Though Cowards Flinch

Some of the accusations against John Pilger’s article are reaching fever pitch – not the least of which is that he’s “race baiting”. Sunny and I have been debating Pilger’s comments on the subject of Obama, though a couple of other notable bloggers have thrown their hats into the ring also, such as Neil Roberts and Jim Denham (in the comments section of Sunny’s most recent blog). Jim also attacks as racist Pilger’s description of Obama.

There are so many points to be made here. Pilger called Obama a “glossy Uncle Tom” – not the first time such a thing has been said about black people in politics. Using my mad Wiki skillz, I looked up this term of racial opprobrium. “It is commonly used to describe black people whose political views…are detrimental to black people as a group.” It is not an uncommon thing to say either, so why the shock?

Is it racist to suggest that black people have a unified interest that might be harmed by Obama? Is it wrong to suggest that Obama might be subservient to Capital, which is largely represented by old, white men, to the point where analogies might be drawn to Uncle Tom? Probably it is racist to say that black people have a unified interest, but on the Left that’s short-hand for saying minorities are disproportionately poor.

We should hardly be fitting Pilger for a Klan mask just yet.

On a wider note, Pilger’s article can be set into context when you consider the talk of nuclear weapon use flying around as a result of Iran-hysteria; it’s not a leap to suggest that the Americans might try them out in Pakistan should they find OBL. This is the same country that brought the world to the brink twice with the Soviets, over Cuba and over Iran. It’s a bit sensationalist, sure.

However it’s important to remember that Pilger and Sunny are operating from different starting points. Pilger thinks that American military involvement in Pakistan is harmful; Sunny clearly thinks that if it clears out the Taleban then it’s fine. I’m with Pilger; America is not waging a high-minded “war against terror”; engagement in Pakistan will have corollaries that hurt the people of Pakistan just as much as the Taleban do.

This has been the case in Afghanistan and, to a stunning degree, in Iraq, where American-backed militias routinely kidnap or kill Iraqi trade unionists. Pilger’s concern for “brown-skinned” people is genuine, in my view, and by specifically using racial terms, I think he’s trying to drive home his thesis that the American ruling class is racist and that it’s easy for them to do these things in a land where people are differently coloured.

I’m not saying I agree with that thesis. As I expressed in my last article, I think that Pilger’s analysis is exceptionally crude – but it’s equally crude to brand him a racist or a race-baiter for that. When Pilger is demonstrably factually incorrect – such as on Rahm Emmanuel’s “military service” he should be called on it, and Neil has him bang to rights on that subject. Yet calling him racist is extreme.

That’s the word we use against the BNP who started out wanting to deport all non-white races. The two aren’t on the same political planet. It’s true that the far left tend to be simplistic in regarding all minorities as allies, and this is problematic when individuals rise up and become successful as Obama has done. This needs to be critiqued – but Sunny’s liberal meritocratic utopia clearly isn’t up to the job.

People – of all colours – aren’t successes or failures on the basis of their personal attributes. To suggest so is dangerous as it buys into the notion that we only have to provide “equal opportunity” in order to create an equal society. The history set in motion by Obama’s success is not merely about human agency, but about the interaction of agency with the surrounding structure. One cannot be reduced to the other.

When the far left object to Obama’s success, they’re really objecting to those who are consumed with the “agency” side of things and ignore the structure. This selective blindness means having faith in Obama’s personality, his potential, without reviewing the other side of things. Finally on this issue, I don’t think anyone of any colour who becomes “successful” enough to base their lives on the exploitation or others, through becoming CEOs or even middle management, are pawns. The correct term is “bastards”.

Sunny goes on to list several points I made in my previous article, dissecting them one by one – though some of them he misses the point entirely. He has kindly divided them up into headings and I’ll follow the order he has set:

Obama’s anti-war credentials: He’s appointed a pro-war VP, a pro-war Chief of Staff, and on each vote on funding, far from ‘speaking out’ against the war, he’s voted through all the credit the Bush administration needed to continue funding it’s efforts. In fact, Obama himself addressed this possible contradiction – but I don’t accept his points. Had Democrats been serious, in 2006, with their seizure of Congress, they could have sat down and worked out the phased withdrawal there and then.

