“The Fruit of the Way they Think…”

There’s a lot of debate right now on the left about how to relate to the Barack Obama phenomenon.

By “left” I don’t mean the Democratic Party loyalists who line up every four years to back the system-animals who indignantly reject even that lame “liberal” designation as they sometimes, when the political climate seems right, posture as “anti-war.” Or those wannabe demagogues who vaguely inveigh against “corporate greed” while quietly making their peace with the greedy. By “left” I’m not referring to the politicians who, if charged with lack of “patriotism,” querulously hasten to apologize as they re-affix American flag-pins on their lapels — talismans to protect them from pathetic loud-mouthed fascist-like accusers.

No, by “left” I mean people bright and bold enough to question the whole matrix that has involved this nation in immoral wars, justified by lies, throughout my lifetime. I mean people who question what in the sixties and seventies young people came to call the “Establishment,” which many have since come to assess more precisely as capitalist imperialism. By “left” I mean the serious anti-imperialist left.

This is the left that finds much honesty in the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one-time spiritual advisor to Obama, the cleric who presided at the presidential aspirant’s wedding ceremony and the baptisms of his daughters. A black man who did everything just the way the system asked him to — and hence an unlikely anti-system hero. He graduated from a fine, 90% white high school in Philadelphia in 1959. He went to college immediately, but left to join the US Marines, then the Navy. He was trained as a cardiopulmonary physician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and was involved in caring for President Lyndon B. Johnson during his surgery in 1966. He acquired a BA and MA from Howard University, a second MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He became pastor of a small Chicago Church in a mostly white Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ, and built an 87-member congregation into a 10,000 member megachurch. He’s been a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary and elsewhere.

In sum: this is a man of no mean achievements, a man whose resume suggests he’s basically invested pretty deeply in the system. Were it not so he would not have the ear of Obama, or the ear of Bill Clinton, for that matter, whom (as the Baltimore Sun has pointed out) met him in 1998.

But he’s also a man named Jeremiah, and as anyone familiar with the Old Testament knows, Jeremiah was one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. As anyone who seriously reads the Bible understands, a prophet speaks truth to power. That gets the prophet in trouble. In the sixth century BCE Jeremiah denounced his nation, including the royal family of Judah in the harshest terms, believing God was speaking through his voice of eloquent moral outrage. Yahweh speaking through the prophet declared, “The whole country will be laid waste” (Jeremiah 4:27); its “stupid, brainless people” (5:21) will face famine and invasion, well-deserved! In effect Jeremiah the prophet was saying: “God damns Judah for its sins.”

That’s basic Old Testament prophetic language, which the African-American Church has appropriated for its own righteous objectives for two hundred years now. But it’s not unique to black people. The notorious Jerry Falwell cited scripture to proclaim that “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America” all “helped to [make the 9-11 attacks] happen.” White Christian Right ideologues routinely in their own ways say: “God damn America!” When they do, they don’t seem to catch much flack.

On the other hand, when a powerful homily of Rev. Wright, containing biblically denunciatory language came to the attention of a reporter who’d earlier been the main source for the disinformation about an Iraqi connection to the (yet unexplained) 2001 anthrax letters, all hell broke loose. Brian Ross had apparently been sorting through Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by his church, trying to find some news story. ABC News headlined the story as follows:

“Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing ‘God Bless America’ but ‘God damn America.’”

The sensationalistic report citing a 2003 sermon was designed to politically damage Obama, who adroitly distanced himself from the prophetic voice. Obama who had recently said he didn’t think his church was “particularly controversial” felt obliged to give a special speech denouncing “incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation — that rightly offend white and black alike.” He behaved, that is to say, predictably, as a mainstream politician. If I may quote scripture, since it seems appropriate here, he “bent his tongue like a bow,” “cheated his friend,” and expressed “bad faith” (Jeremiah 9: 2-5).

Personally, I don’t feel “racially divided” from anybody by a theologian (of any ethnic background) honestly denouncing what this “Promised Land” has become. And I don’t appreciate Obama telling me that Wright’s comments “rightly offend” everybody. They don’t offend my lily-white self, my (Asian) wife, or our two grown multi-ethnic children. Obama’s own aura of gravity, of damage-control, of opportunistic ass-kissing — these offend me for reasons that have nothing to do with my DNA.

