Barack Obama seems to be making quite a habit of throwing overboard any black person associated with him who might have spoken an uncomfortable truth or raised some disturbing questions at some point in their lives. First his lifelong friend and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now his "green jobs" advisor, Van Jones. As Jonathan Schwarz puts it:

Van Jones is a genuinely worthwhile person, from which it follows he's someone whom America's right-wing would inevitably go berserk about. Yet if Obama were willing to face down their berserkitude, this would mean I would have to redraw my mental map of who and what Obama is.

Thank god that turned out not to be necessary. I have enough on my plate as it is.

It's like the old saying: When the going gets tough, the tough get panicked and start throwing people under the bus.

I hope Michelle is keeping an eye out for any Greyhounds coming down the street.

II.
Let's look again at the precursor to Obama's latest cave-in to rightwing white folks: his skewering of Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 campaign. It's worth re-considering as an indicator of the character and outlook of the man -- traits we are seeing confirmed, over and over, now that he's in power.

Arthur Silber wrote with savage brilliance on this subject last April, and you should read his piece in full. Taking off from that deep foundation, I offered a few observations of my own at the time, which are excerpted below:

On Monday, Barack Obama humiliated and demeaned himself with yet another denunciation of his old friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright. But there was no "national dialogue on race" this time around -- just cold, flat-out condemnation. Obama even declared that Wright was "not the same man I've known for 20 years" anymore -- echoing the newly crowned King Henry's blast at Falstaff: "I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers." ...

Obama ridiculed Wright for "caricaturing himself" at a National Press Club appearance, and declared that his preacher was a vain showboat: "What mattered to him was commanding center stage." Obama bristled with disdain as he condemned Wright for his "divisive and destructive" remarks....

But this is indeed a curious and telling episode. If one actually takes the trouble to read Wright's remarks before the Press Club -- which almost no journalist in America did, although they are easily available at the Washington Post's web site -- it is difficult to see what in God's name all the brouhaha is about. Even Wright's most "controversial" remarks -- about AIDS, Louis Farrakhan and, in Obama's words, "equating America's wartime efforts with terrorism" -- are couched in plausible contexts, and are actually more nuanced than the, well, caricature of them that Obama condemned. Most ludicrous of all were Obama's hysterics about the "divisiveness" of Wright's remarks, when the theme of racial and cultural and religious reconciliation was sounded over and over throughout the appearance.

At any rate, let's do something really radical here. Let's actually see what Wright actually said. The quotes below are from the WP transcript. Now, I realize that reading a transcript is different from watching a "spectacle," as Obama put it, on the Tee-Vee. ... But still, there are scattered pockets out there where words still mean something, so let us consult the text. Here's Wright on the "black church":

The prophetic tradition of the black church has its roots in Isaiah, the 61st chapter, where God says the prophet is to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive. Liberating the captives also liberates who are holding them captive. It frees the captives and it frees the captors. It frees the oppressed and it frees the oppressors....what you see is God's desire for a radical change in a social order that has gone sour.

God's desire is for positive, meaningful and permanent change. God does not want one people seeing themselves as superior to other people. God does not want the powerless masses, the poor, the widows, the marginalized, and those underserved by the powerful few to stay locked into sick systems which treat some in the society as being more equal than others in that same society.

God's desire is for positive change, transformation, real change, not cosmetic change, transformation, radical change or a change that makes a permanent difference, transformation. God's desire is for transformation, changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders, and changed hearts in a changed world.

Well, perhaps Obama is correct, after all. This is pretty divisive stuff. It divides the miniscule sliver of rapacious elites (and their sycophants) from the vast majority of the American population. Obviously, when Obama says he is trying "to bridge the gap between different kinds of people," he wants to reconcile "the poor, the widows, the marginalized" with "the powerful few." The former should learn to love the latter -- and for God's sake not seek to change any social orders or sick systems. No, that kind of talk is indeed "appalling." As Obama says: "It is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country." Good to know, Barack. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

Wright goes on:

Our congregation, as you heard in the introduction, took a stand against apartheid when the government of our country was supporting the racist regime of the African government in South Africa.

Our congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries.

Our congregation sent 35 men and women through accredited seminaries to earn their master of divinity degrees, with an additional 40 currently being enrolled in seminary, while building two senior citizen housing complexes and running two child care programs for the poor, the unemployed, the low-income parents on the south side of Chicago for the past 30 years. Our congregation feeds over 5,000 homeless and needy families every year, while our government cuts food stamps and spends billions fighting in an unjust war in Iraq.

Our congregation has sent dozens of boys and girls to fight in the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, and the present two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. My goddaughter's unit just arrived in Iraq this week, while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service, while sending ... while sending over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie.

