Obama: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Well done for getting it done so quick, comrades!

Sometimes we just have to spoil the party

Except the only people listening already know the song, and failed to crash the party. So they are waiting outside to tell the revellers staggering home, somewhat worse for wear 'i told you so'.

Jason is wrong. Obamania is huge, and it scares the shit out of me. I agree that most of the people reading this already know what it is saying, but that doesn't mean we can't get it to people who need to read it.

Agreed with Virindi. I'm honestly worried to death about how badly this is going to derail the already weak and fractured global left. So many people are being sold down the river.

ditto. great article.

Agree that this is a necessary article, even if most of us reading it clearly recognise Obama as Bush's successor. Believe it or not, it is actually quite hard to find articles online that are critical of Obama from a communist perspective and the welter of propaganda needs as much countering as possible.

I think you could add the point that while Obama is supposed to have come to power in part by appealing to black voters as the supposed healer of racial divisions, his is a racist party. This is a crucial point, as so many liberals have illusions on that score.

v good. the obama optimism here is sickening

Barack Obama is a bourgeois politician representing bourgeois interests which are diametrically opposed to proletarian interests. The Obama movement is a predominantly proletarian movement, with a predominantly bourgeois false-consciousness. Nevertheless, this following belies restlessness within the working class; concealed as it is by the obfuscations of Obama's bourgeois, populist propaganda. While Obama and his team are obviously bourgeois, it must be acknowledged that he represents what happens to be at the present time (and could easily cease to be tomorrow, of course) the 'progressive' branch of our national bourgeoisie. What this means is that it just so happens at the present time that the proletariat does stand to gain - but a trifle - from Obama's presidency. The key gain, however, is not actually material but ideological: as Obama fails over and over to deliver change except in the most base material advances for small sections of the population, the proletariat will go one way or the other ideologically. Either they'll become disenchanted with the bourgeois electoral process and doubtful of the possibility for change - that's if they are unorganized and uneducated; or they'll become radicalized, as their historical experiences coincide with their new exposure to anarchist and communist ideas.

Essentially, then: he will not deliver change in the sense that any revolutionary or even any social-democrat understands it. He will betray that promise in the lap of the bourgeoisie. He will continue the war in Iraq and intensify the war in Afghanistan, and the secret wars in Somalia and elsewhere will go on. The changes he will deliver or help deliver will be trifling and insignificant, yet still meaningful on some basic level. (For example, the lifting of travel restrictions to Cuba is thrilling to many; but it's clear the general embargo will continue.)

Either way, we're faced with his presidency and the question is begged by history: what are we going to do about it? We've got to seize on the energy and the new interest in politics that his campaign has everywhere developed. We've got to throw ourselves into properly organizing these people who are newly-organized by the Obama campaign. In order to make the best use of this, though, we must first understand what exactly it is that we're dealing with. Which sections of which classes backed Obama? Why? What will Obama do and what will he not do - and how can we take advantage of the totality of both those situations to drive more people to correct ideas and analyses? How can this latest circus be made to be one of the last?

I encourage everyone to read the article below, because it deals with exactly these questions. The analysis is incomplete and needs further development and needs to be further furnished with actual facts. The most useful thing, though, would be to read, analyze, and criticize the analysis itself.

http://www.piratecaucus.com/2008/08/revolutionary-potential-of-obama.html

Yours in struggle,
-Zanturaeon

So this article is gonna help you guys convince members of the left that your right, wow. And the rest of the class will still be f*cked. The politics of crying in the wilderness, might make you feel special, but it is hardly helpful.

no, it is your political practice i object to.

What political practice? You mean Devrim personally? The critical left? Libcom.org? All of these are neutered (apologies to Devrim in advance) and depoliticised.

Oh, I read your profile. You're a self-titled "liberal reformist." Christ, who on Earth would call themselves that with any manner of pride?

