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<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>March 20, 2008<br>
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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia03202008.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia03202008.html<br><br>
</a></font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>When Reality
is Too Much<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Obama and the Pyshic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in
America</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By
MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.<br><br>
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<dl>
<dd><font face="Verdana" size=2>A truly good man is not aware of his
goodness,<br>
<dd>And is therefore good.<br>
<dd>A foolish man tries to be be good,<br>
<dd>And is therefore not good.<br><br>
<dd>A truly good man does nothing,<br>
<dd>Yet leaves nothing undone.<br>
<dd>A foolish man is always doing,<br>
<dd>Yet much remains to be done.<br><br>
<dd>When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone.<br>
<dd>When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be
done.<br>
<dd>When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds,<br>
<dd>He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order.<br><br>
<dd>Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.<br>
<dd>When goodness is lost, there is kindness.<br>
<dd>When kindness is lost, there is justice.<br>
<dd>When justice is lost, there is ritual.<br>
<dd>Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of
confusion.<br>
<dd>Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao.<br>
<dd>It is the beginning of folly.<br><br>
<dd>Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real<br>
<dd>and not what is on the surface,<br>
<dd>On the fruit and not the flower.<br>
<dd>Therefore accept the one and reject the other.<br><br>
<dd>Lao Tsu (6th century B. C.), #38, Tao Te Ching</i> (translation by
Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English; Vintage, 1972) <br><br>
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</dl><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">B</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>arack Obama has delivered a speech on race in
the United States that was both anxiously anticipated and now widely
proclaimed as a major event not just of the current presidential campaign
season, but of American politics generally and thus presumably of
American history.<br><br>
The tactical purpose of the speech was to distance Obama from Pastor
Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which
Obama has attended. Pastor Wright had made comments in the past, which
were recorded, about Black history and Black sentiments about this
history. These homilies were unvarnished and factually accurate, hence
unflattering about the role of White society in Black history. Naturally,
the political opponents of Barack Obama fanned the racist flames of White
fear by publicizing these supposedly intemperate rantings of an angry
Black man (note my use of triggering code words) in an effort to
discredit Obama in the eyes of his potential White voters; guilt by
association. As an aside on a point of logic, note how political dirty
tricksters rush (race?) to insult the intelligence of their target
audience as an integral part of their underhanded methodology to woo
them.<br><br>
Tim Wise at
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/wise03182008.html">Counter Punch</a>
and Glen Ford at
<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=559&Itemid=1">
Black Agenda Report</a> each wrote clearly about the essential reality of
this incident. What follows is a gloss on these articles, written as a
response to correspondence from a Black brother of mine
overseas.<br><br>
The only thing Bill Clinton ever got right was stolen from Marx:
"It's the economy, stupid." And so it is with the Great White
Religion, the racism is part and parcel of an exclusionary economic
policy. Israel mirrors this with its supposedly Jewish-only, Jewish-first
policies as masks for its naked genocide of Palestinians. My definition
of genocide is the attempted permanent removal of a victimized
racially-labeled population from real estate being stolen by an aggressor
of different racial-label identification. We might be close to this in
post-Katrina New Orleans. It is always a real estate swindle masked as
'culturicide.'<br><br>
I find many Blacks to be so resentful (with complete justification) of
our joint history, that they are not always clear and rational about the
nature of the existing situation. Yes, there is White-on-Black racism
(along with many other forms), but its root is not primarily simple
emotional hatred, rather it is both fear (of two kinds: xenophobia and
the historical guilt over slavery that Thomas Jefferson admitted to) and
greed. The mania for control is driven by greed, and the essential fear
is the anxiety over the loss of that control. Ascribing White-on-Black
racism to simple emotional hatred is the most comfortable overt
explanation, as is clear from its prominence in the depictions of racism
in popular culture (e.g., movies). The dominant culture finds it
comforting to imagine that racism is confined to people with ungovernable
hatreds and undisciplined minds. This relieves the majority who are
comfortable with inequitable economic arrangements from any
responsibility for the inevitable consequences of those arrangements; and
even from any reproach in the eyes of recognized public opinion.