This is what Obama called "a very different vision of America" from the one that he espouses. Obama is "outraged" by this kind of com-symp stuff -- dissing Oliver North, for God's sake! Why, the mind boggles at such anti-American divisive unpatrioticness! Outrage indeed!

Then Wright got to the heart of his divisive, destructive, racist remarks:

God wants us reconciled, one to another. And that third principle in the prophetic theology of the black church is also and has always been at the heart of the black church experience in North America.

When Richard Allen and Absalom Jones were dragged out of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, during the same year, 1787, when the Constitution was framed in Philadelphia, for daring to kneel at the altar next to white worshippers, they founded the Free African Society and they welcomed white members into their congregation to show that reconciliation was the goal, not retaliation.

Absalom Jones became the rector of the St. Thomas Anglican Church in 1781, and St. Thomas welcomed white Anglicans in the spirit of reconciliation.

Richard Allen became the founding pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the motto of the AME Church has always been, "God our father, man our brother, and Christ our redeemer." The word "man" included men and women of all races back in 1787 and 1792, in the spirit of reconciliation.....

And we recognize for the first time in modern history in the West that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles, and different dance moves, that other is one of God's children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness, just as we are.

Only then will liberation, transformation, and reconciliation become realities and cease being ever elusive ideals.

That was the end of his prepared remarks. He did not mention AIDS, Farrakhan or the War on Terror in the talk; these were all brought up by questioners afterward. And his responses formed the soundbites which will now reverberate in the media echo chamber from now until election day. So let's take a look at these controversial remarks.

First, what Obama called "such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS." After citing some books on the subject, Wright said:

I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven't read things, then you can't -- based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything. In fact, in fact, in fact, one of the -- one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non- question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.

So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable.

I personally don't believe that the U.S. government concocted the AIDs virus; but the notion that a government which conducted murderous medical experiments on black men for decades, and sold chemical weaponry to a brutal dictator (and, by providing military intelligence, helped him use them against the Iranians), and also launched a war of aggression in Iraq that has killed at least million innocent people might also be capable of creating and unleashing a deadly disease is certainly not implausible. (See Arthur Silber for much more on this.)

Now what about Farrakhan? Obama denounced Wright for saying that Farrakhan was "one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st centuries." Of course, Wright didn't say that. He said Farrakhan was one of the "most important" voices, because he was able to reach millions -- and move them to action. This is simply a statement of fact. Adolph Hitler was one of the most important voices of the 20th century for the same reason. And so was Martin Luther King Jr. Let's go to the tape:

So what I think about [Farrakhan], as I've said on Bill Moyers and it got edited out, how many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall? He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century. That's what I think about him. I've said, as I said on Bill Moyers, when Louis Farrakhan speaks, it's like E.F. Hutton speaks, all black America listens. Whether they agree with him or not, they listen.

As for terrorism, Wright simply referred the questioners to his previous "controversial" sermon on the matter. And here's what he said in that sermon:

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday.  Did anybody else see him or hear him?  He was on Fox News. This is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end.   He pointed out, (Did you see him, John?) -- a white man -- he pointed out -- an ambassador -- that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true; America's chickens are coming home to roost.

We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapajo, the Navajo.  Terrorism -- we took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear.  Terrorism.  We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians -- babies, non-military personnel.  We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with Stealth Bombers and killed unarmed teenagers, and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.  [fullest voice]  We bombed Khaddafi, his home and killed his child.  Blessed be they who bash your children's head against the rocks.

We bombed Iraq, we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living.  We bombed the plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy -- killed hundreds of hard-working people -- mothers and fathers, who left home to go that day, not knowing they'd never get back home.  [Even fuller voice] We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.  Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school -- civilians, not soldiers.  People just trying to make it day by day.  We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant?  Because the stuff we have done overseas is brought back into our own front yards.

America's chickens are coming home to roost.  Violence begets violence.  Hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism.

A White ambassador said that, y'all, not a black militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism; an ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up, and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.

So there you have it. This is what Obama calls "equating the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism."

Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt when he says he is not just "politically posturing" in his denunciations, that he is speaking from the heart. What are we left with? That his "vision of America" does not include any "positive change, transformation, real change, not cosmetic change" in a "social order that has gone sour." And that the "War on Terror" is just peachy-keen with him; in fact, it is so sacrosanct that it cannot even be criticized. A war of aggression that kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people cannot be compared with "terrorism"; it is a legitimate expression of national policy, even if one might disagree with its timing and the mechanics of its execution.

Seen anything in the past eight months that would prove this wrong? Me neither.

***
P.S. It's been almost a month since we had the last transmission from Arthur Silber, a rather harrowing bulletin from the midst of an horrific health crisis. I don't know what his situation is at the moment, but it is likely to be very dire. If you have any spare wherewithal at all, please consider sending some of it his way, to help see him through this current bout. 

