Barack Obama: Culmination of a Near Perfect Storm

My thanks to all for the recommends and comments.

The inauguration day for President Elect Barack Hussein Obama Jr. has finally arrived with many intoning the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who I discussed in The Legacy of Dr. King.

This day is also the 23rd anniversary of the first observance of the national holiday, in 1986, honoring Dr. King, signed into law by the late President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States does not realize Dr. King's vision for America.

It would better be considered a downpayment on the eradication of racism, still a factor in this country, so much so that the airways and internet are filled with calls for ill will for the 44th president and his family, a downpayment on the eradication of classism, sexism and all manner of isms that still confront many of the citizens of the United States, which only time will provide an answer whether these things will be accomplished.

To Rev. Jermano, your preferred choice, Hillary Clinton, did not nor does she now, embody a message of non-violence.

Then Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to start the war in Iraq. Barack Obama did not. Now Secretary of State Clinton has stated she has no regrets authorizing the war.

Rev. Jermano, you wrote:

Myself I wanted Hillary to be the First Woman President because I knew Barack was not following the message of Rev. King.

If you were aware former Senator Clinton was a war monger, I don't understand why you wanted her for president, as she also would not follow what you perceive was the message of Dr. King.

Was it your assumption that an African American, maybe not President Obama but, another African American president, would necessarily follow tenets you perceive represented Dr. King's philosophy? Was there some pre-supposed belief, on your part, that there was an inherent allegiance to non-violence by Black people because Dr. King was a Black man?  

African Americans are no more monolithic than any other group, more receptive to one philosophy than any other group. Many African Americans, contrary to popular mythology, embraced the philosophy of non-violence, in moderation, believing when they were attacked, they had the God given right to defend and protect themselves, not turn the other cheek. 

You also overlook the reality that Dr. King brought his 'message of non-violence' to all Americans, not just Black America.

There will not be pacifist leadership of the United States in the foreseeable future, given all of the forces at work in the world today, all of the pre-existing issues to be dealt with and the fear that promoting, as you have indicated in the past, a full, denunciation of violence, will appear as weakness to many known and unknown elements that would seek to challenge a nation believed to be the mightiest nation on earth if it subscribed to such a philosophy.  

I dare say, President Obama, in his speech, alludes to being among raging storms, where as I, in my metaphor, believe his ascendancy to the office of President of the United States, a result of the stormy past, most notably, in recent memory, the past eight years, with his election occurring at the height of disatisfaction with those years.

And, indeed, the storm still rages on ....

Thanks Karen for this piece.  

By tomorrow afternoon 1PM under the US Constitution, Mr. Obama is the President of the US.  

From my perspective, the American public wants change, new, and fresh approaches to the governing process. To that end, the Obama teams have been showing and continuing to show to the public its accessibility, from photos to personal stories submitted by average Americans about their hopes and expectations of the Obama administration.  

The Obama administration now have direct access to the public by using the latest technologies.  Alternatively, the public can also submit their opinions and questions to the Obama administration.  It is a pioneering approach, which the public will learn that technological accesses are there for their benefits. 

I hope that the American public will remain patient as the economic turn-around processes require complex solutions.  Having said this, I'm also optimistic that the American public will turn out to be far more patient than the international community.  

Understandably, most folks don't want to wait and want an instant answer or solution, but like all American Presidency,  each President deserves and is entitled to 100 days before people can really assess.   Of course, I'm only addressing the American public concerns. 

Karen, its been a long time coming but we are finally there. Hopefully the first step of many to come in the next few years to erode away the racism experienced by so many for so long. Even my mother in Florida, a life long republican is happy to see the end of Bush and has become a 81-year-old Obama girl!

Well said Karen Hatter.  I'd venture to say that while non violence is an admirable belief, but it is quite impractical and unrealistic concept for most countries to govern and protect its sovereignty.  An immediate international example of an attempt toward non-violence comes to mind is the bereft status of the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile, far from his own people's sufferings under the Chinese authority. 

First of all, President Obama has just come into office and he has the support of the American public and a modicum of goodwill from the international community. 

With all due respect, Fripouille, many French folks have a tiring habit of "hating" and "looking down" at the Americans for sports because somehow that make them feel morally superior.  First of all, President Obama is an American President, therefore, it's not surprising that over time, some among the French public will resume their armchair sport, critiquing the US.   

Further, it's always easier for the French to pontificate on America because it's fun and chic.  Although I think the French public might consider focusing on asking their own government to fully relinquish French colonial grip on those African nations, by divesting its business and properties in Africa, and return ownership to the people in those countries.  Now, that to me, would be interesting ... and to see a more maturing French foreign policy toward Africa.  

