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Three left views on Obama: Howard Zinn, Mike Davis, Todd Chretien
Howard Zinn: `Obama creates an opening for change but direct action needed'
October 22, 2008 -- Real News Network -- Howard Zinn says vote against McCain, vote for Obama. Even though Obama does not represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for a possibility of change. Obama will not fulfill that potential for change, unless he is enveloped by a social movement, which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough, that he fills his abstract phrases about change with some content. We need direct action, because only that kind of indignation is going to have some affect on the people in Washington.
Howard Zinn is an historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright. He is best known as author of the best-seller A People's History of the United States. Zinn has been active in the civil rights and the anti-war movements in the United States.
Paul Jay, senior editor, Real News Network: Thank you for joining us. Our interview with Howard Zinn. Thank you, Howard. So we're just a few weeks away from the election. Obama's ahead in the polls, although Obama supporters are still holding their breath and talk about October surprises and this and that. You've written about the election process as not being as democratic as it would like to call itself or people would like to call it. On the other hand, you still end up with the idea that people should participate, should vote, and I don't think you quite said "holding your nose," but with some reservation people should vote against McCain, vote for Obama. Explain what your thinking on this is.
However, there are certain moments in history when even a small difference between the candidates may be crucial, may be a matter of life and death for large numbers of people. I mean, when the French had a change of presidency in France during the Algerian War, it made a difference in their bringing the Algerian War to an end. And I think that there are such moments, and I think this may be such a moment in US history.
That is, we've gone through an insufferable eight years with the Bush administration, probably the worst administration in history, and, I mean, two wars in one presidency, and a total disregard of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and a shattering of the economy.
And in this situation, we are desperate for change. So even though Obama doesn't represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for the possibility of change. That's why I'm voting for him; that's why I suggest to people that they vote for him. But I also suggest that Obama will not fulfill that potential for change unless he is enveloped by a social movement which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough that he fill his abstract phrases about change, fill them with some real, solid content.
The Nader supporters and some of the other third-party candidates will say, "Well, there is an alternative." No. I interviewed Ralph Nader and I made the argument to him that there isn't a feasible alternative, and he says, "Well, yes there is. It's not feasible only when people keep saying it's not feasible." But what do you say to Nader and the other third-party candidates who say, well, the only way to break this paralysis of the two-party system is to start voting outside it?"
Well, you're not going to break the paralysis of the two-party system within the party system. In other words, you're not going to break it in the electoral system by putting up a third-party candidate whose showing will inevitably be pitiful and will therefore only be a demonstration of the weakness of the movement outside of the electoral arena. If you choose to go into the electoral arena, you'd better go in with strength. If you're going with weakness, you are not doing a progressive movement any good.
To me it is a waste of Ralph Nader's energy to throw himself into the electoral process, because his energy is best used by building a movement, by doing what he has done for most of his life very effectively, reaching out to millions and millions of people who will not vote for him but who really believe in his ideas, and help him to organize those people so that whoever is elected as president will then have to face a constituency, a citizenry which demands change.
Now, how does that movement develop now? I mean, let's assume that Obama is going to win this election. If the polls are right and there's no, you know, extraordinary event—which I suppose nobody can rule out—but the world as we know it today, it looks like Obama's going to win the election. And I say that with some reservation, 'cause if something big happens in four days, it's going to make this interview dated. So we'd better publish quickly. But given that, how does an independent movement develop? What are the obstacles to a national movement of the type you're talking about?
Well, the obstacles are a kind of resignation that things will go on as before. That's always the obstacle to change. The obstacle to change is not that people don't want change. People want change. But most of the time, people feel impotent. However, at certain points in history, the energy level of people, the indignation level of people rises. And at that point it becomes possible for people to organize and to agitate and to educate one another, and to create an atmosphere in which the government must do something. I'm thinking of the 1930s; I'm thinking of Franklin D. Roosevelt coming into office not really a crusader.
Roosevelt came into office, you know, with a balance-the-budgets history. It was not clear what he was going to do, and I don't think he was clear about what he was going to do, except that he was going to be different from Hoover and the Republicans. But when he came into office, he faced a country that was on strike. He faced general strikes in San Francisco in Minneapolis. He faced strikes of hundreds of thousands of textile workers in the South. He faced a tenants movement and an unemployed council movement. And he faced a country in turmoil, and he reacted to it, he was sensitive to it, he moved. That's what we will need.
We will need to see some of the scenes that we saw in the '30s.
And how do we get there?
How do we get there? Well, we get there by somebody starting it off, like the four kids in Greensboro in 1960 who started off the sit-in not knowing whether it would spread. We need somebody who is losing their home because they can't afford to pay their mortgage, we need them surrounded by their neighbors who then do not allow them to leave, do not allow their furniture to be taken away. This is what happened in the '30s. In other words, we need direct action, we need civil disobedience, we need to raise the level of tension in the country, because only that kind of indignation is going to have some effect on the people in Washington.
And in terms of building a movement that could give rise to a third party that actually had a chance—and in many countries of the world, parties do come and go—first of all, why haven't we seen some of that which one did see in the '30s? There were other parties that had some kind of weight. And are we entering with this financial crisis a period where something like that might be possible?
Well, third parties can have an effect on the existing parties. I mean, in the 1930s it wasn't a third party that won; it was the fact that there was a movement throughout the country. Part of it was socialist and communist, but a lot of it would be working people and tenants and so on, and they had an affect on the Democratic Party, which up to that point had not been a very militant or very energetic party. As a result it had lost elections in the 1930s to non-entities like Harding and Coolidge.
But I think it'll take the kind of energy that we had in the '30s to not necessarily create a third party that will win office, but that will transform the Democratic Party into what might be a third party, almost in the way that the Republican Party before the Civil War was transformed into a party that would do away with slavery or at least try to do away with slavery, even though that was not its primary objective.
If we're looking at four years, maybe eight years, of a Democratic administration, and if that Democratic administration follows the previous course we've seen from most of the people that are going to be leading it, then this movement is going to be directing a lot of its target or arrows at the Democratic administration.
Unquestionably. If we have a Democratic administration, that administration has to be the target of a new social movement. Problem with the years of the Clinton administration is that whoever in the United States really wanted to go beyond the Clinton administration in foreign policy and domestic policy became complacent, and they did not organize, and there was no real movement in the country in Clinton's time, as there had been in 1960s, to push Clinton into any good direction. That will have to be different when Obama and his administration come into office.
[A second part of this interview can be viewed HERE.]
For more Links articles on Obama, click HERE
Can Obama see the Grand Canyon?
On presidential blindness and economic catastrophe
By Mike Davis
October 15, 2008 -- Common Dreams -- Let me begin, very obliquely, with the Grand Canyon and the paradox of trying to see beyond cultural or historical precedent.
The first European to look into the depths of the great gorge was the conquistador Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. He was horrified by the sight and quickly retreated from the South Rim. More than three centuries passed before Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers led the second major expedition to the rim. Like Garcia Lopez, he recorded an "awe that was almost painful to behold." Ives's expedition included a well-known German artist, but his sketch of the Canyon was wildly distorted, almost hysterical.
Neither the conquistadors nor the Army engineers, in other words, could make sense of what they saw; they were simply overwhelmed by unexpected revelation. In a fundamental sense, they were blind because they lacked the concepts necessary to organize a coherent vision of an utterly new landscape.
Accurate portrayal of the Canyon only arrived a generation later when the colourado River became the obsession of the one-armed Civil War hero John Wesley Powell and his celebrated teams of geologists and artists. They were like Victorian astronauts reconnoitering another planet. It took years of brilliant fieldwork to construct a conceptual framework for taking in the canyon. With "deep time" added as the critical dimension, it was finally possible for raw perception to be transformed into consistent vision.
The result of their work, The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, published in 1882, is illustrated by masterpieces of draftsmanship that, as Powell's biographer Wallace Stegner once pointed out, "are more accurate than any photograph." That is because they reproduce details of stratigraphy usually obscured in camera images. When we visit one of the famous viewpoints today, most of us are oblivious to how profoundly our eyes have been trained by these iconic images or how much we have been influenced by the idea, popularized by Powell, of the Canyon as a museum of geological time.
But why am I talking about geology? Because, like the Grand Canyon's first explorers, we are looking into an unprecedented abyss of economic and social turmoil that confounds our previous perceptions of historical risk. Our vertigo is intensified by our ignorance of the depth of the crisis or any sense of how far we might ultimately fall.
Weimar returns in Limbaughland
Let me confess that, as an aging socialist, I suddenly find myself like the Jehovah's Witness who opens his window to see the stars actually falling out of the sky. Although I've been studying Marxist crisis theory for decades, I never believed I'd actually live to see financial capitalism commit suicide. Or hear the International Monetary Fund warn of imminent "systemic meltdown."
Thus, my initial reaction to Wall Street's infamous 777.7 point plunge a few weeks ago was a very sixties retro elation. "Right on, Karl!" I shouted. "Eat your derivatives and die, Wall Street swine!" Like the Grand Canyon, the fall of the banks can be a terrifying but sublime spectacle.
But the real culprits, of course, are not being trundled off to the guillotine; they're gently floating to earth in golden parachutes. The rest of us may be trapped on the burning plane without a pilot, but the despicable Richard Fuld, who used Lehman Brothers to loot pension funds and retirement accounts, merely sulks on his yacht.
Out in the stucco deserts of Limbaughland, moreover, fear is already being distilled into a good ol' boy version of the "stab in the back" myth that rallied the ruined German petite bourgeoisie to the swastika. If you listen to the rage on commute AM, you'll know that ‘socialism' has already taken a lien on America, Barack Hussein Obama is terrorism's Manchurian candidate, the collapse of Wall Street was caused by elderly black people with Fannie Mae loans, and ACORN in its voter registration drives has long been padding the voting rolls with illegal brown hordes.
In other times, Sarah Palin's imitation of Father Charles Coughlin -- the priest who preached an American Reich in the 1930s -- in drag might be hilarious camp, but with the American way of life in sudden freefall, the specter of star-spangled fascism doesn't seem quite so far-fetched. The Right may lose the election, but it already possesses a sinister, historically proven blueprint for rapid recovery.
Progressives have no time to waste. In the face of a new depression that promises folks from Wasilla to Timbuktu an unknown world of pain, how do we reconstruct our understanding of the globalized economy? To what extent can we look to either Obama or any of the Democrats to help us analyse the crisis and then act effectively to resolve it?
Is Obama FDR?
If the Nashville "town hall" debate is any guide, we will soon have another blind president. Neither candidate had the guts or information to answer the simple questions posed by the anxious audience: What will happen to our jobs? How bad will it get? What urgent steps should be taken?
Instead, the candidates stuck like flypaper to their obsolete talking points. McCain's only surprise was yet another innovation in deceit: a mortgage relief plan that would reward banks and investors without necessarily saving homeowners.
Obama recited his four-point program, infinitely better in principle than his opponent's preferential option for the rich, but abstract and lacking in detail. It remains more a rhetorical promise than the blueprint for the actual machinery of reform. He made only passing reference to the next phase of the crisis: the slump of the real economy and likely mass unemployment on a scale not seen for 70 years.
With baffling courtesy to the Bush administration, he failed to highlight any of the other weak links in the economic system: the dangerous overhang of credit-default swap obligations left over from the fall of Lehman Brothers; the trillion-dollar black hole of consumer credit-card debt that may threaten the solvency of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America; the implacable decline of General Motors and the American auto industry; the crumbling foundations of municipal and state finance; the massacre of tech equity and venture capital in Silicon Valley; and, most unexpectedly, sudden fissures in the financial solidity of even General Electric.
In addition, both Obama and his vice presidential partner Joe Biden, in their support for Secretary of the Treasury Paulson's plan, avoid any discussion of the inevitable result of cataclysmic restructuring and government bailouts: not "socialism," but ultra-capitalism -- one that is likely to concentrate control of credit in a few leviathan banks, controlled in large part by sovereign wealth funds but subsidized by generations of public debt and domestic austerity.
Never have so many ordinary Americans been nailed to a cross of gold (or derivatives), yet Obama is the most mild-mannered William Jennings Bryan imaginable. Unlike Sarah Palin who masticates the phrase "the working class" with defiant glee, he hews to a party line that acknowledges only the needs of an amorphous "middle class" living on a largely mythical "Main Street."
If we are especially concerned about the fate of the poor or unemployed, we are left to read between the lines, with no help from his talking points that espouse clean coal technology, nuclear power, and a bigger military, but elide the urgency of a renewed war on poverty as championed by John Edwards in his tragically self-destructed primary campaign. But perhaps inside the cautious candidate is a man whose humane passions transcend his own nearsighted centrist campaign. As a close friend, exasperated by my chronic pessimism, chided me the other day, "don't be so unfair. FDR didn't have a nuts and bolts program either in 1933. Nobody did."
What Franklin D. Roosevelt did possess in that year of breadlines and bank failures, according to my friend, was enormous empathy for the common people and a willingness to experiment with government intervention, even in the face of the monolithic hostility of the wealthy classes. In this view, Obama is MoveOn.org's re-imagining of our 32nd president: calm, strong, deeply in touch with ordinary needs, and willing to accept the advice of the country's best and brightest.
The seath of Keynesianism
But even if we concede to the Illinois senator a truly Rooseveltian or, even better, Lincolnian strength of character, this hopeful analogy is flawed in at least three principal ways:
First, we can't rely on the Great Depression as analog to the current crisis, nor upon the New Deal as the template for its solution. Certainly, there is a great deal of déjà vu in the frantic attempts to quiet panic and reassure the public that the worst has passed. Many of Paulson's statements, indeed, could have been directly plagiarised from Herbert Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, and both presidential campaigns are frantically cribbing heroic rhetoric from the early New Deal. But just as the business press has been insisting for years, this is not the Old American Economy, but an entirely new-fangled contraption built from outsourced parts and supercharged by instantaneous world markets in everything from dollars and defaults to hog bellies and disaster futures.
