Both are evil and both needs to be confronted. I think the “Left” for far too long has been disingenuous in their analysis by framing only one side of this faction as being the most reponsible. What it has done is allowed Zionism to flourish and grow into the powerful force it now is.

The other has its own presence in the Financial Sector, and because of its long history as the dominant alliance within US capitalism, has hegemony over a sector of the Ideological State Apparatus as well as considerable influence, even control, over what seems to be an expanding fraction of the political class.
So Obama stalls for time. Will it be the lady of a return to a rational colonial policy based on manipulation of local elites, or will the violence-intoxicated Zionist tiger be able to continue to impose its will as it did in earlier stages of “AfPak”?
Stay tuned:)

Just as it is impossible to even think about Zionism without realizing that it only became a political possibility in the context of capitalist domination of the planet, it is impossible to think intelligently about the actions of the US State Apparatus without acknowledging the extraordinary role played in determining those actions by the Zionist Power Configuration. The ZPC is most visible to most followers of the news as it acts in the realm newspapers call “politics”, that is as it acts in the electoral arena, lobbies Congress, pressures the Executive Branch. It is less visible to the casual observer in the Financial Sector, but even a cursory investigation reveals its massive presence and impact. Of course the Jewish Zionist domination of the Media is hard to miss.
Another aspect is the massive presence of Israeli Intelligence in the USA, and the way the ZPC cum Israeli state operatives are able to operate outside US laws, cf. Grant Smith.
So much for bkgrnd, lets get to the point: what is Obama going to do? Will he escalate in Afghanistan? Will he okay a first strike on Iran?
There’s a good article in this issue of the Counterpunch hardcopy newsletter by Kevin Alexander Gray: “Obama & Black America”, which talks about many of the key problems faced by those of us who are concerned about what the current administration is up to, and what to do about it.
Black Agenda Report did a “Report Card” on Obama’s First Hundred Days. I think it would be a good task for somebody to produce a “midterm” report card focussed on what Obama has and has not done to benefit or injure the interests and wellbeing of the main body of African Americans. It is vital to focus on what his election has meant to workingclass and poorclass US Blacks, because this is the only group that can successfully challenge the “Obama Is Us” consensus among “successful” African Americans.
We can attack Obama all day about his foreign & military policies, but this doesn’t cut a lot of ice when day to day survival leaves little room in your mind for less immediate concerns.
Okay, that’s one point. More to come.

Let me put you on hold for a sec, Max, I need to say something to Deadbeat about Bozh’s comment. Marx did in fact understand “that the world is multiethnic”, but he also understood the way capitalists use every difference between groups of workers to undermine workingclass solidarity. This also applies to members of other bottomlevel classes such as subsistence farmers and the lower strata of peasants.
There is even a technical term: “Structuring the Labor Force”. A good example is post-annexation Hawaii: since the native Kanakas resisted becoming plantation laborers, the Haole agricultural enterpreneurs imported large numbers of Chinese. When the Chinese workers started thinking they could demand better wages & conditions, the Haoles started bringing in Japanese laborers. When restiveness started to appear in the Japanese “compounds”, plantation owners turned to Filipino labor.
But I gotten away from what I need to say sthg about, so let me post this and start over.

The media baffles and further subverts and confuses so as to keep the centers of power in control while the rest just march around in circles, powerless.

Then what do you suggest be done? How would you counter our powerlessness? What I have seen over the past 30 years especially from the “Left” has been a withdrawal of ideas and solidarity. There has to be some reconfiguration and organization whereby people can get on the offensive against the system (without being “offensive” to each other of course).

The tactic that I’ve seen and being encourage seem rather “single issue” oriented and lack an integrative approach. The question is how will people obtain that greater understanding. Right now it seems that the “activist” are primarily defensive and primarily trying to restore at best “Liberalism” meaning reform and regulation and don’t want to get beyond those limits.

I also agree with Max regarding analysis. Analysis must be incorporate how the larger forces affect the day to day condition and what REALLY must be done. Especially now that the election/selection of Obama is behind us. I agree with Sam pointing out how Obama has encouraged the continued transfer of wealth UPWARD with the bank bailouts while Obama is letting unemployment to grow upwards of 10% (in reality 20 %) and has bailed out the banks while the black working class continued to be foreclosed and debts allowed to growth rather than repudiated.

Also can bozh explain the following remark …

I think that deadbeat, among others, do not see that the US, Canadian, and australians rulers, have brought in so many ethnicities, ‘religions’, schools of thought {and ‘jews’} into their respective lands because a multiethnicity and multireligional one is much easier to sheppard than a homogeneous one.

