Radical egalitarian Tim Wise (right) advises leftists on how to do away with European American hegemony in the age of Obama, with a reply* from one of our readers.
Throughoutthe first six months of his administration, President Obama–perhapsone of the most politically cautious leaders in contemporaryhistory–has been routinely portrayed as a radical by his opponents onthe far-right.
In particular, persons who have apparently neveractually studied Marxism (or if they did, managed to somehow findtherein support for such things as bailing out banks and elitecorporations) contend that Obama is indeed a socialist. Reducing allgovernment action other than war-making to part of a larger socialistconspiracy, the right contends that health care reform is socialist,capping greenhouse gas emissions is socialist, even providingincentives for driving fuel efficient cars is socialist.
That the rightinsists upon Obama’s radical-left credentials, even as they push anObama=Hitler meme (something they apparently think is fair, since,after all the Nazis were National Socialists, albeit the kind whoroutinely murdered the genuine article) only speaks to the specialbrand of crazy currently in vogue among the nation’s reactionary forces.As realsocialists laugh at these clumsily made broadsides, and as scholars ofactual socialist theory try and explain the absurdity of the analogiesbeing drawn by conservative commentators, a key point seems to havebeen missed, and it is this point that best explains what thered-baiting is actually about.
It is not, and please make note of it, about socialism. Or capitalism. Or economics at all, per se. After all, President Bush was among the most profligate government spenders in recent memory, yet few ever referred to him in terms as derisive as those being hurled at Obama. Even when President Clinton proposed health care reform, those who opposed his efforts, though vociferous in their critique, rarely trotted out the dreaded s-word as part of their arsenal. They prattled on about “big government,” yes, but not socialism as such. Likewise, when Ronald Reagan helped craft the huge FICA tax hike in 1983, in a bipartisan attempt to save Social Security, few stalwart conservatives thought to call America’s cowboy-in-chief a closet communist. And many of the loudest voices at the recent town hall meetings–so many of which have been commandeered by angry minions ginned up by talk radio–are elderly folk whose own health care is government-provided, and whose first homes were purchased several decades ago with FHA and VA loans, underwritten by the government, for that matter. Many of them no doubt reaped the benefits of the GI Bill, either directly or indirectly through their own parents.
*A reader responds:
“In your last paragraph, you give a recommendation to the left. To start “pushing back” and pointing out that “white hegemony” is dead and deserves its demise.
I hope they heed your advice, because you and your comrades’ sad and tired routine of screaming “racism” at whites every chance you get is undoubtedly starting to lose its effect. In the face of over-the-top double-standards with ethnic loyalties freely aired by minorities and minority racial preferences in institutions, whites are indeed beginning to establish a racial conscience again. They see your hypocrisy when you don’t point out the very obvious racism exhibited by minorities and it sticks in the craw of working white Americans.
Your advice won’t put out the awakening of racial consciousness. Indeed, it will only bring the racial question to the fore. Therefore, I truly hope you keep screaming “racism” at any criticism of Obama and I truly hope you and your kind keep belligerently attacking the history of this country’s founding race while celebrating its national and political loss of power.
You’ll be doing your twisted part to fire up the engine of identity in whites.
So as much as I detest your rhetoric which seems like it comes from some quaint past where thinking persons accepted your vitriolic anti-white ranting with little problem, I realize simply that, that bull**** isn’t going to work anymore and will only help white Americans to awaken.
Therefore, I thank you.”