TRUTHDIG– The moral philosopher Cornel West,
if Barack Obama’s ascent to power was a morality play, would be the
voice of conscience. Rahm Emanuel, a cynical product of the Chicago
political machine, would be Satan. Emanuel in the first scene of the
play would dangle power, privilege, fame and money before Obama. West
would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral
commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to
defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite
against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never
be sacrificed on the altar of power.
Perhaps there was never much of a struggle in Obama’s heart. Perhaps
West only provided a moral veneer. Perhaps the dark heart of Emanuel was
always the dark heart of Obama. Only Obama knows. But we know how the
play ends. West is banished like honest Kent in “King Lear.” Emanuel and
immoral mediocrities from Lawrence Summers to Timothy Geithner to
Robert Gates—think of Goneril and Regan in the Shakespearean
tragedy—take power. We lose. And Obama becomes an obedient servant of
the corporate elite in exchange for the hollow trappings of authority.
No one grasps this tragic descent better than West, who did 65
campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was
encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now
nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of
the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as
“a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate
plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine
and is proud of it.”
“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the
least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving
them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them
priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African
American Studies and Religion at Princeton University. “And even at this
moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep
decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for
sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came
before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a
willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell.
This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive
forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever
conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now.”
“I have to take some responsibility,” he admits of his support for
Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. “I could have been reading
into it more than was there.”
“I was thinking maybe he has at least some progressive populist
instincts that could become more manifest after the cautious policies of
being a senator and working with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman as his mentor,”
he says. “But it became very clear when I looked at the neoliberal
economic team. The first announcement of Summers and Geithner I went
ballistic. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I have really been misled at a very deep
level.’ And the same is true for Dennis Ross
and the other neo-imperial elites. I said, ‘I have been thoroughly
misled, all this populist language is just a facade. I was under the
impression that he might bring in the voices of brother Joseph Stiglitz and brother Paul Krugman.
I figured, OK, given the structure of constraints of the capitalist
democratic procedure that’s probably the best he could do. But at least
he would have some voices concerned about working people, dealing with
issues of jobs and downsizing and banks, some semblance of democratic
accountability for Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats who
are just running amuck. I was completely wrong.”
Read full article about The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic.
Written by Chris Hedges
© 2011 TruthDig
Photo by Flickr user Reggestraat
TRUTHDIG
POLITICO