Running on a message of change, presidential candidate Barack Obama has
inspired hope never before witnessed in this century or perhaps even the
preceding one. New voters, mostly young, filled with new hope and a renewed
belief that America could one day live up to her creed, are flocking to the
polls in support of him.
Hope. Unity. Change. Obama certainly has the right message. Perhaps he’s
even the right man. But is the Democratic Party the right party? And is the
capitalist system the right system?
Every step of the way in this contentious campaign the Clintons and key party
members loyal to them have sought to marginalize Obama and reduce him to just
another Black man by repeatedly injecting race into the campaign. They have
even tried to trivialize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
in the process. Even worse, at one point they outright excused and encouraged
the fear and mistaken notions that many whites have of Blacks by saying, with
an air of understanding and tolerance, that “some whites are just not
ready to vote for a Black man to be president.”
Without question, the Democratic Party, Barack Obama’s party, is infused
with racism, blatant and glaring. Yet it dims when juxtaposed against the
incendiary racism of the capitalist media, as we saw with the gross
caricaturing of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama, to be sure, is no revolutionary; far from it. But he knows well the
politics of capitalism, an economic system deeply rooted in the ruthless
philosophy of “grab what you can get and keep what you can hold.”
Competition and divisiveness are as intrinsic to capitalism as stink in a cow
pie. Yet Obama’s message is a contradictory message to his party: a
message of change and unity.
For us to have unity in the United States, we must have change. Not
reformative, but absolute!
Whether Obama is offering us substantive hope or another pipe dream remains to
be seen. But he effectively put the U.S.’s problems in context in his
speech on race. He reminded us, the people, that we have the power to make
choices: “For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics
that breeds division and conflict and cynicism. We can tackle race only as
spectacle, as we did in the O.J. trial; or in the wake of tragedy as we did in
the aftermath of Katrina; or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Rev.
Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day, and talk about them from
now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or
not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his
most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as
evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether
white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of
his policies.
“We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election,
we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And
then another one. And nothing will change.”
“I truly believe that the country is ready to move beyond politics as
usual and into a time where policy comes before spectacle. That is one option.
Or, at the moment, in this election we can come together and say, ‘Not
this time!’”
“No, not this time” is a bold, confrontational statement the
magnitude of which cannot be fully appreciated without some history of the
Democratic and Republican parties.
The Republican Party was formed in 1854. The Democratic Party was organized in
1792. Neither party represents our interests. What we must all come to accept,
once and for all, is that they will never represent our interests. They were
not created to. John Adams, one of the founding fathers of this country, said
that he was against universal suffrage only because the poor would vote to take
the fortunes away from the rich and establish equality. We know, too, that the
U.S. Constitution was written to limit democracy, to exclude the poor, women
and people of color. The inequality and injustice that disfigure and define
this country result from deliberate design, not some unfortunate accident of
history.
For more than 200 years, working people have supported the Democrats and the
Republicans with our loyalty, believing that one day we would be led to a
Promised Land of sorts—a land of prosperity where peace, justice and
equality abound for all regardless of sex, race, creed or color.
From Shay’s Rebellion to Black rebellions
After 200 years, the great masses of the people find themselves far from that
Promised Land, in a valley of hopelessness and despair; the same hopelessness
and despair that led to the uprising in 1786 known as Shay’s Rebellion.
This popular rebellion involved thousands of impoverished farmers who were sick
and tired of losing their land and their cattle to creditors. They were sick
and tired of high taxes and high interest rates, of poor leadership and
insensitivity on the part of the government. This forced them to unite and
rebel.
Pick up any paper today and look in the business section. Farmers in 2008 are
facing the same problems, with Black farmers losing their land at a
disproportionate rate. Homes are being foreclosed on and across the board,
workers are taking a beating. They’re taking a beating at the gas pumps
while oil companies are raking in record profits. They’re taking a
beating at the supermarkets with inflation in a time of recession, when times
are hardest. They’re taking a beating every time the government,
Democrats and Republicans, bail out faltering corporations but do nothing for
the average worker facing a financial crisis.
What then has been the government’s response when the common folk have
come together as one, be it in the form of unions, mass protest, or party
organizing, to just say “No, not this time!”
To the farmers of Shay’s Rebellion, the government responded with the
militia. Some were shot and killed. Hundreds were arrested and the government
quickly passed a so-called Riot Act Law that suspended Habeas Corpus so that
the farmers couldn’t get out of jail. While most were given prison
sentences or assessed fines, the leaders of the rebellion were sentenced to
death and hanged.
