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26 de Mayo, 2008
The Murder Card
Categorized under Kai Chang | Tags: democrats, hillary clinton, primary
[Kai Chang is a guest blogger at The Unapologetic Mexican, and regularly blogs at www.zuky.net.]
No doubt, we are indeed witnessing a historic and groundbreaking US election: before this past week, I'd never seen a presidential candidate invoke the assassination of presidential candidates as part of a campaign strategy. Now I have. Neato. [ Graphic by ebogjonson.]
The torrential outrage and disgust that Hillary Clinton's remark has stirred is certainly justified. Reckless, tasteless, irresponsible, inflammatory, over the top, beyond the pale, crosses the line; all of the above. But I must admit that I personally can't muster any shock at the darkness which leaked out of this glimpse into Clinton's world. This is exactly how I've seen the Clintons for more than a decade. Most big-shot politicians are ruthless, amoral, and deceptive, but the Clintons stand out. During his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton decorated his resume by ordering the execution of a mentally ill Arkansas prisoner in order to appear "tough on crime". That inmate, Rickey Ray Rector, set aside a portion of his last meal because he wanted to "save it for later". Then they killed him and Bill hit the trail with an extra bounce in his step.
Later in the same campaign, Clinton appealed to white racism with his carefully calculated demonization of Sista Souljah, deploying The Fallacious Flip when he denounced her lyrics with the declaration, "If you took the words 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech." This is the same Bill Clinton who escalated the reactionary criminalization of black youth with mandatory minimums and "the end of big government", leading to the obscene explosion of the prison industrial complex. This is their game, this is what they do, this is who they are. Bill Clinton is a war criminal and Hillary Rodham wants to get in on the obliterating. Who are we really kidding when we pretend that these are nice people who would never harm another human being? Please. These are not nice people. Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when asked about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children under the administration's murderous sanctions regime, famously stated, "We think it's worth it." Not nice.
Obviously I'm not saying that Hillary Clinton is actually masterminding some sinister plot against Obama. After all, she's not stupid. But I'd venture to guess that she wouldn't mind so much if the racist cues buried in the subtextual messages she's broadcasting were to awaken some white supremacist sleeper cells. Regardless, it's clear that she's trying to forge a connection in the public imagination between Obama and danger. Fear of black men, fear of white racism, fear of national trauma; it doesn't really matter as long as there's fear in the mix.
Perhaps this is a tough pill for some good folks to swallow, this hardened recognition that people whom we have been indoctrinated to look up to and respect are not only capable of horrible deeds but entirely willing to commit or condone such deeds in order to advance their ambitions. But I think it's important for progressives to wrap their minds around this difficult reality. Effective activism requires continually renewed hope and inspired idealism, but it also requires grounding in hard-edged actualities in order to negotiate terrain and enable or coerce change. Yes, people do kill one another, on a regular basis, in order to resolve political disputes. It has happened in this country quite a lot, in the recent past, at both the lowest and the highest levels of societal power. Despite the juvenile tone and vacuous discourse which characterizes mainstream US politics, this is not a game; people are playing for keeps. Sometimes I refer to the US government as a "global gangster state", and I'm not exactly joking: I was a teenager when the Iran-Contra scandal erupted and I found out that the US government was smuggling cocaine and selling illegal arms in order to use the profits to fund terrorism. The few figureheads who were convicted of these crimes were immediately given presidential pardons and are respected statesmen today, and nothing has really changed. Stealing from the world's poor, ordering the murder of enemies, waging war against weaker parties who resist domination, devising ever-more-sophisticated hustles by which to funnel money and control to the hyper-wealthy; this is what's going on. Let's keep in mind that this is the operation which Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying to serve as chief PR/sales representative.
Now I'm not advocating some bleak Hobbesian view of human nature as irredeemably selfish, rapacious, and corrupt. In fact, I vehemently subscribe to Gandhi's view of human nature as rooted in love. As a practitioner of Buddhism, I believe that there's a drop of nirvana in every person. I believe that all people can change themselves for the better, no matter how spiritually confused they have become. But I also believe in looking at our violently adversarial world with unflinching honesty and clarity, informed by our higher natures but unclouded by our desires and aversions. Most people have good hearts, but in this dark age, many do not; or at least, their choices and actions do not express it. This doesn't make them less human. It simply means that we can't project a desired goodness onto them if we wish to see them clearly and interact with them wisely. It's crucial to look deeper than the feel-good propaganda which all politicians — and indeed many non-politicians — constantly pump out about themselves. Otherwise we will constantly find ourselves disoriented, disappointed, and disempowered when things heat up and we get caught off guard by sudden glimpses of where they're really coming from and who's really up to what.
