The Many Betrayals of Barack Obama: Part 1

What happened to change we could believe in?

With mid-term elections looming this fall, there are a flurry of articles assessing the results and prospects of Barack Obama’s first term as president. Not surprisingly, given how high were the expectations of an Obama presidency. Who can forget those massive election rallies? “Yes, we can”, he boomed and hundreds of thousands repeated the words. These were words that came from the Spanish “Si, se puede” of the immigrants’ rights movement that mobilized millions the year before the election. And as a black man running for and winning the presidency in a land built by African slaves, he seemed to represent America turning a corner.
Obama said that he was against the torture and imprisonment without end that was most starkly represented by Guantanamo Bay’s Camp X-ray. He would shut it down within a year, he said. He opposed the “Defense of Marriages Act” that was signed into law by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton in 1996, enshrining discrimination against gays and lesbians into law. He would end the war in Iraq (ahem, to divert resources to Afghanistan). He would finally bring public healthcare to the American people, 50 million of whom were without any insurance whatsoever, in an “industry” whose costs were ballooning every year because of the “market.” And, of course, he would turn around America’s economy, which was on the fast track to disasterville with the worst recession in the post-war era destroying jobs faster than a fire in a field of autumn corn.
At least that’s what he told us.

The First Betrayal
On election night, November 2008, not only did voters elect America’s first black president on a platform of change. California voters also voted on Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, which had previously been permitted and had led to a flurry of marriages, particularly in San Franciso. This immediately provoked a sense of outrage. And a sense of betrayal as it became clear that Obama would spare no effort to spare no effort to demonstrate his support for equality. In the lead-up to the vote in Maine, that was lost, Obama said not a single word in support of equal rights for gays and lesbians. And the Democrats didn’t use any of their electoral networks – there was a state election, along with the ballot on gay marriage – to promote equality. When Equality Across America was mobilizing a march of a quarter of a million people in Washington in support of gay rights, Obama advisors and Democrats not only did nothing to support the march, many of them derided it.
And now, the Obama Justice Department continues to aggressively defend the very Defense of Marriages Act about which Obama once stated: “Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does.” Even after a US District Court Judge ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional, it is expected that the Justice Department will appeal the ruling.

The Second Betrayal – Guantanamo

“As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”

So said Obama during the presidential election campaign. Yet, the prison at Gitmo is still up and running. And, as an article in the New York Times argued:

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantanamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013...
"...the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat....
[According to one senior official] “Guantánamo is a negative symbol, but it is much diminished because we are seen as trying to close it,” the official said. “Closing Guantánamo is good, but fighting to close Guantánamo is O.K. Admitting you failed would be the worst.”

The priorities of the Obama White House on this issue, in other words, are governed by cynicism and spin.

The Third Betrayal – Healthcare
Obama’s betrayal on winning a public healthcare system is really several betrayals rolled into one. For certain women’s right to have unhindered access to abortion has fared no better under Obama and he has, if anything given encouragement to the anti-choice by implementing an executive order excluding abortion services from the health reform. He did rescind Bush’s global gag order denying funding to international aid organizations that supported abortion services but he has done nothing to rescind Bush’s provider-conscience law in the US, which permits medical providers to discourage and deny women from access.
And the “reforms” as a whole are an unmitigated disaster for most Americans and a giant cash prize to the health insurance industry that has helped to make America’s healthcare system simultaneously the world’s most expensive and the world’s worst. This excellent article by Chris Hedges on countercurrents.org details some of the betrayals of Obama’s “reform” package:

The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill-written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists-means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Texas Marriage Ban: Proof Bigots Are Stupid