Of course they weren’t serious because there are Cold War Democrat left-overs to appease and god forbid that the Democratic leaders might seem to be “against the troops”. Do forgive me if my cynicism forces me to call that “pandering”. Even when Obama has spoken out against the war, it’s been like the Lib Dems on the issue; against the war but support the troops. How does that even work in practice? We don’t like war but we’ll give them the weapons to kill people anyway? Rubbish.

Obama’s silver spoon: I didn’t say Obama was privileged, nor do I hold his background against him. After all, plenty of stirling revolutionaries have come from well-off farming families or the families of middle class lawyers. When I said he was born into “given material conditions”, as the context should have made clear, I was talking about agency versus structure again. It’s not all about agency, and my remarks on the subject are perhaps more concise above.

Obama’s grassroots organisation: On this point, Sunny is again dangerously close to repeating the Vae Victis he used against Pilger. Obama’s movement is bigger and is therefore better. Bullshit. Millions of people can be wrong. Just look at the 2004 elections. Or look at the next elections in the UK, when the Conservatives finally get their grubby fingers on the levers of power.

It doesn’t matter if people are “broadly happy” with the structures they have – the point is whether or not those structures work against a change that would upset the entire mode of production, changing forever human society. The answer is “of course they do” – and this in turn goes a long way towards explaining why Obama might be Pompey, stamping his feet and up come his soldiers, and why Marxists won’t be.

One should also ask, are these structures (with which people are broadly happy) causing war, exploitation and so on? The answer for a Marxist is yes, and so “popular opinion” becomes irrelevant – and there are many theories of culture and media, Marxist and non-Marxist, which demonstrate very clearly that the views people hold superficially may not correlate to their actual position within those structures.

Also, at the risk of repeating myself, Marxist change won’t be instituted as the result of an election – and thus the success or failure of Marxist ideas can’t be measured by electoral success.

Finally, the media: Keith Olbermann, single-handedly preserving the grassroots democracy of America. Okay, so Sunny didn’t say that but he might as well have done. When Keith Olbermann and his female counterpart on NBC (can’t remember her name, recently she trashed Sarah Palin) are considered left-wing, it’s time to give up. Did anyone watch that skit Olbermann did on Prop 8? What a cowpat of emotional rubbish in place of analysis.

Seriously though, calling blogs like the Daily Kos part of a grassroots movement is stretching things a bit far. There are people professionally employed by campaigns to surf the net and drown out opposition on such sites – in fact even my own little website had one of Bill Richardson’s people turn up and threaten me with a lawsuit. Very democratic. All fun and games aside, Sunny’s crucial point about Obama’s grassroots democracy and media democracy in America is the following:

“The activists didn’t simply turn up – they organised themselves and had the ability to criticise the campaign and turn against Obama more than any other campaign.”

The problem with this view is simple: when matters are reduced to electioneering, there was no alternative to Obama. This grassroots movement which sprang out of nowhere and engaged people is brilliant as a first step, but for Obama there is no second step. The purpose of the movement has been achieved. Everyone can go home and pat themselves on the back for the renewal of America or whatever other fatuous phrase one cares to use.

Given a choice between the people who are going to win, I’m going to choose Obama every time, and so would Pilger. There’s no one else.

This escapes the point: the grassroots movement is ethereal because it can’t be consolidated. The ethos of Obama’s politics speak against that. These new people should be lined up and put into trade unions, should be organised into local committees that could take up local fights on everything from school board elections to better public transport. Yet that won’t happen because if it did, it would limit Obama’s freedom of action.

Four years from now, when it comes election time, Obama may well get re-elected but once again it will be because there’s no one else.

The real muscle of the Left exists outside of whatever ideas Obama has in his head. Our real future lies with trade unions and associated political bodies which can stop jobs moving abroad and can interfere with the flow of capital. With all the might of the US government at his disposal, Obama would find it harder to do that than his movement would, if they were organised rather than ethereal.

Olbermann and a million blogs can voice liberal sentiments from whatever pulpits they like, but a heartfelt and concerted advocacy of the real organisation I’m talking about would rock American politics to its foundations. They won’t, of course, because liberalism is not opposed to enaction from above. It simply requires the rest of us to jump on the bandwagon now and again. That’s not grassroots organisation; the internet just means the bandwagon looks a bit different.

I’m not disparaging human agency – millions of voters consciously made the decision to vote Obama. Equally, millions made the decision to vote for McCain. They’re not stupid, they just don’t have all the available information, nor the real means whereby to put it to effective use.