About time someone took on Amiri Baraka’s frequent minstrelsy on behalf of the Obama campaign.

By Littlehorn

I decided to write a response for several reasons:

1. I completely reject voting for Obama
2. The arguments used by Baraka are widespread among the Liberals, and it is thus handy to have a serious reply at one’s disposal
3. Baraka himself uses very strong words against the Right and Imperialism, and I could never let such a man betray us with a vote for Obama.

I use the word ‘betray’ because I believe a line has to be drawn between imperialists and anti-imperialists.

After reading this text, I wondered who the author might be. I expected Baraka to be a person with a pretty extremist past, but then mellowed out in the course of his life. I thought he went from being a radical socialist, which would explain the first paragraphs extreme vocabulary depicting the Right (always a pleasure by the way), to being a Democrat loyalist, which would explain his call for radicals to vote Obama, in the name of the lesser of two evils argument, as always.

However, according to this Wikipedia entry, he considers himself, still to this day, a marxist. That makes this response even more imperative. Think about all the young folks he will convince with this kind of revolutionary cred.

So let’s start the bitching.

Baraka’s text characterizes radicals from the 3rd to the 11th paragraph, that is, about the time where he starts finding some use for them: they can vote for Obama. Here are the words he uses in association with them, prior to this revelation: “pimple,” “so disant intellectuals” [that's soi-disant], “self-advertised radicals,” “criminal,” “mirror worship,” “empty idealism,” “dangerous,” “windy egotism,” “self-congratulatory,” “solipsistic fist pounding,” “elitism,” “so-called left,” “would-be radicals,” “pipsqueak,” “stand on the sidelines,” “hip.” And of course, let’s not forget the title, “rascals.”

All these insults derive from one problem: the radicals oppose Obama. This is what Baraka considers criminal. Because voting for McKinney is, in the end, voting for McCain. And McCain wants Americans to “keep dying in Iraq,” and “keep our taxpayer money fed to Halliburton.”

There are serious flaws in these positions.

The first of which is that Baraka forgets to explain how Obama’s plan will stop American deaths in Iraq, how it will stop our taxpayer money from being fed to Halliburton, and in general, how Obama will stop anything McCain intends to do, or expand. Any amount of reflection on the matter will show that it won’t. Whatever makes it criminal to “vote McCain”, therefore, makes it criminal to vote Obama. And while he rails against radicals for using the lesser of two evils argument on McKinney and Obama, he does the same with Obama and McCain. [May I also add that I too would rail against these radicals, but because McKinney is precisely not evil, contrary to Obama.]

The second flaw lies in the statement that a vote for McKinney is a vote for McCain and that’s just intolerable. McCain is such a horrible person and candidate, we are led to think, that Baraka embarks on a crusade to intimidate radicals who would have this horrible horrible person elected. Two questions: how is Obama so much better ? And also, how could a Republican candidate ever be such an acceptable possibility that Baraka wouldn’t mind alternative candidates ? It could not be so, and Obama, as a candidate for the oval office and as someone who approves Imperialism just as much as McCain does, is as horrible a person as McCain is. So then, while Baraka tries to portray his position as reasonable, the only result that can be drawn from the obvious reality of American politics is a completely locked-up two-party regime, with obviously no hope for real change.

Finally, if you’re going to call people’s decisions ‘criminal,’ maybe you should go check again the voting record of the same Barack Obama you want for president. He consistently funded the Iraq occupation, the same occupation that studies show has killed between at least 100.000 people and more than a million of them. Surely, Baraka would talk about the “political context” to explain that away. One would be tempted to call it a ‘criminal’ political context, but alas, there was no radical to intimidate while this occupation was funded in Congress. But then, Obama is the Democratic nominee, and he will be influenced by a “solid left bloc”, that has yet to actually exist.

This is what Baraka envisions for us: after he’s done insulting us, that is, telling us how stupid, selfish, arrogant, useless we are, he finally shows us the way to salvation from his pathetic diatribe: we shall form a left bloc and we shall push Obama to the left, but while supporting his candidacy anyway. Or else! He will be “pushed inexorably to the right.” By whom ? Well, Baraka doesn’t say, so I’m going to suppose a bunch a right-wing aliens abducted Obama’s secret son and are forcing him to say naughty things during a presidential run.

For all the rants about McKinney supporters’ idealism, arrogance, selfishness and lack of seriousness, his own vision is quite “grandiose.” (I can mock elitist radicals with French words too)

Let’s go: sometime before the election, progressives, radicals, and revolutionaries are supposed to come together to form a bloc. Baraka does not explain how this will be done. He just wishes it would happen. Let’s grant it will. Then, this bloc will support Obama, even though, as the subject of this whole call shows, almost all the members of this bloc will think Obama is an Imperialist, unworthy of support. I imagine Baraka intends to use his poetic skills and insults to turn these guys around. That will work. Maybe he will personally send a postcard to each and every one of them, with the words “You’re useless. Vote Obama.” Or some kind of poetic variation of that.