An excellent article.

I offer my best wishes to President Barack Obama and I hope he is the best president ever.  He has ability, intelligence, leadership, ambition, and a desire to help others.  That is all good and he will need all that to even begin to solve the problems we face.

Well Done. I only pray that he will be able to deliver to the many that have placed so much in him as President. He has a giant job ahead of him.

What fascinates me is how there is now it seems - since Nov4th - an expectation of change across Europe and Asia too. In terms of human rights and 'civil society', now enhanced by social media, we can truly catch a glimpse of 'one world'.

I'm now curious about your title, with the hindsight of the inauguration speech.

The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms...

...With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.

Super post, this. It asks a very pertinent question, seen from here in France.

The French drooled over every word and picture of Obama during the campaign, but that's changing now and the euphoria is already being replaced by "Obama's just a watered-down Bush" type sentiment.

If I could wish for Obama to change just one thing, it would be to replace the terrible current knee-jerk cynicysm vis-a-vis America across the world with a hefty dose of realising that one man alone can't change anything without cooperation from others.

He needs goodwill and encouragement, and he certainly has mine.

The Change that we got in my opinion has been long past due and only now settling in as quite an Embarrassment to the United States. I am quite embarrassed it took 150 years since the ending of slavery that we finally have a Black President...But that still does not take into consideration the very few number of Black Americans who serve in the Congress and the Senate. It is quite embarrassing to me.....that after all the hoopla which really is about his ethnic identity in breaking the White hold on the Executive office for all these years....his policies are not about Change whatsoever. This is amazing for me to see how people are so Optimistic about Barack....but when the party ends and we get into this Presidency people will awaken and the grumblings will resound.

Obama has already indicated that his policies will in all essentials be a continuation of those of the outgoing administration, perhaps in a somewhat more skillfully packaged form. He has surrounded himself with individuals associated with imperialist crimes and financial scandals, including Bush's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, who presided over the military "surge" in Iraq and opposed any timetable for withdrawing US troops from the devastated country.

Obama has devoted the months since his election—a sweeping popular repudiation of the Bush administration's policies of war, repression and social reaction—to conciliating and reassuring the Republican right. The New York Times reported Monday that Obama has regularly consulted his defeated opponent, Republican Senator John McCain, allowing the virulently pro-war senator to vet his nominees for top national security posts. The Times notes that, according to South Carolina senator and McCain associate Lindsey Graham, McCain has told colleagues "that many of these appointments he would have made himself." McCain was Obama's guest of honor at his pre-inaugural dinner Monday night.

It is also necessary to recall that Martin Luther King, Jr., whose memory is being cynically exploited, was the representative of a great struggle for social equality and a vehement opponent of American imperialism. In the months before his assassination, King publicly denounced the War in Vietnam and increasingly insisted that the central issue in America was not race, but class, a conviction which he sought to act upon by initiating the "poor people's march." During that period he began to raise the need for a labor party and a break with the Democratic Party.

The most pathetic and despicable role in the glorification of Obama is being played by liberals and "lefts" associated with the Nation and similar publications. Through their campaign for his election and their portrayal of him as the leader of an insurgent movement for "American renewal" they are facilitating the implementation of right-wing policies that would otherwise be politically unfeasible, including the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, trillions more in handouts to the banks and cuts in bedrock social programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It would, however, be a mistake to believe that the combination of deception and self-inebriation of this opportunist milieu is shared by the working class. It lives in the real world of surging unemployment, poverty and homelessness. Even to the extent that workers have expectations that Obama will realize their aspirations for genuine change, this will not stop them from entering into struggle. And events will, sooner rather than later, shatter their illusions and clarify that the new government is no less their enemy than the old one.

Myself I wanted Hillary to be the First Woman President because I knew Barack was not following the message of Rev. King. Notwithstanding Rev. King gave legitimacy to Black America by being the true bonafide bedrock to America's belief in being anti-war, and supporting the ideals of Nonviolence. America today is quite the opposite to what Rev. Kings dream was really about...and Barack Obama's swearing in when he takes the Oath of Office today will be a literal slap in Rev. Kings face....as he places his hands in the debacle of blood and war on the the legacy of all Black Americans.

If anything it is quite a sad day for me to say the least.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/pers-j20.shtml...

Rev. Jermano

wake up people!

