In the midst of this pandemic crisis, the incompetence and absurdity of the current empire president is causing many nostalgic people to suggest that things would be better now under the previous president – Barack Obama. A critical analysis of this subjective perspective is necessary.
We are very aware that millions of people, especially the African masses, not only in the U.S., but around the world, idolize Obama. We do this because our conditioning by the capitalist system has been to view the capitalist U.S., the richest country in human history, as the citadel of civilization and forward progress. Therefore, it follows that the bourgeoisie class, or the leaders of the U.S. capitalism empire, would be viewed by many of us as the best examples of success to emulate. Due to this perspective, Obama is viewed by Africans, and many others, as their greatest individual symbol of our quest to achieve justice in this country.
This perspective is understandable from an emotional point of view, but unfortunately, it doesn’t stand up to any critical analysis. Look at the instant, alarming, collapse of this capitalist economy. Thirty plus million unemployed with no safety net. That thirty plus million represents about 20% of the qualified work force being currently unemployed. There is this great “debate” about “opening up” the economy again and ending these coronavirus shutdowns. The motivations behind the people pushing for this quick open up, without any of the obvious variables being in place to even pretend to protect our health, is the need to continue capital accumulation for the super rich and the desire of that class to ensure the current empire president’s re-election chances.
The reasons for this economic collapse have made naked the weaknesses of this system. The world’s richest label that applies to this country clearly represents the unprecedented unequal distribution of wealth. The top 1% of wealth owners in the U.S. control over 60% of the business assets in this country. No one can argue today that the masses of people own nothing here. Ninety percent of the masses of people have negligible assets, meaning they are in debt. This is the reality that drives the statement being passed around today that the overwhelming majority of people in this country don’t even have a couple of hundred dollars for an emergency. Obviously, none of these circumstances, can be blamed exclusively on the current empire president. These are conditions that define U.S. capitalism, and capitalism everywhere. This type of exploitative economic system requires an “underclass” because its based on the exploitation of labor. This is the reason the rich are demanding that working people go back to work because workers are the basis of wealth development in capitalist societies. We work, they get rich off of our labor. That’s how this system functions and its been predicated on that injustice since the seed money for industrialized capitalism was derived from the sweat, blood, and tears of our African ancestors working on plantations all over the Americas.
This backward system demands people being exploited and the current reality of the millions who are suffering with no recourse is simply a reflection of how this system works. It only has concerns for the exploiters who control it, not the exploited who are beaten up by it. This is why this country has no answer for those millions who are penniless and unable to successfully negotiate the bureaucracy of attempting to get unemployment payments. There is no income replacement or debt forgiveness in this capitalist system. This is true despite the fact those huge capitalist companies, who are driving you to go back to work, are receiving about 70% of the 2 trillion dollars in so-called stimulus money with no requirements for them to pay it back. They are getting their lease requirements waived on their facilities and all types of government subsidies (your tax dollars) while you only get a one time payment that you’ve probably already spent that you will be taxed on for income.
None of the above was created by the current empire president. That person probably doesn’t even have the cerebral capacity to properly understand how this system works. These same conditions would have been in place when Obama was president. In fact, for millions of the most vulnerable among us, it already was. The dire straights that so many people find themselves in today are the day to day realities for poor people in this country, millions of them. There is absolutely nothing the Obama administration ever did to properly address that fundamental contradiction with the capitalist system i.e. it’s a system based on exploitation.
The exploitation of the African masses in Africa during the Obama administration is overwhelming. Subsidies and support are provided to U.S. corporations who exploit Africa and her people in the coltan/cobalt industry, diamond industry, gold industry, cocoa industry, bauxite industry, uranium industry, etc., etc. And, when the African masses stand up and demand an end to this corporate fleecing of our resources and labor in Africa, Obama’s response was to proliferate the expansion of the African Command program. This program, more widely known as Africom, has established almost 100 U.S. military bases and outlets throughout Africa. Their purpose? To train and equip Africa’s neo-colonial controlled militaries and police to make sure our people in Africa stop protesting and get back to work. Just like they want you to get back to work. Us working means them profiting, period. Their capitalist system is based on this dynamic.