<br><br>
Racism is an instinctive tool to capture resources and deny them to
competitor "species." This is why Obama is backed by the Wall
Street bankers. To them, he is a tool to safeguard their fortunes against
the rising tide of public resentment. They are excellent psychologists,
and psychic abusers of the popular Black mind. They know, through their
experts in PR (advertising and the management of the public mind), how
the popular Black mind pines for symbols of "hope," for action
heros on basketball courts and on the big screen -- Will Smith saving the
fantasy worlds Hollywood conjures with smoke and mirrors. Any hero in any
arena can be produced to distract and quell the masses, so long as it is
not an actual hero in any arena of actual power.<br><br>
Look at our Black "symbols" in those real arenas today:
Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell; they've done precious
little for Blacks in America, and have cashed in handsomely for precisely
that reason. Most blacks are "supporting" (deluding themselves
over) Obama for the same reason that older spoiled whiney white women are
"supporting" Hillary: identification, they want what they see
in the mirror to be honored, to be loved, to get attention, to be in
control.<br><br>
Obama may have some decent intentions beyond his blatant careerism, but
clearly the careerism is primary, and for that he must reassure his
sponsors that he can quell the public. The job he is applying for is to
keep public affairs calm enough so the same select businesses and the
same select gamesters can continue to make the same government-backed
mega-profits. In business circles, this is called "maintaining a
stable business environment." Obama says "change" but his
sponsors know this to mean "stability." "Change" is
what we'll get from the billions we are forced to pay into taxes and
inflated prices that profit all too few.<br><br>
Populations that have histories of being oppressed are easily duped,
because they are so desperate for "relief," for
"salvation." This is why I labeled the PR machinery behind
White power, including the White power with the Obama nameplate, as
"abusers." They are preying on Black prayers, they are hooking
many desperate fish with baitless flashy lures. Someone like Wright
states the plain facts, and it messes up the con-job of the PR hucksters
luring the wanting masses. It also messes up the pleasurable delusions of
those self-same wanting masses, having psychic orgasms they don't want
stopped and which are based on the swallowing of political
placebos.<br><br>
Reality can be too much for many people, especially when they have gaping
holes of unfulfilled wants leaking psychological vitality and robust
rationality out of their psyches. For every type of victim there is a
highly specialized predator, especially when the prey form in vast herds.
So it is in America, which worships in the faith of mega-profits from
mono-culture, at the Church of Ford, as Aldous Huxley penned for Brave
New World, where the continent-wide herds of the wanting are vaster than
ever were those of the buffalo, and where the profits to be gained by
directing this herd are vaster than the dreams of Croesus. Who better
than Barack Obama to galvanize that attention of the wanting public mind?
The genius of the American psychological predation industry is that it
herds its prey in as a mass rather then chasing it down individually. Our
Croesusian aristocrats will probably discipline themselves sufficiently
to give the public the lure it has favored because he resonates and
reflects so many of its fondest fantasies. The people have spoken, and
our gods will guide us accordingly. <br><br>
True believers in the Obama campaign may find this analysis repellant,
because those gripped by an irrational faith do not like to see the
dissection of their fantasies. Obama, they might say, is better than
McCain, and we should back Obama to overturn Bush-Cheney-McCainist
control of the Empire. But if so, we still have the Empire, and Obama has
come to prominence precisely because of a demonstrated loyalty to that
Empire, not because of a revolutionary fervor to topple it. The lesser
evil is still no good for far too many people and, empire being
intrinsically racist, it will disproportionately injure disfavored
minorities.<br><br>
So Obama is "change," Obama is "hope" when we
shrink-wrap our minds with elastic and impenetrable delusions. Obama is
not Thurgood Marshall, nor Martin Luther King, Jr., nor Malcolm X, which
is why you see him in our televised Pantheon. This is also why Jeremiah
Wright must be dispatched with contempt from public consideration, and
why Barack Obama must elevate himself stratospherically from his once
upon a time pastor, and once upon a time flock. <br><br>
I think commentary on racism is most incisive when it keeps its focus on
the economic dimension -- which I believe is central -- rather than the
emotionalism about "hate" wallowed in to excess by infotainment
for the unthinking. It is better to focus on the intent and the purposes
of the racism, which are to create and maintain economic disparities.
From such focal points, one can advance policy and law enforcement
arguments to eliminate these imbalances. Then, you are speaking about the
here and now in a clear, unvarnished and rational manner. This can be
extremely hard-hitting without being pitiful and cloying. This is in the
spirit of Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon, and that is momentum, that is
self-respect, that is pride. If we got enough of this, it might also be
revolution.<br><br>
Manuel Garcia, Jr.</b> retired from a nuclear weapons and physics job,
and is writing an engineering textbook about solar energy. His email is
<a href="mailto:mango@idiom.com">mango@idiom.com</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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