Open Letter to Obama: Wishful Thinking and Deadly Self-Deception

by Sunsara Taylor, Revolution

The August 18 issue of The Nation magazine published “Change We Can Believe In. An Open Letter to Barack Obama,” online at thenation.com.

The
letter begins by congratulating Obama and extolling how, through his
candidacy, “Hundreds of thousands of young people have entered the
political process for the first time, African-American voters have
rallied behind [Obama], and many of those alienated from
politics-as-usual have been re-engaged.”

But they
express concern that, “Since your historic victory in the primary,
there have been troubling signs that you are moving away from the core
commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a
more cautious and centrist stance-including, most notably, your vote
for the FISA legislation””

While making clear
that they “recognize that compromise is necessary in any democracy,”
and “understand that the pressures brought to bear on those seeking the
highest office are intense,” they advise Obama, “Retreating from the
stands that have been the signature of your campaign will weaken the
movement whose vigorous backing you need in order to win and then
deliver the change you have promised.”

“People always were and always will be the foolish victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is maintained by the forces of some ruling classes.” V.I. Lenin

After
listing some of Obama’s positions that they like and some that they
don’t, they pledge: “If you win in November, we will work to support
your stands when we agree with you and to challenge them when we don’t.
We look forward to an ongoing and constructive dialogue with you when
you are elected President.”

The signatories to
this letter are an impressive list of writers and intellectuals, a
number of whom are respected tremendously as voices of conscience. But,
this letter, and its whole logic and method, is very bad. Whatever
their intent, those who put their names on it are wielding their
influence to get people to join them in a deadly exercise in
self-delusion.

On one level, the best response to
this letter are the words of Obama himself. Answering accusations that
he had “moved to the right” since securing the Democratic nomination,
he said, “The people who say this haven’t apparently been listening to
me.”

But since those who signed The Nation‘s
letter are serious people making a serious argument, and since this
letter reinforces themes that are constantly hammered at people, it is
important to say more.

The Poison of Wishful Thinking

One
of the most insidious dangers of this letter is how it “softens”
Obama’s politics, distorts the meaning of his campaign, and proceeds
from what the writers wish were true rather than what actually is.

Take,
for instance, the letter’s claim that Obama has “sketched out a vision
of a better future, in which the United States sheds its warlike stance
around the globe.”

In reality, what he has “sketched out” is a vision of massive escalation-to
the tune of 10,000 more troops!-of the war in Afghanistan, a
willingness to unilaterally use military force in Pakistan, and a
refusal to rule out using nuclear weapons against Iran! Besides voting
repeatedly to continue funding the war in Iraq, Obama has made clear
that his criticisms of that war are out of a desire to strengthen
the influence and domination of the U.S. in the world. Really, all this
is much more than a “sketch”; Obama has put forward a very concrete
program of imperialist domination for all to see and hear. . . and it
doesn’t entail “shedding a warlike stance” any time soon.

Or take this letter’s description of Obama’s positions as “cautious and centrist.”

What
exactly is “cautious and centrist” about voting for Bush’s FISA law
sanctioning massive domestic wire-tapping and retroactively protecting
those who violated the rights of millions to privacy? What is “cautious
and centrist” about giving a bloodthirsty speech to AIPAC (American
Israel Public Affairs Committee) that essentially writes Israel a blank
check and threatens Iran with war? What is “cautious and centrist”
about blaming Black fathers, in his infamous Father’s Day speech, for
the way this system has written off a whole generation of
youth, unable and unwilling to provide jobs or decent education or any
kind of future at all, and instead funneling 1 in 9 Black men into
jail?! What is “cautious and centrist” about getting to the right of
George Bush’s Supreme Court and arguing for even wider use of the death
penalty? What is “cautious and centrist” about promising to expand
Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative?!

If all this is “cautious and centrist,” I”d really hate to see “cynical and fascist”!

