My my, I just happened to read another article from the Guardian totally dissing Pilger.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/30/obama-white-house-barackobama

Seems like he kicked up a bit of a shitstorm. His article from the New Statesman is quite littered with political labels such as "zionist", and "neoliberal". In fact, re-reading this article, I noticed he's quite fond of using the apostrophy throughout. I think the last person I knew who profusely used these "space commas" was "John McCain".

But I digress from any judgement just yet because he makes claims such as:

"Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood-fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama voted to give Bush what he wanted."

I'm sure you'd be far more qualified for comment. In other parts though, the Guardian counter-article reads true; patronising and erroneous comparisons with Condi Rice and Colin Powell seem just reasons why the elite have "grown adept at using the black middle and management class."

Don't get me wrong. I am not one to jump into the bandwagon of blind faith. Obama will deserve no less scrutiny than we have had over the Bush Administration. But I agree a man is judged on his own merits and not some pseudo expectation we have of a stereotype. And is it quite a Mad Mel brand of sensationalism to conclude:

"These "ideals", which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children."

This guy's not even in Office yet, and he's already being tossed into a history sharing the responsibility of innocent deaths. Frustratingly, these "ideals" which gives cause for Pilger to lay accusation on Obama are sadly not elaborated on.

Go read the Guardian article first. Mad Mel is mentioned somewhere.
 

Hmm, I’ve read all those articles so consider me fully briefed. You don’t need my opinion, but here goes anyway. My initial reaction to the Hundal article was that the fella missed the broader point repeatedly because he wanted to zero in on what even I consider to be a careless remark by Pilger. Calling Obama an Uncle Tom doesn’t do Pilger any favours, and a few lines on why it was a dumb move would have sufficed on the part of Hundal. Though that is nothing a poster couldn’t have written in the comments section of Pilger’s article.

Instead Hundal expands this into a disjointed mini-thesis that cynically takes Nader out of context and outrageously bunches the pair, who have fought for liberties down the years much harder and for much longer than Obama has, with Ayman al Zawahiri. That wretched grouping by Hundal is the real Melanie Phillips moment.

Hundal makes it clear what a prat he is by claiming that Pilger wants Obama to adhere to his “radical agenda” otherwise he will be some kind of racial traitor or lackey. If one reads the Pilger article one will see that Pilger criticises Obama for:

- His reckless threats against Pakistan, which even John McCain found a bit much
- His support for the bailout
- Bringing people into his pre-administration team with foreign policy interests that contradict any hope of a balanced or human rights based foreign policy, like Biden, who lines up with the Clintons in their uncritical stance on Israel.
- Voting against measures in the Senate for binding timetables on a withdrawal from Iraq (though this criticism is only implicit – we all know Barack has been on the right side of the Iraq war, even if it is more because he believes it was a “mistake” than a murderous display of aggression)
- Neoliberal economic policies that have widened the gap between rich and poor immensely throughout the whole American continent.

None of this is “radical”, and Pilger makes the point that in a lot of his proposed policies Obama disagrees with the majority of the American public, making him little different from previous elites. I would be interested to know if Hundal considers Martin Luther King, who does get a positive mention from Pilger, a radical.

What I find a bit weird is that Hundal didn’t pick up on what you quite rightly did. “…it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class”. I don’t know what this means. It is ill-fitting with the rest of the article because Pilger certainly doesn’t even imply Obama, Powell and were manipulated by anyone. He does clearly think that they are cut from a different cloth than much of black America, which I think is true. But the word “using”? Maybe because like Bush, Clinton and the rest, Obama will be a plaything of the business elites and the military, whose makeup is overwhelmingly white. But in truth, only Pilger knows for sure what he meant. I could do with clarification.

Aside from the above and the weird Uncle Tom reference I have two criticisms of Pilger to make. One is that he has generally narrowed the American political spectrum too much, and therefore his writings imply that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, when there are at least some contrasts worth celebrating. That might not be what he thinks, but it sometimes comes out that way in his pieces. The second is the opening to his New Statesman piece. To me at least, this article obviously reads like a rebuke to those commentators who believe that the milestone of a black president will somehow bring great changes and merits a national pat on the back, and also that Obama represents some kind of outsider, to take on Washington, when in reality he is anything but. Had Pilger stated this at the start then Hundal’s silly sniping that Pilger keeps playing the race card would be (even more) irrelevant because it would be clear that this is an article about race. Personally I think it is clear.