Comments (22)

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scott douglas said:

... It is sad - but quite plausible - that Obama's association with a progressive voice, such as the Reverend Wright displays, moved large numbers of gullible left-leaning democrats and independents into the candidate's vote column even as the 'he's-just-being-tactically-cagey-why-can't-you-see-that? candidate himself was denouncing that very same progressive voice. Anyway, Rev. Wright's near-Jerimiad was one of the most refreshing "spectacles" I have ever seen on American television. Some deluded democrats probably STILL believe that the president secretly agrees...

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September 07, 2009
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Jimmy Montague said:

	Whitey is just about full-up -- If electing a black guy (who MIGHT BE an uncircumcised, Muslim terrorist and NOT EVEN an American citizen) to the presidency of the United States was whitey's Hail-Mary play, then the good news is that, when the Obama presidency goes bust-o, revolution is the next big thing. Ammo is expensive these days, but I'm stockin' up!
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September 07, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

Mad Hemingway said:

	... Obama is the Sales & Marketing guy; he doesn't do governing & policy. See, Big Business isn't particular which party mouthpiece is used, Blue just happened to be in last year. In 2012, Mr Obama will find that Labor & the Progressive base has deserted him.
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September 07, 2009
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Jimmy Montague said:

	Oh, huh! If Obama doesn't know by the end of this year that his sun has set, he'll be the only person in the nation who's still in the dark (no pun intended).
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September 07, 2009 | url
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Steven Jardine said:

	It's Good Van Jones leaving the WH is a good thing, he doesn't have to stay silent any more. jo6pac
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September 08, 2009
Votes: +1

lynette said:

oh, the irony Isn't it remarkable how the same folks who despise government, who hate the idea of programs run by the government for the benefit of all people, lose their fucking minds when someone criticizes that government's bloody depradations around the globe? It's insane, psychotic stuff. We have caused 99% of the messes we've ever been involved in. We overthrow left leaning democratically elected leaders. We provide weapons to lunatic right wing crazies as long as they'll fight against the leaders we don't like. We pit countries against each other and then step into the breech to scoop up the riches of those countries when they fall into chaos. Wright was right. I knew it when Obama stepped on his head and you've reaffirmed it now.

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September 08, 2009
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ell dee said:

you've got the wrong guy What makes this episode all the more of a clusterfuck -- and this is where I part ways with the analysis proferred here -- is that Van Jones is far from a Jeremiah Wright. Long ago he remade himself into a patron of corporate liberal philanthropists and an alliance-builder with green capitalists. Hell, given the direction he was headed, in five years he would have been cozying up to the DLC like Obama himself. Yet, both left-liberal naifs and right-wing demagogues alike paint him as a stealth revolutionary. Not. But who knows, maybe this row will send him back to his roots... although despite his once being a gimcrack activist, he was always more than a bit of a self-promoter.

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September 08, 2009
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ell dee said:

	correction Whoops, "gimcrack" is not the modifier I meant to use... I meant to use an adjective that suggested "sharp and effective," not "cheap and showy"...
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September 08, 2009
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luis said:

	We picked the wrong coloured guy We would have been much better off with the Right Reverend. PS I noticed Arthur Silber wasn't putting much up of late. I second Mr Floyd's plea.
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September 08, 2009
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Macia Wood said:

Who is the Man We Call Obama Americans don't know anything about President Obama, we hitched up our britches and decided a man's past, work record, profession wasn't really important. Next we assumed that everything out of his mouth during his political campaign was true - shame on us! Now we're finding out that none of us know who is really leading our country. It's amazing to observe the news media as they edit, re-edit and obliterate the real news - to hear them tell it, you'd think he was some kind of "God." Nope, he's not any kind of "God" - some got that wrong too! As Always, Annie

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September 08, 2009
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sonof59 said:

And yet the excuses keep pouring in… I found an article on Arianna Huffington's site, authored by Huffington herself, thanking (ironically) Glenn Beck for Van Jones' ouster. What was startling to me and what is truly beginning to enrage me about Obama's unconditional supporters, is that Arianna managed to appear grateful to have Jones back in the "activist" ranks while never addressing Obama's cowardly failure to stand up to the insanity and childishness of the right. If anyone's interested, visit the SmirkingChimp.com and read David Michael Green's condemnation of Obama's presidency. Then, scan the comments section and witness the mindless and fact-free adoration that Obama, the corporate lackey, still receives from the ether-huffing, prozac-munching faithful. The same people that now heap praise on this most ineffective of presidents would have been offended no end by those similarly beguiled by Baby Bush. What passes for political discourse--even among ostensibly like-minded wonks--in this leaky vessel that is our empire is truly discouraging.