[ Cross-posted at Zuky\ ]
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Comentarios (9)
nezua
dijo:
Fantastic post, 'mano. Right on the money. Thanks for bringing up the important history.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 08:24 AM
nezua
dijo:
and i agree that the core underlying strategy here (as always) is attaching fear and danger to blackness approaching power.
as far as the global gangster that is the US, absolutamente. i always have this in mind. and the candy shell, as you speak of, covering this rotten seed...the "game" that is our pollatix, well. thats why to me its like football. we gots us our cheerleaders and our razzle dazzle and our anthems and cheerings and colors and numbers and teams....but its not the real face of US politics or power.
that can be seen now in iraq, in the borderlands, in the ghettos, in the hospital waiting rooms, in the alleys, in the mansions and tax breaks of the rich, and all over the world.
but not on CNN. and not much in the media at all.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 09:19 AM
Kai Chang
dijo:
Thanks, Nez. Glad to stir the pot a bit here at UMX. ;-)
Palabras por Kai Chang
spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 09:25 AM
Kai Chang
dijo:
Nez, yeah I know what you mean about pollatix and football, with very real damage happening somewhere else in the world, away from the view of the cheering crowds with the painted faces and the "We're #1" big foam hands. I suspect the show is meant to be engulfing and consuming and sensational and ultimately draining so that we end up never addressing the fundamental realities and issues hidden by the pop labyrinth of false narratives and fragmented symbols.
In fact, few people realize that professional team sports themselves are actually an outgrowth of an effort by industrial capitalists to absorb the energies of their workers so that they would identify with their factory teams rather than organize unions and strikes against factory owners; which is why we still have industrial team names like "Steelers" and "Pistons". And it works. Just imagine if a quarter of the intellectual energy that people invest in sports, in endless esoteric analysis of strategy and arcane statistical indexes and management moves, were invested in analysing what's happening in the world and strategizing to secure a better deal for all. Now that would be world-changing.
Not that I'm against sports. But my favorite sport is boxing, and capitalists tend to discourage boxing because it teaches working-class people to be independent fighters who see through hustles rather than team-players who submit their identity to their corporate franchise. Someday I'm gonna write about the way that the golden age of boxing coincided with the progressive era and the rise of unions, and the subsequent marginalization of boxing by team sports coincides with the breaking of unions, the co-option and dilution of progressivism, and the rise of modern corporatism.
Okay, end of whacked out tangent. ;-)
Palabras por Kai Chang
spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 11:46 AM
Kevin Andre Elliott
dijo:
Oh wow! I'm absolutely floored by this post. I gotta take a step back and let this one seep in.
Palabras por Kevin Andre Elliott
spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 07:53 PM
jack r dijo:
but if all American Presidents are, by dint of their job descriptions, basically complicit in mass murder, why get so wound up over the primary season?
Palabras por jack r spat forth on el 26 de Mayo, 2008 at 09:49 PM
Kai Chang
dijo:
Jack R, you're right, there's no reason to get wound up if you believe that it doesn't matter one way or another.
Palabras por Kai Chang
spat forth on el 27 de Mayo, 2008 at 12:05 AM
nezua
dijo:
jack r., it may not matter one way or another. i'm guessing the heat rises because, as insinuated, some cling to the belief (and i'm one of them at times) that it might.
when i see two candidates itching to get their war on, and one who has been against the iraq war from day one, then i guess i start believing there could be a difference. call me a naive romantic fool. i don't mind.
further, one could take your comment further and say ALL OF US are complicit in mass murder. this is our nation, these are our wars. we reap the spoils, we are complicit.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 27 de Mayo, 2008 at 05:00 AM
sweetleaf dijo:
please do take jack r's comment further...all of us are complicit, (even if not in agreement to). is...is, somehow...more than just in the sense of. way over due is a tea party, or something. call me a naive romantic fool too.
Palabras por sweetleaf spat forth on el 27 de Mayo, 2008 at 11:16 PM