We are seeing the consequences of a perverse restructuring that began with the presidency of Ronald Reagan and which has inverted the national income shares of manufacturing (21% in 1980; 12% in 2005) and those of financial services (15% in 1980; 21% in 2005). In 1930, the factories may have been shuttered but the machinery was still intact; it hadn't been auctioned off at five cents on the dollar to China.
On the other hand, we shouldn't disparage the miracles of contemporary market technology. Casino capitalism has proven its mettle by transmitting the deadly virus of Wall Street at unprecedented velocity to every financial center on the planet. What took three years at the beginning of the 1930s -- that is, the full globalisation of the crisis -- has taken only three weeks this time around. God help us, if, as seems to be happening, unemployment tops the levees at anything like the same speed.
Second, Obama won't inherit Roosevelt's ultimate situational advantage -- having emergent tools of state intervention and demand management (later to be called "Keynesianism") empowered by an epochal uprising of industrial workers in the world's most productive factories.
If you've been watching the sad parade of economic gurus on McNeil-Lehrer, you know that the intellectual shelves in Washington are now almost bare. Neither major party retains more than a few enigmatic shards of policy traditions different from the neo-liberal consensus on trade and privatisation. Indeed, posturing pseudo-populists aside, it is unclear whether anyone inside the Beltway, including Obama's economic advisors, can think clearly beyond the indoctrinated mindset of Goldman Sachs, the source of the two most prominent secretaries of the treasury over the last decade.
Keynes, now suddenly mourned, is actually quite dead. More importantly, the New Deal did not arise spontaneously from the goodwill or imagination of the White House. On the contrary, the social contract for the post-1935 Second New Deal was a complex, adaptive response to the greatest working-class movement in our history, in a period when powerful third parties still roamed the political landscape and Marxism exercised extraordinary influence on American intellectual life.
Even with the greatest optimism of the will, it is difficult to imagine the American labour movement recovering from defeat as dramatically as it did in 1934-1937. The decisive difference is structural rather than ideological. (Indeed, today's union movement is much more progressive than the decrepit, nativist American Federation of labour in 1930.) The power of labour within a Walmart-ized service economy is simply more dispersed and difficult to mobilize than in the era of giant urban-industrial concentrations and ubiquitous factory neighborhoods.
Is war the answer?
The third problem with the New Deal analogy is perhaps the most important. Military Keynesianism is no longer an available deus ex machina. Let me explain.
In 1933, when FDR was inaugurated, the United States was in full retreat from foreign entanglements, and there was little controversy about bringing a few hundred Marines home from the occupations of Haiti and Nicaragua. It took two years of world war, the defeat of France, and the near collapse of England to finally win a majority in Congress for rearmament, but when war production finally started up in late 1940 it became a huge engine for the reemployment of the American work force, the real cure for the depressed job markets of the 1930s. Subsequently, American world power and full employment would align in a way that won the loyalty of several generations of working-class voters.
Today, of course, the situation is radically different. A bigger Pentagon budget no longer creates hundreds of thousands of stable factory jobs, since significant parts of its weapons production is now actually outsourced, and the ideological link between high-wage employment and intervention -- good jobs and Old Glory on a foreign shore -- while hardly extinct is structurally weaker than at any time since the early 1940s. Even in the new military (largely a hereditary caste of poor whites, blacks, and Latinos) demoralisation is reaching the stage of active discontent and opening up new spaces for alternative ideas.
Although both candidates have endorsed programs, including expansion of Army and Marine combat strength, missile defense (aka "Star Wars"), and an intensified war in Afghanistan, that will enlarge the military-industrial complex, none of this will replenish the supply of decent jobs nor prime a broken national pump. However, in the midst of a deep slump, what a huge military budget can do is obliterate the modest but essential reforms that make up Obama's plans for healthcare, alternative energy, and education.
In other words, Rooseveltian guns and butter have become a contradiction in terms, which means that the Obama campaign is engineering a catastrophic collision between its national security priorities and its domestic policy goals.
The fate of Obama-ism
Why don't such smart people see the Grand Canyon?
Maybe they do, in which case deception is truly the mother's milk of American politics; or perhaps Obama has become the reluctant prisoner, intellectually as well as politically, of Clintonism: that is say, of a culturally permissive neo-liberalism whose New Deal rhetoric masks the policy spirit of Richard Nixon.
It's worth asking, for instance, what in the actual substance of his foreign policy agenda differentiates the Democratic candidate from the radioactive legacy of the Bush Doctrine? Yes, he would close Guantanamo, talk to the Iranians, and thrill hearts in Europe. He also promises to renew the Global War on Terror (in much the same way that Bush senior and Clinton sustained the core policies of Reaganism, albeit with a "more human face").
In case anyone has missed the debates, let me remind you that the Democratic candidate has chained himself, come hell or high water, to a global strategy in which "victory" in the Middle East (and Central Asia) remains the chief premise of foreign policy, with the Iraqi-style nation-building hubris of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz repackaged as a "realist" faith in global "stabilisation."
True, the enormity of the economic crisis may compel President Obama to renege on some of candidate Obama's ringing promises to support an idiotic missile defense system or provocative NATO memberships for Georgia and Ukraine. Nonetheless, as he emphasizes in almost every speech and in each debate, defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, together with a robust defense of Israel, constitute the keystone of his national security agenda.
Under huge pressure from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats alike to cut the budget and reduce the exponential increase in the national debt, what choices would President Obama be forced to make early in his administration? More than likely comprehensive health-care will be whittled down to a barebones plan, "alternative energy" will simply mean the fraud of "clean coal," and anything that remains in the Treasury, after Wall Street's finished its looting spree, will buy bombs to pulverize more Pashtun villages, ensuring yet more generations of embittered mujahideen and jihadis.
Am I unduly cynical? Perhaps, but I lived through the Lyndon Johnson years and watched the War on Poverty, the last true New Deal program, destroyed to pay for slaughter in Vietnam.
It is bitterly ironic, but, I suppose, historically predictable that a presidential campaign millions of voters have supported for its promise to end the war in Iraq has now mortgaged itself to a "tougher than McCain" escalation of a hopeless conflict in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal frontier. In the best of outcomes, the Democrats will merely trade one brutal, losing war for another. In the worst case, their failed policies may set the stage for the return of Cheney and Rove, or their even more sinister avatars.
Copyright 2008 Mike Davis
[Mike Davis is the author of In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire (Haymarket Books, 2008) and Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (Verso, 2007). He is currently working on a book about cities, poverty, and global change. You can listen to a podcast of Davis discussing why the New Deal isn't relevant as a solution today by clicking here.]
Why I'm not voting for Barack Obama
Todd Chretien makes the case that remaining independent of the two mainstream parties is necessary for building an effective struggle.
October 22, 2008 -- Socialist Worker (USA) --"TERRORIST!" "KILL him!" "He's an Arab." "Obama Bucks." John McCain has let the dogs loose. Apparently, he's decided that if winning the White House means whipping the right wing into a racist frenzy, he'll lead the charge.
The good news is that a majority of American voters are walking away from the John McCain-Sarah Palin freak show. Even David Letterman is grilling McCain.
In recent days, McCain even added the word "socialist" to Barack Obama's supposed list of sins. "You see, [Obama] believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it," said McCain. "At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama."
Just this once, I find myself wishing that something McCain says were true. Yet any serious look at Obama's record and platform signal that he intends to govern well within the mainstream of American politics.
To begin with, there are his stated policies. He wants to keep at least 50,000 troops in Iraq to "fight terrorism" indefinitely, and he wants to send those who are withdrawn from Iraq to fight in Afghanistan. He agrees with John McCain that the size and budget of the American military must be increased, he stridently supports Israel's suppression of the Palestinian people, and he has said "me too" to reasserting American military might in Latin America, being especially hostile to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.
Obama would be the first to repudiate the idea that he is any sort of anti-militarist or anti-imperialist--and we should take him at his word.
Domestically, Obama recognizes, unlike McCain, that the era of reckless deregulation and neoliberal supremacy has run its course. His policies will aim to re-establish order between the "hostile band of brothers," as Marx called competing capitalists.
Yet no serious look at Obama's policies indicates a plan to fundamentally reshape the American class system. As Malcolm X once said, "You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you're making progress."
Obama may support some modest economic band-aids--extending unemployment benefits, for example. He'll most likely make some reasonable policy shifts, undoing the craziest of the Republican excesses--especially those that don't cost much. For instance, he'll appoint centrists to the Supreme Court if he gets the chance (although the justices most likely to retire are liberals or centrists anyway).
Obama will also end George Bush's ban on stem cell research, and he'll take modest steps to deal with global warming. He might even reduce the number of anti-immigrant raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
But even if Obama has his way at every point, by the end of his first term in 2012, the schools will remain underfunded, the prisons overcrowded, and the gap between the rich and the working class more or less unchanged.
Compared to the last eight years of Bush, any change will be seen as a good thing. Obama's modest reforms will most likely earn him a honeymoon for a longer or shorter period of time. He also has the advantage that the Republican Party finds itself deeply divided, and those divisions will only increase if McCain loses badly.
But the modest changes Obama has promised fall far short of what is needed. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic crisis will form the backdrop to Obama's first term. This calls for far more radical measures than Obama has contemplated, even in the most generous reading of his intentions.
This reality requires a serious political discussion about how to build a working-class movement that can change the rules of the game--and it's in this context that the question of whether those who want to work for social change should vote for Obama must be discussed.
Historical perspective
First, some historical perspective is needed. If the opinion poll trends hold up, McCain's racist strategy will lose, and Obama will be elected the first African American president. In a nation built on slavery, this will be an historic accomplishment and a cause to celebrate for every genuine opponent of racism and bigotry of all kinds.
This point deserves emphasis. America's economic wealth was literally extracted from the backs and minds of more than 10 generations of Black slaves. This wealth wasn't incidental to the nation's fortunes. Without slavery, there would have been no riches for Northern merchants and bankers, and no boom in Northern industry. It took a ferocious Civil War to abolish slavery--a conflict that demonstrated the tenacity of the slave owner's defense of the system.
The freed slaves achieved a 10-year period of partial democracy and reform in the South during Reconstruction. Defended by heavily armed troops, they elected hundreds of African Americans to state legislatures and Congress.
This Southern revolution was drowned in blood, as the KKK lynched its way into power, leading to 80 years of apartheid-like legal segregation. The heroic and bloody struggles of the civil rights movement finally broke Jim Crow's back, paving the way to voting rights, affirmative action in education and jobs, the creation of a Black middle class, and the possibility of Barak Obama's campaign.
All this is often dismissed as ancient history. Yet it is worth remembering that when Barak Obama was born in 1961, millions of African Americans were still legally barred from voting in the South.
Even when the history is acknowledged, it is often asserted that the wrongs have been righted, and Black people should stop "complaining." As if the racist taunts shouted out at McCain rallies aren't buttressed by a powerful system of institutional racism which guarantees that African Americans disproportionately go to the poorest schools, suffer the highest unemployment rate and account for 50 percent of the nation's 2 million prisoners, although they constitute just 13 percent of the population.
Obama's election will raise the hopes of millions of Black workers across the country. Those who have suffered the brunt of American capitalism--and its most important tool, racism--will have a justifiable sense of pride at Obama's rise.
And for those who believe that the white working class can be won over to the fight against racism in the interest of class-based solidarity, Election Day will show that, even when offered the chance to vote along racial lines (first by Hillary Clinton and then by John McCain), tens of millions of white workers from all parts of the country will vote for Barack Obama instead.
None of this ends racism, but it certainly demonstrates the potential for interracial unity in the working class.
Left's dilemma
Historically, the US left has faced this dilemma: try to transform the Democratic Party or try to build an alternative to its left. During the last Great Depression, this choice was posed in particularly stark terms--and although history never repeats itself, there are some important lessons to be learned from what happened then.
The stock market crash in October 1929 led to bank failures, factory closures and skyrocketing unemployment, as well as a rising level of working-class anger--and, eventually, strikes, protests, union drives and all kinds of social protests.
The 1932 election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has important parallels to Obama's campaign. He won in a landslide, replacing an unpopular and out-of-touch Republican administration, by promising a New Deal.
However, like Obama's call for "change," the content of that New Deal was meager when Roosevelt promised it on the campaign trail. It was mostly designed to shore up the banks and business, while offering small reforms for workers and the poor.
Yet the combination of anger and hope proved electric. Between 1934 and 1937, millions of workers went on strike and created the most powerful unions in US history. In that struggle, the American Communist Party grew from 7,000 members in 1929 to 80,000 by 1938.
At first, it seemed like the working-class movement and Roosevelt were headed in the same direction. As workers got more radical and organized, Roosevelt was forced to deliver more reforms (Social Security, the National labour Relations Act, the Works Progress Administration jobs program, unemployment insurance, etc.).
In fact, it seemed so obvious to many political radicals that Roosevelt and the working class were headed in the same direction that when the Communist Party dropped its opposition to the Democratic Party (on orders from Moscow) and became Roosevelt's biggest champion in 1935-36, very few complained.
But as the unions and Communist Party came to see defending Roosevelt from the Republicans as the central priority, they began to oppose the kinds of strikes and street actions necessary to continue the process of winning ever-more radical reforms for fear of "scaring the center."
