Don't believe the hype

Barack Obama is being lauded by liberals but the truth about him is that he represents the worst of

By John Pilger Published 13 November 2008

My first visit to Texas was in 1968, on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas. I drove south, following the line of telegraph poles to the small town of Midlothian, where I met Penn Jones Jr, editor of the Midlothian Mirror. Save for his drawl and fine boots, everything about Penn was the antithesis of the Texas stereotype. Having exposed the racists of the John Birch Society, his printing press had been repeatedly firebombed. Week after week, he painstakingly assembled evidence that all but demolished the official version of Kennedy's murder.

This was journalism as it had been before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose "professionalism" and "objectivity" carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth. Journalists such as Penn Jones, independent of vested power, indefatigable and principled, often reflect ordinary American attitudes, which have seldom conformed to the stereotypes promoted by the corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic.

Read American Dreams: Lost and Found by the masterly Studs Terkel, who died on 31 October, or scan the surveys that unerringly attribute enlightened views to a majority who believe that "government should care for those who cannot care for themselves" and are prepared to pay higher taxes for universal health care, who support nuclear disarmament and want their troops out of other people's countries.

Returning to Texas, I am struck again by those so unlike the redneck stereotype, in spite of the burden of a form of brainwashing placed on most Americans from a tender age: that theirs is the most superior society in the world, and all means are justified, including the spilling of copious blood, in maintaining that superiority.

That is the subtext of Barack Obama's "oratory". He says he wants to build up US military power; and he threatens to ignite a new war in Pakistan, killing yet more brown-skinned people. That will bring tears, too. Unlike those on election night, these other tears will be unseen in Chicago and London. This is not to doubt the sincerity of much of the response to Obama's election, which happened not because of the unction that has passed for news reporting since 4 November (eg, "liberal Americans smiled and the world smiled with them"), but for the same reasons that millions of angry emails were sent to the White House and Congress when the "bailout" of Wall Street was revealed, and because most Americans are fed up with war.

Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood-fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama voted to give Bush what he wanted. Yes, Obama's election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class. The courageous Martin Luther King recognised this when he linked the human rights of black Americans with the human rights of the Vietnamese, then being slaughtered by a "liberal" Democratic administration. And he was shot. In striking contrast, a young black major serving in Vietnam, Colin Powell, was used to "investigate" and whitewash the infamous My Lai massacre. As Bush's secretary of state, Powell was often described as a "liberal" and was considered ideal to lie to the United Nations about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Condaleezza Rice, lauded as a successful black woman, has worked assiduously to deny the Palestinians justice.

Obama's first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent "neoliberal" devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an "Israel-first" Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians - an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people's loathing of the US and the spawning of jihadism.

No serious scrutiny of this is permitted within the histrionics of Obama mania, just as no serious scrutiny of the betrayal of the majority of black South Africans was permitted within the "Mandela moment". This is especially marked in Britain, where America's divine right to "lead" is important to elite British interests. The Observer, which supported Bush's war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that "America has restored the world's faith in its ideals". These "ideals", which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.

None of this was uttered during the election campaign. Had that been allowed, there might even have been recognition that liberalism as a narrow, supremely arrogant, war-making ideology is destroying liberalism as a reality. Prior to Blair's criminal warmaking, ideology was denied by him and his media mystics. "Blair can be a beacon to the world," declared the Guardian in 1997. "[He is] turning leadership into an art form."

Today, merely insert "Obama". As for historic moments, there is another that has gone unreported but is well under way - liberal democracy's shift towards a corporate dictatorship, managed by people regardless of ethnicity, with the media as its clichéd façade. "True democracy," wrote Penn Jones Jr, the Texas truth-teller, "is constant vigilance: not thinking the way you're meant to think, and keeping your eyes wide open at all times."

