Those who mocked the people on the left celebrating it as any kind of victory were proven to be correct yet again.
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Now that his presidency is coming to a close... What do you think of Obama?
Well I'm sure it goes without saying that most here don't feel they have too much in common ideologically with Obama. That being said, I want to have a discussion on his administration's historical significance.
"We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass." Karl Marx
Those who mocked the people on the left celebrating it as any kind of victory were proven to be correct yet again.
First black president. That's his historical significance.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
In accordance with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory I prefer to ask what I think of myself during these past 8 years. I would rate myself mostly good, but not perfect
See also: http://reddit.com/r/socialism http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchistnews http://reddit.com/r/anarchism
The only slaves who are happy, are the crazy ones.
As I'm not american, I can only say I'm happy there were no big invasions, and I'm sad that the US financed Assad's opposition groups, which gave way to the monster called Daesh.
During his tenure we've seen the rise of radical movements throughout the US such as Occupy and the Oakland general strike, the fast food workers strikes, the large scale protests in Wisconsin, Kshama Sawant's electoral success in Seattle, the Ferguson riots, Black Lives Matter etc. I feel there's been a dissonance between the hopes that young workers put in a supposedly 'progressive' candidate and the reality of his inadequacies which have made people more willing to scrutinise the supposed 'progressiveness' of a candidate as shown by the unexpected success of Sanders and the rejection of Clinton (who's more of a New Deal FDR than a Debs but regardless represents a shift in conciousness) and also a willingness to engage in action beyond the ballot that hasn't existed in significance for near 20 years.
There's no organised socialist movement to harness this energy but it's clear that, despite the aims of his party and himself who would likely much prefer business to remain as usual, Obama has been good for the radical left.
Modern democracy is nothing but the freedom to preach whatever is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie - Lenin
Somebody suggested to Hillary that she appoint Obama as a Supreme Court judge. I like that idea. He's competent and likeable. I think he's the "coolest" president we've had to date. But, I've noticed people are more disillusioned after Obama (and Bush)
"We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass." Karl Marx
I agree. Obama's election allowed dissenting segments of society to point to the false savior as "not enough".
Now, what I hope to communicate to people who aren't ideologically committed is more articulable things related to people's lived experiences that demonstrate the true nature of someone as seemingly progressive as Obama who preserves the unjust status quo. Not just through congressional impasse with Republicans, but voluntary acts and purposeful agendas.
So in general:
The good:
Job Creation
Improving relations with Cuba (good for now at least)
The Iran Nuclear Deal
Introducing legislation for background checks for firearms
Halting the keystone pipeline and coal extraction
Ending solitary confinement for juveniles in Federal prisons and reducing prison sentences
The meh:
Obamacare
Immigration Reform for students
Nominating Sotomayor to the SCOTUS
The Bad
Deporting more undocumented immigrants than any president in history
The Trans-Pacific Partnership
The NDAA
Supporting the coup in Honduras
Helping NATO level Libya
Helping Saudi Arabia slaughter civilians in Yemen
Doing nothing to curb Israeli settlements and human rights abuses against Palestinians
Indirectly funding ISIS by recklessly arming Syrian rebels
Expanding the PATRIOT Act
Passing legislation that cut Food Stamps
Expanding the drone program and killing hundreds of children and civilians at weddings and funerals
Continuing oppressive free trade agreements like NAFTA/CAFTA/CTPA
Worsened Economic Inequality
Exacerbating the harm caused by the war on drugs
Appealing and preventing the Federal exoneration of drug possessors
That's my working list so far. So, yeah. I think outlining the above is a more effective way to criticize Obama to the masses than talking about the usual horrors of capitalism, which of course still exist.
That "coolness" factor actually just enrages me even more. He's a brilliant marketer hiding the brutality of a cold blooded imperialist. Slaughterer of children, the ruin of nations, Bush's successor in eroding 4th Amendment freedoms, enabler of oppressive capital abroad. That's what he is.
Oh but he fist-bumps his wife and invited clock-making Ahmed to the White House and made a funny commercial, gosh what a swell guy.
Not only was he the first black President, he was also the first Black leader of a modern, Western state. The first non-white leader, too (unless you count Christianized Jews like Disraeli). Obviously it didn't fix racism, but I think the anxiety among some white Americans shows it did something to undermine white supremacy.
Socialist Party of Outer Space
As someone who came of age during the 2008 election, I think that I (to a very limited degree) can represent some of the reflecting views of people who were swept up by the whole "Hope and Change" gambit.
I used to think he was an awesome guy and a great president. Not FDR or LBJ great (I was still a liberal at the time fyi), but great enough considering what was thrown at him. I thought he was being stymied by "irrational Republicans" and "RWNJs", and generally had the interests of the middle and working classes at heart.
As of now, I want nothing to do with him. He was a hoax, a con-artist who betrayed the trust of a generation with his charismatic youth and smooth-talking. He played the "progressive" on foreign policy, wooing young people from that neocon Clinton only to let loose the full force and fury of the Defense Department on innocent brown people across the world. He promised to bring back "hope" to the job market and the economy, punish the bankers who led us into crisis, and provide prosperity to an economy that never quite recovered from the stagflation of the 1970s and early 80s. He was a brilliant con-artist whose charisma and charm masked the imperialist "New Democrat" that people came to know during the Clinton years.
Ironically, Obama's election helped turned me towards socialism. All those accusations of him being a closeted commie got me wondering about what communism actually entailed, and then after reading some Marx and Piketty/Saez (not communist, but in America they're close enough) I turned "red" and became a card-carrying Communist. So I guess some good came out of it. Thanks Obama
An injury to one is an injury to all -Industrial Workers of the World
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all -Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free -Eugene V. Debs
Obama: He's here to benefit all people of color!