Once this dynamic became dominant, the movement began to fall apart. The abandonment of this independence destroyed the possibilities of building an independent labour party, one that could stand for workers' rights, consistently fight racism and oppose US wars abroad.
And when Roosevelt, the Democratic Party and big funders who really ran the party felt threatened by the demands of the unions, Roosevelt pre-emptively turned against the movement. On Memorial Day 1937--just months after Roosevelt won re-election with the overwhelming support of organized labour--police shot and killed 10 striking steelworkers in Chicago. It was then that FDR issued his infamous "a plague on both your houses" remark about the strike, which gave the green light to the bosses to use violence against the union movement.
By 1938, the New Deal economic policies had utterly failed to end the Depression. Instead, there was a dramatic worsening of the economy. At this point, Roosevelt turned towards building a massive war machine to fight the Second World War. This would include developing and dropping the atomic bomb in the interest of spreading the American empire to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The Democrats, having sidetracked the possibility of breaking the two-party cycle in the 1930s, then helped launch the anticommunist McCarthyite crusade, a war in Korea, the Cold War with the USSR and, eventually, the war in Vietnam.
How to use opportunities
No one has a crystal ball, but it appears that global capitalism is entering a historic period of crisis. The question of how to use the opportunities this will open up so that we don't repeat the mistakes the left made in the 1930s will be crucial if we want a different outcome this time.
I believe that voting and giving political support to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party will weaken the fight for a fundamentally different kind of world, a socialist world.
Arguing against a vote for Obama and the Democrats is not political abstention, however. It is part of a larger strategy that argues positively to continue building a socialist movement, based on the independence of the working class from the two mainstream parties.
There are many dedicated activists who will disagree with this point of view. They look forward, above all, to seeing the Republicans defeated after eight long years of George Bush. But can they make a positive case that Obama and the Democrats will take us closer to breaking the domination of the rich over the working class in this country?
The fact that millions of American workers look set to elect the first Black president is a good barometer of what could be. But it's no substitute for systematic political debate and the patient building of social movements, socialist organisation and practical action.
For more Links articles on Obama, click HERE
Socialist Worker: What happens after November 4?
http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/24/what-happens-after-november-4
Editorials [1]
What happens after November 4?
Barack Obama's likely election will mark the end of a period of conservative dominance in Washington. But everything we know about him suggests he will remain a cautious, moderate politician.
October 24, 2008
WITH TWO weeks to go before the November 4 election, the Democrats are poised for a crushing victory.
The course is set for the election of the first African American president--a truly historic milestone in a country built on slavery. Less than half a century after the Jim Crow system of apartheid was finally overthrown in the U.S. South, a Black man is set to move into the White House.
And the Senate appears headed for a Democratic supermajority--at or near the 60 seats needed to override even a Republican filibuster, the stalling tactic historically used to block legislation.
To a conservative bastion like the Wall Street Journal editorial board, this is cause for panic.
"Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history," declared a Journal editorial. "Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s."
Among the horrors cited in the editorial: the likely passage of a Medicare-for-all health care program, rapid unionization under the newly enacted Employee Free Choice Act, higher taxes on the rich, and far tougher regulations on business.
What to the Journal is a nightmare will sound like a dream come true to tens of millions of workers.
The reign of George W. Bush--with tax cuts for the rich, endless war, violations of civil liberties, and now the worst economic crisis since the 1930s--is coming to a close. But will Obama really bring the kind of sweeping change that the big business fears--and that working people would welcome?
Certainly, there will be some important changes right away, such as a rollback of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. But a closer look at Obama--his vague promise of change, his record in office and his thoroughly establishment lineup of advisers--suggests that he would continue to be a cautious, moderate politician in the White House.
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AT THE outset of his campaign, Obama tapped the energy of those who were angriest at Bush and the Republicans, and the most determined to fight for new political priorities. Legions of young volunteers gave Obama an edge over Hillary Clinton's well-funded political machine and allowed him to win in the role of outsider against the Clintonite business-as-usual crowd.
On the campaign trail, Obama evoked the history of social movements for civil rights and union organization, and occasionally tossed out progressive policy proposals, such as indexing the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation.
But as Obama pulled ahead of Clinton, he swung to the right, highlighting his big-name Democratic backers and dialing down the "movement" rhetoric. Thus, when Clinton made her scurrilous race-based appeal to "hard-working Americans, white Americans," Obama campaigned as the voice of the Democratic center. Rather than undercut Clinton's class appeal by laying out his own aggressively pro-worker agenda, Obama simply ran out the clock during the primaries.
Once he clinched the nomination, Obama lurched still more sharply to the right, taking a position on Israel-Palestine that was even more pro-Zionist than Bush, and promising right-wing Cubans that he would be a tough opponent of "Latin American "radicals." His plan for "withdrawal" from Iraq would leave tens of thousands of U.S. troops in that country, and he's vowed to dramatically escalate the war in Afghanistan.
On domestic policy, Obama reassured business by choosing as his top economic adviser Jason Furman, a supposedly liberal academic notorious for his defense of Wal-Mart's labor policies. And of course, Obama, while claiming to be a Washington "outsider," chose as his running mate Joe Biden, the consummate Senate insider.
Obama's middle-of-the-road approach opened the door to a John McCain comeback. Following the Republican National Convention, he and his running mate, Sarah Palin, the darling of the Religious Right, even moved ahead in some opinion polls.
That lead probably would have disappeared as voters became more familiar with Palin's hard-right politics and the ugly, racist crowds at Republican campaign events.
Instead, the Wall Street financial crisis reached a new critical stage, and it's been straight downhill for McCain ever since, as voters hold Republicans to blame for the financial panic. However much distance McCain and Palin try to put between themselves and George W. Bush, the Republican Party is increasingly seen as it was in the early days of the Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover--the people responsible for bringing you hard times.
As a result, Obama and the Democrats can ride an overwhelming tide of anger--and hope--into the White House.
But Obama doesn't deserve the vote of people who are committed to independent working-class politics and fundamental social transformation. The "change" he proposes is within strict limits that are acceptable to the corporate contributors to his campaign and the prominent political figures who endorse him, like former general and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who aggressively promoted the Iraq war that Obama opposed.
A big Democratic win won't necessarily mean "a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy," as the Wall Street Journal would have it. The years 1933 and 1965 cited by the Journal as precedents for today were world-changing years not because of the presidents who took office in those years, but because of mass pressure from below--the stirrings of the working-class movement in the 1930s, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
A similar dynamic exists today. A big Obama win will raise expectations for change--but whether or not it is achieved depends on the level of politics, organization and struggle from below.
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Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [2] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.
1. [1] http://socialistworker.org/department/Opinion/Editorials
Socialist Worker: How will race shape the election?
How will race shape the election?
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor analyzes the Republicans' racist campaign against Barack Obama--and says the most interesting thing about it is that it's not working.
October 27, 2008 | Issue 683 [1]
BY EVERY statistical measure, it looks clearer and clearer that Barack Obama will become the first African American president in the history of the United States--a country founded on slavery and sustained by 300 years of racial oppression.
Yet despite the favorable polling pointing to an Obama victory, many in the mainstream media and among Obama's supporters wonder if, in the end, racism will lead to the unraveling of this lead, and yet give life to John McCain and Sarah Palin's moribund campaign.
With nothing new to add to a campaign season that has been going on for almost two full years, the pundits spent the last couple of weeks before the November 4 election wondering about whether white voters will actually come out and vote for Obama, and if there will be a so-called "Bradley effect."
Beyond this, Obama's own supporters and progressives in general are concerned that the Republican Party's turn to open racism and smears against Obama will cut into his support.
While understandable, these fears ignore the palpable growth of anti-racism in U.S. society over the last 30 years--most obviously exemplified by the candidacy of Barack Obama himself, but evident in other ways as well.
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TO START with, what is the Bradley effect? In 1982, the former African American mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, looked to be in command of the race for governor of California. Most polls showed him leading beyond the margin of error, and many predicted he would become the first African American governor in the 20th century.
But when the votes were counted, Bradley lost. The media were quick to conclude that some group of whites, fearing they would be considered racist, told pollsters they would vote for Bradley, but when alone in the voting booth, they supported Bradley's Republican opponent.
It's not unfathomable that, only 17 years after Blacks were formally guaranteed the unobstructed right to vote with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, there would be white voters who told pollsters one thing and did something else in the polling booth. But there may be other explanations for the difference between the polling and the actual results in that 1982 contest--like poor polling in the first place.
According to V. Lance Tarrance, who conducted opinion surveys for Bradley's Republican challenger, the polls for the governor's race were defective for two reasons: one, they didn't take into account large number of absentee voters who were mailing in ballots, and two, those interpreting the polls--the media--didn't accurately gauge how Republican George Deukmejian was quickly closing the gap on Bradley.
Lastly, the polls that predicted a Bradley victory weren't completely off. Bradley won on Election Day, in that among those who cast a ballot that day, Bradley won a majority of votes. He lost because of the absentee votes.
Nevertheless, the "Bradley effect" has been observed in other close elections with high-profile Black candidates--such as former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder and former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, both of whom won elections by a narrower margin than the polls indicated.
But a recent Harvard study of elections involving Black and non-Black candidates gave another explanation for the gap. Looking at gubernatorial and senatorial races from 1989 and 2006, it concluded: "As racialized rhetoric about welfare and crime receded from national prominence in the mid-1990s, so did the gap between polling and performance."
In other words, as explicit (though coded) appeals to racism became less popular, racism generally became less viable in electoral politics.
This certainly reflects the trend in electoral contests of the growing number of Black candidates supported by white voters. According to a New York Times analysis, approximately 200 Black politicians have won positions once held by whites in both Northern and Southern states, including New Hampshire, Minnesota, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. By 2007, about 30 percent of the 622 Black legislators at the state level represented predominately white districts, up from 16 percent in 2001.
None of this is to say that the U.S. is no longer a racist country or that African Americans have achieved some level of full equality--or even that the election of Barack Obama as president will, somehow, close the book on racism in this country.
But the picture is more complicated than the media and political parties acknowledge. They focus on the actions of white voters--in particular, the actions of working-class whites, who are condescendingly referred to as the "Joe Six-Pack" (or, now, "Joe the Plumber") voters--with the expectation that these voters will be more racist and reactionary, and generally ignorant of issues that go beyond what immediately affects them.
The media invoke the legacy of the so-called Reagan Democrats--blue-collar workers with a history of voting Democrat who "defected" to the Republicans during the 1980s. The Republicans whipped up racism with a "war on drugs" and attacks on Black women as "welfare queens" to win the votes of white workers.
Yet even in the face of such brazen efforts to race-bait and scapegoat, Rev. Jesse Jackson won more than 2 million white votes in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, and forced the mainstream media and the Democratic Party to take his "fringe" campaign seriously.
By avoiding the issue of race like the plague, Obama's campaign has contributed to the distorted picture of ordinary white workers' consciousness. Under no circumstances will anyone formally associated with the campaign mention race or racism--because of the deeply cynical belief that the so-called Joe Six Packs simply won't support anyone who is viewed as pro-Black. In other words, Obama has to transcend race in order to win votes.
There may be aspects of this picture that are true in a limited way that accepts the status quo as unchanging and unchangeable. But on the whole, the strategy that drives Obama's reaction to issues of race is based on anti-working class stereotypes that view white workers as intrinsically and intractably racist, and unable to summon the slightest sense of solidarity with African Americans.
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MOST OF this caricature of white workers was born in the late 1960s when Richard Nixon inexplicably ascended to the presidency on the votes of what he termed the "silent majority."
The so-called "silent majority" was never as much a majority as the punditry and academics liked to claim. Moreover, then as now, it was never really Joe Six Pack who was the reactionary--it was the suburban, middle-class "swing voters" who were always more attracted to the conservative politics and promises of the Republicans.
Blue-collar workers--including Blacks, Latinos and other non-whites--have always been concerned about jobs, the economy, their wages and benefits, government programs that could help them make ends meet, and the wars the U.S. starts which their children must go to fight.
This is why workers have always been the core constituency of the Democratic Party--because Democrats, in spite of their record, profess to care about their interests on these issues.
The point is that while the media and the strategists of both parties like to blame ordinary whites for tipping elections one way or the other because of bigotry, they're the ones who bear the greatest responsibility for stoking racism, while simultaneously pretending that it doesn't exist.
Both Hillary Clinton and the McCain-Palin ticket had no qualms reaching for the race card when they were behind in the polls.
Clinton claimed that only she could win the votes of "hard-working Americans, white Americans" for the Democratic Party--meaning, of course, that white workers would never vote for a Black man.
McCain and Palin went straight to questioning whether "small-town America" can really trust someone who was a community organizer "on the South Side of Chicago." More recently, Palin declared, "We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation...This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans."
Palin and McCain see "the real America" in small white towns, outside of the gritty urban centers where people named Barack engage in community organizing. Such comments aren't accidents--they are part of a well-crafted strategy aimed at pushing ordinary whites to pause before voting for Obama.
Functionaries within the Republican Party have been caught pandering to the worst kind of racism--whether calling Obama "Barack Hussein Obama" at McCain-Palin rallies, or using racist caricatures in campaign materials, or running bigoted ads on television or the radio.
But what's more interesting than the predictable behavior of Republicans is that, despite their hardest efforts, it isn't working.
In fact, the most recent polls have shown a decided backlash against the McCain-Palin ticket for being "negative." In fact, it was after the Republicans really climbed in the gutter and accused Obama of, in Palin's words, "palling around with terrorists"--one GOP functionary even demanded that Obama come clean about his "cocaine habit and that he's from the street"--that McCain and Palin experienced their biggest drop in the polls.
