Real state of the union

One year ago saw the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the first Black president of the U.S., with a mandate for change, against the backdrop of the most serious capitalist crisis in decades. The spirit of the massive outpouring for Obama lives on, as seen in the tremendous concern and aid pouring in for earthquake-devastated Haiti. But much of what he has done, and failed to do, has demonstrated the limitations of his "pragmatism" and of bourgeois electoral politics. Last year has been stark proof of the need to grasp Marxist-Humanism's view of the ongoing revolutionary Black Dimension.

For example, Obama's healthcare plan, while better than nothing, falls far short of what single-payer advocates had hoped to see. In one aspect, it is a concession to the insurance industry and simply kicks the can down the road without resolving the healthcare crisis. It also bows to right-wing religious fanatics, in the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and other efforts to prohibit insurance coverage for abortion (see "Obama's pragmatism betrays women").

Obama also packed his White House team with Wall Street insiders. It underlines the way the massive bailout of those capitalist institutions, considered "too big to fail," has not extended to the public. Unemployment remains steady at an official 10% which would be much higher if discouraged workers were counted. Last month 800,000 of them dropped off the statistics.

Brutal realities lay behind those bare numbers. Homelessness and hunger are increasing. Demands on food banks are at an all-time high. Home foreclosures continue to increase.

THE LOGIC OF CAPITAL DOMINATES

In short, the election of President Obama hasn't repealed the logic of capitalism. It also didn't repeal the logic of imperialism, as he has continued and even intensified the wars he inherited from George W. Bush.

The U.S. occupation continues in Iraq. President Obama has also escalated the ongoing war in Afghanistan, with a new "surge" of tens of thousands of U.S. troops. He has extended the war to Pakistan, with drone strikes that killed some Taliban and al-Qaeda figures, but many more civilians. There is growing anger at these strikes within Pakistan. Most recently, this endless war has been extended to Yemen, with the introduction of U.S. air strikes along with military advisers. (See "Yemen in U.S. sights")

New missile sales to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have continued the militarization of Middle Eastern politics and life. These arms are meant to threaten Iran--and not only the current regime. The reactionary nature of the governments involved guarantee that these missiles will target any new government that might replace the current reactionary Iranian regime, particularly if it is a revolutionary one.

At the same time President Obama is being attacked viciously by the Right as a "socialist," while socialism is equated with "National Socialism." Various "Tea Parties" made up of John Birchers, white supremacists, and corporate shills make blatant racist attacks, demonizing Obama as the "Other," not a "Real American." Yet the right-wing talking head Glenn Beck has the nerve to call Obama "a racist who hates white culture."

This is a movement to be taken seriously. It is the heir of Jim Crow and the "Southern Strategy," of Wallace and "white backlash." It doesn't represent a majority, but that only makes it more frenziedly hateful. Its rhetoric goes further in racism and homophobic hate than Goldwater was ever willing to tread and includes a new McCarthyism as demonstrated in the attacks upon Van Jones and other Obama appointees. Remarks by Rush Limbaugh opposing U.S. aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, and by Rev. Pat Robertson claiming the disaster was a result of Haitians' "pact wth the devil" reveal the most depraved racism. It also has a lot of corporate backing.

It is ultimately the fear of revolution, however faint it may be at the moment, that brings big business together with racists, woman-haters and homophobes. The capitalist crisis and the election of a Black president with a mandate for change has focused that fear.

BLACK MASSES AS VANGUARD

There is a growing disillusion among some of those who supported Barack Obama, for example, Matt Taibbi, who describes Obama's first year in office in the Dec. 9 Rolling Stone magazine as "one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history." His specific criticisms are mainly correct, but he fails to grasp the question of race and racism that is involved.

The failure to grasp this leaves Obama and many others disarmed in the face of the Right-wing offensive, and risks surrendering to that retrogression without even putting up a fight. At worst, this failure risks falling into a retrogression of one's own. The necessity to oppose the logic of capitalism and imperialism, while also fighting racism, demonstrates once again that Marxist-Humanism's translation of Absolute Negativity as the ongoing revolutionary Black Dimension is the only realistic position for American revolutionaries.

As Raya Dunayevskaya wrote in American Civilization on Trial in 1964: "Today, as in the days of the Abolitionists, we see the new beginning. It is high time now to proceed to a middle, a theory; and an end--the culmination of the creative drama of human liberation into a new society freed from exploitation and discrimination and the wars that go with it."

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