I read the suggested article on Pirate Caucus. I find this:

The Obama movement is a spontaneous upsurge of the most advanced workers in the country. It is an emerging class alliance of the progressive social forces of the new economy

I'm not sure if this is meant as a joke? All the bourgeois press is unanimous in saying this was one of the most tightly disciplined campaigns they had ever seen.
Read on:

They represent the potential for a revolutionary democratic coalition that could challenge the unfettered rule of capitalism in the US...

I think the emphasis here is on "democratic" not "revolutionary". The two are not compatible (in the sense of bourgeois democracy that is).
Devrim's posted article is a good one by the way - short sharp and to the point.

So the emancipation of the working class will not be the act of President Obama after all? That seems like a rather redundant insight to post on this website. But I think there are good reasons to be excited about Obama's election.

First, even though we shouldn't emphasise the importance of personality in our political analysis the way liberals do, personality does make some difference, and here the alternative would clearly have been worse. Don't forget how bad the situation is, and how mad the US elites are at the moment - e.g. in September a combat unit was withdrawn from Iraq and redeployed in the US to deal with "civil unrest and crowd control" [1] ; during the vote on the bailout, congress were threatened with martial law if the finance system went into metl-down [2]. In that sort of climate I very much prefer a sophisticated centrist bourgeois politician like Obama to a reactionary nutcase like McCain/Palin. Having awoken all these hopes and mobilised so many people, I think it will be much harder for Obama to go down the authoritarian road.

What is more significant is that this election has been much more about class than previous ones, whatever the media tell you. I think that's why Obama being black matters (apart from the symbolic value). To win sufficient support from whites and Latinos he had to somewhat overcome the racial divide. He did this on one hand by presenting himself as the personification of a post-racial America (clearly bullshit), but on the other by making vague appeals to class consciousness, to hope for social progress, and, during the primaries, references to the immigrant/labour movement ('Yes we can - si se puede') and antiwar movement. This is the reason so many people got excited about him. Of course what really clinched it according to 62% of voters is "the economy" following the financial crisis in September.

The result is that Obama made the biggest gains in support from the poor, and the class nature of this election is reflected in the figures. For example, compare Obama's election to that of Clinton in 1992, who also got elected when the economy went bad under a Bush. Obama won 53% compared with 43% for Clinton in 1992, i.e. 10% more votes. Of those earning less than 15K, Obama got 73% of votes, Clinton 58% (i.e. above average increase of 15%); of the 15-30K, Obama got 60%, Clinton 45% (increase of 15%) ; 30K-50K: Obama got 55%, Clinton 41% (i.e. 14%) [3]. (for some reason the figures of 75K+ earners are not available for 1992, but it's clear from these figures that there's been a big increase in the Democrat support among those earning less than 50K.) The 2008 vote was split even among those earning over 50K, with 49% for Obama and 49% for McCain.[4]

A lot of young and poor people have mobilised for Obama because they believe that his election makes social progress possible. Telling them that the new boss is the same as the old boss is nothing more than the politics of defeatism. Instead I think revolutionaries should try to keep those who supported Obama mobilised and make them understand that "their" president will only bring about the change they want if they force him to ; make them see that while "the economy" as an election issue means job security and housing to them, it means state support for big business and welfare cuts to the bourgeoisie who funded his campaign.

Without the hope that progressive change is possible, no movement can achieve anything. Obama's election opens a space in which a broad movement can grow and then radicalise when Obama sells out the people who voted for him.

[1] http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
[2] http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
[3] http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html
[4] http://observationalism.com/2008/11/09/selected-exit-poll-comparisons-2000-2004-2008/

All the bourgeois press is unanimous in saying this was one of the most tightly disciplined campaigns they had ever seen.

Of course - the bourgeois press cannot imagine the working class organise themselves and achieve anything without a bourgeois telling them what to do. It was indeed a tightly run campaign but that does not mean that ordinary people who got involved are idiots who didn't know what they were doing. Or were these scenes in the streets of Harlem also orchestrated by the Obama campaign?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17nl7hf92x4

Quote:

They represent the potential for a revolutionary democratic coalition that could challenge the unfettered rule of capitalism in the US...

