Obama in Dallas: Honeyed Words, a Pot of Lies, and One Important Truth extract for info/debate

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 
Head butchers trying put a human face on the enforcers of their butchery.
This was Obama and Bush in Texas today.
Bush who ordered the wars that led to the deaths of a million people in Iraq. Obama who's carried that forward and modified it through proxy wars which have done the same and driven even more people onto the hunted, perilous path of the refugee. The both of them who have taken turns presiding over the murders by police of at least 1000 people a year, and over a prison system that keeps over 2 million people locked up—the highest number in the world and the highest percentage of the population, by far, of any country, and a hugely disproportionate share of which are Black people, Latinos and Native American Indians.
Within this, it fell of course to Obama, the current “assassin-in-chief” to fit all this into an absolutely upside down framework, and to try to totally distort the nature of the problem we face.

So...no, Obama, the main problem is not “hearts of stone.” It is a vampire system that sucks blood all over the planet and that you have dedicated yourself to maintaining and strengthening. No, Obama, the problem is not the “bias” or “bigotry” of individuals (much as this system reinforces this), or people not understanding “their different experiences”—it is America itself, a society divided at its core into exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed, and it is the conscious policies undertaken by the masters of America to maintain that exploitation and oppression. No, Obama the problem is not lack of communication between police departments and “minority communities”—it is the fact that the police most directly enforce those oppressive relations and they enforce it most sharply of all against Black and Latino people in the inner cities. And because of that there is absolutely no righteous basis whatsoever on which to bring slave-chaser and slave together to sing “Kumbaya.”
And no, Obama, “the overwhelming majority” of cops are not good. If they were, why did and do so many cops turn out to cheer whenever one of their brothers gets charges dropped when they murder a Black (or Latino or Native American Indian) youth (as hundreds of NY pigs did when the charges against the blue-suited killer of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham were dropped)? If they were, how do you account for the pervasive cop culture of racism and hatred of gay people and women laid bare whenever their e-mails or radio transmissions happen to get revealed? If they were, why does this “overwhelming majority” never turn in or testify against the so-called “few bad apples”? And if they were, why do so many now fear the presence of video cameras in people's hands, like Dracula shrinking from the sunlight?
But listen—Obama did reveal one important truth today. He raised the point that over the past week “the deepest faultlines [of this society] were exposed and perhaps even widened.” He openly worried that “the center won't hold.” He is talking about the oppressed rising up and sharp divisions at the top over how to deal with that, to the point where the New York Post page one headline last week was “Civil War.” He is talking about wide sections of people in society coming to see that the force used to maintain this system is ILLEGITIMATE and coming to lose their fear of those who wield it.
That's why he had that catatonic zombie Bush there—to try to chill out the hard-core racists and fascists that are straining to get off their leash (and have a champion now in the outright fascist and racist Chump). And that's why he spent so much time lecturing the movement on how “progress has been made” during his lifetime and telling them to tone it down. He desperately wants to stuff this movement back into the closet and he, along with large sections of the rulers, are very worried that this time, so far, the people have stayed in the streets and refused to be intimidated.