En Passant

The biggest terrorist sits in Washington and kills women and kids every day. Why isn’t Barack Obama on trial for his terrorism?

If the Obama administration and Congress really wanted to get to the heart of gun violence, they would have to take a serious look at the social policies the government is based upon. The answer to gun violence isn’t spending billions on police who devalue people’s lives. The real answer depends on a whole new set of social priorities that would make people’s lives worth living.

The election has returned to its “fundamentals,” where voters are weighing a choice between an indefensible status quo and an uncertain future. Whatever the outcome in November, we will need to be ready to face this fact: The austerity agenda will grind on – with a few palliatives (Obama) or on steroids (Romney) – until working people put a stop to it.

The massacre of Sikhs in Oak Creek is not “senseless.” It is a predictable consequence of a society where racism and bigotry has been allowed to fester, magnified by the officially sanctioned demonization of Arabs, Muslims and others of Persian and Asian descent. By virtue of their skin color, religion and clothing, people from these groups are perceived as a supposed “threat” to security, and they are scapegoated as part of the so-called “war on terror” carried out by both parties.

If James Holmes is a barbaric mass murderer for allegedly killing 12 innocent people (which he is if he is not insane and assuming he pulled the trigger) who will feel the full force of American justice (which he will), why isn’t the barbaric mass murderer Barack Obama going to receive the same treatment?

Reading this speech of Martin Luther King 44 years later, two things stand out. One is King’s radicalism. In the final years of his life, he took up questions of institutional racism, economic justice and imperialist war–all are central to this speech. The other is the fact that all these questions remain with us to this day. King’s statement that African Americans were disproportionately affected by unemployment and living through a “literal depression” could be said about the U.S. in 2012.

In the end, the escalating tensions and threats of war are certain to continue–no matter how obvious it becomes that the supposed “nuclear threat” from Iran isn’t a threat at all. That’s because U.S. imperialism is determined to dominate the Middle East in order to control the flow of the world’s most precious commodity, oil, from the Persian Gulf–and this inevitably means more conflicts with Iran. The West’s ratcheted-up rhetoric and escalating sanctions aren’t about making the region or the world safer from nuclear weapons. On the contrary, they will make war and suffering more likely, not less.

What reasons could self-proclaimed leftists have for supporting a man who has had incredibly racist articles, at the very least, printed in his name, if he was not the author himself? A man who has come out against abortion rights? A man who holds a completely unrestrained market at the center of his ideology?

Take a good look at Ron Paul, and you’ll see a candidate who is racist, sexist, anti-gay and anti-worker.

The denial of a visa for Malalai Joya was meant to prevent her views from being heard. Hers is a case of what the American Civil Liberties Union calls “ideological exclusion,” the prevention of perspectives that are critical of the U.S. government, from reaching audiences in the U.S. The reality–that crimes against humanity are part of the daily practices of U.S. imperialism–is exactly what the U.S. government is afraid of people learning domestically.