More
to the point, sanitizing Obama’s positions in this way is dangerously
similar to how the Pentagon refers to civilians murdered in unjust wars
as “collateral damage”; it has the effect of numbing people to reality
and making it easier for them to acquiesce to war crimes.  What is
particularly painful is that many of the letter signers have a
commendable history of speaking plainly and insisting people confront
the full horrors of the crimes of the government, but the logic of
trying to make Obama into something he is not has led them away from
this principle they have stood for.

The Need to Speak Honestly

It
is essential to speak honestly and accurately about all this. Only by
confronting reality as it actually is, can we determine how it can be
transformed in ways that are both possible and desirable. Conversely,
if we insist on deceiving ourselves-and worse yet, deceiving
others-then we will continue to find ourselves standing by in impotent
frustration as this country continues on its bloody, criminal course.

The reality
is the situation is extremely dire. Millions on this planet, and many
future generations, are imperiled because of what the U.S. government
is doing in our names: the torture, the massive spying, the
refusal to acknowledge or take meaningful action to stem global
warming, the Gestapo-style round-ups of immigrants, the assaults on
women’s most fundamental rights, the vicious resurgence of racism, and
especially the wars.

Further, the reality
is that all this was sanctioned and codified, not stopped or even
slowed, through people’s participation in “politics-as-usual.”

To
name just one example, in 2006 millions gave money, volunteered time,
and voted for the Democrats out of a desire to see an end to the whole
Bush trajectory. What did this “victory” lead to? A Congress that has
voted six times to approve war funding, actively participated in
covering up torture and protecting war criminals, and secretly funding
covert military operations already afoot within Iran’s “sovereign”
borders.

Is it any wonder that so many have become profoundly alienated from this shit?

And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Potentially,
it is a profoundly good thing; but this alienation is far from enough,
and left to itself will turn to cynicism, despair, and passivity. What
is needed is for this to go further, and for these people to come
forward in political resistance that is broad, deep, and determined
enough to stop this whole direction.

In the face
of this urgent need, why should anyone celebrate if Obama, holding the
positions that he actually holds, “re-engages” these people back into
the killing confines of his “politics-as-usual”? This is like
congratulating the Pied Piper for how his beautiful flute-playing
attracts the town’s children, disregarding that this is leading them to
the bottom of a river.

But Doesn’t He HAVE to Listen?

But
what of the letter’s argument that Obama has to listen to them because
he cannot afford to “weaken the movement whose vigorous backing [he]
needs in order to win…”?

Once again, perhaps the best answer to this comes from the candidate himself.

Responding
to angry supporters who complained about his FISA vote, he wrote,
“[S]ome of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker.
That’s ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on
the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we
may have.” Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental
direction of this country that we love will not change.”

In
other words, he knows full well that as long as people’s eyes are
focused on Who’s Going To Be President progressive people have “no
alternative” but to vote for him.

And, while the
letter writers pledge to challenge Obama, if elected, on the positions
they don’t agree with, the actual effect of their letter and their
logic is to promise not to challenge Obama too much now. This is a
logic echoed by all too many; as one prominent anti-war activist
recently told me, explaining why her group wasn’t putting more effort
into protests at the Democratic National Convention, “We”re going to
shut the fuck up until he gets elected.”  This is certainly NOT what
the anti-war movement should be doing at a time when the rulers of the
country are actively preparing a new war-a war against Iran that Obama
has made clear he”d support.

You see, even as
they criticize Obama for his FISA vote, already by the next paragraph
the letter writers are smoothing this over by acknowledging that
“compromise is necessary in any democracy” the pressures brought to
bear on those seeking the highest office are intense.”

Well, that logic never ends.

Today,
a FISA vote is excused “in order to get elected.” Next, a delay in
troop withdrawal because “the Generals insist…” Soon people swallow
more religiously-driven legislation and homilies to Jesus Christ
because “he can’t get anything done” unless he “brings the country
together.” Then, before you know it, further “compromises” so the
Democrats hold their majority in the mid-term elections. Then, like a
tape on loop, those same “pressures” will have to be accommodated to
get him reelected.

