Tariq Ali - The Obama Syndrome - Surrender at Home, War Abroad

The Obama Syndrome

Surrender at Home, War Abroad

First published by Verso 2010
This updated paperback edition published by Verso 2011
Tariq Ali 2011
Appendix 1 Teri Reynolds 2010
All rights reserved

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

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eISBN: 978-1-84467-828-0

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Typeset in Bembo by MJ Gavan, Truro, Cornwall
Printed in the US by Quad/Graphics Fairfield

In Memoriam:

Howard Zinn

and

Daniel Bensad

This essay is offered as a preliminary report on the first 1,000 days of the Obama presidency. Nothing more. It was written some months before the midterm elections that might well signal a further paralysis of the administration but also provide it with a formal excuse for moving further right and not undertaking any measures that might offend Republicans. It is already doing this, but things could get worse. These past two years of ineffective juggling have seen a continuation of the voodoo economics of the previous period, despite the collapse of the financial markets, the universal discrediting of the Wall Street system, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the effects of which have been delayed in the United States but are beginning to be felt in parts of Europe, old and new. The bungled and toothless health care reform bill, drafted by insurance company lobbyists, was pushed through, but even this is likely to be ditched when costs explode soon after its implementation several years ahead. An important opportunity has been missed.

I intend to update this volume in time for the renomination and the 2012 campaign, but perhaps it wont be necessary as other books, sharper and more distinctive in tone, take its place, necessary antidotes to the gushing biographies that compete in their worship of power. Best in these times not to be intimidated by victors or brutish auxiliaries who place their heel on the intellect while their tongues easily move into places once occupied by their rivals.

My thanks for all their help to colleagues Kenta Tsuda and Tom Mertes at New Left Review; Jacob Stevens, Mark Martin, Rowan Wilson and Sebastian Budgen at Verso Books; and Anthony Arnove and Brenda Coughlin in New York.

In conclusion, a few words for aficionados on the typeface used for this book. Given that some might regard this essay as far too inflammatory already, I decided to abandon my tried and trusted Fournier since it might overheat the text. Instead I chose the slightly cooler and more refined Bembo, a gift from the Italian Renaissance. Pietro Bembos (14701547) own Gli Asolini was dedicated to Lucretia Borgia, whose name a French scholar claimed was an occupant le verso du titre. Pietro, too, liked verso. More to the point it was Bembo who gave the publisher Aldus the idea for the small format of his books, also appropriate, I thought, for this book. Furthermore Bembo also devised the anchor-and-dolphin, the best known of printers marks. As a pioneering editor, Pietro Bembo established strict standards, insisted on proper punctuation and was scathing of sloppy publishing. New Left Books, the progenitors of Verso, regarded him as a patron saint when they set up shop forty years ago.

Tariq Ali

June 2010

It isnt a president who can help or hurt; its the system. And this system is not only ruling us in America, it is ruling the world. Nowadays, when a man is running for president of the United States, he is not running for president of the United States alone; he has to be acceptable to other areas of the world where American influence rules The only thing that made him [Lyndon Baines Johnson] acceptable to the world was that the shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists, knew that the only way people would run towards the fox would be if you showed them a wolf. So they created a ghastly alternative.

Malcolm X, Paris, November 23, 1964

Three decades ago when Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States, it was difficult for most progressive observers to imagine that the actor-celebritys period in office would mark the beginnings of a new consensus at home and abroad, and the slow dismantling of the New Deal as well as the Soviet Union. They could not believe that a dimwitted, second-rate actor could accomplish anything. A minority suggested otherwise. In a remarkably prescient essay, Mike Davis, writing in his inimitable style a few months after Reagans inauguration, predicted that Californiastyle politics was the future writ large:

Like the beast of the apocalypse, Reaganism has slouched out of the Sunbelt, devouring liberal senators and Great Society programs in its path. With the fortieth presidents popularity rating soaring above 80 percent (partially thanks to an inept assassin), most surviving liberals seem frightened out of their moral fibers. Pragmatic as well as right-leaning Democrats have joined with Republicans in a new era of good feeling, slashing vital welfare spending to make way for the biggest and most ominous escalation of arms spending in history. Public discourse has been commandeered by multitudes of post-liberals, neo-conservatives and new rightists who offer

The New Democrats embraced Reaganism on virtually every level. Clinton had neither the political desire nor the will to push back any of the Reagan reforms. W. Bush built on the foundations laid by Reagan, increasing the social and economic disparities between the rich and the less well-off sections of the population. The poor were ignored by most politicians, permitted a few meager handouts, encouraged to eat junk food and grow obese and then were denied health care. A neoliberal Malthusianism had become the order of the day. And Obama?

Once the novelty of the candidate and the high-octane campaign had worn off, a dull Republican rival and his more spirited Alaskan snowbilly had been safely dispatched, and the mixed-race president was safely and happily ensconced in the White House, the starlit night disappeared and a confused, misty gray half light enveloped the country once again. Stern reality interrupted the celebrations. The situation at home and abroad was bleak. The first hundred days revealed that no regeneration was in sight. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed few signs of subsiding, the Orwellian mediasphere continued to proclaim peace is war and war is peace.

More worryingly for most Americans, the economic storm at home was threatening to develop into a hurricane. Here was a rare chance for a strong political leader with a set of more progressive values than his predecessors to move forward swiftly and establish a new agenda. In Dreams from My Father, the author had referred to Malcolm Xs character in glowing terms: the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. Alas, no such leader existed now.