This isn't to say that racism isn't a factor in the election--far from it. Despite Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries--a feat in and of itself, considering that the roots of the party are deeply embedded in America's racist foundation--the fact that he hasn't left McCain in the dust is evidence of the effect of bigotry.
If Obama were white and still had the attributes most people associate with him: young, handsome, intelligent, thoughtful and symbolizing a new political direction after eight disastrous years of George Bush, the race would have been over a long time ago.
While Obama has been the victim of a racist smear campaign, he made it worse by refusing on principle to condemn the racism of the Republicans. That gave the GOP the opening to escalate their rhetoric--to the extent that McCain-Palin rallies attract racists who denounce Obama as a "terrorist."
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THE MAINSTREAM media have finally started to expose the McCain campaign for stoking anti-Obama hatred and racism. But there is another angle to this question that is completely ignored.
The almost exclusive focus on what whites will and won't do in the election has obscured the historic impact that African American voters hope to have. Black communities across the country are barely able to contain their pride, hope and exhilaration in an Obama presidency.
Typically, the most apolitical four hours of any day can be found on Black radio during comedic morning shows. But for months, these shows have been imploring people to register to vote--and they've now shifted to get-out-the-vote campaigns. There are daily reports on the state of the campaign and constant mocking of the McCain-Palin ticket.
There are other signs of a massive Black turnout on November 4. In Georgia, of the 150,000 people who have already cast ballots early, almost 40 percent were African American. The long primary season resulted in millions more voters being registered, and many of them are Black. Moreover, African Americans feel as if they have a stake in the election, which in turn will create even more community pressure to get everyone out to vote.
This is why the McCain-Palin campaign has turned to a focus on suppressing the vote by raising questions about the community organization ACORN and its voter registration drive.
In all likelihood, none of these desperate measures will work. In many ways, the upcoming election is a referendum on race and racism in the U.S. The likely victory of Barack Obama won't end racism in America. That will be the job of ordinary people--Black, Brown and white--organizing in struggle to press for their demands.
But an Obama victory will certainly indicate how much ideas and consciousness of regular Americans--the vast majority of working-class people--have changed in the last 40 years.
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Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes regularly for the International Socialist Review [2]. Among her recent articles are "New Orleans Since the Storm: An American Travesty" [3] and "Rediscovering Race and Class After Katrina." [4]
For an overview of race and class in U.S. history, with several chapters devoted to contemporary American politics, read Ahmed Shawki's Black Liberation and Socialism [5].
Lance Selfa's book The Democrats: A Critical History [6] is a useful resource for further reading on the Democratic Party and the U.S. political system.
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Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [7] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.
Call on Obama to Improve U.S.-Latin American Relations
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3919
Over 360 Latin America Experts Call on Obama to Improve U.S.-Latin American Relations
WASHINGTON - October 28 - Anticipating a democratic victory in the November 4 presidential elections, 368 academics specializing in Latin America recently sent a letter urging Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama to become a partner, rather than an adversary, concerning changes already under way in Latin America. Above all, the signers are asking Senator Obama to understand the current impetus for progressive change in many of the region's countries: the rejection of the failed "free-market" model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s - a period which has seen the worst economic growth failure in the region, in terms of per capita GDP, in over a century -- and the adoption of more socially just and environmentally sustainable development styles.
The signers expressed their hope that an Obama administration will embrace the opportunity to inaugurate a new period of hemispheric understanding and collaboration for the welfare of the entire Hemisphere.
Most of those signing are members of the Latin American Studies Association, the largest and most influential professional association of its kind in the world. Signers include Eric Hershberg, President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and twelve LASA Past Presidents, along with over 350 other academics and Latin America experts.
The letter follows:
October 20, 2008
Dear Senator Obama:
We write to offer our congratulations on your campaign and to express our hope that as the next president of the United States you will take advantage of an historic opportunity to improve relations with Latin America. As scholars of the region, we also wish to convey our analysis regarding the process of change now underway in Latin America.
Just as the people of the United States have begun to debate basic questions regarding the sort of society they want-- thanks in part to your own candidacy but also owing to the magnitude of the current financial crisis-- so too have the people of Latin America. In fact, the debate about a just and fair society has been going on in Latin America for more than a decade, and the majority are opting, like you and so many of us in the United States, for hope and change. As academics personally and professionally committed to development and democracy in Latin America, we are hopeful that during your presidency the United States can become a partner rather than an adversary to the positive changes already under way in the hemisphere.
The current impetus for change in Latin America is a rejection of the model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s, a model that has concentrated wealth, relied unsuccessfully on unrestricted market forces to solve deep social problems and undermined human welfare. The current rejection of this model is broad-based and democratic. In fact, contemporary movements for change in Latin America reveal significantly increased participation by workers and peasants, women, Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples-- in a word, the grassroots. Such movements are coming to power in country after country. They are neither puppets, nor blinded by fanaticism and ideology, as caricatured by some mainstream pundits. To the contrary, these movements deserve our respect, friendship and support.
Latin Americans have often viewed the United States not as a friend but as an oppressor, the guarantor of an international economic system that works against them, rather than for them-- the very antithesis of hope and change. The Bush Administration has made matters much worse, and U.S. prestige in the region is now at a historic low. Washington's tendency to fight against hope and change has been especially prominent in recent U.S. responses to the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Bolivia. While anti-American feelings run deep, history demonstrates that these feelings can change. In the 1930s, after two decades of conflict with the region, the United States swore off intervention and adopted a Good Neighbor Policy. Not coincidentally, it was the most harmonious time in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations. In the 1940s, nearly every country in the region became our ally in World War Two. It can happen again.
There are many other challenges, too. Colombia, the main focus of the Bush Administration's policy, is currently the scene of the second largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with four million internally displaced people. Its government, which criminalizes even peaceful protest, seeks an extension of the free trade policies that much of the hemisphere is already reacting against. Cuba has begun a process of transition that should be supported in positive ways, such as through the dialogue you advocate. Mexicans and Central Americans migrate by the tens of thousands to seek work in the United States, where their labor power is much needed but their presence is denigrated by a public that has, since the development of opinion polling in the 1930s, always opposed immigration from anywhere. The way to manage immigration is not by building a giant wall, but rather, the United States should support more equitable economic development in Mexico and Central America and, indeed, throughout the region. In addition, the U.S. must reconsider drug control policies that have simply not worked and have been part of the problem of political violence, especially in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. And the U.S. must renew its active support for human rights throughout the region. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Latin Americans, the United States has come to stand for the support of inequitable regimes.
Finally, we implore you to commit your administration to the firm support of constitutional rights, including academic and intellectual freedom. Most of us are members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the largest professional association of experts on the region, and we have experienced first-hand how the Bush administration's attempt to restrict academic exchange with Cuba is counter-productive and self-defeating. We hope for an early opportunity to discuss this and other issues regarding Latin America with your administration.
Our hope is that you will embrace the opportunity to inaugurate a new period of hemispheric understanding and collaboration for the common welfare. We ask for change and not only in the United States.
Sincerely,
SIGNED:
Eric Hershberg, LASA President 2007-09, Professor of Politics and Director of Latin American Studies, Simon Fraser University
Charles R. Hale, LASA Past President (2006-2007), Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
Sonia E. Alvarez, LASA Past President (2004-2006), Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Politics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Marysa Navarro Aranguran, LASA Past President (2003-2004), Charles Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College
Arturo Arias, LASA Past President, (2001-2003), Professor of Spanish and Portuguese University of Texas, Austin
Thomas Holloway, LASA Past President (2000-2001), Professor Of History, University of California, Davis
Susan Eckstein, LASA Past President (1997-98), Professor of Sociology & International Relations, Boston University
Cynthia McClintock, LASA Past President (1994-95), Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University
Carmen Diana Deere, LASA Past President (1992-94), Professor of Food and Resource Economics and Director, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida
Lars Schoultz, LASA Past President (1991-92), William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of Political Science, UNC, Chapel Hill
Jean Franco, LASA Past President (1989-91), Emeritus Professor, Columbia University
Helen I. Safa, LASA Past President (1983-85), Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies, University of Florida
Paul L. Doughty, LASA Past President (1974-75), Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus of Anthropology and Latin American Studies, University of Florida
María Rosa Olivera-Williams, LASA Past Congress Chair (2001-2003), Associate Professor of Latin American Literature, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
__________________________________________
Thomas Abercrombie, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, NYU
Holly Ackerman, Ph.D. Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, Duke University
Judith Adler Hellman, Professor of Social and Political Science, York University, Toronto
Norma Alarcon, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
Alfonso Alvarez, Social Worker, Boston College Graduate School
Wayne F. Anderson, Professor of History and Latin American Studies, Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, NC
Robert Andolina, Assistant Professor of International Studies, Seattle University
Frances R. Aparicio, Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Program, University of Illinois at Chicago
Kirsten Appendini, El Colegio de México, Mexico
Juan Manuel Arbona, Associate Professor, Growth and Structure of Cities Program, Bryn Mawr College
Benjamin Arditi, Professor, Centro de Estudios Politicos, UNAM, Mexico, DF
Mauricio Arenas - CUPW Local 626
Andres Avellaneda, Emeritus Professor, Spanish and Latin American Studies, U. of Florida
William Avilés, Asociate Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska, Kearney
Dra. Emperatriz Arreaza-Camero, Investigadora adscrita al Cine Club Universitario de Maracaibo, Universidad de Zulia
Florence E. Babb, Vada Allan Yeomans Professor of Women's Studies, University of Florida
Xóchitl Bada, Assistant Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Program. University of Illinois at Chicago
Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Director of Development Studies, Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Brown University
Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela. Doctoral Student. English department, University of California, Davis
Deborah Barndt, Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies and Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, York University, Toronto, Canada
Magdalena Barros Nock, Professor/Researcher, CIESAS México
Leslie Bary, Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Emilio Bejel, Distinguished Professor of Latin American Studies, University of California at Davis
Lourdes Benería, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University
Carollee Bengelsdorf, Professor of Politics, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Rina Benmayor, Professor, Humanities and Communication, California State University Monterey Bay
Vivienne Bennett, Professor, Liberal Studies Department, California State University, San Marcos
Charles Bergquist, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Washington
Michelle Bigenho, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Hampshire College
O'Neill Blacker-Hanson, Assistant Professor of Latin American History, Valparaiso University, Indiana
Mario Blaser, Assistant Professor of International Development, York University, Toronto
David Block, Curator of Latin American Collections, Cornell University
Laura Bonilla-Merchav, Department of Art History, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Stephen R. Boucher, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Resocurce Economics, UC Davis
Kirk Bowman, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
Kalina Brabeck, Psychologist, Assistant Professor of Counseling, Rhode Island College
Rosalind Bresnahan, Ph.D., Collective of Coordinating Editors, Latin American Perspectives
M. Brinton Lykes, Ph.D., Associate Director, Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Professor, Community-Cultural Psychology, Boston College
Janet Brody Esser, Emeritus Professor and Past Associate Director, Center for Latin American Studies, San Diego State University
Alejandra Bronfman, Associate Professor, Department of History University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Dr. Ronda Brulotte, Lecturer III, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
Monica Bucio, PhD Candidate, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Stephanie Buechler, Research Associate, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Amy J. Buono, Assistant Professor of Art History, Southern Methodist University
María Cristina Burgueño, Associate Professor of Spanish, Marshall University
Kathryn Burns, Associate Professor of History, UNC Chapel Hill
Marisol de la Cadena, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UC Davis
Kia Lilly Caldwell, Assistant Professor, Department of African and Afro-American Studies University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Maxwell A. Cameron, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia
Ginetta E.B. Candelario, Director Latin American & Latina/o Studies and Associate Professor, Sociology Department, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Gloria Cañez, Investigadora del Departamento de Estudios Sociales del Sistema Alimentario CIAD AC, Sonora, México
M. Carmen Carrero de Salazar, Course Director, Faculty of Education, York University
Jennifer J. Casolo, PhD Candidate in Geography, University of California at Berkeley
J. Celso Castro Alves, Assistant Professor of Black Studies and History, Amherst College
Emma Cervone, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
John C. Chasteen, Distinguished Professor of History, UNC Chapel Hill
Ronald H. Chilcote, Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Riverside
Donna Chollett, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota-Morris
Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Salem State College, Massachusetts
Clemency Coggins, Professor of Archaeology and of Art History, Boston University
Jorge Coronado, Associate Professor of Spanish & Portuguese, Northwestern University
Fernando Coronil, Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Dominic Corva, Ph. C., University of Washington Department of Geography
Jennifer N. Costanza, PhD student, Sociology, Brown University
Liliana Cotto-Morales, Professor, University of Puerto Rico
Raymond Craib, Department of History, Cornell University
Altha Cravey, Associate Professor of Geography, UNC Chapel Hill
Marta G. Cruz-Concepción, Teaching Fellow, 2008-10 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Marco Cupolo, Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of Hartford
Edward D'Angelo, Professor of Philosophy, Quinnipiac University
Juanita Darling, Department of International Relations, San Francisco State University
Karen Davis, Faculty Lecturer, California State University Monterey Bay
Don Deere, PhD Student, Philosophy, DePaul University
William D. DeGrush, St. Michael's College, Colchester, VT
Guillermo Delgado, Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jonathan Dettman, M.A.T. Associate Instructor, Department of Spanish, University of California, Davis
Dr. Rosalina Diaz, Associate Professor, Education Department, Medgar Evers College, City University of New York
Ariel Dorfman, Walter Hines Page Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, Duke University
Lindsay DuBois, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Christopher Dunn, Associate Professor and Chair Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Tulane University
Luis Duno-Gottberg, Associate Prof. Rice University
Christine E. Eber, Associate Professor of Anthropology, New Mexico State University