Karen I am quite aware that Hillary is a war monger. The point is about Black Americans and how nonviolence was brought to the US by Dr. King. President Obama now the President being a Black American is now at the high point of Political Identification of the Nation in concern to Black America. Rev. King delivered us Nonviolence, and President Obama is going to now throw his efforts into hell with war.

Of course there are other Black Americans who have supported War such as Colin Powell and Condi Rice....but they  were not the ones making the decisions.  My conscript is in concern to realizing that the US and Black America who were given the truth by Dr. King....are now being undercut by Obama and his pro-war violence, since both are Black Americans.

Hillary would not have had the same affect since she is not a Black American.

Rev.

Z, that is amazing! Most likely, she has many folks sharing her sentiments.

Karen you are well aware of American History..essentially beginning from a barrel of a gun. It was more than simply gaining independence but also a defining moment in the business of slavery.

 To think of all the bad things that happened to Black Americans with over 100 years of US slavery, to the Civil Rights Movement to have a voice come from a Black man named Rev. King with no vengeance in his heart, but speaking as a Prophet; who told us the dream was about Nonviolence goes to prove his words moved Black Society toward being the heavy weight of authority in determining the end to the Vietnam War.

Of course he was talking to all Americans being white americans, hispanic, and asian....but this profound persons words came from a Black American. I do not know how to separate the idea as to whether Dr. King represents Black America, or Black America represents Dr. King. In any event myself being a White American have always resonanted my heart of peace toward Black Americans, while my dislike, disdain, and harmful hate resonates toward the people who share my same color.

Essentially my Fathers were murderers and slave owners.....and they have been the most prejudiced people in the world. How does it make me feel? I am quite embarrassed, quite low to the depths of anguish that white american leaders searched high and low have not the compassion or the message of Nonviolence....but always words of fighting for this imaginary ideal of honor.

I am befuddled to think that because I see these things brought to bear from my study of history, that whence I being a White man speak words of Nonviolence as Dr. King taught, that I am a scoundrel, a pacifistic weakling, a demur to the ideals of Freedom.

Not only is this crushing to me...but quite irrational since I only keep thinking that their rejection of my sincerity is a reflection of their inability to grasp the truth, for change.

The real lesson in all this is that Nonviolence is the strength, is the well of life toward our being and destiny. As the US took 150 years to finally inaugurate a blackman as President of the United States, it will take as many embarrassing more years for the World to understand and realize that Nonviolence is strength, and that War is weakness.

Your own words:

{There will not be pacifist leadership of the United States in the foreseeable future, given all of the forces at work in the world today, all of the pre-existing issues to be dealt with and the fear that promoting, as you have indicated in the past, a full, denunciation of violence, will appear as weakness to many known and unknown elements that would seek to challenge a nation believed to be the mightiest nation on earth if it subscribed to such a philosophy.}  

prove my point.

Wishing you well Karen, and praying President Obama does not follow the road toward War.

Rev. Jermano

Karen, she certainly does, and what did it was first the rising cost of health care for older people and then the financial crash last year reduced their small pension trust funds to less than 50% of value. It was enough for many people like my mother to throw in the towel with the repubs. I never thought my mother would ever vote for an African-American President. We do indeed live in a "changing times!"

My mother was happy when I told her she was still quite a "young Obama girl" with the oldest being 105-years.

You can disbelieve and feel the cold steel of weapons pointed toward the untrust of nations, pointed toward the eradication of mutually assured destruction...and think you have found the promised land.....but I tell you Rev. King is right, as Gandhi was right, as the Lord himself was right....

Our problem is that we have never taught the good virtues toward Nonviolence, and never go forward in seeing how the right to bear arms in the Constitution is in fact the problem. World History proves that War does not end war...As this war on terror is but another episode to the failure of the Military complex.in world history. Militaries can not end war..It is a contradiction to itself. It implodes upon itself, as 911 has proven.

You can not serve two masters. You are either a hyporcrite or you are not. You can rely on the false ideals of Violence which Obama represents as he does or says nothing about the war crimes of the Bush administraion, and to neglect the thousands of innocent people slain by madmen during those past 8 years, or we can take up the ideals of working toward the good which is Nonviolence.

Face it militaries are meant to stop violence..Militaries are meant to provide a living that encompasses the ideal to have Nonviolence...But it can never achieve such works, because it is like saying the Devil is God, that manure is a flower, or the crops....

I will always believe in Nonviolence as the way forward toward peace in the world. It does not contradict the essence of God, and Peace.

Rev.

I have not stated anywhere at this site nor written in any article a vision of any promised land in relation to Dr. King, Gandhi, God or anyone else.

I leave you to discuss with yourself what ever it is you are discussing.