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Tags: Barack Obama obamania

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159 comments

Tue, 2008-11-18 23:13 — gnuneo

amr: i'm not sure you get writeon/pencils point yet - which is that digging through reams of academic historical material, to find out 'who' was 'first at fault', which will then supposedly justify all the other's own aggression, murder and attempted ethnic cleansing because they are then the 'victims', is a completely and useless activity, at least in terms of ending the current conflict.

a conflict, btw, that has every potential of dragging in the entire world and crashing the entire global infrastructure Mankind has so laboriously and painfully built.

do you imagine that the Palestinians are going to stop fighting for their Sovereignty because you could show that a Palestinian first punched a Jewish Settler in 1904? Utterly ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the notion that Israel will just pack up, because the settler who was punched first said some bad things about the Palestinians mother.

do you HONESTLY not see how mindbogglingly STUPID and IRRELEVANT such discussions are?

their only *real* purpose is to create long, tedious and meaningless 'discussions' that can 'muddy the waters', preventing serious discussions about what is happening *NOW*, and how to end the conflict equitably, and with security for all.

now, i wouldn't claim that you know this, or are doing this deliberately, its possible its simply how you were taught about it, and you are just following the programming. Surely no-one could be so barbarous as to deliberately end discussion on how to end this conflict, because their own 'side' has the current military advantage, and every year that passes more land is stolen from the Occupied Territories?

alas, i wish that i still had that much faith in Mankind. I don't.

Tue, 2008-11-18 23:29 — writeon

I beleive MBP17 and Leftout, sorry, it's hard to be serious - I mean the mighty, so well educated, so articulate, so intelligent, so Anti-Left; are one and the same person. Imagine going to so much trouble to get me to 'debate' with you, bizarre. Poor thing. Or perhaps these totalitarian nationalists, on some level, all share the same brain?

Tue, 2008-11-18 23:51 — MBP17

You’re the one that’s confused. You keep repeating that Obama used his race as part of his campaign. That’s demonstrably false. If you can show me where he ever made an appeal to voters based on his ethnicity, again I’d love to see it.

Glad to see you’ve finally come around to see that constant harping on someone’s ethnicity is indeed a form of racism, albeit the lefty/liberal sort, which has been my point since the beginning. My point about his not using his ethnicity as an election ploy does not contradict my argument. It is a response to your statement that he used it as part of his election strategy. I’ve demonstrated that, that is completely false. Pointing out that a candidate using race as an election ploy is a losing strategy is exactly my argument and it’s why Obama is now President-elect. I’m saying the opposite of what you say, I’m saying his ethnicity had nothing to do with his campaign or his win because most people are just over the race thing already. He ran for President of the USA, not President of the black USA. It isn’t a question of his being too black, his ethnicity was irrelevant. My point all along. If someone had run as a Freemason, instead of on the issues, he would have lost as well. Why? Because that stuff just doesn’t matter anymore to anyone except people like Pilger. You know the guy you’ve been defending. I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m calling you on your defense of Pilger, whose outdated focus on race has no place in criticisms of Obama or any other candidate. McCain ran as a change candidate. They all do. Obama never used his ethnicity to push his change message he used his position as the candidate from the opposition political party. You’re attempt to say you’ve been arguing that race has no importance is wrong on it’s face. You’ve been arguing the opposite and defending Pilger.

And no I’m not angry, a little frustrated that you keep refusing to see the obvious, but not angry or abusive. I’ve kept the debate about your positions. My observation that you’re a humanities student enamored of Marx is just an observation. It could be totally false, but that’s how you’re coming off, you know kind of arrogant like you’ve got everything to teach and nothing to learn. I was that way too when I was younger, I’ve grown up a bit.

Wed, 2008-11-19 00:01 — a.m.r.

gruneo, why is it irrelevant to point out that the Palestinians had had their own attempts at "aggression, murder and attempted ethnic cleansing" long before any retaliation from the Jewish people? It doesn't justify anything - it's just a fact (that seems to be airbrushed out of these discussions). I never said that determining the who the initial aggressor was would end the conflict - that was your addition.

If the Palestinians were just concerned about their Sovereignty, they could have accepted the 1947 partition plan, or the 2000 peace offer..They want more than that though - they want all of Israel destroyed. (see the current government Hamas' charter).

By the way, I feel the Palestinians have been badly betrayed by their leaders (al-Husseini, Arafat and now Hamas) and the neighboring Arab states, who have never had the Palestinians interests at heart. Why did Jordan keep control of the West Bank, and Egypt of Gaza, after the 1948 war?

Thu, 2008-11-13 21:09 — writeon

Julian,

I'm probably wasting my time, but I don't think you are being fair to John Pilger. By all means criticize him and his politics, but surely one should do this on the basis of what he actually writes and means?

