Nobody forced Obama to browbeat the Congressional Black Caucus to reverse itself and support the bailout the second time around.
Nobody forced Obama to elevate Susan Rice - a fanatical advocate of so-called "humanitarian" military intervention - to UN Ambassador, a woman who wholeheartedly supports George Bush's war against Somalia, which created what the UN has called Africa's "worst humanitarian crisis."
We don't have to wait any longer to know what kind of president Barack Obama will be. His presidential appointments are presidential deeds - and by those deeds we know him!
Barack Obama has chosen of his own free will to put his face at the head of an administration whose most powerful portfolios - War and the Economy - are manned by the worst thieves and warmongers available.
Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton looks like a relative moderate in this Obama configuration. And that is bad news for Black people, and the entire planet.
I maintain that this outcome - this "center-right" government in-the-making - became all but inevitable early in the process, when many Black progressives failed to challenge Obama even once on any important political point, before or during the primaries, when it would have made a difference.
This blind-faith, unquestioning Obamism abdicated all leadership responsibility, allowing Obama to play to the Right to his heart's content.
Obama faced no organized Black opposition to his call for an expanded military - one hundred thousand additional soldiers and Marines - as if that would not inevitably lead to more and bigger wars and less resources for human needs.
When the effects of the subprime meltdown began to be felt in earnest, Obama refused to endorse any kind of moratorium on foreclosures or freeze on interest rates. His position was to the Right of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But he paid no penalty, because there was no organized Black criticism.
Meanwhile, those of us who warned of Obama's constant rightward drift were damn near called traitors to the race.
The Obamites demanded that everyone withhold judgment until after the election. Of course, by then it would be too late. It has been too late for a very long time.
At any rate, Judgment Day has finally arrived. And we see Obama taking great leaps and bounds to the Right. Farther Right than I ever anticipated.
But, you know what? I'm not mad at Obama. He's just another cynical center-right politician, doing whatever he can get away with.
The people I'm mad at are the ones who let him get away with it - the people who still see their primary job as protecting him!
He's the president-elect of the United States. He's in bed with billionaire bankers and war criminals, and folks want to protect him. He doesn't need our protection. WE need protection from HIM!
But this seems to be very difficult for some many of our folks to understand because, this entire experience has been...damaging.
