As a product of this government's fear of equality, the Obama clones would be the negation of equality, freedom, democracy. A collective, hands-on project, the carving of these hollow vesicles would demand the resignation of common sense. It has happened before: The Fugitive Slave Acts, the disenfranchisement of freed, the destabilizing of Black leadership, the dismantling of Affirmative Action, and the rise of post-racial discourse (terrorism and warfare), the government led the way in effectively crushing a viable vision of democracy. In the New World of One State TV, these Obama clones, the ideal figure of absolute complicity and acceptance, would posses no memory of the historical past, no ability to understand that the past never happens once (as Faulkner wrote), and no heritage other than the one in which the Empire and State news media has assigned to him or her.
And that is how change comes to America , Lifting the Veil suggests. It comes dressed in the corporate image of change: There is the great orator , the suits and rolled up sleeves, and the paradox: a man covered in brown skin a candidate for president of the U.S. Hope, he said, and liberals nodded. He made promises to revolutionize the U.S. domestic and foreign policies without a rifle or protest, without Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Crazy Horse, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King's warning about war and the treatment of the invisible workers, without the "anger" and the "inflammatory" rhetoric of his militant and old time pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama promises c hange is coming to America!
Already, we know the corporate world has spent a record amount of money packaging and selling the Obama to State and alternative news outlets that, in turn, sold this democratic image of change to the American public. Even Hillary Clinton and husband Bill themselves were bedazzled by the shinny new product called Obama).
But American workers are increasingly seeing themselves dislodged from this narrative of American ingenuity.
Now, two years later, we cannot distinguish the U.S. from the dictatorships supported by the U.S. as easily as the Secretary of State.
(NOTE: the following atrocities are listed and visually captured in the documentary, Lifting the Veil. The film may be viewed at the end of this commentary):
The Census Bureau reports that "U.S. poverty rose 43.6 million in 2009, an increase of 3.8 million in the past year," according to Lifting the Veil. It is the "largest total since the first 1959 estimates."
According to the Economic Policy Institute, "1 in 4 American children now live in poverty." For both Blacks and Latino/as, "1 in 3" children live in poverty.
After the "greatest transference of wealth in U.S. history - $12.8 trillion - to bailouts," the Obama administration "dramatically increases government secrecy, blocking more FOIA request in 2009 than Bush did in 2008" (Huffington Post, March 6, 2010).
And there is no "ops, I made a mistake." No apology, no blinking of the eyes, only a stead-fast deliverance of smiles and elegance, hand-over-heart, facing the flag, declaring God Bless America and all the while the corporate capitalists, according to the documentary, "earned record profits in the past year, recording their "best quarter ever'" (New York Times, November 23, 2010).
Obama "extends the Patriot Act without making any reforms" (CS Monitor, March 1, 2010).
Obama "cracks down on government whistleblowers more than any president in history" (New York Times, June 11, 2010).
Obama "pushes for mandatory DNA testing of those arrested for crimes, regardless of whether they have been convicted" (Politico, September 3, 2010).
"Ignoring the 70 percent of Americans who desire Universal Health Care, Obama cuts a secret deal with Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies to kill the watered down "public option'--while simultaneously campaigning on its behalf" (New York Times, March 16, 2010.
Obama "uses a signing statement to ignore labor and environmental standards for the IMF and World Bank" (Huffington Post, July 6, 2009).
Obama "gives permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws" (New York Times, May 13, 2010).
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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