The Audacity of Pretense — The Politics of Barack Obama

Barack Obama is a fresh, pretty face on the political scene. He pretends to offer a new politics, but the reality is that his politics are as stale as his handsome mulatto face is fresh and appealing. Barack Obama is masterfully displaying the politics of deceit and pretense.

To hear the dominant media tell it, Barack Obama offers a fresh approach to Iraq, opposing the Bush Administration’s strategy. Not so. Obama may oppose the latest Bush tactic, but just like President Bush (and just like his Democrat opponent for the nomination, Hillary Clinton) Obama does not take a moral stand against the invasion of Iraq. Obama supports the occupation of Iraq and the imposition of a puppet government protected by American forces for the purposes of controlling Iraq’s strategic oil resources and access to strategic oil transportation routes. Obama is more like Bush (and Clinton) than unlike them. He disapproves of a military "surge", not because he thinks it is part of a morally indefensible enterprise, but because he thinks he has a more effective strategy to turn Iraq into America’s long-term vassal state.

Barack Obama knows how to manipulate with grandiose speech that sounds eloquent but means little. He has not offered to revoke the Patriot Act. He has not offered to strengthen the Endangered Species Act. He has not offered medical care for all. He is not green or progressive and is more attuned to his Caucasian half than his status as a person of color.

Barack Obama is a master of pretense. Like the Democratic Party itself, he leans far to the right of the political spectrum, and only challenges the President and the Republicans on the basis that he wants their job and their policies, feeling he can outperform them in enacting essentially the same agenda as the Republicans.

People of the world in general may see superficial differences between a potential Obama presidency and a McLain presidency, but the people of Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and even Brazil, Ecuador or Nigeria is likely to feel little difference.

Sadly, the dominant, corporate media takes no note of these matters. Even the alternative media, the Democracy Now and other programs have little to say about the pretense of the Obama program as revealed to date. Sadly, the celebrity status of alternative media reporters and anchors has often put them in league with big time Democrat politicians and made them silent regarding the state of relative similarity in general philosophy between the left and the right in organized mainstream politics.

Could Barack Obama get elected in 2008? Absolutely! All he needs to do is join with other Chicago-area people of color who are part of the mainstream, such as Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan to transpose superstar status and mainstream popularity into political capital and electoral success. Put Obama with someone like Dianne Feinstein as a vice-presidential candidate and watch history being made.