The More Effective Evil
by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action
In planning this issue of Change Links, we sought commentary on post-primary, pre-general election directions for the movement from progressive Democrats for Bernie, the Peace & Freedom Party, Freedom Socialist Party and anarchists, with little or no response. Instead we are running the information you see on our front page about proposed protests outside both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this month in Cleveland and Philadelphia respectively. The first weekend in August the Green Party and the Socialist Party USA are holding national gatherings in Houston TX and New Brunswick NJ. But I want to add my own two cents, speaking only for myself, not the whole Change Links crew. Eight years ago, I said that Obama represented neither Black people nor the voters who elected him, but the interests of the Empire he sought to lead. However, critique of Obama for his imperialism was pointless; his success represented the failure of our movements to offer a revolutionary alternative.
Bernie Sanders’ political revolution notwithstanding, the forces seeking the revolutionary transformation that this society requires have yet to gain a strategic offensive. As the articles about Eritrea and Ecuador make clear, US imperialism, led by Obama — the more effective evil, as Black Agenda Report described him — has been able, while continuing to pursue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (expanded to Syria), to simultaneously “pivot” to Asia and an aggressive encirclement of China and Russia, playing nuclear brinkmanship not seen since the days of Dulles, while embedding US military forces in Africa and subverting social-democratic governments and popular movements in Latin America. Sanders, Clinton and Trump say nothing about this, simply trying to outdo each other with appeals to bread-n-butter patriotism (or jingoism, in the case of Trump).
Only by confronting the empire in its entirety, inside and outside the current borders of the US, will we be able to build the principled, uncompromising unity and solidarity needed to defeat it, uproot it and replace it with a world of peace, justice, equality and ecological sustainability.
https://ara-la.tumblr.com/post/146242116655/the-more-effective-evil
