Novmber 13, 2008 - Issue 299
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An Obama Presidency: More of the Same - Only Worse (Part 2)
Keeping it Real
By Larry Pinkney
B
lackCommentator.com Editorial Board

 

 

[See part 1 in the October 30, 2008 edition of The Black Commentator]

Nothing has changed and as long as this unequal and exploitative system remains intact, nothing will.

The recent selection by Barack Obama of the war mongering, apartheid Zionist, Wall Street-backed, infamous Mossad-connected Rahm Israel Emanuel to the powerful position of White House Chief of Staff came as no surprise to politically conscious and discerning people; and its going to get worse—a lot worse, on so very many levels.

First and foremost it should be clearly understood by Black, White, Brown, Red and Yellow peoples everywhere that Zionism is the Israeli version of the racist, murderous, and hypocritical U.S. ‘Manifest Destiny,’ which despicable ideology supported and rationalized the wholesale thievery of indigenous people’s lands, genocide, and slavery on this so-called North American continent. Zionism has become the 21st Century reality of apartheid, especially as it is practiced towards the Palestinian peoples in particular and Arab peoples in general, in what is known geographically as the Middle East.

To grasp precisely who and what the political hardliner and Zionist Rahm Emanuel is, it is helpful to review the most excellent November 5, 2008, article entitled, Obama Picks Pro-Israel Hardliner For Top Post, by Ali Abunimah, which says in relevant part:

Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959, the son of Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician who helped smuggle weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, in the 1940s. The Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians including the bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 1946.

Emanuel continued his father's tradition of active support for Israel; during the 1991 Gulf War he volunteered to help maintain Israeli army vehicles near the Lebanon border when southern Lebanon was still occupied by Israeli forces.

As White House political director in the first Clinton administration, Emanuel orchestrated the famous 1993 signing ceremony of the "Declaration of Principles" between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Emanuel was elected to Congress representing a north Chicago district in 2002 and he is credited with a key role in delivering a Democratic majority in the 2006 mid-term elections. He has been a prominent supporter of neoliberal economic policies on free trade and welfare reform.

One of the most influential politicians and fundraisers in his party, Emanuel accompanied Obama to a meeting of AIPAC's executive board just after the Illinois senator had addressed the pro-Israel lobby's conference last June.

In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with 33 other Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political leaders "was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense" ("Pelosi supports Israel's attacks on Hamas group," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 June 2003).” The Obama appointment of Emmanuel is just a beginning component of the real Barack Obama’s war mongering and his pro apartheid Zionist stance.

Moreover, as William B. Fox (former U. S. Marine Corps Major with a background in logistics, public affairs, and military intelligence) and Captain Eric H. May (former U.S.  Army military intelligence officer) note in their November 10, 2008 article entitled, Bush’s False Flag Finale? (A Vigilant Shield Update), Former Naval Intelligence Officer Wayne Madsen reported on 6 Nov that “Questions about Emanuel’s links to the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, were allegedly so great that President Bill Clinton was forced to dismiss Emanuel from the White House staff in 1998…[the Wayne Madsen Report] has learned from U.S. intelligence sources that Emanuel was discovered to be part of a political intelligence and blackmail operation directed against Clinton by Israel’s Likud Party and Binyamin Netanyahu to sink Clinton’s proposed Middle East peace deal.” And so goes Barack Obama’s so-called “change you can believe in.”

One might have hoped that the majority of people in this nation would have immediately realized who Barack Obama really was and is, when days prior to the farce of the November 4th election in the U.S., he actually urged support for the over 750 billion dollar Wall Street (corporate blood sucking) sell out of the masses of every day people in this country. But the corporate media’s intense disinformation campaign and biased and overwhelming support for Barack Obama was initially, simply too potent, for the majority of people to see through or recognize how they were being manipulated, pimped, and bamboozled. But with renewed vigilance, over time that will change. It must also be remembered that liberation struggles for economic, social, and political justice, nationally and internationally, are long term dialectical affairs and they will not only continue, but in the course of time, become stronger.