I not sure I understand his point so I’m not in a position to construct a response to his criticism. Marx called for the workers of the world to unite. I’m sure Marx understood that the world is multi-ethnic. So I would like bozh to explain his comment. thx

It is a question of power and how that power is sustained. All of the talk about Israel and Palestinians cannot begin to be understand outside this context of world power. And that power lies right HERE, in the American Empire. Whether there are “Rothchilds” or Zionists behind the American Empire it’s almost immaterial. Just look at what exists, the players come and go. Zionists didn’t create the price of oil or the use of the USD as currency of “choice” upon which to base oil. Nor can one tie them to the whole arrangement of American empire and the eradication of nation-states into an integrated system of trade agreements that subverts national sovereignty.

That in NO WAY reduces the atrocities of Israel, it mere faces the underlying and pervasive role of US power in the world. Until we grapple with and understand how this power has been concentrated along with the consumption of the world’s wealth, we are just doing a long death dance around issues about this historical detail or that. Some of which have a bit role.

Obama is an actor of and for the empire. No more or less. Could he be something else, yes, but there is little doubt that he would find himself eliminated, either figuratively or literally.

This is just too big and the rhetoric is merely window dressing. The media baffles and further subverts and confuses so as to keep the centers of power in control while the rest just march around in circles, powerless.

But rather than appoint myself as a spokes for “Black America”, let me echo Max and refer readers to Black Agenda Report, and Cynthia McKinney’s recent Paris speech reprinted therein. There is a lot of good stuff published in SF Bay View National Black Newspaper, but also quite a bit that is off lesser quality, IMHO.

I would differ with Max however in my estimate of the numbers of Black activists who continue to play “Dem politics”; from what I can tell most Blacks, politically active or not, are still enthusiastic about Obama & resent any criticism of him.

Oops: first time around I failed to focus on this para:
“…dictatorial fascism is certainly a possibility. Some of it will remedy the economics by untangling the US’s liberal trade agreements, returning jobs back to US shores; and under such a regime, a nationalistic one, tariffs will be employed thus protecting national interests from imports.”
This is pure nonsense. Max, you don’t know any of this for a fact, and the fact that your speculations run in this direction exposes the fact that you have very little understanding of US politics or/and global economic realities.
What could “dictatorial fascism” do that zionized Friendly Fascism* ala Obama can’t do?
*cf. Bertrand Gross, 1980
But B99 has even less, with his wishful thinking about how the Demockrats are going to save the social safety net & entitlement programs. The actual fact is that the Obama Admin in partnership with Repugs when convenient has already begun cutting all the New Deal and Great Society programs. Medicaid used to pay enough dental care; that a recipient could get an abcessed tooth pulled: now that is gone. There will be no COLA for Social Security recipients in 2010.
I could go on, but BAR documents this stuff so if you want details go there.
This crap about Oh we have to hold our noses and vote for the Dems because if we don’t the Klan will take over the country is so old, so tired. It’s all a bunco game, good cop/bad cop. The Republicans talk about it, then the Dems do it.
Remember “Integration”? Turned out to mean Incarceration:)

Back to Max: well if your protestant upbringing won’t allow you to read Karl Marx, how about W E B Dubois?
B99 would probably enjoy Melville’s “The Confidence Man”:)

Nor did I ever say that African American issues should not be discussed here. They are quite frequently, though I couldn’t tell you how many regular posters are African American. Still it’s an open subject and anyone can talk about it and other topics.

You seem to want to keep this impersonal but can’t resist mentioning your upbringing in an urban center with 99% black population. So what? You’ve been anointed African American spokesperson for DV?

In any case, your politics are pretty centrists Dem with some thoughtfulness regarding the Palestinian cause. That is not a “personal attack” by the way. Just an observation.

This is commonly known as “defending US interests”. Not, of course, “imperialism” of the past and not “platenetism” going on now and to go on with more wars to come.

Nearly all americans vote for acquision of land. Only hobos and prisoners don’t vote.
Vast number of poor americans are rewarded for this. Uncle’s designated champion of poor people are dems.
So, to continue illusion that there is a two party system in US.

Commenters on DV do not keep in mind that anything in existence is related
to every other phenomenon.
Thus, to them ‘religions’, schooling, movies, multiethnicities, cults, constitution, laws, etc., do not play any role in neither domestic nor foreign policies.

I think that deadbeat, among others, do not see that the US, Canadian, and australians rulers, have brought in so many ethnicities, ‘religions’, schools of thought {and ‘jews’} into their respective lands because a multiethnicity and multireligional one is much easier to sheppard than a homogeneous one.

The phenomena i listed are mere parts of a whole but controled by some parts much more than other parts.
Monied people, clergy control the whole much more than 99.99% of latins and blacks.
Whites may fare better. Perhaps 99% of them has much less influence in control of US than the clergy, pols, leading ‘educators’, other disinformers and deformers.

Such structure cannot be changed overnight.If ever??!! Plutocratic planetary rule is here to stay.
Perhaps in decennia, centuries, or millennia people may end it and establish a structure with a human face.

However, casting the widest look offers the best elucidation. It certainly soothes my nervous system much more than talking ab. a few phenomena; disconnectely from one another, instead of all phenomena being connected; thus influencing one another.

