USElections:
From the “Lesser to the Greater Evil”and the Demise of Critical Liberalism
James Petras
Introduction
There is
ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political spectrum
further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues Obama has
embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor and in the
process devastating what remained of the peace and social movements of the past
decade. Moreover, the Obama Presidency has laid the groundwork for the
immediate future promising a further extension of regressive policies following
the presidential elections: cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
Incumbents and their opposition compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in
campaign funding from wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the
post-election period in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements,
anti-labor and environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put
forth by the Obama campaign but numerous militarist and regressive social
policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign, playing off
of the reactionary proposals of the Romney-Tea Party alliance: a cover for his
own record of unprecedented military spending, sequential wars, immigrant
expulsions, mortgage foreclosures and Wall Street bailouts.
In the process, critical
liberals have crossed the line, surrendering their integrityby
deflecting attention from Obama’s militarist-socially regressive
policies to focus on “opposing Romney” as a“greater evil”: progressives and
critical liberals have multiplied and magnified the duplicity of the Obama
political apparatus. In the name of opposing the current ‘greater evil’
(Romney) they dare not enumerate and specify the wanton political crimes and
monumental socio-economic injustice perpetrated by their “lesser evil”
candidate (Obama). Will the “progressives” ever play honest and publically
state: we back Obama in “swing states”because he has “only” murdered 10,000
Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis, is starving 75 million Iranian’s via sanctions, gives $3
billion for Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally
oversees the arbitrary executions of US citizens and promises an extended kill
list … because Romney promises to be worse … Expecting honesty from the
proponents of‘lesser eviles’ is as farfetched as taking serious their
criticismsbetween elections.
The political
damageincurred by the social movements and US working class under the Obama
presidency is unprecedented and has laid the groundwork for further social
regression and greater imperial bellicosity.
Political
Consequences of the Obama Presidency: Past, Present and Future
The Obama
Presidency and the run-up to his past and present electoral campaigns have had
a devastating impact on popular social movements, engaged in issues of
peace, labor, immigrant and constitutional rights and environmental regulation.
The peace
movement virtually disappeared as its leaders urged its supporters to turn
their activities to supporting Obama’s election. He rewarded them by escalating
military spending, and engaging in sequential wars, directly or by proxy, in
seven countries, wreaking havoc and destruction. He faced minimum opposition as
ex-peace activists, in dismay, turned away or grabbed a post and apologized for
war. By 2012 the follower- less peace leaders repeat the same mantra to support
Obama; but dare not repeat the past lie (in the name of‘peace’) rather they
claim in order ‘to defeat Romney’.
The immigrant
rightsmovements prior to the 2008 election of Obama mobilized several
million….till it was infiltrated and taken over by Mexican-American political
hacks from the Democratic Party ad turned into an electoral machine to secure
elected posts for themselves and Obama. He rewarded the immigrants by setting a
record: seizing, jailing and expelling 1.5 million immigrants over his tenure
in office. The immigrant rights mass movement has been largely dismantled and
now Democratic political hustlers hire canvassers to round up and register,
highly disillusioned immigrant voters.
Afro-Americans
were the most neglected sector of the USworking class under Obama: they
experienced the highest levels of unemployment and home foreclosures and the
longest period of joblessness. They became politically invisible as Obama bent
over front ways to appease rabid White racists seeking to label him a ‘black
president’. The established black leadership-political and religious – and the
media celebrities went all out to block any expression of grass-roots
opposition, claiming it would only“help the racists” – ignoring Obama’s embrace
and bail out of White Wall Street and showing his backside to millions of black
households under water. Without movement or leadership, fearful of the problem
(economic racism) and the solution (4 more years of invisibility under Obama)
most black workers are left to abstain or hold their nose and vote for
‘Oreo’Obama.
The Occupy
Wall Street Movement, precisely because it was independent of the
Democratic Party and fed up with Obama’s total subservience to Wall Street,
provided a temporary voice for the vast majority of Americans opposed to both
political parties. The local and state Democratic officials applauded “the cause”
and then repressed the movement.
A spontaneous
movement without political direction, and lacking an alternative political
leadership, was incapable of confronting the Obama regime: the movement
declined and disintegrated, many sympathizers sucked up by the Obama ‘lesser
evil’ propaganda campaign. The mass popular animus to Wall Street was defused
by Obama’s claim to have saved “the economy” from catastrophe by channeling
$4.5 trillion dollars into the bankers’ pockets.
Constitutional
rightswere savaged by Obama’s defense of military trials, Bush era tortures,
expansion of arbitration executive power including the assumption of
Presidential power to assassinate US citizens without a trial.
While legal
organizations fought the good fight for civil liberties, the vast majority
of liberals were notable by their absence from any sustained democratic
movement upholding the rights of 40 million Americans under police
surveillance, especially Muslim citizens and immigrants. They chose not to
embarrass their Democratic President: they placed the re-election of a
police-state Democrat over and above their putative defense of constitutional
rights. No mass marches for civil liberties; no protests against Home Land
Security; no campus-wide free speech movements against the abrogation of the
right to criticize Israel.
For decades, the
trade union confederation and senior citizen movements defended Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid. With Obama in office, openly declaring and preparing
major reductions and regressive clauses on coverage (raising age qualification)
and indexing, there is no significant protest movement. Programs which for the
better part of a century (social security) or half century (Medicare, Medicaid)
were considered untouchable are now, according to Obama, “on the table” to be
gutted (“reformed”,“adjusted”). The trade union millionaire bosses hire a small
army of campaign workers and raise over a $150 million to re-elect a President
who promisesto make huge cuts in medical programs for pensioners and the
poor. Obama has legitimated the regressive social positions of the far-right
while the Democratic Party neutralized any trade union opposition or
mobilization.
Last but not
least, the Obama regime has co-opted progressive liberal social critics via
backdoor support. In the name of “opposing Romney” the progressive pundits,
like Chomsky and Ellsberg, end up in alliance with Wall Street and Silicon
Valley billionaires, Pentagon militarists, Homeland Security boosters and
Zionist ideologues (Dennis Ross) to elect Obama. Of course, the support of the
progressives will be accepted -but hardly acknowledged- but they will have no
influence on future Obama policy after the election: they will be discarded
like used hygienic pads.
The Future:
Post-Election Consequences
With or
without the re-election of Obama, his regime and policies have laid the
groundwork for an ever more regressive and reactionary social agenda: living
standards including health, welfare, social security will be cut drastically.
Afro-Americans will remain invisible except to the police and racist judicial
system. Immigrants will be hunted down and driven out of homes and jobs:
immigrant student dreams will become nightmares of fear and trepidation. Death
squads, proxy and drone wars will multiply to prop up a bankrupt US empire.
Unaccountable and hypocritical progressives will shift gears and criticize the
president they elected; or if it’s Romney they will attack the same vices they
overlooked during Obama’s electoral campaign: more cuts in public spending and
climate change will result in greater deterioration in everyday life and basic
infrastructure; more floods, fires, plagues and blackouts. New Yorkers will
learn to detox their toilet water; they might be drinking and bathing in it.