When asked after a talk to the National Press Club on April 29 about the “God damn” comment, Wright stated matter-of-factly, distinguishing government from people, “God damns some practices. And there is no excuse for the things the government, not the American people have done . . .” He denied his condemnatory remarks were unpatriotic, pointedly noting his military service in contrast to Dick Cheney’s repeated deferments. I see nothing incendiary or offensive here. His suggestion that the US government created the HIV virus may be nuts, but his statement, “Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything” is entirely rational. (The “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” was a clinical study involving 400 syphlitic African-American males from 1932 to 1972 in Alabama, undertaken by the US Public Health Service. Its deceptiveness and immorality were acknowldeged by President Bill Clinton in 1997 when he called it “shameful” and officially apologized to survivors.) It’s hard to put anything past a government that, for example, deliberately disseminates disinformation to prepare public opinion for and to justify imperialist wars that kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of innocent people.

That’s the other thing. Wright dared to use the I-word: imperialism. He called the US an imperialist country, which it undeniably is. This is the crux of the matter. This is the witness, the testimony, the jeremiad that Obama can’t handle!

Obama is a mainstream politician. He can complain about foreign policy, bad decisions, “mistakes.” But he can’t name, much less damn, that which he wants to lead: the state apparatus of an imperialist country. His “Yes we can!” gibberish gives little clue about how he’ll deal, if elected, with the ongoing crimes to which Wright rightly alludes. But his dissing of his preacher suggests he’ll cave into the system because he sees it as his.

Gosh . . . how hateful of anyone to call this country (as opposed to imperial Spain, or imperial Britain, or imperial Japan) imperialist! This is where the prophetic truth-to-power message produces the inevitable divide. Obama may very well understand the power dynamics of this country. But even if so, given his political objective, he can’t say, thoughtfully: “Well, actually, I agree with Rev. Wright. The system itself is the problem, and we need total, thorough-going change. We need to stop being an imperialist country.” This is like asking an aspirant to a Mafia clan succession to reconsider the traditional family commitment to organized crime.

Instead Obama distances himself further from the reverend, hedges on his pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq within 18 months of becoming president, and while timidly challenging some of the warmongering rhetoric of both McCain and Clinton concerning Iran defers as best he can to AIPAC. He embraces the one-dimensional Washington line on Hamas and Hizbollah and pointedly agrees that so far as Iran is concerned, “All options are on the table.” He has not said: “I agree with the U.S. intelligence community and don’t think Iran has a nuclear weapons program threatening anyone.” He knows he can’t be that rational without having the Lobby all over his ass.

Knowing most or all of this full well, the radical left sizes up Barack Obama. Some say: Let’s do what we can, without endorsing the system, to help this lesser evil get elected. He’s probably less likely to attack Iran, and more likely to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Others say: There’s basically no difference. Any efforts to help him out will be a waste of time. In any case a McCain victory might produce a combination of widening war and polarization that will finally produce a real revolution in this country. (An interesting debate on the question can be found here.)

My own feelings about the candidates are maybe best expressed by Jeremiah (6:12-19):

They are all greedy for gain…
All of them practice fraud.
Without concern they dress my people’s wound,
Saying, “Peace! Peace!”
Whereas there is no peace.
They should be ashamed of their loathsome deeds.
Not they! They feel no shame,
They do not even know how to blush. . . .

Then hear, you nations,
and know, assembly,
what is going to happen to them!
Listen, earth!
Watch, I shall bring disaster
on this people:
it is the fruit of the way they think….

Without really believing in Yahweh, or prophecy, I think the Jeremiah scripture strangely relevant to what is happening now. Shameless hypocrites talk about peace. Maybe some are less loathsome than others; the problem is the “way they think,” rooted in their “greed for gain.” Or translated from Biblical language to modern political language: the problem is their bourgeois ideology rooted in their allegience to capitalist imperialism. Maybe Rev. Jeremiah can break with that; Barack obviously can’t. He may be less loathsome than known warmongers McCain or Clinton, but the way he thinks might also bring disaster.

Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu. Read other articles by Gary.