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September 08, 2009
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ell dee said:

	"Ineffectivity" "Ineffectivity" is not so unwelcome if "effective" health care reform amounts to the Massachusetts plan, i.e. a guaranteed expanded market for the private insurance racket.
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September 09, 2009
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No One of Consequence said:

... Obama's presidency has nearly made HuffPo, a bastion of banality most of the time, nigh-unreadable. Watching the people who stridently critized a Bush policy carefully question the policy when it's stepped up under Obama just deadens the soul. The worst part is people who thought that the primaries should have been wrested from the Obama/Clinton dichotomy are in the same position as progressives who were right about Iraq before the invasion: they can never be right. They're going to do this again. The next time we get a shot at a halfway decent Democratic candidate, they'll do it again. It won't be the rightwingers, it won't be the Media -- a bunch of well-off liberals calling themselves progressives will annoint some other pro-corporate rising star as their champion, and onward, downward, we'll go. I'm assuming the country will be relatively stable by that point -- a rather unsafe assumption.

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September 09, 2009
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Elizabeth Rainwater said:

	Thanks from EAST TENNESSEE! Really good piece, Chris. Thanks for linking to Silber, whose theory on conspiracies I so agree with (as well as most else he writes). When you begin to find the truth, who needs 'em? Skippy
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September 09, 2009
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Skippy said:

	... But then, to assume there are no conspiracies is ludicrous. Humans are conspiratorial animals from the get-go. Our extreme talent for conspiracy is one of the things that sets us apart as one of the "brainiest" of all animals, is it not? S
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September 09, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	... The next time we get a shot at a halfway decent Democratic candidate, Oh boy. This from someone who criticizes HuffPo... using the very thinking he's criticizing. How sad. Because we know that the only people with "decency" are Democrats, right chumley? The delusions of the smallminded, they are sometimes almost entertaining.
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September 09, 2009
Votes: -1

No One of Consequence said:

Chris Deserves Better Trolls Yes, Sean's ad hominems are completely justified because here has never, in the history of the world, been an insurgent progressive candidate in a corrupt party -- oh, wait, that's bullshit, and Sean is simply a troll who got spanked in a previous thread and is polluting this one. Back your shit up with actual evidence or STFU -- oh, wait, again, Sean's a troll, so no evidence (or correct use of punctuation) is forthcoming.

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September 09, 2009
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Yankee 30 said:

	... As Mr. Fish says: "Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government."
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September 09, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

... The only ad hominem at work is yours, "No One of Consequence." I merely pointed out the inconsistency of your statements. Disagreement and exposing one's inconsistency, that's not ad hominem. Ad hominem is what you posted here: oh, wait, that's bullshit, and Sean is simply a troll who got spanked in a previous thread and is polluting this one. Back your shit up with actual evidence or STFU -- oh, wait, again, Sean's a troll, so no evidence (or correct use of punctuation) is forthcoming. The "evidence" was what I quoted, and I quoted you. Please try to be honest next time. I expect you won't succeed at anything but hypocrisy, but please try.

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September 10, 2009
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No One of Consequence said:

The Troll Can't Read The delusions of the smallminded, they are sometimes almost entertaining. That’s an ad hominem -- you just called me stupid. Since you can’t read your own posts, what does that make you? Here’s a hint: how do you feel about being called “smallminded” (sic)? Would you characterize the “smallminded” as having no concept of what a hyphen is, or being unable to read their own posts, or completely fail to understand irony? Please try to be honest next time. I expect you won't succeed at anything but hypocrisy, but please try The only liar here is you: you lied in your last set of posts as well. Go back to the other thread, liar -- do look for proof of your accusations. You said I talked about Republicans -- and your sorry ass couldn't even find the term "Republican" in my posts, so you spent the whole time lying about it. I wonder if you voted for Obama and are now trolling here out of bitterness. You're contradicting yourself literally one post away from where you were behaving like an asshole; that's Kristol-level hypocrisy. Seriously: go back to right-wing blogs. It’s where you belong.

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September 14, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	another day, another lie from NOOC a general comment about smallminded people is all that was. if I wanted to say you are smallminded, I would come out and say it. I'm not a childish practitioner of passive-aggressive hostility, not like you. even when lying madly, NOOCy fails to persuade.
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September 14, 2009
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No One of Consequence said:

	... Passive-aggressive? I'm as straightforward as they come. If I were "lying madly," how could I be passive-aggressive. You were caught in an obvious lie in the other thread and you're bitter about it and too pathetic to admit your error. If that weren't true, you would have resolved the issue with a simple copy and paste. You're a troll. Live with it.
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September 21, 2009
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