WHEN TEXAS LEGISLATORS PASSED a law against gay marriage, following its support in a referendum, it seems that their intellect was as low as their open-mindedness. The law certainly bans gay marriage alright. But these jokers wanted to make sure that no gay could have anything vaguely resembling a marriage. No sirree Bob. NUh-uh. Nope.
Well, they certainly found the one certain way of making sure that no gay marriage slips through some tiny loophole. They including in section B of the law a clause that reads:
"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
The person who pointed it out, Democratic lawyer and candidate for attorney-general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, notes that it is a "massive mistake". She wrote in an article on the Huffington Post:
"the courts are not permitted to go behind the clear language to consider intent. It doesn't take an expensive law degree to understand what this clause means."
But the right-wing dingaling attorney-general responsible for making his state look foolish (more than it already did for voting for a bigoted, retrograde law denying civil rights to a minority) is standing his ground. According to Jerry Strickland, the A-G's spokesperson:
"The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional."
The constitution is constitutional? Who gave this guy his degree? Somebody should tell him it's not the constitutionality that's a problem - it's the stupidity. And the bigotry.

DC Catholic Church Blackmails City To Stop Gay Rights

THE CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF DC IS THREATENING to withdraw social service programs that it runs if the city passes a same sex marriage bill that forces the church to obey city laws opposing discrimination against lesbians and gays.
According to the spokesperson for the archidiocese, "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."
We've heard this before, of course in the arguments about "religious freedom" that were raised here in Canada in the debate leading up to the victory of gay marriage. And, as in DC, religious organizations won't be required to allow same sex marriages on premises. However, they will have to provide same sex benefits to their employees. And they won't be allowed to discriminate in church run adoption services.
This blackmail by the church raises two questions that the gay and lesbian liberation movement is grappling with in the US. The first has to do with religious freedom. Frankly, the freedom to practice religion should not be the freedom to practice and promote discrimination and oppression. Churches receive tax free status and other public benefits, which makes this stance particularly galling. But even if they didn't - even if they were private for-profit businesses - they should not be permitted to discriminate. It wasn't acceptable when lunch counters would refuse to serve African-Americans and it isn't acceptable when a privately run wedding hall refuses to rent to a gay couple.
The second thing is that while winning gay rights in a geographically piecemeal way can help to give momentum, it can also divide and diffuse the movement, forcing lesbians, gays and their supporters to rush from place to place to try and hold up their basic rights. And it can allow the bigots to concentrate their resources. The result can be a series of Maine-like defeats that causes the struggle to lose momentum. What's more, the equal rights of lesbians and gays shouldn't be subject to a vote.
That means winning political victories at the national level - overturning the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law and the Bush-sponsored "Defense of Marriage Act". It means forcing the federal government to enforce the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which specifically prohibits states from enacting laws that remove the rights of US citizens, which are guaranteed under the Amendment. As this article notes, the support to win rights for gays and lesbians is there (90% oppose discrimination in the workplace), far more than it was for African-Americans in the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. What is needed is a movement to mobilize that sentiment and to extend it to full civil rights.

Dan Savage On Obama After Maine Vote

THIS VIDEO OF SEX COLUMNIST DAN SAVAGE commenting on Keith Olbermann is a very sharp rebuke to the Democrats automatic expectation to receive the votes of America's oppressed minorities, including gays and lesbians, even when they sell them down the river - as Obama and the Democrats have done. The recent mobilizations, including 250,000 in Washington, DC, hopefully are moving this significant constituency away from the Democrats.

I remember in 1995 in Ontario, in the dying days of the NDP government. When they were selling out same sex spousal benefits legislation there were mass demonstrations against the NDP - though moderates in the gay community and union bureaucrats tried to keep a lid on it because the NDP was "our party." It became clear how important those independent mobilizations were though because when the NDP were trounced by a very right wing Tory government a few months later, it was the gay community that mobilized the first demonstration against the Tories. That mobilization gave confidence to the left, which was totally demoralized in the wake of the right wing victory. Following the gay and lesbian mobilization there were anti-poverty and anti-Tory mobilizations from grassroots organizations like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and Embarass Harris (Mike Harris was the premier-elect). That fed into the labour movement and by the end of the year a series of city-wide, one day general strikes began. In other words, it was the courage and mobilization of one section of the oppressed that showed the way and led to a more general level of mobilization.

Let's hope that the gay rights movement in the States - the first movement to break from Obama - plays the same role of raising confidence and mobilization more broadly.