19 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Chris Crass said on May 20th, 2008 at 10:04am #

    This is a well written article. Thank you.
    I’ve gotta say, though: the whole elect the worst evil thing seems pretty awful to me if you consider what the actual human cost would be what with nuclear weapons and all.

  2. Tom Joad said on May 20th, 2008 at 10:12am #

    “No, by “left” I mean people bright and bold enough to question the whole matrix that has involved this nation in immoral wars, justified by lies, throughout my lifetime. I mean people who question what in the sixties and seventies young people came to call the “Establishment,” which many have since come to assess more precisely as capitalist imperialism. By “left” I mean the serious anti-imperialist left. ”

    All eight of them?

  3. Rich Griffin said on May 20th, 2008 at 10:23am #

    Timidity, lack of vision, lack of passion, pro-war, corporatist, do-nothing Senator, inexperienced, no reason whatsoever for him to be President – just a few of my many thoughts on how much I dislike Obama, Obama’s supporters (who don’t understand his real record), and my desire for almost anybody but Obama (except I dislike McCain even more)…

  4. evie said on May 20th, 2008 at 10:44am #

    I doubt the simpering Obama will be president – Rezko/Auchi and connections should do him in.

    Which ever way the election goes, disaster is coming – buy your bicycles and wood stoves now.

    Would someone give me directions to the “serious anti-imperalists left” in the US? Thus far they all seem connected one way or another to the phony global “left” billionaires who’s goal is the same one world order as the “right” – they just call it another fruit “ism.”

    I would suggest whoever this “serious left” is, that they look closer at Wright and Obama’s connections to Chicago’s dirty sociopolitical machine and the Euro-Iraqi money. Then again, I should keep my mouth shut as the last time I tried that Nadhmi Auchi threatened to sue me.

  5. Doug Page said on May 20th, 2008 at 11:04am #

    I am gambling on Obama’s unusual intelligence, and how he used that intelligence after he got out of law school. A. Lincoln was a corporate lawyer who represented the railroads, but he got around to abolishing slavery. Neither Obama nor Lincoln could get elected by speaking of their most profound insights.
    I may lose my gamble, but I have no other choice.
    The real fault is ours. How many people have you organized to oppose capitalism and imperialism? I have tried and tried, and I confess that I have organized nobody and influenced nobody. People have been so brainwashed that they immediately bristle with “that’s Marxism,” when I, a retired union lawyer tell them:
    “The core of capitalism is this: A person with money hires a person without money for the lowest possible wage to produce as much profit as possible for the person who already has money.”
    If somebody knows how to pierce the corporate media veil and organize and educate voters, please tell me.

  6. Arch Stanton said on May 20th, 2008 at 12:11pm #

    The American “left” is a pathetic joke. Appealing that that demographic is about as useful as tits on a boar hog.

    I have my own favorite quote from the Old Testament:

    So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.
    Wherefore I praised the dead who are already dead more than the living who are yet alive.
    Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

    Things haven’t really changed much in thirty centuries have they?
    Maybe evolution is just a theory after all.

  7. hp said on May 20th, 2008 at 1:55pm #

    Devolution Arch, devolution.

  8. Edwin Pell said on May 20th, 2008 at 6:03pm #

    I can not find my bible at the moment but my favorite quotes goes something like: you buy our people out of slavery only to lend them money at interest that puts them back in slavery. Except today we just skip the buying out of slavery step.

    The storm is coming (this century). We can ride it out here in the U.S. if we close the borders (both people and trade with slave states like China). If we do not then we go down with the world at large. Not a pretty picture.

  9. Edwin Pell said on May 20th, 2008 at 6:04pm #

    AS to Obama hell yes he is the establishment.

  10. Edwin Pell said on May 20th, 2008 at 6:11pm #

    Doug, I used to work for IBM (15 years) then they stole (in the biblical sense) the retirement pension and retirement medical from all IBM US employees. I tried to organize a union. Only about 1 in 1000 IBM stood up to having $100,000 to $600,000 stolen (biblical sense not legal sense) from them. That is about 150 people out of 150,000 people. Do not hold your breath the revolution is not coming in our life times.

