Was Obama always a boring cretin?

Was Obama always a boring cretin? My memory is that he was exciting and inspiring. That was just 12 years ago. It was his way with words which took him to the top. Yet now, scarcely 4 years out of office, he writes like a retired librarian who moved to a remote organic farm in Australia to be with her grand-daughter, her grand-daughter's transgender lover, and the disabled cat both are mentoring.

As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.

Is it possible to write in a more bloodless and unimpassioned manner about an existential threat to people who look like you in your own country- the country you still live in and which you were the President of?

A retired librarian may well write- 'dozens of soon to retire librarians are wandering around raising their voices to argue about recent tampering with the Dewey Decimal system and the ongoing problem of deciding on which shelf to put books on molecular gastronomy. Many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about better book shelving. As a part-time mentor to a disabled cat struggling with gender identity issues, I think it's going to be up to a new generation of librarians to find answers to these difficult questions.'

Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.

There is only one 'basic lesson'. The President of the U.S.A can put a stop to this type of atrocity.  Generations of activists can come and go without changing anything. But if the President gets riled he can push the FBI and the Justice Department to go after institutionalized Racism wherever it raises its ugly head. He can lean on Governors. He can get Congress to tack on riders to Money Bills and he can force the Senate to assent to stricter laws in this regard.

If a bunch of white cops illegally kill a black man, don't just fuck them up. Fuck up those who hired them and those who profited in any way from the 'prison-industrial' complex. What broke the back of Jim Crow was Presidents willing and able to send in the Army to enforce the law. Obama himself should have gone ape-shit everytime the police killed an African American while he was President. But, no-drama Obama didn't believe he could himself do anything. He never said 'I will'. He said 'we can'- i.e. you can. You and then the next generation and then the next generation can try as much as you like. But I won't do anything.

First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States.

If I wrote this, you would be entitled to call me a stupid foreigner with only a superficial grasp of American political history and a penchant for stating the obvious . But Obama is writing this. He seems to have forgotten he was President for 8 years.

The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring.

Though, Obama himself admits, they only reason they are protesting is because he himself fucked up.

They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.

Obama could do something more than show respect. He could campaign on this issue.  Perhaps, he has and no one noticed. But, surely, he wasn't always a boring cretin? 

On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms,

are acting rationally. They are imposing a high cost on a particular type of policing. This, by itself, brings about change. The fact is, policing faces a trade-off. Killing suspects means a higher chance of getting killed by suspects. Obviously, you don't kill suspects who are connected because they will kill your family. But killing the small fry too can prove a costly strategy. The thing is purely game theoretic.

Obama is channeling Gandhian stupidity- though he himself, for 8 years, was the most powerful man in the world, whereas Gandhi was a mere 'ticket of leave' prisoner of the Raj.

whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it.

So Obama won't join us in looting the liquor store. Good to know.

If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.

No. Presidents have to get angry and go after the bad guys. Professional politicians must do the job they are elected, and paid, to do. They must not say 'fix it yourself. You must be the change you want to see in the world.'

Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time.

But Obama didn't heard anyone say to him 'Mr. President, do your  job! Protect the lives of African American citizens!  Black lives matter. Your personal aversion to 'drama' does not matter. You took the job. You are taking the pay cheque. Now do what you are paid to.'

I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities.

Thus, for Obama, Blacks are a 'marginalized community'. Perhaps they are. But Obama is Black. His wife is Black. His kids are Black. One does not use the jargon of sociology to describe one's own kith and kin.

Mahatma Gandhi, it is true, would respond to unfolding events in a manner similar to Obama. But he believed Satyagraha- i.e. non violent protest- was a spiritual exercise. It was good for you while you were doing it though of course it couldn't change anything. Thus nothing gained by Satyagraha could last. Unlike the sword, which retains what it gains by good mechanism design (i.e. raising taxes and providing public goods), Satyagraha's successes are always ephemeral.

Obama is saying, of course African Americans must keep getting killed. It is equally important that activists attract attention to this staunchless wound. But be cool about it dude. Don't go apeshit. You guys are a marginalized community. Attract a bit of attention from the powers that be and then go home quietly.

But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.

Obama was elected President twice. How come he was so useless?

Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.

But Presidents and Governors as well as the FBI and the Justice Department can do a lot to make sure those elected officials do their job properly. Jim Crow was administered by elected officials. Then the President started kicking ass and taking names. Why did Obama fail to do so?

It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people — which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.

Why was Obama not hammering this point home when he was in the White House? Why, now he has left it, is he making it in such a boring and spiritless fashion now?

So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change,

which Obama clearly didn't during his two terms in the top job

then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both.

What fucking protest or politics is Obama doing now?

We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

What happened to Obama's soi disant grass-roots 'Organising for Action'? The thing should have been bigger than the Tea Party. Where is it now? Wearing a onesie and drinking hot chocolate?

Finally, the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away.

Fuck off! I can make very specific demands indeed with respect to the type of fellatio I should receive on arrest for being drunk and disorderly. But if the thing isn't passed into law those demands don't make life harder for anybody.

The content of that reform agenda will be different for various communities. A big city may need one set of reforms; a rural community may need another.

So, even if African Americans can keep from getting shot where they get to elect officials, they will be only a short bus-ride away from a place where they will get shot.

Some agencies will require wholesale rehabilitation; others should make minor improvements. Every law enforcement agency should have clear policies, including an independent body that conducts investigations of alleged misconduct.

And another which caters to the needs of disabled cats struggling with issues of gender identity.

Tailoring reforms for each community will require local activists and organizations to do their research and educate fellow citizens in their community on what strategies work best.

But local activists and organizations don't know what strategy works best. The guys that do get paid big bucks. A professional politician- more particularly a President- can get those guys to do the slick marketing stuff. But no more 'Pajama Boy' for fuck's sake- even if it is true that all young white men are douches.

But as a starting point, here’s a report and toolkit developed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and based on the work of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that I formed when I was in the White House.

The document is utterly shit. It has images of crummy looking walls with graffiti sprayed over them. Clearly the aim is to make us think of 'ghetto' hoodlums without actually showing any black people. In other words, this 'marginalized community' should be allowed to 'attract attention' while being wholly invisible. They are adequately represented by really shitty graffiti.

And if you’re interested in taking concrete action, we’ve also created a dedicated site at the Obama Foundation to aggregate and direct you to useful resources and organizations who’ve been fighting the good fight at the local and national levels for years.

Wonderful! I am now able to 'commit to being anti-racist' on an online portal. That's going to make me bullet proof for sure.

I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting — that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.
Let’s get to work.

Obama worked for 3 years as a 'community organizer'. He parleyed this modest investment into an extraordinary political career. Extraordinary but vacuous. Why was this not obvious eight years ago?

The truth is, this battle was lost and lost for good when no-drama Obama, as President of the United States, showed he was fundamentally indifferent to the underlying issue. Like Mahatma Gandhi, he didn't really think there was a political and legal problem which politicians and lawyers could fix. There was merely an arena where the right kind of activism could distinguish itself from the wrong kind of activism before taking early retirement and retreating to sunny uplands of diminishing effort and increasing rewards which death could only prolong in company with the immortal gods.