Right Wing Nutjobs Do Our Job For Us

EVER SINCE I'VE BEEN ON THE LEFT activists have always talked about "making the links" between different forms of oppression. The idea being that each form of oppression is not only connected to other forms but that it is by uniting the oppressed into a giant ass-kicking army of the vast majority that we'll throw out the greed-monkeys who run the world so badly. (No offense to regular monkeys)
However, sometimes demonstrating to people that their interests are inseparable from each other isn't easy. Luckily the right wing are such total douche bags that they can't resist trying to attack as many of the oppressed as possible all at once, which makes our job a little bit easier. So it is with the - get this - Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (I thought for a moment maybe they were a how-to advice line for anyone new to gay sex).  After the defeat of the same-sex marriage law in Maine, with the ample help of the Roman Catholic Church (God Bless their pederast hearts), apparently some gays and lesbians were, you know, pissed at having their equal rights stomped on. Well, the good people at AFTAH put out a press release that stated, in part:

"In the wake of the horrific act of Islamic domestic terrorism at Fort Hood Texas, it has been learned that militant homosexual activists recently made similar online postings to those of Nidal Malik Hasan, threatening additional acts of terrorism against Christians."

Oh, wait a minute, when did we establish that a guy who happened to be a religious Muslim who didn't want to go to war was a terrorist? Who said he was targeting Christians? Well, never let it be said that things like evidence, due process, logic or sanity were barriers to the Christian right.
In any case, we perhaps owe this particular group of scumbags a note of thanks for making it clear that the same people who hate gays and lesbians and oppose them having equal rights, also hate Muslims and oppose them having equal rights. That alone provides a good foundation for working together to defeat them.

Gay Marriage Setback In Maine Won't Stop Liberation

MAINE VOTED IN A REFERENDUM YESTERDAY to strike down a recently passed law recognizing gay marriages. The unofficial tally gave the bigots - and let's not pretend that opposing gay marriage is anything other than bigotry - 53 percent, while those supporting the law received 47 percent.
Now, I know nothing about how the campaign was run, other than that there was a lot of money behind both sides. I hope to find out more in the coming days. But as people no doubt mourn the loss I want to be one of those annoying cup-half-full people.
It was just over forty years ago that gay relationships were removed from the criminal statutes in Canada, when Pierre Trudeau famously declared that "there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." And it was forty years ago this past June when a typical cop raid on a gay bar - the Stonewall Inn - turned into three nights of rioting that kicked off the Gay Liberation movement in the US.
It hasn't been an easy struggle for gays and lesbians over the past generation and a half but there has been important and steady progress. Each step forward has been punctuated by bursts of activism that pushed gay rights into the spotlight, into the cultural mainstream and ultimately into legislation. In the 1980s there was ACT UP! and Queer Nation. In the 1990s, in Canada, there was the Campaign For Equal Families - briefly forced to mobilize angry gays and lesbians against the Ontario NDPs sell-out on same sex spousal benefits, before returning to safe, quiet lobbying and legal strategies. And, in October, we saw the very public rebirth of the gay liberation movement in DC, when 250,000 marched for gay rights.
In culture we've gone from the homicidal gays of Cruising with Al Pacino and Sharon Stone's sociopathic bi-sexual in Basic Instinct to the Oscar-winning blockbuster about star-crossed gay lovers, Brokeback Mountain. I can even remember the mid-80s show called Brothers that was refused by the networks because one of the brothers was gay and portrayed positively. It ended up on the cable network Showtime. Less than ten years after Brothers ended, there was Will and Grace with an openly gay man as the principal character on a network broadcaster. The NBC series lasted a full eight years, until 2006. Popular culture has come a long way and that's a reflection of the gains that have been won.
The idea of having a close vote on support for gay and lesbian marriage even ten years ago would have been anathema. Never mind that a vote in favour of "civil unions" - a halfway measure to be sure - would actually win in a US state, even liberal Washington state as happened last night. That these votes took place - and that a vote to include discrimination against gays and lesbians in the Kalamazoo anti-discrimination law - is a real testament to the struggles and perseverance of gays, lesbians and their supporters across North America. With same sex marriage now deeply entrenched in Canada and the momentum of a large and growing movement across the US, the defeat in Maine must be seen as a small setback on a generally forward march. Hopefully the movement in the US will use the anger generated by this defeat to broaden, deepen and extend the movement, to make it more militant and intransigent, to make it more unwilling to compromise with sell-out Democrats, to mobilize without fail until gays and lesbians win what is their birthright - total, unequivocal, equality in every sphere of life. In other words, until liberation.