    Unions (well some unions) are the one place left in America where people can trust each other. If you know where I can get a teamsters bumper sticker let me know. Thanks.

  11. jamie said on May 21st, 2008 at 9:54am #

    “We can ride it out here in the U.S. if we close the borders (both people and trade with slave states like China). If we do not then we go down with the world at large”…………..Edwin Pell

    Mr. Pell, would it be possible for you to look at this from, oh I don’t know, perhaps the perspective of the indigenous people of this country….the ones our forbearers forced from their rightful properties and made into lepers by banishing them to institutionalized “colonies” ???? We won’t even mention the all the “trips” Georgy Porgy” made to the slave quarters for a “night cap”…..and Sallie Hemings who had the great misfortune of having to “adjust her skirts” after an encounter with the demi-god Thomas Jefferson? I don’t know but back where I come from that is akin to rape. She was in servitude and I cannot imagine her saying “No”…no?
    Poor dear. Because of her position she was made to bear five children with her rapist. Sounds a lot like the same ol’ same ‘ol.
    Nothing has changed as Arch and hp have pointed out and for a very insideous reason.

    We give our power and authority away on a daily basis and we want to cry “foul”??
    We continually point out the flaws of our political and societal structures yet we prop them up through our ignorant participation?

    These borders are NOT our borders. Remember, we took them by force and other heinous criminal acts. Stop holding up the old paradigm and it will surely fall away.
    We have deceived ourselves and in this state have built relations and societies upon these principals. How could we NOT fail miserably at this thing called life?
    Get out of that “box” you’ve fabricated from “rabid” nationalism, elitist concepts and corporate propaganda and build one constructed solely of your inner fiber……it will serve not only yourself but humanity in general.

  12. KR said on May 21st, 2008 at 11:13am #

    More and more I have come to believe that too much of the US population is fat and happy enough to continue business as usual.

    The people within the “U.S.” who really have a stake in ending capitalist imperialism – the people of the “internal colonies”: Africans, Native Americans, Kanaka Maoli, etc. – are too small in number to overcome the inertia of the masses of the well-fed and the forces of the US military.

    However, in the rest of the world, there is plenty of impetus to dismantle the pillars of support for neoliberalism. The revolution will come from without, not within. It has already started.

    However, we have to work diligently here to build alternatives. The question isn’t whether or not capitalism will survive, but what exactly will replace it when it falls.

  13. KR said on May 21st, 2008 at 11:13am #

    More and more I have come to believe that too much of the US population is fat and happy enough to continue business as usual.

    The people within the “U.S.” who really have a stake in ending capitalist imperialism – the people of the “internal colonies”: Africans, Native Americans, Kanaka Maoli, etc. – are too small in number to overcome the inertia of the masses of the well-fed and the forces of the US military.

    However, in the rest of the world, there is plenty of impetus to dismantle the pillars of support for neoliberalism. The revolution will come from without, not within. It has already started.

    Still, we have to work diligently here to build alternatives. The question isn’t whether or not capitalism will survive, but what exactly will replace it when it falls.

  14. jamie said on May 21st, 2008 at 12:50pm #

    KR, your premise sounds reasonable but if you look East, West, North and South of your paradigm you will notice billions who abjectly follow rather than lead. On every continent there is considerable restraints placed on the populace by those in “authority”, yet, no revolt is in progress by the supressed and beleaguered masses.

    In many of these regions poverty is pervasive and accepted as a way of life. I really don’t think that it is so much about “Americans” as it is about apathy and the acceptance of someone else’s standards.

    Just think if we did not have the GOD mentality of someone bigger and more powerful than us constantly eyeballing our every move and taking notes on our every transgression then perhaps we’d feel “free to move about the cabin” without fear. Perhaps we’d even go as far as claiming autonomy and the right to participate in building a society rather than just footing the bill for it.

    I really see this as a mind set of powerlesness which is the capstone of all societies. In order for someone to be “in power” others must relenquish their power. How stupid is that?

    To be able to gain our power back from those whom we have willingly given it over to we must own every action, thought and desire that impedes our collective evolution.
    We are a world of addicts. Addicted to the very thing that makes us slaves and it is the erroneous concept of “power”.
    Pluto in Capricorn will force this issue to the fore for years to come and many “powerful” people will come tumbling from their pedestals….but not before they take many of us with them.