Wilfully choosing to minunderstand what he wrote is a form of distortion which is unworthy. Why try to put words in his mouth?

What John Pilger means, and I think this is pretty obvious, is that the two appoinments Obama's made seem to fly in the face of wishes of many of his suppporters and the entire change agenda. That's it. This interpretation of these appointments, is by no means confined to John Piliger alone.

Joe Biden doesn't represent change, he's the consumate Washington insider. It's more of the same. Emanuel, is arguably a neo-con and someone who has profitted enormously from the financial Ponzi scam that's led to the economic disaster we all face. Both of them have made very warlike statements.

None of this shows that Obama seriously wants to change anything substantially. Certainly not American attitudes to the conflict in the Middle East, the cause of so much resentment. It's a slap in the face to Arabs, not an outstretched hand, no change there.

These two appointments are clearly to very conservative choices designed to placate and reasure powerful conservative interests, at home and abroad, no change there.

These choice signal more 'business as usual' than change you can believe in, which doesn't really seem in keeping with the change agenda most people seem to think Obama stands for.

This is the gist of what Pilger wrote. One can agree with him or not, but I don't see why one needs to misrepresent his views, unless one does this simply to discredit him and attack him for ulterior motives.

Pilger isn't a fool, or maybe you think he is? He knows the Middle East and Zionism played virtually no part in the way people voted, or in the election, apart from the candidates swearing undying loyality to Israel and it's policies.

Wed, 2008-12-03 03:27 — gnuneo

...you?

Mon, 2008-12-08 18:00 — Lyon30

Mr Pilger is obviously wrong about Obama. Next he will be trying to tell us that Mr Obama will be keeping a hard nosed, war mongering neo-con who helped set up the database known as Al-Qaeda, at the helm inside the Pentagon, to reign more terror upon the middle east and wherever the 'war on/of terror' may lead next.........

Wed, 2008-11-19 01:45 — a.m.r.

Pilger took the side of the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam war.

When the US, even as it was in a position to go on and win the war (as confirmed by the US and N.Vietnamese military afterwards), withdrew due to collapsing domestic support for the war, the North Vietnamese triumphed and went on to execute tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians. Up to a million died fleeing the North Vietnamese by sea. At the same time, in neighboring Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge took power and went on to murder two million Cambodian civilians.

As I said earlier, the journalists in Vietnam knew about huge systematic massacres of civilians already carried out about the communist North Vietnamese, but they chose to keep quite until later.

Could these facts have changed public opinion at home? May they have led to a decision to stay and win, like they had helped the S. Koreans against the communist North Koreans (or rather, win enough to establish stable borders)?

Look at what happened in the case of Korea, at the contrast between the fates of those two countries - US-assisted south Korea, one of the most advanced, wealthy and healthy countries in Asia, and Chinese-assisted North Korea, where 400,000 have been killed in gulags in the past three decades, 2 million dead in concentration camps and Party purges since 1948.

Yet Pilger doesn't acknowledge this - that US power abroad can be a force for good (fancy that), and that the side he backed commited genocide against its own people.

In Iraq, Pilger backed the Iraqi 'insurgency' against the Us (and GB), despite the fact that the insurgents were mostly killing fellow Iraqi's (most of the Iraqi death toll comes from the insurgents). "You can't be too choosy." he said. ( http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/pilger-passes-an-importa... )

Wed, 2008-12-03 08:46 — genecrabtree920

Yes, me when Im immitating writeon. And writeon himself when hes trying to sound more intelligent than he is with his chirac-like endless rambles in which he doesnt say anything at all in order to avoid making errors or offend anyone.

Fri, 2008-11-14 01:28 — Toby

"The fact that Toby`s only defence of Raham, is the fact that his father and brother are first rate physicians. I doubt their good work will make up the loss of life that WILL be lost, because a Mossad agent in in the Whitehouse."

Carl Jones like most hysterical Jew haters has to resort to predictions of what will happen rather than what is happening in order to satisfy his blood libel accusations against Jews.

You jew haters have been predicting ganocide against Palestinians for over half a century. The demographics sure doesn't support your fantasies, does it.

No person or people should be condemned for what might happen.

Yes, I defended the Rahms because the vile Pilger attacked and smeared an innocent family.

These attacks on Obama are motivated by racism and antisemitism, make no mistake about it. It doesn't matter if they come from the left or from the right.