11-10-08, 10:12 am

At a very early stage in the campaign, I wrote to friends that though Obama is not a leftist or a part of the left, he must, in the given conditions be the candidate of the left in the United States. It was not the time for any third party fantasies. (This might be the place to suggest that any real genuine left initiative for presidential elections would have to base itself on a modicum of success in local and regional elections. A serious left would not go to national elections without any serious advanced preparation).

Symbolic Victory

I share the enthusiasm. Obama made his way to the presidency fighting the Clinton machine and the Mcarthyite sniping of the McCain gang. But more important, anyone who knows anything of the role of racism in US could not but be stirred with joy and satisfaction over Obama’s tremendous victory. This having been said, it is foolish to ignore the plain and simple fact that his core beliefs and outlook are no more than a variant of the dominant ideas in the Democratic Party. Here and there some good and pertinent ideas emerged in the context of the clash with the Republicans. However, there were innumerable examples of wrong and very dangerous positions (Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, the bailout, to name a few). Barack Obama knows the sweet talk. I think that I would pay for a ticket to hear him read the telephone book. But any halfway experienced political progressive knows that “Change” and “Yes, We Can” are empty and even dangerous slogans, when we do not know what changes we are talking about and what exactly “we can” do. Unity, as a superficial substitute for ideology, is simply nationalist, right-wing fodder. I cringe at the ideological terminology which either ignores the poor and the working class or enrolls and submerges their identity in the ranks of the middle class. Of course, when looking at the immediate past, any decent advocate of Obama can justify all of Obama’s political weaknesses with the argument that all this was precisely what Obama needed to do to get elected. But even those, who thus argue, will agree that this kind of rationalization would be pernicious, even dangerous if it congeals into a simple minded advance justification for potential failures and disappointments of a Obama presidency. The game is on and from this point we start keeping score.

What Has Not Changed

At this time, we know that Black people in the United States are suffering increasingly painful want and poverty. This is true by virtue of a social law well known to all of us. In times of want, recession and depression the poor suffer most and the largest section of the poor is Black. l am relating to an euphoric article that was sent to me as one of the best things written on the Obama success. It’s essence:

But there is one thing we can proclaim today, without question: that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America means that 'The Ultimate Color Line,' as the subtitle of Javits' Esquire essay put it, has, at long last, been crossed. It has been crossed by our very first postmodern Race Man, a man who embraces his African cultural and genetic heritage so securely that he can transcend it, becoming the candidate of choice to tens of millions of Americans who do not look like him. 'Root'

I understand that this was written in a moment of deep emotion, but it has been seconded by many liberals and progressives. The “Ultimate Color Line” – the election of a Black president seems to be important because tens of millions of (white) Americans did vote for an African American. But the sterling qualities of Barack Obama that enable so many white voters to momentarily and conditionally suspend their racism, are not the main thing. It is a liberal illusion that the election of prominent African Americans ensures Black people’s welfare and progress. The Ultimate Color Line is the gigantic real life and statistical disparity between blacks and the white population in every facet of life – income, opportunity, health, education, administration of justice, etc. Discrimination still reigns and where there is discrimination there is the old color line. Obama’s election proves nothing in this respect and promises, I fear, little. Even the victories of the civil rights movement have yet to bear ample fruit for the masses of black people.

Who Won the Election?

Not Barack Obama. He himself explained what happened. He told the people that it was not his victory, but theirs! Much depends on whether this is just an elegant politician’s way of saying thank you for recognizing my virtues. However, if this sentence is sincere and has any real meaning, it is that Obama owes his election to a mass movement at the grass roots level. And indeed, the 2008 success is the success of the grass roots mass movement.

Is this a movement created by the application of the right technical instruments and merely an arm of the effective and efficient operation put together by the Obama machine? Praise for the success of Obama’s campaign organization tends to portray it as a top to bottom creation and stresses that it is a resource that Obama can use when needed. But in our humble opinion, the movement to elect Obama is not merely an instrument to be used when required. It is a living and breathing social entity.

Obama says the election is not the main thing and he is right. But what forces does Obama take with him to DC? He has supporters in his party but these are usually subservient to Democratic Party bureaucracy which has its own interests and agenda. He has important support in the establishment sections of the business world and the academy. But once again these people usually have their own agenda. If Barack Obama has his own clear, fighting agenda, the only fully reliable ally that he has is the grass roots movement. But he can only rely on this movement if he listens well and builds up a constant, vibrant dialogue with those who worked to get him elected. It is the presence or the absence of this dialogue that will let us know where Obama is headed.

At this point the grass root movement is still celebrating, but through the clamor it hears the footsteps of the old politics: old guard appointments, consultations with representatives of the current elite establishment, foreign policy statements based on the Bush regime’s positions that seem designed to calm potential critics in the military-industrial-foreign policy complex. Every day that goes by without emerging evidence of a developing independent mass based organization working with and for Obama is a sign that Obama is not moving in the right direction. If Obama tries to govern from the center he will dissipate his strength and fall victim to those with whom he sought to curry favor. If he allows the financial experts, in his close vicinity, to advise him that government bailouts are the way to go, he will run out of money very quickly only to realize soon enough that unity between capital and labor is a fantasy. A depression means war on the working class and the poor and yes, large parts of the middle class. If you are indeed their leader, you fight back or you are trounced for having deserted those who put you in power.

--Reuven Kaminer lives in Jerusalem.