When he was running, I thought his name would prevent him from winning - a name like Barack Hussein Obama could never win, it sounds too foreign, too ethnic. The first black president would have to have a name like Jesse Jackson. And even he couldn't win.
Looking back, the name wasn't the issue. While Jesse Jackson has a pretty American name, even one that might belong to a white person, no one could ever forget Jackson was black. He constantly addressed racial issues - white voters were never going to vote for him in large numbers.
But Obama is someone who rarely addressed race, even when called racial slurs. That's what really holds back black politicians from higher office - and even the Jewish "socialist" running today seems to be afraid to talk about race. Sometimes I forget how racist this country is, and I wonder why Sanders doesn't go for it - it'd be a shoe-in, right? Make that racist Clinton show her colors? But then I remember all the significant numbers of voters who can't decide between Trump or Sanders, and I remember that racism still can not be challenged by successful politicians.
So as significant as it was that Obama was black, it's equally significant how little he was able to talk about it.
Sous les paves, la merde!
He's an Irish Muslim Atheist commie from Indonesia err... Kenya, his Pastor was Jeremiah Wright who was a God-hating anti-American Bolshevik... His secretive NWO code name is Barry Soetoro.
Here's what I really think:
I agree with Cornel West, Michael Moore and the others on this forum. He's an imperialist, war capitalist in black face. He failed to reverse neoliberalism, he failed to close Guantanamo, failed to get single payer, failed to commit to any serious climate reforms, failed at immigration reform and on the reverse has been the most reactionary toward immigrants in recent US history, he's failed to seal the diplomatic deals between the US and Iran, he's failed to reverse the economic trends of capitalism in the US such that right-wing "populists" (it's a oxymoron, I know) like Trump are becoming viable.
That was an element on my leftward shift as well. Trumpists on comment boards love to call Obamunism as authentically 'communist' all of the time. I'm always quick to point out how that's not the case. They be like, "Those miserable Mexican commies wanna take our stuff!" And I be like, "I don't want your smelly socks..."
Voila.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." (Fredrick Douglass)
´We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.´ (Malcolm X)
´Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.´ (Rosa Luxemburg)
Cool guy, capitalist president. Not much more to add from a working class perspective.
The fact that he is black and was president, as was noted above, is pretty significant historically though.
Greatest communist theoretician and practitioner of the XXIth century. His new synthesis and advancements in the Marxist critical theory are yet to be fully appreciated.
We can only hope that future generations look up to him just as we look up to Gustav Noske.
"We have seen: a social revolution possesses a total point of view because – even if it is confined to only one factory district – it represents a protest by man against a dehumanized life" - Marx
"But to push ahead to the victory of socialism we need a strong, activist, educated proletariat, and masses whose power lies in intellectual culture as well as numbers." - Luxemburg
fka the greatest Czech player of all time, aka Pavel Nedved
Funny thing, that. The racist right is more focused on his "real" name Barry Soetoro which is so devoid of any ethnic or foreign elements, rather than his real name which is more prone to nitpicking by racist elements in society. I don't know what mental processes go on up there sometimes...
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." (Fredrick Douglass)
´We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.´ (Malcolm X)
´Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.´ (Rosa Luxemburg)
To be fair, that doesn't really address the fact that even if Obama himself was a genuine "progressive", he would have never gotten anything passed (or even gotten nominated for the candidacy) because of the inherently conservative nature of the Democratic Party. Upon Obama's election, the Democrats gained an absolute majority in the Senate (after previously leading it with a coalition with Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman) and expanded their gains in the House. In a parliamentary system, such a result would virtually eliminate any barriers to implementing the party programme. But the Democrats were divided between the centrist/Blue Dogs and the "Bush era" liberals, with the former holding most of the keys to the Party apparatus and most of the crucial votes needed to pass the Senate filibuster. This doomed virtually all legislation coming in, from cap-and-trade and financial regulation to healthcare; the first one never passed, and the last two were so watered down that they were basically skeletons of what the progressives wanted (and even they barely passed muster).
An injury to one is an injury to all -Industrial Workers of the World
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all -Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free -Eugene V. Debs
The congressional block was real and surely limited reforms that Obama himself wanted. However, as I noted in a previous post, there are several hurtful, violent, and draconian policies that Obama purposefully put forth. Expanding the PATRIOT ACT and signing the NDAA (which eliminates due process requirements for US citizens suspected of terrorism) was a quiet but intentional part of his agenda. As were the regime changes and drone strike program, which were pretty much exclusively under his control through foreign affairs powers. Same thing with the intensifying of ICE deportations, ICE being a Federal agency under the direction of the executive. The Trans Pacific Partnership was also fully backed by Obama. So was NAFTA.
So, even by bourgeois standards, I don't buy the "doomed progressive" argument that I often hear. He's a giant murderous asshole with no regards for human rights, with or without crippling congressional blockage.
I still think Obama should have been arrested during his visit to Johannesburg a few years back (aroundwhen Mandela passed away). For multiple reasons, one really can't say the perception of Obama as a "capitalizt zionist warlord" isn't justified either.
Remember all the "drone" shit-pelting related to Obama? Yeah...
Oh, and Obama was considering placing sanctions on South Africa due to his supposed "chicken war" because of the restrictions of American meat imports and the production of which conflicts with South Africa's own food laws (No, we don't want your steroid and hormone contaminated shit you call "meat").