I think the emphasis here is on "democratic" not "revolutionary". The two are not compatible (in the sense of bourgeois democracy that is).

What starts out as democratic (in the the bourgeois sense) may in time become revolutionary, as long as the movement isn't controlled in a top-down way.

I like the Malcolm X quote someone posted onPirate Caucus: "If you're not willing to work with these peole, then brother I question your commitment".

I don't see this ideological gain at all.

The ideological gain doesn't appear magically, we have to work for it. The point is that the political terrain has changed and the economic terrain is also changing, and if we take advantage of this we can make huge organizational and material gains through our activity which over the past few years would have only been possible with exponentially more effort.

So this article is gonna help you guys convince members of the left that your right, wow. And the rest of the class will still be f*cked. The politics of crying in the wilderness, might make you feel special, but it is hardly helpful.

This is not what is meant at all. What is meant is that our present situation has been eased, not so much by the presidency of a centrist, but by the movement which put him there. The people who organized for the Obama campaign will be disappointed no matter what, but this is a huge new section of people with which we can organize to effect real change on the immediate scale, and through which we can work to build a strong revolutionary organization with real sway, something that has not been seen in the United States in decades. I'm not crying in the wilderness. I'm saying this is a boon to our work as revolutionaries.

I'm not sure if this is meant as a joke?

It is not.

I think the emphasis here is on "democratic" not "revolutionary". The two are not compatible (in the sense of bourgeois democracy that is).

http://www.piratecaucus.com/2007/07/revolutionary-democracy-what-is-it-x.html

http://www.piratecaucus.com/2008/07/revolutionary-democracy-and-dual-power.html

I have to respond to the contention that the working class(es) were fooled into "false-consciousness," as someone said above--at least I haven't seen much evidence of that myself. Here in Oakland it seemed like the Raiders had won the Super Bowl last Tuesday--that is, in the middle class neighborhood I was working in, where there were apparently parties all night and free drinks in the bars. But in the neighborhood I live in--working class and majority African-American--it was just another night. In fact, I talked to a poll worker who said turnout in East Oakland was average; that is, around 30% or less of registered or eligible would-be voters. I know this is just empirical evidence, but seems worth mentioning. Working people tend to know what their real interests are and are not as easily fooled as most democrats--or Marxists--would have you believe.

Devil Hoof,

You're right.

What I actually said was "The Obama movement is a predominantly proletarian movement, with a predominantly bourgeois false-consciousness." Maybe I'm incorrect about the movement being predominantly proletarian. What I mean when I say that, though, is a wage- or salary- earner not in control of capital. For me, unless you are a business-owner or are on top of a company, or trade in stocks - and of course are not a peasant or aristocrat - you're a worker, a proletarian. It's my understanding, then, that most people involved in the Obama campaign, while perhaps 'middle-class', are still proletarian. In fact, I might even suggest that one of the defining traits of a middle-class (and I say this with the understanding that there is contention about whether there is such a thing in today's society, and then what the traits of one would be) may be exactly that bourgeois false-consciousness.

In any case, yeah, I don't think the proletariat has been "fooled," necessarily. While going door-to-door for a municipal reform we're fighting for here in my city, New Brunswick, over the summer I found that the poorer working class segments had almost no interest in registering to vote because "that doesn't do shit for us," heh.

There was a spontaneous mass rally which turned into a street march on Tuesday night, here, with over 1,000 people. We took over the main business district, passed police blockades, and roused people from their homes. But almost all of us were students, not workers.

It's an interesting thing. All I mean to say is that the election and the movement are a stepping stone for real organizers working to affect real change. And by real organizers I don't mean ACORN, etc. I mean revolutionaries who work as reformers while pushing the envelope and spreading the ideas.

Have to be out.

Solidary,
-Dave.