But let’s imagine that this solid left bloc will indeed reluctantly vote for Obama. Then, when the election day comes, and if there’s a “larceny” like in 2000 and 2004, the bloc will agitate so the election is not stolen. So not only will Baraka’s bloc vote for Obama, against its beliefs, it’s also going to march on the streets, fuck ship up, “agitate” and even “internationally” ! They’ll go to prison, they’ll get tasered, some of them may even die! But it’ll pay out in the end, cause then Obama, that guy whom they think is an Imperialist, will reach the oval office.

Unlikely you say, but I was a little dishonest there. Fortunately for logic’s sake, there’s a purpose to all this: when Obama is finally elected, installed in the oval office, then it will finally be time for the solid left bloc to be “loud and regular in its demands for the changes Obama has alluded to in his campaign.” There is “a potential” for a new “path”. And what changes did he allude to ? The famous talks. The progressive, radical, revolutionary bloc will vote for Obama, agitate, fuck shit up, and in the end it will manage to push Obama to the left, because, sometime before the primaries ended, Obama said he would hold talks with the “Bourgeois enemies.”

To be sure, this is a very serious and realistic plan. McKinney, contrary to what you would think from reading Baraka’s call, does not fool herself into thinking she will win the presidency. She aims to reach 5% of the national vote so as to reach the status of 3rd party. That would give them some platform for later and bigger gains. This, in my arrogant, selfish, stupid view, seems a lot more realistic than Baraka’s plan.

Baraka also uses the good old secret agenda/political context/majority argument, to explain all the foul language and naughty votes employed by Obama before and after the nomination, but especially after. That’s certainly one very credited explanation among Liberals. And proved by History many times over: how often do we see Presidents do exactly the contrary of what they announced after their nomination ? I stopped counting myself a long time ago. Boy, do I hope someone can help with that. Baraka certainly will.

But seriously, where has Baraka been all these years ? What’s the point of calling yourself a marxist ? How about this other, much more plausible explanation: the real agenda of the candidate is exposed after his nomination. Before, the candidate is not sure he will be nominated, he must secure as many votes as he can, and that is when he panders to the left, or whatever stream will get him nominated. After, all he has to do is steal votes from the right, please the rulers, say the “serious” things, and appear presidential. Baraka would have you believe the constraints are placed after the nomination, and that this is why Obama has to say right-wing stuff. It’s the other way around: the constraints are placed before, when Obama must actually convince people. After that, and precisely for the reason that is given in the very same call by the very same Baraka, he’s absolutely free. That reason is : no one Liberal would vote for anyone else but Obama, because he would take that to be a vote for McCain, just like Baraka says. Thus Obama only has to pretend and Democrats are never made accountable.

And now it is high time someone speaks the truth.

One is not responsible for the actions of others, but only for his own.

A vote for McKinney is not a vote for McCain.

A vote for McKinney is a vote for McKinney.

Only a vote for McCain is a vote for McCain.

Baraka wants us to think it is not true.

But I’m asking you:

If you bring a friend to a concert, and a madman kills that friend, does that make you guilty of his death?

If I vote for McKinney, but McCain wins, will I be guilty of all the murderous things McCain will do?

No.

The madman is guilty. McCain and his supporters are guilty.

This is the simple truth that everyone understands in real life, but that no one applies to politics.

Well, not Amiri Baraka anyway.

There are several other minor (and obvious) problems within this call, I just want to point them out quickly:

• At some point, Baraka says he will qualify what positions he shares with radicals on Obama. But he never gets to that anywhere in the text.
• He claims Obama’s skin color will change the country if he’s elected, because of the country’s history. I take it then that McKinney is white. Also, the skin color of the POTUS is now officially magical (the KKK will be happy to hear that), or has at least much political meaning. (Clarence ?)
• The fatherless children are rampant in Black communities, to the point it’s impossible to ignore them. Well, not so much. Then again, Baraka lives and had children there, so I guess his partial knowledge weighs more than scientific study.
• He then advances that fatherless children make up most of the gangs, but seeing that he was wrong on their predominance in Black communities, I have difficulty trusting him on this. Also, you will be pleased to learn that white racists in France advanced this very reason (bad parenting) to explain away the kids’ participation during the riots. Nice.
• This guy manages to mention the deaths of his sister and his only daughter [may they rest in peace] with such casualness, I didn’t understand this was serious until the third read. Quote:
  

  As I answered one irate e-mailer who was pissed off at Obama for leveling that challenge, a Negro man killed my only sister, a Negro man killed my youngest daughter.
  I can’t give no mealy mouth slack about that, we need to Stand Up!

• When the left bloc will supposedly be created, it will take the same kind of importance as AIPAC and the Gusanos lobby. And then the masses truely wanna go to the left, they’re just waiting for some good left bloc document to do so. I’ll begin writing a draft right away. Expect to see the Communist Party revived in a few months.

To finish on a compromising note, I will say that I do agree that the forces on the left need to get up and form a bloc. This is even desperately needed.

But to then support Obama would be a huge mistake. Obama will never listen to such a bloc. The “talks” were all show and he disavowed the left not long ago. To attach that bloc to such an obvious scam of a progressive would most probably end up with its self-destruction.

Via Connection

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