    During this time we will have to come to terms with our inability to discern basic concepts of love, power, freedom and authority.
    We will have to come to terms with our inability to walk away from desire and, most of all, ego.
    We will have to face the truth of our complicity in this hell we have created on this planet.
    If and when we learn the truth of power and love only then can we even fathom the creation of a new world for the benefit of all and not just the few.

    This goes much deeper than many understand. To continually scratch superficially at the surface of this festering wound we call life will only lessen our inability to heal what really ails us as a collective body.

  15. Edwin Pell said on May 21st, 2008 at 3:47pm #

    Jamie, I am part Native America and I am still waiting for you Europeans to go home.

  16. jamie said on May 22nd, 2008 at 4:56am #

    Then I do not understand when you say that we should “close” our borders to “slave states like China”?

    Your ancestors most likely did not “buy” the land that they settled upon from anyone. I am not sure but from everything that I have read about the Native Americans the concept of ownership was nonexistant (and you can set me straight on this if I am wrong) and more of a symbiotic way of life.

    This mindset is what I am alluding to. We (“Americans” and all other nationalities) could not possibly own the planet….we are just stewards of it, and, therefore to do battle over it is in complete opposition to the laws of nature. To believe that these borders are our borders is ridiculous. So ridiculous that it appears that we are an insane species.

    Mr. Pell, my husband is from Europe so that is a distinct possibility, but, until that day comes when I will leave my four sons and grandchild to relenquish what was once stolen I will have to do as my conscience tells me….and it tells me that I must not support this paradigm any longer. You know the one where men claim kingship and authority over those who are ignorant of even the simplest things.

    I really do not like this kind of talk where we point fingers at a nation of peoples and lump them altogether as slave traders, tyrannts, terrorists, or whatever else we’d like to name them. Any nation could say this of almost any nation…….no? So where does this nightmare end? Who will stop the blame game?

    A woman said (during a phone conversation) that her 11 year old son was crying because he had to wear a suit to a “function”. Because this woman has issues with authority and power she kneels before the erroneous definitons of these words. She believes that people who attend famous universities and graduate with “honors” are to command respect…irregardless of their characters or the character of the school. She also believes that what one wears makes a statement about their social status. She believes that we should hold up old traditions even if they make someone cry. I believe that is the definition of insanity.
    I said to her, “then why make him wear one if it makes him uncomfortable enough to cry?” She wanted to make a statement about her position in society and this is the problem. I said that perhaps we should reconsider what wealth, power and prestige mean and do exactly the opposite of what they currently represent. She said that it may well be true that the old paradigm must go but it would not be her or her son who would be the ones to usher it out.

    And therein lies the problem. Everyone wants a new way of life but no one wants to do the work of getting one.

    I practice no rituals, uphold no family traditions or map family trees. I am more interested in replacing them with activities that will benefit all.
    I want a world where there are no labels of identification. No caste systems. No gender assignment (other than the one you are born with of course) and no belief in war. I want it so badly that I have dedicated my life to this leap of evolution through the living of it.

    What will the rest of us do? I say live the talk and the paradigm will shift.

  17. hp said on May 22nd, 2008 at 9:48am #

    Jaime, you obviously have been getting your native american facts from the politically correct book of utopian pipe dreams.
    However true it is the natives, for the most part, did manage their environment as a part of themselves, the way they conducted business with each other was also, for the most part, ‘business as usual.’

  18. jamie said on May 22nd, 2008 at 10:56am #

    I LMAO, hp, with your response! I probably did get it from the “book of utopian pipe dreams”! Just like all the other info we are fed through the current system of dissemination, but, I highly doubt that I would pick up a book by a popular author or one backed by any politically or socially correct “institution”.

    I’ll keep reading, though, and hopefully we can spark a conversation with those who have an inside on the topic.

    Thanks for the laugh!

  19. hp said on May 23rd, 2008 at 9:00am #

    Jamie, couldn’t help notice your reference to Pluto and Capricorn. Have you ever read about Jyotish, the Science of Light?
    I’m an Ophiuchus.