Zanturaeon

What I mean when I say that, though, is a wage- or salary- earner not in control of capital.

i think there's a difference between a movement including proletarians, and a proletarian movement. by necessity a majority of the voters for any president are going to be working class; in itself, this tells us nothing.

no1

the bourgeois press cannot imagine the working class organise themselves and achieve anything without a bourgeois telling them what to do. It was indeed a tightly run campaign but that does not mean that ordinary people who got involved are idiots who didn't know what they were doing. Or were these scenes in the streets of Harlem also orchestrated by the Obama campaign?

perhaps i'm misreading this, but are you saying Obama's election is a victory for working class self-organisation? :confused:

no1

Without the hope that progressive change is possible, no movement can achieve anything. Obama's election opens a space in which a broad movement can grow and then radicalise when Obama sells out the people who voted for him.

I'd like to think so, but i'm really not sure it does. maybe i'm just remembering Blair's 'things can only get better' hysteria (which Obama's contentless promises of 'change' clearly echo), which has given way to cynicism when surprise surprise he turned out to be yet another bourgeois government.

i mean i'm not convinced there's some grassroots mass movement for obama (but i only know what i'm reading in the press), but if you're right that millions of proletarians want 'change' and we should be putting forward our ideas on how to get it (i.e. self-organised direct, collective action etc)... what would we have done differently if Obama hadn't have got in? it seems to me that at best an election is a giant, vague opinion poll that (might) signify various things of interest for us (discontent at the status quo, reduction in popular racism, whether a 'space for a movement' exists...), but imho it changes nothing (it doesn't create discontent or less racism or a space for a movement).

this is one of the most baffling threads i've read on libcom. anyway, i second devil hoof 's comment about false consciousness.

Here's the article I wrote about Obama's election for my blog (http://emceelynx.com)

Grats to ya boy.

Last night around 8pm I was at a house party here in Oakland getting ready for my band’s set when somebody across the room shouted out “Obama won! he did it!” and the whole room broke out in cheers and clapping. I pulled out my cellphone and sent a text message to my friend Labrie (who’s been pulling hard for an Obama victory and recorded a couple songs supporting him and his candidacy) saying “Grats to ya boy” and went back to working on getting our sound set up. Later that night as we closed our set with ‘None of the Above’ several of the Obama supporters, including my bandmates wife, waged a bit of a counter-insurgency, shouting out “Obama!” every time the chorus of “Which one? None of the Above!” came up.

Such is the fate of an Anarchist among Liberals.

Seriously though, I know this is a big day for a lot of folks who’ve put time and energy into getting dude elected, and in particular - as even McCain acknowledged - it’s a big day for black folks in America. For over 200 years black folks have watched white Presidents completely ignore their issues and support policies that hurt them. Now, thanks to Obamas historic win, poor and working class black folks get to have their issues and their needs ignored by a person with the same color skin as them. That’s an honor that poor and working class white folks have enjoyed in isolation for far too long. It’s only fair to spread the joy around a bit.

Ya’ll may accuse me of cynicism. And you’d be right. I’m eternally optimistic about the power of ordinary people of all colors to come together and organize and build at the grassroots level to solve our problems ourselves and eternally cynical about the never ending line of politicians who promise us that if we abandon our own independent movements and instead pour our time, money, hearts, and souls into their electoral bids they’ll deliver pie in the sky. And why shouldn’t I be? Bill Clinton got elected on a platform of “Change” and he turned around and gutted social safety nets, maintained murderous sanctions on Iraq for 8 years, did less then nothing to make healthcare affordable and accessible to working class people, supported death squads and mass murder around the globe, and allowed the rich to keep getting richer. Bush replaced him, also on a platform of “Change” and did all the same things only more so - as David Rovics put it a few months into his first term “Things are a lot like they were before, only a bit sped up”. Now Obama’s been elected, also on a platform of “Change” (it’s the slogan that keeps on giving!) and - forgive me for being skeptical here - but I can’t help expecting more of the same.

Am I the only one who notices a trend here? Really?

Maybe some good will come of it though. Maybe with a young black man as President all the folks who go on and on about how the problem is that America is run by “old white men” will realize that their age and their color aren’t the things that really define the people who run the global Capitalist system. It’s their wealth. It’s Class. It’s always been Class. Racism is very real - of course - but at root Racism has never been more or less then a tool to divide the working class and get us to fight each other instead of our common enemies. The economic elites who run this country are more then happy to put black and brown faces in high places if doing so will allow them to maintain their own control, as the Bush administration proved by appointing Gonzales, Rice, and Powell. This is just the next step in that same process.