Marc Edelman, Professor of Anthropology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
David Egilman MD MPH, Clinical Associate Professor, Dept of Community Health, Brown University
Lynn England, Lecturer, Utah Valley University
Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Romance Languages, University of Oregon
Edward Epstein, Professor of Political Science, University of Utah
Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, UNC, Chapel Hill
Francisco Escobedo, Assistant Professor, School of Forest Resources & Conservation, University of Florida
Diego Escolar, Profesor Adjunto de Antropología, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo
Mónica Espinosa-Arango, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota
Alicia Ivonne Estrada, Assistant Professor, Central American Studies Program, California State University, Northridge
Judith Ewell, Newton Professor of History Emerita, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Reverend Marc Fallon, csc, Catholic Social Services, New Bedford, MA
Claire Farago, Professor, Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder
Linda Farthing, independent scholar and author
Paja Faudree, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
Karen Ann Faulk, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Sandra Fernández Castillo, Associate professor of Philosophy, University of Chile
Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Queens College, CUNY
Virginia M. Fields, Ph.D., Senior Curator, Art of the Ancient Americas, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Luis Figueroa, Associate Professor of History, Latin American, Caribbean, Latina\o Studies Coordinator, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
Eileen J. Findlay, Department of History, American University
Liz Fitting, Assistant Professor Sociology & Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, Halifax
Sara María Lara Flores, Investigador, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México DF
Yvette G. Flores, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Chicana/o Studies Faculty Director Quarter Abroad Program Education Abroad Center U.C. Davis
Alcira Forero-Pena, Assistant Visiting Professor of Anthropology, UCD, Denver
Jonathan Fox, Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
Erich Fox Tree, Visiting Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Wellesley College
Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of Latin American Studies, University of San Francisco
Max Paul Friedman, Associate Professor of History, American University
Monica Frölander-Ulf, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown
Carmenza Gallo, Associate Professor of Sociology, Queens College, New York
Alyshia Gálvez, Assistant Professor, Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies, Lehman College/City University of New York
Forrest Gander, Writer, Professor of English & Comparative Literature, Brown University
Angela Garcia, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UC Irvine
Spike Gildea, Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Oregon
Andrea Giunta, Professor of Latin American Art, The University of Texas at Austin
Helen Sabrina Gledhill, Scholar at the Centro de Memória da Bahia, Fundação Pedro Calmon, Brazil
John Gledhill, Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology & Co-Director, Centre for Latin American Cultural Studies, The University of Manchester, UK
Tanya Golash-Boza, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, University of Kansas
W. L. Goldfrank, Prof of Sociololgy and Latin American & Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Roberta E. Goldman, Clinical Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Brown University
William W. Goldsmith, Professor and Director, International Studies in Planning, Cornell University
Judith Goode, Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Gail Gonzalez, Associate Professor and Chair Modern Languages Department, University of Wisconsin
Miguel Gonzalez, Sessional Assistant Professor, International Development, York University, Toronto
Soledad González Montes, Profesora-investigadora, El Colegio de México
Paul Gootenberg, Professor of History, Stony Brook
Hubert C. de Grammont, Investigador, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México DF
Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University
Karen B. Graubart, Associate Professor of History and Director, Program in Latin American Studies, University of Notre Dame
Terence Grieder, Professor Emeritus, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin
Anna Gruben, Acting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon
Kevin Guerrieri, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of San Diego
Matthew Gutmann, Professor of Anthropology, Ethnic Studies, and Latin American Studies, Department of Anthropology, Brown University
Liza Guzmán, Ecology Graduate Student, UNC-Chapel Hill
LaDawn Haglund, Assistant Professor, School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University
Richard L. Harris, Professor Emeritus of Global Studies, California State University
Faye V. Harrison, Professor of Anthropology and Director, African American Studies, University of Florida
Daniel Hellinger, Professor of Political Science, Webster University, St. Louis
Elizabeth A Hennessy, PhD Student, Geography Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kimberly Hernández, Spanish Language Instructor, North Carolina Central University
Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Associate Professor of Spanish, North Carolina Central University
Doug Hertzler, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Eastern Mennonite University
Peter E. Hildebrand, Professor Emeritus Food and Resource Economics, and Director Emeritus, International Programs, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences University of Florida
Derrick Hindery, Assistant Professor, International Studies Program and Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Donald Hindley, Professor of Politics and Latin American and Latino Studies, Brandeis University
Mary Holper, Boston College Immigration & Asylum Project, Boston College Law School
Lori Hopkins, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of New Hampshire
P. Terrence Hopmann, Professor of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University
René Harder Horst, Associate Professor of History Appalachian State University
Sallie Hughes, Associate Professor, School of Communication, University of Miami
Janise Hurtig, Senior Researcher, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago
Forrest Hylton, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, New York University
S. Ryan Isakson, Assistant Professor, International Development Studies, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Reiko Ishihara, Ph.D., Former Visiting Professor, Institute of Interethnic Studies, University of San Carlos of Guatemala
Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian, Vice Provost for Library Affairs, Adjunct Associate Professor of History, Duke University
Laura Jensen, LMT, Cultural Anthropologist, MPH candidate, New Haven, Connecticut
Reynaldo L. Jiménez, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Florida
Benjamin H. Johnson, Associate Professor, Southern Methodist University
Jennifer Jolly, Assistant Professor of Art History, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY
Susanne Jonas, Latin American & Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Tedd Judd, PhD, ABPP-CN Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Department of Psychology, University of Washington
Karen A. Kainer, Assoc. Prof., School of Forest Resources and Conservation, and Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Susana Kaiser, Ph.D., Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco
Marina Kaplan, Associate Professor of Literature, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Nicole Kellett, Research Associate, University of New Mexico
Norma Klahn, Professor of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz
Cecelia F. Klein, Professor, Department of Art History, 100 Dodd Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Benjamin Kohl, Associate Professor, Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University
Sarah Koopman PhD Candidate, Geography, University of British Columbia
Elizabeth Kubick, Independent Scholar, Latin American and Caribbean Issues
Maria L. Lagos, Associate Professor Emerita, Lehman College, The City University of New York
Victoria Langland, Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Davis
Brooke Larson, Professor of History, Stony Brook University
Nathalie Lebon, Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Gettysburg College
Catherine LeGrand, Associate Professor of History, McGill University, Montreal
Michelle Lenoue, MA Latin American Studies, San Diego State University
Kelley León Howarth, Senior Instructor of Spanish & Head Undergraduate Advisor, Department of Romance Languages, University of Oregon
Alejandra Letelier Kramer, Anthropology Department, University of California Santa Cruz
Fredric G. Levin, College of Law, Gainesville, FL
Elizabeth Lilliott, Associate Researcher, Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation
Amy Lind, Mary Ellen Heintz Associate Professor of Women's Studies, University of Cincinnati
Flora Lu, Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, University of CA--Santa Cruz
Anibal Lucas, Director, Organización Maya K´iche´, New Bedford, MA
Jennie M. Luna, Ed.M., Doctoral Candidate Native American Studies, U.C. Davis
Silje Lundgren, Ph.D. candidate, Inst of Latin American Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden
Amy Lutz, Professor of Sociology and Education, Syracuse University
Barbara Lynch, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
Ann Magennis, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Colorado State University
Mary Ann Mahony, Associate Professor of History, Co-coordinator, Latin American Studies Committee, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT
Maria Margarita Malagon-Kurka, PhD in Art History
Laura Malosetti Costa, Co-Director Magister in Sociology of Culture and Cultural Studies, IDAES, Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Buenos Aires
Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, São Paulo State University
Valeria Manzano, History Department, Indiana University at Bloomington
Michael Marchman, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
Maxine L. Margolis, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville
Diane Marting, Past President of the Mississippi Foreign Language Association, University of Mississippi
Lillian Manzor, Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures, Director, Degree Programs in Latin American Studies, Director, Cuban/Latino Theater Archive, University of Miami
Patricia M. Martin , Professor of Geography, Université de Montréal, Montréal, CANADA
Rubén Martínez, Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature & Writing, Loyola Marymount University
Patricia Mathews-Salazar, Associate Professor of Anthropology, BMCC & Graduate Center, City University of New York
Kathleen McAfee, Faculty of International Relations, San Francisco State University
Frank D. McCann, Professor Emeritus of History, University of New Hampshire
Robert McKee Irwin, Professor of Spanish, UC Davis
Marc McLeod, Associate Professor of History and Director of Latin American Studies, Seattle University
Malcolm K. McNee, Asst. Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, Smith College
J. Patrice McSherry, Professor of Political Science and Director, Latin American & Caribbean Studies Program, Long Island University
Carmen Medeiros, Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, New York University
Zoila Mendoza, Professor of Native American Studies, University of California, Davis
Cecilia Menjivar, Professor of Sociology, Arizona State University
Brent Metz, Asst Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Kansas
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Rutgers University
Kenneth J. Mijeski, South Eastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) Past President (1999-2000), Professor of Political Science, East Tennessee State University
Rosamel Millaman Reinao, Assistant Professor. Escuela de Antropología. Universidad Católica de Temuco, Chile
Rosamel Millaman Reinao, Assistant Professor, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Chile
Marilyn G Miller, Associate Professor, Tulane
Lisa Mills, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, Ottawa
William P. Mitchell, Prof. of Anthropology and Freed Foundation Professor in the Social Sciences, Monmouth University
Raúl Molina Mejía, Adjunct Professor of History, Long Island University
David Mora-Marin, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, UNC-Chapel Hill
Julio Moreno, Associate Professor, History and Latin American Studies,
Co-Director, Center for Latino Studies in the Americas, University of San Francisco
Kim Morse, Assistant Professor of History, Washburn University, Topeka, KS
Julia E. Murphy, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary
Dr. Silvia Nagy-Zekmi, Professor of Hispanic and Cultural Studies, Director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Villanova University
María Isabel Neüman, Profesora titular de la Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela
Liisa L. North, Professor Emerita, Political Science and former director of Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC), York University, Toronto, Canada
John M. Norvell, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Pitzer College
Marcia Ochoa, Assistant Professor of Community Studies, UC Santa Cruz
Joanna O'Connell, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Patrick J. O'Connor, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College
Elizabeth Oglesby, Assistant Professor of Geography and Latin American Studies University of Arizona
Diana Ojeda, PhD student, Clark University, Worcester MA, USA
Anthony Oliver-Smith, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Florida
Andrew Orta, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Gerardo Otero, Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Okezi T. Otovo, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, Georgetown University
Mark Overmyer-Velázquez, Associate Professor of History and Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Connecticut
Javier Eduardo Pabón, Assistant Professor International Studies, St. Augustine's College
Joseph M. Palacios, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Amalia Pallares, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Juan Manuel Leon Parra, Graduate Student, Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Boston College
Professor Alberto Julián Pérez, Director, Latin American and Iberian Studies, Texas Tech University
Melanie Pérez Ortiz, Catedrática Asociada, Departamento de Estudios Hispánicos, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras
Héctor Perla Jr., Assistant Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ann H. Peters, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University
Anna Peterson, Professor of Religion, University of Florida, Gainesville
Brandt Peterson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Michigan State University
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Adjunct Professor of International Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Watson Institute, Brown University
Nancy Postero, Associate Professor, Anthropology, UC San Diego
Kerry Preibisch, Associate Professor, University of Guelph and Visiting Fellow, University of Sussex
Yolanda Prieto, Professor Emerita, School of Social Science and Human Services, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Lola Proaño Gómez, Professor, Languages Division Pasadena City College.
Edwin Quiles, Professor, University of Puerto Rico
Joanne Rappaport, Professor of Anthropology, Georgetown University
Laurel Rayburn, PhD in English, Brown University
Cynthia Radding, Gussenhoven Distinguished Professor of Latin American Studies, Department of History, UNC, Chapel Hill
Ana Cristina Ramírez Barreto, Profesora-investigadora en la Facultad de Filosofía, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, México
Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Ithaca College
Elías A. Ramos, Professor of Latin American Literature, California State University-Northridge
Marcus Rediker, Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
Martha W. Rees, Professor, Agnes Scott College Decatur, GA
Bernardo Rengifo Lozano, Professor of Philosophy, Universidad de los Andes
Gerardo Renique, Associate Professor of History, City University of New York (CUNY)
Rosana Resende, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Florida, Department of Anthropology
Jennifer F. Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The University of South Carolina
Patricia Richards, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Georgia
Kenneth M. Roberts, Department of Government, Cornell University
William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
Debra H. Rodman, Assistant Professor Anthropology and Women's Studies, Randolph-Macon College
Marisol Rodriguez, Senior Research Assistant, Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University
Maria Rogal, Associate Professor of Graphic Design & Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville
Karem Roitman, Lecturer, Regent's American College London, London UK
Cristina Rojas, School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa
Rachel Rosenbloom, Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Boston College
Regina A. Root, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies, College of William and Mary
Frances Rothstein, Professor of Anthropology, Montclair State University
Frederick Royce, Assistant Scientist, University of Florida, Gainesville
Alma Ruiz, Curator MOCA, The Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
Dereka Rushbrook, Lecturer in Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson
Eduardo Sáenz-Rovner, Professor of Economic History, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota
Frank Salomon, John V. Murra Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Robert Samet, Ph.D. Candidate, Stanford University Department of Anthropology
James Sanders, Associate Professor of History, Utah State University
Luis Sandoval, Graduate Student, Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Boston College
Myrna Santiago, Associate Professor of History, Director, Women's Studies Program, Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA
Patricia Sawin, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Suzana Sawyer, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis
Marianne Schmink, Professor and Director, Tropical Conservation and Development program, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida
Barbara Schroder, Ph.D., City University of New York
Ofelia Schutte, Professor of Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa
T.M. Scruggs, Associate Professor, School of Music, University of Iowa
Miguel La Serna, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Maureen E. Shea, Associate Professor of Spanish, Tulane University.