The millions of African and poor people who are incarcerated, most of them for non-violent drug crimes, many during Obama’s regime, are still incarcerated. Clearly, prisons are hotbeds for coronavirus infections. The uneven economic conditions force African and other working poor to have to work low paying jobs where social distancing is impossible like custodian work, driving buses, etc. Instead of initiating policy changes that address the inequity in employment opportunities in this capitalist system, Obama lectured African people on working harder, not once, but multiple times while he was president. Never did he lecture Europeans about being so racist and entitled and how much they damage so many people’s lives by being that way. Never once was that broached, but we were lectured by him in very insulting ways. And, the reason he did that was because he knew that he could tell us to go to hell and some of you are so traumatized by this system that you would take it. Some of you even justify it. Meanwhile, he could demonstrate to the European masses and power structure that he could be just as hard on us as they are.
Obama is nothing except the soft spoken, easy going, make you comfortable version of the current empire president. Its like Malcolm X told us in 1964. One is a fox and the other is a wolf. One sneaks up on you. One makes you think there’s no danger afoot. One waits it out. And, that one, as soon as you drop your guard, that one attacks you. That one is Obama. The other one, it doesn’t bother to sneak up on you. It comes at you fangs snarling. It immediately attacks you and leaves no doubt about its intentions to completely wipe you out. That’s the current empire president. Like Malcolm said, at the end of the day “both are canines. Both will kill you.” Millions of Africans and other people are very confused about this phenomenon. Its like the old song said “smiling faces, sometimes, pretend to be your friend.” Obama is the smiling face. He always has been, but his administration was deadly to Africa and the African masses.
The current trauma we are experiencing isn’t solely the fault of the current empire president, although he certainly deserves his share of blame. His incompetence and his amateur inability to even hide it as Obama does, exposes how worthless he and his “leadership” are. Still, that doesn’t change the undisputed reality that all of these current problems were already here. These problems are systemic to this capitalist system. Anyone who is empire president presides over this inequitable situation that the pandemic didn’t create. It just exposed. The job of the president is strictly to represent the interests of the international bourgeoisie class. To ensure their control over the world is held intact. Not to solve the problems of working people. So, stop glorifying the Obamas. They are a bourgeoisie family that has demonstrated for anyone able and willing to see beyond the surface, that they are no different than any other bourgeoisie family, from that of George Washington to George Bush to the current empire president.
We are very aware that millions of people, especially the African masses, not only in the U.S., but around the world, idolize Obama. We do this because our conditioning by the capitalist system has been to view the capitalist U.S., the richest country in human history, as the citadel of civilization and forward progress. Therefore, it follows that the bourgeoisie class, or the leaders of the U.S. capitalism empire, would be viewed by many of us as the best examples of success to emulate. Due to this perspective, Obama is viewed by Africans, and many others, as their greatest individual symbol of our quest to achieve justice in this country.
This perspective is understandable from an emotional point of view, but unfortunately, it doesn’t stand up to any critical analysis. Look at the instant, alarming, collapse of this capitalist economy. Thirty plus million unemployed with no safety net. That thirty plus million represents about 20% of the qualified work force being currently unemployed. There is this great “debate” about “opening up” the economy again and ending these coronavirus shutdowns. The motivations behind the people pushing for this quick open up, without any of the obvious variables being in place to even pretend to protect our health, is the need to continue capital accumulation for the super rich and the desire of that class to ensure the current empire president’s re-election chances.
The reasons for this economic collapse have made naked the weaknesses of this system. The world’s richest label that applies to this country clearly represents the unprecedented unequal distribution of wealth. The top 1% of wealth owners in the U.S. control over 60% of the business assets in this country. No one can argue today that the masses of people own nothing here. Ninety percent of the masses of people have negligible assets, meaning they are in debt. This is the reality that drives the statement being passed around today that the overwhelming majority of people in this country don’t even have a couple of hundred dollars for an emergency. Obviously, none of these circumstances, can be blamed exclusively on the current empire president. These are conditions that define U.S. capitalism, and capitalism everywhere. This type of exploitative economic system requires an “underclass” because its based on the exploitation of labor. This is the reason the rich are demanding that working people go back to work because workers are the basis of wealth development in capitalist societies. We work, they get rich off of our labor. That’s how this system functions and its been predicated on that injustice since the seed money for industrialized capitalism was derived from the sweat, blood, and tears of our African ancestors working on plantations all over the Americas.