To call the comparisons with Powell and Rice patronising or irrelevant is a bit odd. I have snored through repeated references to Rice’s against-the-odds story, while in 1995 there was salivating from various quarters about the prospects of a Powell presidency, which would have been amazing…because he was black. Pilger, again, doesn’t criticise them for failing to pursue a radical agenda, but because one has used her position as Secretary of State to compound Palestinian misery and the other to lie to the UN about WMDs and terror links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. I can’t feel totally comfortable saying that black people in power is a sign of how far the US has come if I don’t tack on the reservation that these particular individuals are a cynical, hard-headed bunch, and that they are due no more praise than cynical, hard-headed white people reaching office. The only difference I suppose might be that since black Americans are more likely to have experienced social deprivation and discrimination, one might expect a more balanced, humanitarian approach to foreign policy than what Rice and Powell offered.

Hundal’s moaning (and further desperate attempts to imply bigotry) about the “Zionist” reference is nothing we need worry about. Zionism, like communism or liberalism, is a (very broad, admittedly) political philosophy that anyone can choose to embrace or dismiss on its merits. Criticising someone for following it is not a generalisation or discrimination, especially since signing on to its belief system is a statement of intent and gives an indication of how someone might approach their job. Comparing it to being anti-Muslim, as Hundal does, is a bit of a stretch. Had Pilger criticised Obama for surrounding himself with “Jews” then we would have a better analogy and grounds for calling Pilger up on bigotry, since someone’s personal faith or identity need not prejudice how they do their job.

Hundal also moans about balance, though I doubt he means it. Calling for balance from a polemic is often just a tactic and a pretext to beat someone by what they have omitted. Maybe I want to criticise the US incursion into Syria, so should I “balance” it with mention of US overseas aid donations so that I have one good thing and one bad? Or “balance” it by pointing out that there are other naughty administrations out there? I think not, personally. While Obama promises much that is good, like shutting down Guantanamo and getting out of Iraq, I don’t know if a list of his good points needs a place in the article. It is obviously a response to the euphoria of the election victory, to which left-wing criticism was in relatively short supply. Is it necessary for a polemic to contain a list of counter arguments? In my sissier moments on the blog I often feel like adding disclaimers: “There are other bad governments apart from Bush, but…” or “Blair wasn’t the source of all the evil in the world, but…”. Then I remember that people are smart enough to figure this out for themselves. Anyway, Obama opposing Guantanamo and supporting action on climate change brings him level with Blair. Whoop-de-doo

I’m not sure why Pilger needs to list the “ideals” Obama is going to follow any more than he does at earlier points in the article, e.g. building up US military power, neoliberal economic policies, threats of aggression, are all mentioned. His reference to ideals is not a response to Obama or a way of transferring crimes he hasn’t committed to him. It’s a rebuke to The Observer, which was not alone in seeing the Bush Jr years as some kind of anomaly. Obama will “restore” (not “create”) trust in the USA, it says, despite the fact that every one of Bush’s successors since 1945 has either attacked a country, overthrown a government or sold arms in huge supply to abusive types. Most did all three. Pilger’s point is clearly that the end of the Bush era is no time for back-slapping because, while Obama is certainly light years better, he is still way off on many things when it comes to foreign policy, and inherits structures like the military-industrial complex that are not easily taken on. Maybe this is not his fault, but picking George Bush’s Defence Secretary again and a hawk like Clinton as Secretary of State certainly are. It already feels like a betrayal.

Obama isn’t in office yet but can be justifiably criticised for much that he has articulated beforehand. It’s the same process people went through when they decided who to vote for and isn’t the same as not-giving-him-a-chance. I don’t want time to tell on his Afghanistan surge idea, or his uninspired views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The pressure on him to change course needs to come now.