Daily Archive

I’m reading a piece in Harper’s right now by Naomi Klein titled “Minority Death March: Jews, blacks and the “post-racial” presidency.  This article is chock full of blog fodder, from US/Israeli obstructionism in the UN to the denial of racism and responsibility of the ‘first’ world.  One section caught my eye as it focused on Mr.Obama and the job he is doing as president of the US.  The article references what one Juan Santos wrote in an open letter to Mr.Obama.  You can find the whole post here.

Barack Obama is the living symbol of our silence. He is our silence writ large.

He is our Silence running for president –

With respect to Black interests, Obama would be a silenced Black ruler: A muzzled Black emperor. A Black man at the head of the White Amerikkkan State – one who’s unwilling to speak truth to power, but more than willing, like a Condi Rice or a Colin Powell, to become that power and to launch wars of aggression against other people of color.

In Obama’s case the targets will be Iran (which he has threatened with “surgical” missile strikes) and Pakistan, rather than Iraq. That’s the only difference between Obama and Rice and Powell, or Bush, for that matter.

Between the Harper’s article and Mr.Santos’s own denunciation of Obama and what he stands for, it seems like the current president of the US is in a fair bit of trouble.    Where is the reform promised by his campaign?  It was my first impression that Obama was taking his time being conservative in his governance as to size up his opposition and his own capacities.  The more I read the more it seems that Obama is not about hope and change, but rather maintain and remain the same (maintaining the status quo of the last 8 years is reprehensible) .

I hope that Obama begins to move in a genuine progressive way soon.  He is at risk of losing his base of people who genuinely thought he would fight for change.