200,000 March For Gay Rights In Washington

The article below, from Socialist Worker in the US, was written by one of the central organizers of the massive National Equality March that happened in Washington, DC last weekend. It's such an inspiring story that rather than summarize it, I thought it important to let Sherry Wolf speak for herself.

We've just begun to fight
Sherry Wolf, the author of Sexuality and Socialism and a leading organizer of the National Equality March last weekend, looks at what made the demonstration a success. (Photo by Hillary Hartley)

THE FIRST mass protest of the Obama era--the tea-bagging gatherings of bigots aside--was a colossal success.
In defiance of the corporate-run LGBT establishment, Gay Inc., and with no major organizations, media or financing behind it, the National Equality March nevertheless drew more than 200,000 people to Washington, D.C., to demand full equality in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
The march was a vindication of the idea that mass protest is possible, necessary and desirable if the left is to challenge both the right and the politics of don't-rock-the-boat gradualism gripping the Democratic Party and its liberal defenders.
As a member of the march's leadership and an author and public speaker who has been on tour for several months, I had a bird's-eye view of how this march was organized, warts and all. We were a rag-tag bunch--of veteran activists, but mostly developing young militants, who are more multiracial, anti-corporate and suspicious of the Democratic Party than previous generations of organizers.
Tanner Efinger, a Los Angeles bartender who labored for months without pay to build the march, introduced one of the march's initiators Cleve Jones at the rally, saying: "I am no one of note, I am not a seasoned speaker, I have no published pieces of work or even a college degree. I have no health insurance, I am in debt...We are, all of us, an unrepresented motley crew of underdogs." It was an eloquent description of the carpet of humanity laid out before the Capitol on that gorgeous fall day.
The mobilizing efforts for the march--which were derided by an anonymous Obama adviser as the work of fringe "bloggers" who need to take off their "pajamas"--included not only aggressive online promotion, but good old-fashioned street heat on campuses and in communities, where speak-outs, teach-ins, rallies and educational events drew anywhere from dozens to hundreds.
Twenty-seven-year-old Kip Williams from San Francisco's One Struggle, One Fight was the sole paid organizer for the march, earning minimum wage to work tirelessly, dashing across the country and getting groups and individuals onboard.
The march's student coordinator and socialist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor helped centralize a mammoth effort to organize students to hold days of action, phone bank and join the huge lead contingent of youth at the front of the march. Robin McGehee, a Fresno, Calif., mother who was kicked out from leading her local PTA after Prop 8's passage in November, volunteered countless hours to orchestrate march logistics.
And Chloe Noble, who is marching cross-country to raise awareness of homeless LGBT youth, organized workshops with Chelsea Salem the day before the march, as did transgender activists and LGBT families who brought together hundreds of kids and same-sex couples at a milk-and-cookies event to make protest signs and schmooze among other families like their own.
Though UNITE HERE organizer and Harvey Milk protégé Cleve Jones was attacked for his audacity to build a march in less than four months and for countering the incrementalist approach of the dominant LGBT groups--and red-baited for his collaboration with me--none of these attacks stuck.
Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank's oft-expressed contempt for the march--"The only thing they're going to be putting pressure on is the grass"--earned him the derision of student protesters, who chanted: "Barney Frank, fuck you!"

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Find out more about Equality Across America--including how to get involved and take part in the Week of Initiative scheduled for November 1-8--at the group's Web site. You can also text your e–mail address and zip code to 37686.

Watch videos of the march and rally at the National Equality March Web site.

Sherry Wolf's Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation is a compelling analysis of many of the challenging questions facing those concerned with winning full equality. If you're interested in inviting Sherry to speak to a campus, community or union group, contact her at sherrywolf2000@yahoo.com.