Trolls appear more afflicted with this methodology. They dwell on one, two, or three events, but in a disconnected way with reality or the whole of or as much of a whole as space-time allows. tnx

The notion that social security would have been privitized seems rather baseless given how far – right after his re-election – Bush got with that notion. It’s dead, and probably as likely to happen as single-payer health care.

Marginal, court appointments hardly make anyone’s life better.

The real problem needs a real solution. I don’t think those African-Americans who think they are represented by the NAACP are likely to find a reprieve from despair. The truth, most Americans are going to find their lot pretty deep in the economic rut. That there is always a racial component of whatever white’s experience in hardship is worse by some X-factor by minorities. But pain is pain.

Jobs are not in the offing. If things get as bad as they look like they will, dictatorial fascism is certainly a possibility. Some of it will remedy the economics by untangling the US’s liberal trade agreements, returning jobs back to US shores; and under such a regime, a nationalistic one, tariffs will be employed thus protecting national interests from imports.

Alternatives need to understand the larger context or fall by the wayside in short order. Pretending these issues can be worked through by ignoring the larger dynamics is foolharder and very dangerous.

The task of the left is not to wait until African-Americans find them, but to help make life better for all oppressed people in America WHILE pursuing a global change agenda. One foot must always be in the present and on the ground.

I think if McCain had become president, the privatization of Social Security would likely be a foregone conclusion. Followed by the disappearance of Medicaid. And it would not be Sotomayor on the court now (for what she is worth) but yet another reactionary.

But understanding how the world works, as it is still driven by US-based corporate and liberal trade agreements is essential if we are to make any advance. To toss this out as non-important, as you seem to have, because African Americans are concerned about putting butter on their table seems completely an utterly counterproductive.

If X creates condition Y, and you don’t want to discuss X because you are so focused on Y, we have the pathology of a circular and meaningless rush to the bottom.

Where do you think blacks are from, Neptune? – that black political positions and attitudes should not be discussed here.

Did you ever stop to think that African-American leftists – ‘sizeable’ in your words – regularly vote Democrat? Maybe it’s because they have one foot in the real world.

I think I’m about as qualified as any to talk about butter issues. I grew up and lived for 19 years in an inner-city 99% black public housing project ghetto, and lived the next 19 in a mixed ethnicity working class neighborhood tenement. I am the son of two low-wage unskilled laborers who had neither checking accounts nor credit cards unti they were in their sixties. I am wholely qualified to speak on these issues.

Obama is no liberal – but neither is he a McCain or Bush or Reagan. And Obama, in fact, can get away with social program cuts precisely because he is a Democrat and Dems, especially Black Dems, are still forgiving. Because the alternative is the continuation of a reactionary nightmare.

McKinney is now post-Democrat because Jews and Republican southerners teamed up to have her defeated. Now she is free to take all the positions she only took guardedly as a Democrat. But she is also out of power. It is only among Democrats that someone like a McKinney will emerge – you’ll not find them among Republicans. Blacks understand this. So not voting Republican is in their best interest.

I voted for Nader twice. He did not get my vote this time because he had no party behind him to speak of. If blacks had voted for Nader (or McKinney) there may have been a long-term payoff – but in the short run, McCain/Palin would be in the White House – maybe for eight years. Life is short.

Your use of the words The Left, are curious. What Left? Did you ever stop to think that there are a sizeable numbers of African Americans who are progressive aka leftists?

There is something demeaning and condescending in your posts, but particularly when you attempt to talk about butter issues.

“the election of Obama was the only chance that social programs would not continue to be cut. Certainly McCain/Palin would continue to escalate the process of channeling money upward. ..”

Hmmmmm. Aren’t bank bailouts “channeling money upward?”

Obama pledges more bank bailouts, cuts in social programs
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/obam-a15.shtml

Obama prepares sweeping cuts in social programs
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/pers-j08.shtml

Social programs would have done very well under true progressives Nader or McKinney, therefore war criminal Obama was not the only choice. Granted, most voters didn’t have the intelligence or foresight to vote for Nader or McKinney. I can hear someone scream, “but Nader and McKinney couldn’t win.” Well they can’t win if most people don’t have the intelligence to vote for them. Duh.

For Blacks, this is a no-nonsense political equation – the left talks a good game but has no power. The only viable option for the large majority of blacks is to vote Democrat (which is what I was suggesting). This goes beyond Obama, it’s a question of maintaining what small piece of the pie they have. The Republicans would have them return to the Hoover era.

As important as the war in Iraq is, for most blacks it is secondary to social programs. As for the world economic order – that is most definitely of a different realm – almost no poor black is going to vote for a third party candidate because he or she has a better position on global geopolitics. International affairs is mostly understood as a political game separate from the need for jobs, good jobs, good schools, medical care, and protection from discrimination and outright race warfare.

I know the arguments about the global political economy. For most African-Americans, that does not put butter on the table. The left does not have either the answers or the power to implement change. We know this from this very site. We don’t talk race on DV but on rare occasion.