Obama: The Other White Meat
By Ted Rall
Created May 8 2008 - 10:10am
I argue with my friends. Some of them thought invading Iraq was a good
idea.
Almost all believed that Afghanistan was "the good war," the one from
which
Iraq distracted us. (They're starting to come around.) A few are even
bigots. We disagree about these issues, often vehemently. But we're still
friends. I would never diss a friend in public (or, in politicalese,
"distance myself"). Even a former friend deserves respect.
Crisis reveals character. In politics, it reveals judgment.
Barack "Uniter Not Divider, This Time We Really Mean It" Obama was praised
for dumping ("distancing himself from") Reverend Jeremiah Wright. ("What
Barack Obama did was a profile in courage," said the Reverend Al
Sharpton.)
But the McCain campaign's silence indicates that it is quietly editing its
fall attack ads. Obama's apology, they'll say, came too little, too late.
Obama has fallen for one of the hoariest old tricks in the political
playbook: guilt by association.
Republicans are smart. They close ranks behind a senator caught trolling
for
gay *** in an air****t restroom, ignoring the homophobic platform of their
own party. Mr. Wide Stance keeps his job; they keep his vote. In contrast,
when New York's governor hooks up with a prostitute, the Dems--whose
politics, after all, are ***-positive--sell one of their brightest lights
down the river.
You'd think Democrats would have learned a big lesson in 1972. It seems
quaint in this age of Zoloft, but when it came out that vice presidential
nominee Thomas Eagleton had been treated for depression (with electroshock
treatment, standard care at the time), the media went nuts. If George
McGovern had stood by his running mate, the issue would soon have died.
There were, after all, plenty of other stories to talk about--say, Vietnam
and Watergate. But McGovern got spooked. He dumped Eagleton. Voters asked
themselves: If a guy throws his own running mate under the bus, how will
he
defend the United States? McGovern lost by a landslide.
Rule One of political survival: Never, ever apologize. Even when you're
wrong. Especially when you're wrong. Rule Two: Don't comment. Defending
yourself keeps the story going. Corollary One to Rule One: Stand up for
your
friends. Especially when they're wrong.
But what if they're right?
"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back
on
you," Reverend Wright said in his appearance at the National Press Club.
Pronouncing himself "offended" by such "ridiculous propositions" as "when
[Wright] equates the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism--there
are no excuses," Obama said the next day.
What is truly ridiculous is that, six and a half years after 9/11, many
Americans still think the attacks were motivated by crazy freedom-haters
out
to forcibly convert them to Islam. The rise of radical Islam resulted from
what Chalmers Johnson termed "Blowback"--CIA jargon for the unintended
consequences, in this case of arming and funding Islamist fighters against
the Soviet Union. But Wright was right. "America's chickens are coming
home
to roost," the Reverend said after 9/11.
It wasn't an original thought. Ward Churchill said the same thing. So have
countless analysts in other countries. Only in the U.S. is it prohibited
to
say something so obvious--particularly in a public forum.
Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers didn't think flying planes into
buildings would make Americans join the local mosque. They were motivated
by
a desire to bring America's wars home to its people, to ensure that it
would
suffer the consequences for having "sup****ted state terrorism against the
Palestinians and black South Africans," as Wright said. Like Wright, bin
Laden has referenced these issues.
The Al Qaeda founder has also talked about the atomic bombs dropped on
Japan, one of the greatest war crimes in history.
"Bin Laden has said several times that he is seeking to acquire and use
nuclear weapons not only because it is God's will, but because he wants to
do to American foreign policy what the United States did to Japanese
imperial surrender policy," the Wa****ngton Post noted in 2005.
One of Wright's most bizarre statements concerns his "suggestion that the
United States might have invented H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS," in
the words of The New York Times. There is no evidence to sup****t this
accusation. Yet paranoia can reveal truth.
"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," Wright told the NAACP last week. (In Tuskegee from 1932 to
1972,
illiterate sharecroppers with syphilis were left untreated so that white
doctors could observe the progress of the disease.) "In fact, 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."
It shouldn't come as any surprise, given what the U.S. government has done
and continues to do to African-Americans--a recent study shows, for
example,
that blacks are 12 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for
the same drug offenses as whites--that many of them consider it "capable
of
doing anything." What is surprising is that African-Americans--or anyone
else--still believes the government.
The Wright controversy offered us an op****tunity to talk about the need to
create a government that tells the truth, that doesn't torture or kidnap
or
wage unjustifiable wars--a government worthy of its people and its trust.
What we got instead, courtesy of Mr. Change We Can Believe In, was the
usual
pablum. "They offend me," Obama said of Wright's comments. "They rightly
offend all Americans."
Let us all hold hands and be offended. Whatever it takes to stop us from
thinking.
--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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