done" in whether the working class responds in sufficient numbers to Bernero.

http://www.votevirg.com/



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list