It was this hopelessness and despair that led to the 1960s Civil Rights
Movement with demonstrations in every major city in this country. How did the
government respond? That’s right; with the police and the National Guard!
Many of the protesters were injured and killed. Thousands across this country
were arrested and jailed. In Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, Commissioner of Public
Safety “Bull” Connor sent out cops in riot gear, armed with
nightsticks, scatter guns, dogs and high-powered water hoses to attack peaceful
demonstrators, many of whom were young school children.
It was this same kind of hopelessness and despair that led to the 1992 Los
Angeles uprising after a jury acquitted four cops accused in the videotaped
brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King. How did the
government respond? With the police, the National Guard, the Army and the
Marines! Between 50 and 60 people were killed and 2,000 were injured. Thousands
of jobless youth were arrested and jailed. The president allocated over $600
million for rebuilding South Central L.A. but only $18 million was earmarked
for food, jobs, job skills and housing. More was spent on beefing up the police
force and creating more jails and prison spaces.
History talks to us. History tells us that this capitalist government, the
Democrats and Republicans, is not a friend of the common worker. History
reminds us that this government never has been our friend and never will be. It
tells us that this government is, always has been, and always will be allied
with big banks and large corporations.
History also alerts us to just how easily working people are arrested, jailed
and even put to death. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in
the world, imprisoning 10 times more people per capita than Japan or any nation
of Western Europe. As of February 2008, there were 3,263 people on death rows
across the country. Most of them are Black and Brown. There are over 3.3
million locked up in jails and prisons, with African American men in their
twenties who are locked up exceeding the number of African American men of any
age who are attending colleges and universities.
Obama again hits home with the truth by saying, “Politicians routinely
exploit fear of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and
conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism
while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as
mere political correctness or reverse racism.”
It is true that what these politicians and conservative commentators say about
crime and justice is totally refuted by history.
History contradicts the notion that prisoners are somehow radically different
from other people, that they don’t share the dreams and aspirations of
others, that they freely and preferably choose a criminal lifestyle. In truth,
most prisoners are products of inequality, social injustice, racial injustice,
subpar education and a shortage of legitimate economic opportunities. By far,
most crimes are driven by economic necessity. A large number are fueled by
mental illnesses that result from living under this capitalist system.
Recognizing this calls for different remedies. True solutions run counter to
the sprawling prison-industrial complex that we have today as well as the
systemic execution of those living at the margins of society.
To say that Obama is here to the rescue is pure fantasy. But, as a Black man,
he is more knowledgeable of and sensitive to the pain and suffering of the
poor. I cannot imagine him, for the sake of winning the presidency, running a
Willie Horton campaign ad of a Black man getting out of prison to prey on
society, as did the late Ronald Reagan in 1981; or an ad depicting prison as
nothing but a revolving door where one day you’re in and the next day
you’re out, as did George Bush Sr. in 1989; or abandoning the campaign
trail to return to his home state on the day of an execution to demonstrate his
support for state-sanctioned killing, as did Bill Clinton in 1993.
I cannot imagine Obama not responding to the victims of Katrina and using the
excuse of not knowing, as did the current president. Or him going along with
the mainstream media in portraying the Black Katrina survivors who scavenged
the stores for food and water as criminals and hoodlums and the whites as just
desperate families trying to survive.
Whether Obama wins or not, he has already defied the odds. He has come this far
not because he is Black, as former Democratic vice-presidential candidate
Geraldine Ferraro would have us believe. But his message of hope, change and
unity resonates with the people. His is a revolutionary message. But it will
require work.
Let us think of the future not as something that unfolds naturally—like a
rose—but as a great sculpture that we can shape.
We can shape tomorrow by uniting together and making history today, by drawing
together and feeling, knowing, and recognizing that the power is in us to shape
from stones of despondency a sculpture of hope; from boulders of chaos and
uncertainty, a sculpture of harmony and stability. From the hardest fear and
ugliness, we can and we will form a valiant, beautiful revolutionary movement
for real change. In the words of Obama, “Yes we can!”
Earvin and Guidry are long-time leaders of PURE—Panthers United for
Revolutionary Education—and are political prisoners on Texas death row.
Go to www.workers.org to read more on
Guidry’s case.
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World.
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