THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT'S OBAMA

         18 September, 2012


The Disappointment that's Obama 

Hameed Abdul Karim

When President Barack Obama’s election victory was announced virtually the whole world whooped in joy. Here, we thought, was a chance that the world would be a better place to live in, without the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and company pursuing their dangerous extreme right wing policies to bring the world to its knees and force us to worship the empire.

Obama came in like a breath of fresh air. Being an offspring of a mixed marriage with and a white mother, we thought he might have a deep understanding of the feelings of people of all races. His ‘Muslim’ heritage led Muslims to believe he might accommodate their feelings and especially, right the terrible wrongs his country had inflicted on the Palestinians.

His ‘Assalamu ‘Alaikum’ speech in Cairo brought a thunderous reciprocal greeting and applause from the audience most of which comprised ageing old guards of the political establishment, aligned ‘civil society’ and other assorted hangers-on. The youngsters stayed behind, waiting for their day of destiny.

Barack Obama’s ‘Naw-Rooz Mubarak’ (happy new year) greeting to Iran made people think ‘that hey, this guy is real cool’. In our naivety we swallowed every word he said. His express wish, in his stentorian voice, that ‘before the year is out, a state of Palestine defined by the 1967 borders will be a reality’ (or words to that effect) sent Palestinians and their supporters around the world in a state of ecstasy and expectation. But it was the same guy who opposed Palestine’s entry into UNESCO.

 Millions thrown out of their homes

Jobs for Americans will be a-plenty, housing and affordable health care for poor Americans is coming with hope-changey. That was supposed to be the change. But what we have is that millions of Americans have been thrown out of their homes by the banksters, and over 24 million Americans are either out of jobs or underemployed. Instead of helping the people, Obama helped the very banksters who threw them out of their homes to the tune of billions of dollars. Thousands are on the streets of the US protesting against Obama’s policies in what is called ‘Occupy
Wall Street (OWS). The pro-establishment American media has blocked all news of this gigantic protest, except when they can get a talking head to vilify the protesters. This is reminiscent of all protests that have taken place for over a hundred years in the US.

Blot on humanity

The infamous Guantanamo Bay was to be closed on the very first day in office. But it’s still there like a blot on humanity.  Only the other day yet another ‘detainee’ died. But that was not of much concern. What was important was the murder of the US ambassador to Libya along with a couple of highly rated US navy seals. All human life is precious, but somehow the deaths of non-whites, especially if they happen to be Muslims, don’t induce the same level of sympathy in the minds of people as does the death of a white person. I am sorry to say this, but it’s true.

To make matters worse, Barack Obama has arrogated to himself the power to decide who is to live or die, thus going one step further than Bush  Co. He had personally ordered the murder of a US citizen by drone attack in Yemen. Weeks later he ordered the murder of a 16 year old boy, who happened to be the son of his first victim and also a US citizen. The US military dutifully carried out the presidential murder order without ever wondering how a teenager could be such a big threat to the great empire.

Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder stated in public it was alright to murder US citizens without due process of law, if the president thinks he is a threat to the US. Holder is African American and you would have thought he would remember the cruel history of his people at the hands of the Anglo-Euro Americans when ‘negroes’ were sold like cattle to White landlords. Many of the 50 million slaves brought in chains from Africa to the ‘new world’ perished en route or died of hunger and disease afterwards. Quite a few of them were executed  or lynched for merely demanding to keep body and soul together, as described so movingly by Howard Zinn in his book ‘People’s History of the United States’

Birth pangs of the new Middle East

If we thought African Americans would empathise with the under privileged of the US because of their unique history we were wrong. We had no right to be optimistic on that score. The conduct of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in Bush’s government should have taught us our lessons. Condoleezza Rice it was who declared in exultation ‘these are the birth pangs of the new Middle East’ at an event hosted in her honour by Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv, while the Israeli military was smashing South Lebanon to smithereens with American supplied weaponry. Sure, we have a new Middle East now, but it’s not the one the Condoleezza’s of the Republican Party or the Democrats of the Obama would have wanted. Both US political parties are the same in their policies and outlook. Both subscribe to America’s ‘Manifest Destiny’. So when Americans, young and old, swallowed Obama’s line ‘Change We Can Believe’ In and voted him to power believing the poor in America will get a better deal under his ‘new deal’, they were in for a rude shock. Here’s how Howard Zinn puts it. ‘Whether Democrats or Republicans won, national policy would not change in any important way’. But perhaps the charismatic Arundathi Roy put it in an even better way. ‘The Republican and the Democrats are like tow detergents, both owned by Proctor and Gamble’, meaning big business.

So whether Obama wins or Mitt Romney replaces him in the White House come November, nothing’s going to change for the 99% of Americans who are protesting on the streets of New York or elsewhere in the States. And who knows maybe the Iranians will have to duck for cover, if or when the president of the United States decides to obey Binyamin Netanyahu’s order to bomb Iran. All along there was the Noam Chomsky telling us things will never change and that before long Obama will stand exposed for his hypocrisy because after all he is a prisoner of the Zionists and Wall Street who reign supreme from behind the throne. We should have taken his word.

Rein