Waiting for the Man
This is your brain on Obama:
Smoking Obama increases apathy and reduces empathy, regardless of race, creed or color. Now blacks, as well as whites, don’t care in the least how many dark-skinned people America kills throughout the world. Before the Obama epidemic, the entire American working class had no class consciousness, but now it’s most historically progressive element (blacks) has no race consciousness either. (Blacks, like all factions of the Democrats, only have symbol consciousness -- tangible improvements are never required.) For American capitalism, that Obama is some good shit.
Using Obama makes some people prone to wild mood swings and abrupt changes in personality. In their brainwashed cult-like state, Obama users have turned on friends and colleagues who kept their principles regardless of which capitalist flunky commits the crimes. What were shameful atrocities ten minutes before Obama was inaugurated suddenly became badges of “toughness” after he swore to uphold/destroy the Constitution. (Take your pick -- that what he does.) Obama users need treatment but, unfortunately, funds have been fast and furiously diverted to buy guns for Mexican drug cartels.
Sometimes the initial Obama trip will ruin a life for years. After that first big hit of Obama on election night four years ago, liberals soon papered over their “Question Authority” bumper stickers with a smorgasbord of new ones: “War Is Oftentimes The Answer,” “Love Your Mother Drone,” “All Options Are On The Table,” “Visualize World Domination,” “Live Simply -- That’s All You Can Afford Now, Assholes,” “The Earth Does Not Belong To Us -- It Belongs To The US,” “Please Spy On Me And Strip Me And Check My Cavities And Make Me Safe,” and “Indefinite Detention And Execution Without Charge Or Trial: Fuck Yeah!”
Mainlining Obama emboldens liberals to express their racism in the socially-acceptable way of hating another “other,” the Muslims, whose women cover up their heads and sometimes aren’t allowed to drive, things that keep white liberal women awake at night. These liberals are righteously certain that head scarves and no learner’s permits are bigger problems for Muslims than racist American goons kicking down Muslim doors at midnight and taking away adult males to be tortured and jailed for years without charge or trial, or Muslim children living in constant terror of America’s flying killer robots that circle the skies above their schools and houses. Enjoy your freedom, ladies, as you drive from your nonpaying job at home to your three/fourths-paying job at work while being carpet-bombed by the messages of “your” society, freedom central, that says you’re either good for sex or good for nothing. But, damn, those head scarves could lead to sharia law -- and lawn jockeys replaced by camel jockeys in the coming Allahbama! The horror, the horror...
Snorting Obama causes Hollywood celebrities to stand on the corner of Sunset and Vine, waiting for the Man for four years. When the Man finally drove up and rolled down the window, he took $15 million in exchange for this: “Yo, homies, you are way too rich and important to be treated like a plague of locusts anymore. I personally don’t care who you’re fucking or how you want to consecrate it. Just be responsible and practice safe democracy: never be a protester who fucks over a cop, never be a whistle blower who fucks over my government, never be a peasant who fucks over our demockracy-dispensing soldiers and, most importantly, never ever interfere with a rich person getting richer. Ah, you like that last one! Thanks for the cash! Love the rainbows! Peace out! ...Step on it, I have to be at the pro-choice rally in 10 minutes to deliver my latest historic speech, ‘Combatting the Politics of Fear.’ I hope the brochures are ready about the mysterious new group that’s backing Romney, the ‘Mormon Tabernacle Baby Fuckers and Coat Hangers for Christ Choir.’”
Throwing back too many cold wet Obamas can make union members forget that the current administration never lifted a finger to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed even though unions gave millions of dollars to Obama’s previous and current campaigns. See, junkies aren’t always skinny shadows in an alleyway -- they can also be potbellied autoworkers taking a forty year spin, if they’re really lucky, in the walking dead wage slave treadmill.
Breathing in secondhand Obama makes right wing politicians absolutely crazy -- they’re getting nearly everything they want but they hate it coming from a black man -- so they become even more outrageous to justify their purpose and donations. What will they do in January when Obama starts shot-gunning them with Social Security and Medicare cuts! OMG, just close your eyes and enjoy it, Mitt and Newt, and all you other unelectable Republicans with ridiculous names. (What will be the names of Republican presidential candidates four years from now -- Spooge, Suds, Glitch, Glub, Santorum, or will the eventual nominee’s name simply be changed to He Hate Me?) You don’t get it -- you’re the joke now -- all of the capitalists’ most important business is transacted through the Democrats. You’re the jesters and clowns. No one trusts you with how to roll back working class gains in Central and South America and give them back to the landed oligarchs and Wall Street, no one trusts you to breath new life into the formerly moribund American nuclear power industry, and you’re a long way from getting your black belt in Judo-Christianity and being able to instantly subvert the Arab Spring, turning it into a divide and conquer bloodbath for the benefit of the United States of Israel -- they trust Obama and the Democrats for these “achievements.” Can you stand on your head, Mitt? Cool. What about walking on your hands? Or a cartwheel -- let’s see a cartwheel.
William Burrough’s explained Obama’s “Naked Lunch” presidency a long time ago: 1) “Never give anything away for nothing” -- like drawing down in Iraq while doubling up in Afghanistan and expanding war into Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. 2) “Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait)” -- like: after eight years of the Bush/Cheney rampaging evil, give back some verbal crumbs but nothing tangible. 3) “Always take back everything if you possibly can” -- like Social Security and Medicare, promised prosecution of CIA torturers and spying telecom companies, or offers of a public option in healthcare and closing Guantanamo.
So there you are, America: jonesin’, begging for a taste, standing on the corner on November 6, waiting for the Man.
published 11/2/2012 at counterpunch.org