Barry G. Shelley, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Avrum J. Shriar, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator, Urban/Regional Studies and Planning L.D. Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University
Sharleen H. Simpson, PhD, MSN, MA, ARNP, Associate Professor of Nursing and Anthropology, Affiliate Faculty in Latin American Studies, University of Florida
Peter Singelmann, Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Sandy Smith-Nonini, Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, UNC, Chapel Hill
Dr. Caridad Souza, Lecturer, SUNY-College at Oneonta
Liv Sovik, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Karen Spalding, Professor of History, The University of Connecticut
Shannon Speed, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Coordinator, Indigenous Studies Initiative University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Anita Spring, Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Florida
Barbara Stallings, William R. Rhodes Research Professor, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University
Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Florida
Steve Stein, Professor of History, Director Center for Latin American Studies, University of Miami
Marcia Stephenson, Associate Professor of Spanish, Purdue University
Steve Striffler, Doris Zemurray Stone Chair of Latin American Studies, University of New Orleans
Margarita M.W. Suarez, Department of Religion & Philosophy, Meredith College
Christina A. Sue, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado-Boulder
Heather Sullivan, PhD Candidate in Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Henry W. Sullivan, Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese, Tulane University, New Orleans
Sharon Sullivan Mujica, Consultant, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Daniel O. Suman, Professor, Division of Marine Affairs & Policy (MAF), Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), University of Miami
David Sweet, Prof. Emeritus of Latin American Histor, University of California, Santa Cruz
Analisa Taylor, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Oregon
Beatriz de la Tejera H., Profesora e Investigadora Titular en Desarrollo Rural, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y Universidad Autónoma Chapingo
Miguel Tinker Salas, Arango Professor of Latin American History, Pomona College
Cynthia Tompkins, Asc. Prof. Spanish, School of International Letters and Cultures, Arizona State University
Marion Traub-Werner, Dissertation Writing Fellow, University of Minnesota
Donaldo Urioste, Professor of Spanish & Chicano Literature, School of World Languages & Cultures California State University, Monterey Bay
Andrea Valenzuela, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Whitman College
Ivonne del Valle, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
Lucila Vargas, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNC Chapel Hill
Verónica Vallejo, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, Georgetown University
Stefano Varese, Professor of NAS, University of California, Davis
Adrián Ventura, President, Organización Maya K´iché, New Bedford, MA
Adam Versényi, Barranger Distinguished Term Professor of Dramatic Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Steven Volk, Professor of History Director, Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence, Oberlin College
Lissie Wahl, Research Fellow, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Kay Warren, Tillinghast Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University
Ronald Waterbury, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Queens College CUNY
William F. Waters, Chair, LASA Ecuadorian Studies Section (2006-present), Professor of Sociology and Public Health, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador)
Ronald W. Webb, Director, Latin American Studies (2006-present), Temple University
Susan V. Webster, Jane W. Mahoney Professor of Art and Art History, College of William and Mary
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Cliff Welch, Professor of History, Grand Valley State University
Norman E. Whitten, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Latin American Studies and Curator of the Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Linda Wilcox Young, Professor of Economics, Southern Oregon University
Justin Wolfe, William Arceneaux Associate Professor of Latin American History, Tulane University
Wendy Wolford, Associate Professor of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Stephanie Wood, Associate Director for Development and Dissemination, Center for the Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon
Edgar Woznica, Brown University undergraduate '09
Robin M. Wright, Full Professor of Anthropology (Universidade Estadual de Campinas) & Associate Professor of Religion (UF Gainesville)
Horacio Xaubet, Associate Professor, Modern Foreign Languages, North Carolina Central University
Qingwen Xu, Assistant Professor, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work
Caroline Yezer, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross
April Yoder, PhD Student, Georgetown University
Professor Jordan Young, Professor Emeritus Brazilian Civilization, Pace University, New York
Phil Young, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon
Emma Zapata Martelo, Colegio de Postgraduados, México, Profesora Investigadora Titular
Pat Zavella, Professor and Chair, Latin American and Latino Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
María Zebadúa Serra, Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, México
Lori Zett, MIA School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and Adjunct professor, Temple University
Marc Zimmerman, Professor and Director, World Cultures and Literatures, Director, Global CASA/LACASA Publications, University of Houston
Ann Zulawski, Professor of History and Latin American Studies, Smith College
Is Obama really a radical?
Is Obama really a radical at heart?
If Obama is acting like a centrist now, it's most likely because he is a centrist--rather than a radical posing as one to get elected.
Socialist Worker -- October 31, 2008
WITH LITTLE else to offer on its own behalf, the McCain-Palin ticket has built an entire campaign on ridiculing and demonizing Barack Obama. First, Obama was a neophyte. Then, he was a celebrity. Now, he's a dangerous radical, even a friend to terrorists.
This caricature of Obama reached its lowest point October 27, when a local Florida television anchor, Barbara West, interviewing Obama's running mate Joe Biden, quoted The Communist Manifesto and asked Biden to comment.
Biden responded, "Are you joking? Is this a joke?" Of course, Biden went on to explain that Obama isn't a socialist, but that his plans aimed to provide the "middle class" with a tax cut.
In the fevered imaginations of the right wing, Obama is a dangerous radical who is hiding behind a mask of cool "centrism." Once in office--and with a Democratic majority at his back--Obama will pull off the mask to reveal his true, radical agenda.
But in the camp of Obama supporters, a similar--if less crazed--analysis holds.
It goes this way: Obama is a genuine progressive who is dedicated to affecting major political and social changes. But because he's running in a generally conservative country, with the Republicans ready to pounce on his every misstep, he can't really lay out his full aspirations. So he has to reassure people, using the language of market-friendly "centrism." Once Obama is in office, goes the reasoning, progressives will have an ally who will work with them to produce the social change that they all want.
Given the crises facing the country, the widespread discredit that the Bush administration has brought on Republicans, and the poll-affirmed desire of the electorate for a clean break with policies of the past generation, an incoming Obama administration could be planning huge changes to the political economy of the U.S., akin to those of the 1930s New Deal.
Indeed, many liberal and left commentators have urged precisely this, with some calling for a "new New Deal" and others advocating measures to take advantage of a "social democratic moment."
Yet despite Obama's soaring rhetoric, he has actually advocated few policies that break with any of the accepted orthodoxy in Washington today.
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DURING THE primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, Obama often took stands on economic issues that placed him to right of Clinton's fake populism. As the scale of the housing crisis began to force its way into the primary campaign, Obama held back from support for a moratorium on foreclosures and government aid to strapped homeowners, when Edwards and Clinton advocated both.
By the summer of 2008, after clinching the nomination, Obama had recognized that it was untenable to maintain this "above the fray" attitude to the housing crisis. He (and free-market champion John McCain, for that matter) voted for the multibillion-dollar housing bill that passed the Congress. But it was telling that his first inclination on addressing the crisis was to take the position least offensive to financial interests and neoliberal dogma.
However the political season influences the emphasis or spin that Obama puts on different economic issues, we shouldn't forget that he's the one who hired "centrist," pro-free market economists like the University of Chicago's Austan Goolsbee and Wal-Mart defender Jason Furman as his top economic advisers.
While serving as Obama's chief economic adviser, Goolsbee was (and still is) the senior economist of the right-wing, pro-corporate Democratic Leadership Council. Other informal Obama advisers include such mainstream figures as billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker and former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
At a July summit involving those figures and other corporate and Republican leaders, Obama highlighted a "bipartisan" approach to the economy that, although deliberately vague, seemed to countenance limited government intervention, but put emphasis on reduction of the federal deficit and aid to the private sector--in essence, a rehash of 1990s Clintonomics.
Similarly, Obama's record on foreign policy--for example, pledging to increase the size of the military and step up the war in Afghanistan--place him inside a growing consensus among "serious" Washington foreign policy experts. In fact, Obama is so conventional and "bipartisan" on foreign policy matters that his team has openly talked about asking Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in his position under an Obama administration.
In reviewing this record, we should take the approach that the simplest explanation is the best one. If Obama acts like a "centrist," it's most likely because he is a centrist--rather than a radical posing as one.
However, the real world has a way of imposing itself on politicians, no matter their intentions. In the face of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the free-market ideologues of the Bush administration have embarked on the largest government intervention in the economy in three-quarters of a century.
Ironically, on the same night that Obama used his 30-minute national infomercial to showcase his concern for ordinary people--including reaffirming his call for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures--the Bush administration announced a multibillion-dollar plan to rewrite and subsidize more than 3 million mortgages facing foreclosure.
In other words, the right-wingers in the Bush administration were proposing a more far-reaching plan than the supposed "radical" Obama.
In office, the Obama administration will face many challenges like this that will force it to confront--and possibly, abandon--its moderate centrism. If it does--and if it moves toward a more populist stance--it won't be due to Obama's hidden radicalism. It will be due to his assessment of what the system needs to right itself.
In that sense, an Obama administration would be reminiscent of the Depression-era presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.
Despite some capitalists' complaints that the New Deal represented a step toward "socialism," Roosevelt and the New Dealers had no such intention. The New Deal helped to save capitalism from itself. And Roosevelt argued to his business critics, "I am the best friend the profit system ever had."
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Zinn wakes up from his 2000 stupor!
Zinn worked actively to defeat Gore in 2000. Gore would have opened the door to change....not the least of which he would have spent the past decade in investing in alternative fuels. Zinn told us in 2000 "I do not want to surrender my conscience to a corrupt political system."
He said, "I cannot bear to pull the lever on Election Day in support of that. I am for Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke because someone must speak the truth. Someone must say: Ours is a country of enormous wealth. We can use that wealth to guarantee to every American free medical care, decent housing, work at a living wage, child care and nurseries, clean air and clean water. No one should be without these things, and no child should be taught by underpaid teachers in dilapidated schools. Do right by our children."
The death and destruction of the past eight years, the lost opportunities, the lost of standing in the world....these are the consequences of Zinn's myopia in 2000. I hope that his admission today that it really IS better to elect the Democrat is going to loosen the ideological chains that he has over so many gullible young people. Obama is teaching today's younger generation to be EFFECTIVE over being IDEOLOGICAL. Maybe Zinn is going to learn the same lesson, this time.
Ten Reasons to Turn Out the Vote for Barack Obama
From http://www.blackcommentator.com/297/297_10_reasons_obama_vote_guest_man…
Here Are Ten Reasons to Turn Out the Vote for Barack Obama
1) Because Barack Obama is Black and qualified, Black and liberal, Black and can be elected the first Black president in the United States.
Obama is a Black man running for president in a white settler state. Regardless of how much or little he chooses to campaign on race or against racism—and in my view it is far more than some of his critics think—Obama is Black. Everyone knows he is Black and the Republicans are making it a referendum against Blacks and for white supremacy.
The election of a Black president in a country built on conquest and slavery is almost unimaginable. And it cannot be imagined without the foundational work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr. Huey P. Newton, and Malcolm X. Obama is running as a Black man at a time when one million Black people are in prison. He is Black at a time when the Black community is on the defensive and under siege, Black when many of its most gifted and dedicated organizers are tired, not discouraged, but exhausted from the assaults of the reactionary decades from Reagan to Clinton to Bush. Obama is Black as opposed to white, as in white supremacy, white racism, white chauvinism, white xenophobia, white fascism, white racist mobs, white McCain and white Palin.
Barack Obama is a Black Harvard graduate, a president of the Harvard Law Review, married to Michelle Obama, a Princeton graduate. They gave up jobs in corporate America to do work among the urban poor and working class. He is charismatic, a great debater, and a man of intellect. He is so much better qualified than John McCain that it is a testament to the racism of the U.S. that McCain is still in a close race. This is a white man who is clearly unhinged even in a prepared debate and has nothing to run on but the “Abuse of the Day” against Obama and his family.
Barack Obama is a gifted organizer who deserves the support of every dedicated organizer in the country. As a Black man in a white country, he out organized Hillary and Bill Clinton and their ostensibly unbeatable machine, a blow from which they may never recover. He is out organizing the Democratic Leadership Council, the anti-liberal caucus of Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman that has dominated the Democratic Party since the defeat of Mondale and Dukakis. Obama has a very good chance of out organizing the entire white, Christian, conservative, aka fascist clique that has run this country since Reagan rose, Gingrich organized, Clinton capitulated, and Bush/Cheney took the dictatorship to its highest levels.
Electing a highly qualified, brilliant Black man against a Neanderthal white man is a major step forward in history and a high stakes fight that we need to be part of. It will be a major setback to the forces of white racism in the country and a real encouragement of the broad anti-racist coalition that is at the core of the Obama campaign. Let’s turn out the vote for Obama. Now.
2) Because a Black man is being attacked by a white lynch mob and we have to throw our bodies in front of them and beat them back.
The McCain/Palin campaign rallies are becoming Klan rallies. Shouts of “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar,” “Hussein” “kill him” and “off with his head” have rung from the rabid racists at McCain and Palin rallies. Palin whips them up and McCain sometimes doesn’t challenge them and sometimes goes through the motions, all the while praising them to the sky as “loyal Americans.” These are the very kind of people who have populated lynch mobs in the past. They are capable of carrying out their threats. What part of “off with his head” do we not understand?
If many in the Democratic Party in fact conciliate with this racism by refusing to call it by name, preferring to use the vague term “extremism,” Obama does not. At the last national debate he told McCain that some of his supporters have crossed a line by calling him a terrorist and proposing to kill him. McCain responded by saying how great and patriotic his supporters are. Do we really have to invoke King and Malcolm, Medgar Evers and Emmett Till, the Birmingham children and Bobby Hutton to understand that the assassination and lynching of Black people is deep in the DNA of white and U.S. culture and is a clear and present danger today?