While millions celebrated the successful corporate selection of Barack Obama to be the U.S. Empire’s next face, millions of others did not. Moreover, as it becomes clear, for example, that the Obama / Biden regime will not institute, support, or provide single payer / universal health care for the masses of every day people, and will in fact continue and increase support for the greedy corporate blood sucking elite of Wall Street, the people will begin to awaken. As it becomes clear that Barack Obama is not now nor ever was a man of  peace but rather a procurer of war, the people will awaken. As it becomes clear that Barack Obama’s slippery tongue embodies subterfuge, half truths, and constant disinformation, the people will begin to awaken. As it becomes clear as to why the U.S. corporate media of the Empire so vigorously supported Barack Obama, the people, be they Black, White, Brown, Red, or Yellow will understand what horror the corporate / military and Zionist elite has ushered in, in the person of Barack Hussein Obama, to be the face of the imperial U.S. Empire at home and abroad.

Unfortunately, thanks not only to the Empire’s corporate media, but also to certain so-called leftists and progressives who, collaborated with and capitulated to, the U.S. Empire, there was virtually no strong, serious, or much-needed critical analysis and criticism of the then candidate Barack Obama who, like a smilingly deceptive demon from hell, came rushing in to anxiously take over the reins of the Empire for the U.S. corporate / military elite. The written words to me from an astute Black American reader of The Black Commentator ring clear and true when he recently wrote:   

Maybe most frustrating is that when I looked for the progressive intellectuals and leaders I most look up to and who have over the years helped directly shape my consciousness, what I shockingly found were individuals giving Obama a pass in areas they would have critiqued others on. What I found were many intellectuals and leaders ignoring the vast problems with Obama's policy positions, ignoring basic progressive principles, and instead putting forth "strategic" arguments (plea copping in my opinion) as to why we needed to vote for Obama despite his clearly stated centrist, pro free-trade, and pro empire positions.

When I most needed my progressive intellectuals to be a critical voice in this time of vast deception and high stakes, many... many... of them failed me.

Such is how a people can unwittingly lay the foundation for their own political and cultural irrelevance, and sometimes ultimately their own genocide. For indeed genocide, like fascism, can be brought about in differing forms.

Barack Obama, on behalf of the corporate / military elite who are his masters, will soon be calling upon the ‘American’ people to make horrible economic and social sacrifices in the name of patriotism and the nation. Barack Obama will speak of pain which he himself does not know, just as he speaks of war which he himself has not experienced. He will demand ever more sacrifices of the people, but it is this filthy unjust system that the people must ultimately sacrifice, not our humanity, our hopes, and our dreams. “Beware of the naked man who offers you clothes.” Notwithstanding the meaningless change of skin pigmentation, this new U.S. Emperor is nonetheless “naked;” devoid of truth, justice, and a love for the every day people of this nation and the world.

For a fact, if we are not vigilant and Barack Obama is given “a pass,” we Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples in this nation will assuredly lose what is left of our meager civil liberties, and this nation and the world will most certainly be engulfed in continuing and unending wars, which are perpetrated, manipulated, and perpetuated by the subterfuge of the U.S. corporate / military elite.

As painful as it might be for some to acknowledge, the Obama presidency bodes a very ill wind for justice and peace loving people in the U.S. and throughout the world. But there is yet an alternative. That alternative is to organize outside of the so-called Democratic and Republican Party Republicrat plantation and political machinery. It is high time that Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow peoples get off the mental plantation of trickery, broken promises, subterfuge, economic exploitation and endless war/s brought to us by the Republicrats [i.e. the Democratic & Republican Parties] of the United States.  The Obama presidency will be nothing more than a plantation with Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples as the 21st Century proverbial economic cotton pickers for the bosses of the bloated but tiny corporate / military elite of this nation, in concert with world wide capitalism. Indeed capitalism is nothing more than systemic and rationalized economic, political, and military terrorism against the masses of people, who are used as the cannon fodder of the corporate / military machine, and who now have Barack Obama as their emperor-in-chief of the U.S. Empire.

Malcolm X was so correct. The “clash” between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation” is at hand. And as Malcolm X further stated, this “clash” is all about resisting and struggling against exploitation, and not upon “the color of the skin…”

Neither Barack Obama or the economic and military interests he represents bode well for the vast majority of people.  Thus, we must be unceasingly vigilant, resist exploitation; and organize, organize, and organize some more!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

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