The people who pull the strings, the men behind the curtains, have taken a gamble here. They’ve put a black puppet out on stage instead of a white one for the first time ever in the hope that doing so will get all the folks who are pissed off and cynical and disenfranchised to buy back into the system and start believing in the puppetshow once again. Obama’s acceptance speech was a call for exactly that - for all us who’ve been outraged at the sadistic brutality of Bush & Co. and by the Democrats utter failure to even pretend to oppose that brutality to buy back in and take Obama’s ascension as proof that the system does work after all. Like the New Deal, which he referenced in his acceptance speech, this is a ploy by the ruling class to get the rest of us to buy back into the system. Back then the capitalists tried and failed to crush Radical movements by force before finally allowing Roosevelt to throw the working class a few crumbs, buy off the majority, and then crush the remainder of the resistance. This time they haven’t even offered us crumbs, just the opportunity to have a different colored puppet whose strings are pulled by all the same corporate interests.

I’m not buying it. Not even for a second.

So go on, celebrate & enjoy yourselves. And when ya’ll finally realize that it’s not the color of a mans skin but the contents of his bank account that determine where his interests really are I’ll see ya in the streets. Maybe then we can get this revolution back on track and finally win this thing. Just don’t take too long, the planet can’t stand many more years of Capitalism and we’ve got a lot of work left to do before we can put any real viable alternative into practice.

Good post, Lynx.

In response to those who think the pro-Obama camp was some kind of 'social movement', it's worth pointing out the degree to which the whole hysteria about Obama was deliberately hyped up by the media. Alibadani, out in Iowa, made this point in a recent e-mail:

"The ruling classes might have enlivened the belief in democracy somewhat. Record youth turnout and black turnout. The media is almost comical in its fawning right now, with the exception of right-wing radio.

What struck me is that most of my co-workers didn't vote, they remain apolitical despite all this endless hype. The turnout, though high by American standards was only about 61% of eligible voters, 46% of whom voted for MCain anyway. The hoopla is exagerated once one ponders these basic facts: the turnout was about 1% greater than in 2004 and about 34% of Americans went to the polls for Obama. Basically, non-blacks and those over 30 didn't care about this election any more than previous ones".

Given that the media are, in the final analysis, the mouthpiece of the state, it's easy to see why many of the most important parts of the propaganda machine threw themselves so wholeheartedly behind Obama. Obama's election corresponds above all to a need in the ruling class - the need to revamp the image of American imperialism abroad, and the need to give people at home the illusion of change in order to prevent them thinking about real change. We saw the same kind of bullshit when Blair came to power in the UK. Those who thought he would at least be better than the Tories then found that the Labour government could bring in 'reforms' (ie, vicious attacks on the working class) which the Tories couldn't have got away with. And given the state of the economy ten years later, the 'reforms' that Obama will have to bring in will be vicious indeed.

Any illusion that the new administration is going to be 'centrist', or a little bit on our side, or that it might do good things if we push it hard enough, only serves to undermine the ability of the exploited to defend themselves against these attacks.

The generally deluded tone of several of the posts here (that Obamamania is a working class movement, that he's better than McCain, that he offers us radicals a space in which to work, etc.) indicates that very basic articles like this are needed at this current moment. As the crisis deepens Obama will become pretty clearly social-fascist; whether the American bourgeoisie ditches him for Petraeus or someone else to run the state of emergency is anyone's guess. But it will be the irreversible shame of the American Pseudo-Left, some of whom are on display here in this thread, to have supported such a ridiculous figure with such hopeful optimism.

well said, Iron Column.

statement by the ICC's US section:

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/148/obama-president

Its interesting to notice that Obama's withdrawal promises over Iraq, which sent Liberals in spasms, have been negotiated and timetabled anyway in this presidential term.