John Lewis, the civil rights veteran from SNCC and now a U.S. congressperson from Atlanta saw it clearly,
What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse. George Wallace [the racist governor of Alabama] never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”
We cannot stand by while a rabid white mob attacks a Black man screaming “Hussein, Hussein,” “the one over there,” “the F-ing Harvard Graduate,” “the uppity one,” “terrorist” and—we must take this very seriously—“kill him” and “off with his head.” The McCain forces are the forces of evil and must be defeated.
McCain and Palin should be under arrest for encouraging, inciting, aiding, and abetting, racist hate crimes. Let’s turn out the Vote for Barack Obama, Now.
3) Because there are differences of life and death significance to our communities between Barack Obama and John McCain.
Obama is advocating many positions that are conservative, and some, like his proposals to expand the war in Afghanistan and violate the sovereignty of Pakistan, that are reactionary. But there is still a profound Left/Right battle going, albeit within the confines of U.S. electoral politics and the two-party system in 2008. While he does not have a comprehensive progressive program, there are some key issues on which the difference between Obama and McCain are Black and white.
Let’s look at some of the real choices Obama is making.·
* Economic Crisis, Housing Crisis. Obama has supported the $750 billion bail out for U.S. financial markets. This is a major setback for working people. He is now arguing, however, that now it is time to bail out not “Wall Street” but “Main Street.” He is calling for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures by any bank or company that receives any U.S. government aid. Is that enough? Of course not, but he is the only candidate even talking about helping people losing their homes in the foreclosure tsunami. If such a moratorium is imposed, it can lead to far more stringent demands to extend and expand that moratorium. By contrast, McCain is talking about letting the free market run its course.
* Woman’s Right to Choose. Obama vigorously defends a woman’s right to choose. When asked in the last debate if they would make Roe v. Wade a “litmus test” in the selection of Supreme Court justices, both Obama and McCain, after considerable dancing, said yes. McCain said that he could not imagine a qualified candidate who would not want to overturn Roe v. Wade and Obama said he could not imagine a qualified candidate who would not defend a woman’s right to privacy—making abortion a right.
* Unions, Third World. McCain said free trade was great and accused Obama of holding up trade with Columbia. Columbia is governed by one of the worst military dictatorships in world, propped up by the CIA, the U.S. military, and cocaine traffickers. At this time, I do not assume Obama wants to dismantle Plan Columbia. If he does not, that will be a major post-election confrontation with him we will have to have. But Obama did say that he could not support trade with Columbia while its government was imprisoning and murdering trade unionists. This is significant. Obama has campaigned for the right to organize unions for workers in the U.S. and proposed laws to encourage those rights. While that in itself is major, there is no history I know of for a U.S. presidential candidate to openly expose the murder of trade union organizers in a country that is allied with the United States and to call for their right to organize against U.S. transnationals. In the middle of a high-profile nationally televised event, just the mention of trade unionists existing and being under attack in the Third World is a moment of rupture in the imperialist ideological sphere. By contrast, McCain is a union buster at home and a supporter of terror, torture, and the suppression of unions and the Left abroad.
* Equal Pay for Equal Work. Obama defends equal pay for equal work and McCain opposes it. In the final debate, Obama raised the example of a lawsuit filed by Lily Ledbetter, a woman who tried to sue her employer for paying her less for the same job that a male employee was getting paid more to do. Obama talked of working in Congress to extend the statute of limitations in Congress on her case so that it wouldn’t be dismissed. McCain snickered, What do we want to do, keep these cases going 20 or 30 years after the fact?
* International Relations. Obama talks about American exceptionalism, American power, and the “responsibility” of the United States throughout the world. In short, his view is imperialist and his objective is still U.S. world domination. But we should not underestimate what is at stake in his proposal for “unconditional conversations” with heads of states that the Bush administration has named in the “Axis of Evil.” Obama has held his ground on the importance of “conversations and negotiations” and has challenged the policy of sanctions and invasions. This is a clear signal to people in the Third World, and the European nations who disagree with the Bush doctrine. Under an Obama administration, there may be alternatives for people in the Third World to the decades of napalm, blockades, shock and awe, and invasions that they have suffered under Republicans and Democrats alike. Obama recognizes that the U.S. is a declining empire and is trying to signal that it can’t continue to throw its weight around in the failed policies, as he calls them, of Bush and McCain. Obama’s argument for greater use of negotiations and discussions—as well as some of his reservations about massive military deployments—is likely to reflect a tactical debate between pragmatic imperialism on his side versus neo-con messianic imperialism on that of McCain. Again, both share the imperialist goal of U.S. world domination and the control of the politics and economy of Third World nations.
But that is a split in the ruling class that is of great importance to anti-war, anti-imperialist organizers in the U.S. and to governments and movements in the Third World. Let’s be clear. McCain supports “the surge” and future unilateral military aggression. He talks always about the hard line and views the solution of every problem through a military lens. We cannot allow his unstable hand anywhere near the nuclear button.
I think that most Blacks, women, and trade unionists would argue there is a profound benefit for an Obama victory and a profound danger in a McCain election. I do not think that those who are working to overturn the rightwing clique controlling the Supreme Court that is ruling out of order every civil rights and civil liberties case will argue there is little difference between Obama and McCain. I think trade unionists in Columbia, militants and governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and South Africa, as well as those governments and NGOs who witness the daily bullying and dictatorial practices of the U.S. at the United Nations—all see a profound difference between the candidates and are deeply invested in an Obama victory and a McCain defeat.
Let’s turn out the vote for Obama, Now.
4) Because John McCain is a war criminal.
How do you think McCain ended up in a POW camp in North Vietnam in the first place? Did the North Vietnamese come to the Naval Academy to kidnap him? No, he was flying a mission over North Vietnamese territory, violating their sovereignty, dropping bombs on civilian populations in an attempt to destroy their power plants and utilities, impose terror from the air, and knowingly cause civilian illness, starvation, death and destruction.
McCain was part of a group of air pirates who flew missions of destruction over Vietnam. After already having bombed North Vietnam, as the L.A. Times reports, “In August 1967 the squadron he joined had destroyed a power plant in Hanoi. Two months later, the plant had been rebuilt and was back on the Navy’s sites. McCain begged for the mission. ‘The earlier raid was the pride and joy of the squadron. I wanted to destroy it again. I was feeling pretty cocky as well.’” He flew the mission and was shot down in his efforts to kill. He wasn’t feeling as cocky at that point. He was captured by the North Vietnamese. McCain is a war criminal for his actions; for he admits he begged for his mission and felt destroying the power plants of another country to be his “pride and joy.”
His actions stand in profound contrast to the millions of people in the U.S. who dedicated and, in some cases, gave their lives to end the war in Vietnam. He is a disgrace to the many GI’s who refused to kill civilians, to those who resisted the draft and risked exile and imprisonment, to those who joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and who testified in the Winter Soldier hearings (see Clay Claiborne’s film Vietnam: American Holocaust), and to the courageous veterans today who are speaking out against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The actions of the United States government, the U.S. Navy, and pilots of death and destruction like McCain led to the murder of three million Vietnamese civilians and one million combatants all trying to protect their country from a U.S. invasion. McCain was part of the force that inflicted poison gas, assassination squads, napalm, Agent Orange, rape, and premeditated murder against the people of Vietnam. The U.S. systematically committed crimes against humanity in Vietnam and John McCain was a willing, enthusiastic perpetrator. John McCain should be tried for war crimes in violation of the Nuremburg statutes.
Let’s turn out the vote for Obama, Now.
5) Because Sarah Palin’s election would turn the women’s movement on its head—Palin is a fascist, a racist, a white separatist, and a misogynist
There is nothing funny about Sarah Palin. (Tina Fey’s brilliant parodies are the exception.) But do not laugh at Palin any more than you should laugh at Bush. She is not stupid. She is deadly serious, armed and dangerous. She is tied to extreme vigilante groups who want to secede from the United States because they feel it is too liberal and too multi-racial. She uses oil revenues to buy the loyalties of people in Alaska, tying their futures to the global warming that will in fact destroy Alaska and the planet.
She and McCain will cut social services, already hanging by a thread. They will ramp up the police state and the war on terror. She has broken with John McCain by proposing a constitutional amendment against gay marriage and is moving ever further to his right. Some speculate she is doing this out of a lack of discipline. Others think she wants to position herself even more strongly with the extreme Right base in case McCain loses and she wants to pursue other national elected positions.
She has drawn the fascist mobs to the campaign and operates in the tradition of reactionary demagogues Father Coughlin and Lou Dobbs. She is the hit person against Obama, the warm-up act for McCain that gets the white mob into a racist rage. She will support a police state and will lock us up without a second thought. And the talk of her being one 72-year-old’s heartbeat away from the presidency is not a joke. She may be a future president of the United States if we don’t defeat McCain.
Governor Palin believes a woman who chooses to have an abortion is a sinner, period. She believes that such is the case even if the woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy forced on her through rape or incest. She is an enemy of the movement for reproductive rights. Her message to desperate, working class women is that being a loyal wife is a woman’s best chance for escaping poverty, your subjugation is liberation. She appeals to misogynist men and assures them that their domination of the family is God’s will. While she has been able to get out of the house with five children to pursue a professional career, her gender politics will prevent most women from doing the same—locking women in the home as single parents or prisoners of their husbands—as she leads choruses of “Stand by Your Man.” Her election will be an attack of Roe v. Wade, women’s reproductive rights, and women’s liberation.
Let’s turn out the vote for Barack Obama, Now.
6) Because the McCain campaign is an attack on the Left.
The McCain campaign wants to kill the Left in the U.S. and internationally, kill social security, the social safety net, and anything “social” including even the hope of social-ism. Obama is being attacked as an enemy because he is Black and because he is a moderate liberal. The attack on the Left broadly defined must be met by a counter-attack against McCain and for Obama through November 4, 2008.
Look at McCain’s targets:
* William Ayers, billed a “terrorist” by the McCain camp, worked against the war in Vietnam in which four million people were killed. Ayers is a symbol of the anti-war movement and its most militant wing.
* Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright is a respected theologian whose “crime” was saying that racism is “endemic” to the United States and that the U.S. sees the world through the eyes of an empire.
* ACORN is being attacked by the McCain campaign for registering Democratic-leaning voters. ACORN may have gotten some bad names in the voter registration process but none of those people could vote or be counted. By contrast, the Republicans prevent people from voting who are registered to vote, deny valid signatures and voters, and close down polling places in Black and heavily Democratic districts. They defy the electoral process and have stolen state and national elections.
* Socialism. McCain has begun attacking as “socialist” Obama’s efforts to make income taxes more progressive and to use some of the wealth to help the poor. McCain said, “At least in Europe the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language.” McCain proposes cutting capital gains taxes and giving more subsidies to the rich.
Obama’s ties to Ayers were minimal and nothing to apologize for. His ties to Reverend Wright were profound and his disassociation from his mentor deplorable. Obama’s distancing himself from ACORN reflects weakness. But, as Reverend Wright pointed out, Obama is a politician running for office; he makes his tactical moves according to his strategic aim of getting elected. I wish that Obama would defend socialism but he is not a socialist and if he were, he would not be the Democratic nominee for president.
Whether or not Obama chooses to disassociate, denounce, or distance himself from the anti-Vietnam war movement, from the rhetoric and analyses of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements, from grassroots voter registration, and from socialism—those of us on the Left have our own interests in this election that include but also go beyond Obama’s objectives.
Whether Obama chooses to identify with or to renounce these connections, we on the Left need to grasp that these attacks from McCain are against us, not just Obama. If McCain is elected, what do we think he will do to those of us who fought against the war in Vietnam and are fighting to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq? What will he do to those who will continue to speak and act against the endemic racism of the United States, or to those of us who would study and advocate socialist alternatives to capitalism? I fear for those on the Left who do not see the writing on the wall.
Let’s turn out the vote for Barack Obama, Now.
7) Because an Obama victory will be a defeat for the Clintons.
Hillary and Bill Clinton have been treacherous opponents of Obama. They are threatened by his possible victory and are doing very little to help him. At a white tie dinner John McCain told a great joke. He brought down the house when he observed, "Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats, I can't shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me. I'm delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary!" Obama understood only too well the truth of that statement.
The Clinton’s opened up the floodgates of racism against Obama during the Democratic primaries. I made the argument then that Hillary Clinton was forming a white bloc with John McCain to defeat Barack Obama. I wrote an article that documented this in great detail: Hillary and John: The White Bloc That Must Be Stopped.
Throughout Hillary’s campaign she argued that only she and McCain were qualified to be president and Obama was not. She ran that ridiculous ad campaign, “Who do you want to answer the phone at 3 in the morning?” She told the press that she and John McCain had the standing to be commander and chief and Obama did not. As she realized her dreams of victory were slipping away, her campaign reached its moral nadir. She told voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and throughout the country that she did not think that “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” would vote for Obama. Hillary and Bill Clinton have opened up the door for the racism of the McCain/Palin campaign, aiding and abetting their “dear friend” John McCain.
Hillary also made continued false claims that Obama was not supportive of women (meaning her). Only when it was absolutely clear she was losing did she come out as a born-again feminist, a white feminist, attacking Obama. In so doing she set the conditions for “her friend” John McCain to pick Sarah Palin to mine the anti-Obama sentiment Hillary had agitated among Democratic white women voters. Fortunately, Obama is winning more and more women voters. Needless to say these women include the Black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous women among whom he is also polling strongly. Women recognize how important is his defense of choice and his support for equal pay, and they are impressed with the way he relates to the women in his life, a strong Black partner and his daughters.