This backward system demands people being exploited and the current reality of the millions who are suffering with no recourse is simply a reflection of how this system works. It only has concerns for the exploiters who control it, not the exploited who are beaten up by it. This is why this country has no answer for those millions who are penniless and unable to successfully negotiate the bureaucracy of attempting to get unemployment payments. There is no income replacement or debt forgiveness in this capitalist system. This is true despite the fact those huge capitalist companies, who are driving you to go back to work, are receiving about 70% of the 2 trillion dollars in so-called stimulus money with no requirements for them to pay it back. They are getting their lease requirements waived on their facilities and all types of government subsidies (your tax dollars) while you only get a one time payment that you’ve probably already spent that you will be taxed on for income.
None of the above was created by the current empire president. That person probably doesn’t even have the cerebral capacity to properly understand how this system works. These same conditions would have been in place when Obama was president. In fact, for millions of the most vulnerable among us, it already was. The dire straights that so many people find themselves in today are the day to day realities for poor people in this country, millions of them. There is absolutely nothing the Obama administration ever did to properly address that fundamental contradiction with the capitalist system i.e. it’s a system based on exploitation.
The exploitation of the African masses in Africa during the Obama administration is overwhelming. Subsidies and support are provided to U.S. corporations who exploit Africa and her people in the coltan/cobalt industry, diamond industry, gold industry, cocoa industry, bauxite industry, uranium industry, etc., etc. And, when the African masses stand up and demand an end to this corporate fleecing of our resources and labor in Africa, Obama’s response was to proliferate the expansion of the African Command program. This program, more widely known as Africom, has established almost 100 U.S. military bases and outlets throughout Africa. Their purpose? To train and equip Africa’s neo-colonial controlled militaries and police to make sure our people in Africa stop protesting and get back to work. Just like they want you to get back to work. Us working means them profiting, period. Their capitalist system is based on this dynamic.
The millions of African and poor people who are incarcerated, most of them for non-violent drug crimes, many during Obama’s regime, are still incarcerated. Clearly, prisons are hotbeds for coronavirus infections. The uneven economic conditions force African and other working poor to have to work low paying jobs where social distancing is impossible like custodian work, driving buses, etc. Instead of initiating policy changes that address the inequity in employment opportunities in this capitalist system, Obama lectured African people on working harder, not once, but multiple times while he was president. Never did he lecture Europeans about being so racist and entitled and how much they damage so many people’s lives by being that way. Never once was that broached, but we were lectured by him in very insulting ways. And, the reason he did that was because he knew that he could tell us to go to hell and some of you are so traumatized by this system that you would take it. Some of you even justify it. Meanwhile, he could demonstrate to the European masses and power structure that he could be just as hard on us as they are.
Obama is nothing except the soft spoken, easy going, make you comfortable version of the current empire president. Its like Malcolm X told us in 1964. One is a fox and the other is a wolf. One sneaks up on you. One makes you think there’s no danger afoot. One waits it out. And, that one, as soon as you drop your guard, that one attacks you. That one is Obama. The other one, it doesn’t bother to sneak up on you. It comes at you fangs snarling. It immediately attacks you and leaves no doubt about its intentions to completely wipe you out. That’s the current empire president. Like Malcolm said, at the end of the day “both are canines. Both will kill you.” Millions of Africans and other people are very confused about this phenomenon. Its like the old song said “smiling faces, sometimes, pretend to be your friend.” Obama is the smiling face. He always has been, but his administration was deadly to Africa and the African masses.
The current trauma we are experiencing isn’t solely the fault of the current empire president, although he certainly deserves his share of blame. His incompetence and his amateur inability to even hide it as Obama does, exposes how worthless he and his “leadership” are. Still, that doesn’t change the undisputed reality that all of these current problems were already here. These problems are systemic to this capitalist system. Anyone who is empire president presides over this inequitable situation that the pandemic didn’t create. It just exposed. The job of the president is strictly to represent the interests of the international bourgeoisie class. To ensure their control over the world is held intact. Not to solve the problems of working people. So, stop glorifying the Obamas. They are a bourgeoisie family that has demonstrated for anyone able and willing to see beyond the surface, that they are no different than any other bourgeoisie family, from that of George Washington to George Bush to the current empire president.
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