Most fundamentally, those
pressures must be understood for what they are: the operation and logic
of the system Obama is competing to be commander-in-chief of. And if he
wants to be selected president he has to prove himself capable of
running this country in the interests of the class of
capitalist/imperialists who rule.

That is why he
is championing the so-called “war on terror” which, in its essence, is
a war for imperialist domination. That is why he is photo-op-ing with
Generals and singing the praises of troops who are neck-deep in war
crimes. That is why he is meeting with, and by all accounts trying to
win the approval of, people like Franklin Graham who once compared the
Iraqi people to the ancient Babylonians of the Old Testament. That is
why he directs his aim not at white supremacy but at Black men and
admits he’s “not entirely immune to nativist sentiments” against
immigrants.

On the Real

Let’s
be real. In bourgeois elections what the masses of people think has
precious little to do with how the candidates choose their positions or
which candidate wins. By the time the people get to pull the lever on
election day, the terms have been set-which candidates and issues and
stands are viable contenders has been determined-according to ruling
class interests. And when they do vote, all they are doing is stamping
those ruling interests-as embodied in one candidate or another-with the
mantle of legitimacy and a “popular mandate.”

If
the people who wrote this open letter don’t know that, they should. But
what is really unconscionable is that this “Open Letter to Barack
Obama” is not going to be heard and considered by Obama-he is more
likely to blow his nose with it than to take such a thing seriously.
But it will be heard and considered by those who are extremely
alienated and angry with the government, who seized on the Obama
candidacy as a source of hope, and who are now disillusioned as Obama
articulates an increasingly unapologetic imperialist agenda.

These people don’t need to be funneled back into the dead-end of politics-as-usual, they need to be told the truth:

The
real choice is not a choice between Obama and McCain. The real choice
is between accepting the ruling class spectrum of Obama to McCain as
the limits of what is possible-or-rejecting this whole
framework and instead waging meaningful mass political resistance to
the whole fascist direction the world is being dragged in.
It is the difference between fighting for the change you ARE ALLOWED to
believe in and the change that you understand is really needed.

Yes,
political resistance of a scale and scope that could bring all this to
a halt is more daunting and requires more sacrifice. But, if you want
genuine change then nothing is more unrealistic than confining yourself to pulling the lever.

It
is long past time people put their hope in something that can bring
about change worth believing in: the power of the people acting in the
interests of humanity. The people do have the power to effect change
when they refuse to hold their tongues out of electoral calculations
and get off their butts and go into the streets.

It is a very good thing-not a bad thing, as The Nation
implies-that millions are deeply angry and profoundly alienated not
just by the Bush regime but also increasingly by Obama. Many of them
are casting about, wondering if there is another way. Many of them will
join in resistance if they see it as an option.

All of their eyes-and millions more around the world-will be at the Democratic National Convention.

Instead
of trying to convince them that what is going on inside should be
accepted, shouldn’t we tell them the truth about what this represents?
Shouldn’t we bend every effort to ensure they see thousands of
protesters OUTSIDE making clear their refusal to swallow war-mongering
and repression regardless of which candidate or party is pushing it?

And,
to those who are ready to give up on banging your hearts and your heads
up against the “best” that capitalism can offer; shouldn’t we go
further still? Shouldn’t we get into the questions of our times that
really demand answers, like what kind of society you are willing to
live in and what kind of change is really required. Is it simply a
matter of making adjustments to the blood-soaked arrangements of empire
or do we urgently need fundamental and radical change?

To
those who wonder if a better world-a future really worthy of human
beings-is possible; I dare you to dream of revolution. And I invite you
to explore-through the pages of this newspaper and the works of Bob
Avakian-a viable vision of what that is, and to engage the leadership
that can point the way.