The Clinton’s, when they were in office, brought us the end of welfare, the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Effective Death Penalty Act, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. They typify cynicism and opportunism.
When Bill Clinton was on David Letterman, Chris Rock was also a guest. During Clinton’s interview with Letterman he barely could say anything good about Obama and kept referring to McCain as “my friend” and “a war hero.” After Clinton left, Rock went off on him, “Is it me or does Clinton have a problem saying the name Barack Obama? He doesn’t get it, he keeps talking about Hillary. Hillary lost! Hillary lost. It wasn’t sexism. She ran against a Black guy nobody ever heard of and he beat her. She lost.”
If Obama wins in spite of the Clintons’ treachery it will strengthen his hand against the Democratic Leadership Council that they control—the hard core of conservative center-right Democrats. It is good to see Hillary Clinton campaigning for Obama. She has no other choice. She too fears eight years of a McCain/Palin ticket and fears her own isolation in the Democratic Party. The Clintons are a Trojan Horse inside the Obama campaign. But Obama is beating the Clintons, Yes He Can. An Obama victory would weaken the Clinton oligarchy.
Let’s turn out the vote for Barack Obama, Now.
8) A victory for Barack Obama will usher in a revolution of rising expectations.
If Obama is elected he will do so with the support of 95% of the Black vote and the highest Black vote in U.S. history, along with enormous numbers of white, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous peoples. He will attract a very large and energetic white vote with a strong anti-racist orientation. He will win over the majority of young people who are more influenced by the victories of the Civil Rights Movement than the crimes of the Klan and the White Citizens Councils.
Listen to how in every talk, besides his recitation of the obligatory “the American people” a dozen times, he goes out of his way to say, “My election is for everybody. The red states and blue, for the middle class, for Blacks, whites, Latinos, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous peoples.” The mentioning of specific oppressed nationality peoples and cultures is in itself a major breakthrough in the public discourse of race in the country. Notice that the Republicans and most Democrats will never acknowledge that those communities even exist because to do so creates a momentary awareness that whiteness is not the norm, that whites are not the boss. It also creates support for group-specific demand development among oppressed nationality peoples.
After an Obama election the entire field of “community organizing” will get a major boost. I was there when Kennedy was elected and Johnson beat Goldwater. Those elections raised hopes that helped the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left and later the Black Liberation, Women’s, LGBT, and Environmental Justice Movements. Obama will have to decide, after he is elected, what policies he wants to carry out. If he betrays his best promises or carries out his worst, I believe he will receive significant organized opposition with demands that he change his policies.
I was also there when John F. Kennedy moved to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and tried to assassinate Castro. I was there when Lyndon B. Johnson initiated and then tried to disband the poverty programs, when Johnson escalated a genocidal war in Vietnam. These actions by Kennedy and Johnson led to more protests, not less. They led to the emergence of some very principled left liberal Democrats, and the radicalization of many formerly Democratic liberal students who came to see that more radical, structural, revolutionary change was needed.
I hope that Barack Obama understands that the U.S. is a declining superpower in a multi-polar world. I think he knows full well the economic crisis facing U.S. and world imperialism. I think he may propose a less bellicose and a less aggressive foreign policy if only to protect the system itself. Regardless, my argument is not that we work to elect Obama based on an ability to predict all of his actions or choices.
I think every successful organizer has to have an independent program and an independent grassroots base. I am part of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, and the Bus Riders Union. I work in alliance with thousands of grassroots groups reflected, in one instance, by the 12,000 social movement organizers who attended the first U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta in 2007.
I hope that Obama, as a former community organizer, will understand pressure from his left. Even if he does not always respond to our specific demands, it will be the job of the movements to assess his response and figure out our best tactics to win our demands.
I hope that we can make sure that Obama respects the civil rights and civil liberties of protestors and reigns in the campaign of terror against protestors by local police, the National Guard, and the U.S. military. An Obama administration cannot sanction the level of brutality and repression against demonstrators that the Bush police state has perfected. Under pressure from the Left, I believe he could expand civil rights and civil liberties and expand the rights of protest and demonstration, which in turn would help the movement further. Can I guarantee that? Of course not, but I do believe that the entire climate for anti-racist, anti-poverty, environmental justice, immigrant rights, anti-police state, anti-war organizing will be radically improved by an Obama victory.
Let’s turn out the vote for Barack Obama, Now.
9) Because I have faith in the Obama supporters, faith in the Black community, faith in the grassroots Left.
Obama supporters
I spent a weekend at a Camp Obama training program in Long Beach and have since been going to phone bank at the local Obama headquarters. They are a wide variety of folk coming from many different points on the political spectrum. They are decent, hard working, motivated, and wonderful people. There is a movement atmosphere among the group. I was deeply moved by the 350 of us who came to the Obama training. We worked together from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in a very intensive organizer training program. On every break I asked people, What is the most important thing about an Obama victory for you? I was surprised by the number and diversity of answers. “Because he is so intelligent. I am sick of having a stupid president.” “He is the most ethical, the most humane.” “He will defeat Karl Rove.” “He is the most qualified Black man.” “Because he will help me not be ashamed to be an American.” “Because I was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and had lost hope. This brings me from ‘We Shall Overcome’ to ‘Yes We Can.’” “Because I want my children to see we can elect a Black president.”
Of the 350 people who attended, 100 were Black, 15 were Asian/Pacific Islander, 15 were Latino, and more than 200 were white. This election is drawing a line of demarcation among white people that is very profound—a civil war within a larger civil war, the anti-racist whites versus the racist whites. Just as in the Civil Rights Movement, a large anti-racist white bloc is consolidating itself as a critical ally of communities of color. Remember, these are white folk voting for a Black man for president of the United States. We should not underestimate the good intentions and high levels of activism and sacrifice of the Obama camp and their critical role in history in the years ahead.
The Black community
The Black community is driven like nothing I have seen since the March on Washington, the fight against segregation in the South, the fight against racism and police brutality in the North. The Obama campaign has a mass character to it that is unprecedented in U.S. politics, having sprung from the traditions of Black protest, Black rebellion and Black organizing. In the past months I have spoken with many Black members of the Obama Campaign and the Bus Riders Union. Having grown up in Jim Crow segregation, many say how hard it is to believe that Black people could come from slavery to the possibility of electing the first Black president of the United States. While that makes them very hopeful, in the same sentence they also talk of wanting it so badly they cannot acknowledge it. They do not want to get their hopes up and let the white racist voters crush them. They fear something bad happening to Obama. They fear the white backlash and fear another set of hopes dashed against the rocks of racism by this country. They are working with all their heart and soul for Obama but do not want to acknowledge how much this election means to them because, if he loses, they don’t know if they can bear the pain.
There is no community stronger and tougher than the Black community. It has suffered more pain in America than at times is humanly imaginable. Today more than a million Black men are in prison and millions more are being hunted down by the police as we speak. And yet, the Black community has a power and resilience that is legendary, a long history of leading the anti-racist and Left movements in this country. Its capacity to recover and fight back is admired by friend and foe alike. Still, we cannot let a McCain victory happen, we just cannot. An Obama victory will raise the spirits and fighting capacity of the Black community.
There are some who worry that Obama will co-opt the Black community. They think that Black people who are against the growing police state or the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will look the other way if those policies are carried out by Obama. Some have expressed a fear that Black people will protect and defend Obama in a way that brooks no criticism, giving him a free pass at a time of crisis. But while that is possible, it would contradict everything I have seen in 40 years of organizing. My experience says that it all depends on how you organize and how well you grasp and assert your own independence and initiative in the united front.
I have been in social movements that helped elect and then challenge mayor of Newark Kenneth Gibson, and Los Angeles mayors Tom Bradley and Antonio Villaraigosa. Obama is a brilliant organizer, a brilliant politician. He has his own program, his own priorities, and he will fight to win support for them. Cooptation is not the most helpful concept, taking the focus off our own role. Obama will do what he has to do. It is for those of us who are organizing in low-income communities of color, those of us who consider ourselves good strategists, good tacticians and organizers—it is for those of us who have a grassroots base to drive our own programs, our own demands, and to develop the tactical plans to win those demands.
After the election thousands of grassroots groups that have been working on life and death issues for decades will be in the much stronger position of being able to place their demands on a more receptive Obama presidency. As just a few key examples of structural demands we must raise:
* Dramatically cut the $400-billion military budget. Massively expand social services and direct transfers of money to the unemployed, the poor, and those facing foreclosures and evictions.
* Release the vast majority of the one million Black and 500,000 Latino prisoners incarcerated in the U.S. gulag. Provide humane treatment for those who remain, including plans for parole and rehabilitation.
* Remove all combat and occupation forces from Iraq and provide support for the self-determination of the Iraqi people. End the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. End the military threats against Iran, and Pakistan.
* Provide free, safe, and legal abortions for women. Do not impose parental notification. Provide U.S. funds for birth control and sex education in the U.S. and Third World.
* Pass a new provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, strengthening Title VI, that will allow grassroots parties to sue government agencies over racial discrimination and to block federal funding to racially discriminatory projects based on disparate racial impacts.
* Stop the environmental disaster of “clean coal” ethanol and nuclear power. Dramatically expand clean fuel bus transportation and dramatically restrict the auto.
* Stop the ICE raids and surveillance on the 12 million immigrants in the U.S. Offer them amnesty. Take down the wall with Mexico.End the blockade of Cuba and stop U.S. subversion of the Venezuelan revolution.
* Support self-determination for the Palestinian people and protect their right to a viable homeland.
Those of us who see ourselves in a united front alliance with Obama and with his millions of supporters should carry out a policy of simultaneous alliance and challenge, defending his candidacy and challenging some of its key policies. The Right is like a pack of attack dogs. They will not stop even after Obama is elected. If they lose the election, they will begin attacking Obama’s the day he takes office. They will try to subvert his presidency at every turn. We want to build an alliance with Obama against the Right, a united front against racism and fascism that never loses sight of our unities with him and with our stand against the barbarians at the gate. At the same time, we want to build stronger grassroots movements to his left that can carry out their own independent programs and tactical plans. As grassroots organizers we are working with millions of other Obama supporters who can be won to a broader progressive and Left agenda in the process of fighting for an Obama presidency. We need organizers who do not sit on the sidelines of history but see their participation in this historical battle as a major development that can expand the chances for more radical and revolutionary changes in U.S. society.
Let us be able to rejoice in an Obama victory and then face the inevitable challenges together. I am convinced that many of the people who are working so hard for Obama—who are making millions of phone calls, contributing their money, and going door to door for his election—will expect the most of him. They will not go quietly into the night if he betrays their trust. Obama has argued to his supporters that he expects us to keep up the organizing to keep him on track, that the role of those who work to elect him will be to organize to push him once he is elected. There are millions of people working their heart out for his election who will be there to take him up on his post-election offer.
Let’s turn out the vote for Barack Obama, Now.
10) Because it’s time to act. Here is what you can do.
There are at least four major ways you can take positive action through November 4, 2008 to elect Obama and defeat McCain:
* Contribute funds to the Obama Campaign. Over three million people have donated already. Obama raised $150 million in September from 632,000 people, an average of $86 per contribution. My wife Lian and I have contributed to his campaign and plan to do so again in the next few days. Whether you give $25, $50 or $100, consider that another 600,000 people will be doing the same. If we each do this, we can raise more money to elect Obama and defeat McCain. Last minute ads to counter last minute attack ads from McCain are needed and funds are essential. Every McCain ad is an ad against liberals, against the Left, against Black civil rights leaders, against socialism, against any progressive future.
* If you are in a swing state, plug into the Obama Campaign now. Through November 4, 2008 get involved with phone banking and precinct walking. On the weekend before the election and on Election Day, volunteer with Get Out The Vote (GOTV) operations.
* If you are not in a swing state, phone bank into swing states with your local branch of the Obama Campaign. Also consider volunteering to travel to your nearest swing state the last weekend before the election or whenever you can to go door to door turning out voters. The more experience you have, the better, but the Obama campaign is good at plugging you in.
* Become a poll worker. There are millions of people who will vote for the first time or vote after years of absence. The polls will be jammed. The Republicans will commit any crime under the books to deter voters in Democratic districts and Black voters in particular. We need election protection. People who have signed up as poll workers in L.A. are already saying that South L.A. and East L.A. are under-staffed. We can assume that communities of color will need special attention and that this is a critical job.
There is work to be done, and it is great to be an organizer, not a bystander. Obama is making history and so should we. It our job to be part of this historic movement and to come home with a victory in hand.
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A respectful acknowledgment of the historic presidential campaign of Congressperson Cynthia McKinney.
The candidate with whose views I most agree is former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney, a dynamic Black woman running on the Green Party ticket. I know many people of good faith and good politics who are working for her. I encourage them to carry out their plan to its fullest and wish her campaign the greatest success. She should be encouraged for what she is doing. At this point this is not the choice I am making in my own tactical assessment of the best way to confront racism and empire. When the election is over, whether Obama is elected or McCain, we all have to work together in a broad united front against the war in Iraq and racism at home. Any tactical disagreements on this election, no matter how profound, should not divide us in our broader long-term objectives. At the end of the day, we are sisters and brothers in the struggle.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commenttor Eric Mann is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers, is the author of: Comrade George: An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson, Dispatches from Durban: Firsthand Commentaries on the World Conference Against Racism, and Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He is working on his next book, Revolutionary Organizing in the Age of Reaction, featuring The 25 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. Click here to contact Mr. Mann or visit his blog (ericmannblog.blogspot.com).