Obama the bad guy
Guest lecture Mitchel Cohen
(June 4, 2009)
Mitchel Cohen comes from Brooklyn but lives in France, is an author and political activist (New York Green Party) and has been sent to prison because of lobbying for political prisoners. He identifies himself as an anarchical Communist.
According to his own quotations he “emphasizes that Obama has
- endorsed the genetic engineering of plants
- promoted development of new nuclear power plants
- bailed out billionaire bankers and brokers (but not the working class!)
- intensified the war in Afghanistan and treats against Pakistan
- relied primarily on market-based mechanisms to address global warming and pollution.” *
The title of this lecture was “Time for a change? Obama and the American left”. But in fact he did not really talk about this.
Mitchel Cohen talked about cancer, the failed American politics of the Bush Administration, the swine flu and a lot of other stuff before he actually comes to his principle point:
What is cancer? Where does it come from? (-> pesticides in agriculture / eating habits in society / animal’s excrements / pollution from chemical industry / failing waste separation / growing ozone whole / monoculture on the fields / widespread pesticide spraying allover the whole city).
Bush did everything wrong, he is the devil himself, blocked the Kyoto-Plan.
Swine flu is dangerous and it is everywhere.
And then he comes to the point. Mitchel Cohen sees Obama as the bad guy:
-> Political: Obama pushes genetically modified food forward, increased troops in Afghanistan, no arrangements against water-boarding, deteriorates global warming (is worse than Bush).
-> Personal: Obama wears the “white coat” of being the president. He is greenwashing: pretends to be but sells it out and bedazzles the American citizens and the whole political world. He turns around the people’s reliance on authority by using masks. He uses his office-position to get the check on the country. The American president is the most powerful man in the world.
Maybe – most likely – Barack Obama knows the fact that creating a friendly, successful, dressed-well, sophisticated and “the-guy-next-door”-image of himself opens several doors which would be still closed without that. But this must not be a bad thing. He can use this huge and easily agreement to actually make some changes.
Furthermore Cohen goes overboard to compare Obama to Bush in a way I guess a lot of people will disagree:
“Obama is just another Bush. Just another face. I cannot trust him. Bush was the evil himself – the whole world knows that now. But Obama isn’t better than that. […] We need to elect a different guy. Someone who really cares about what we need. Why don’t we do that? Resistance is not only possible, it’s necessary!”
But who should that be according to him? And what should he do?
This is very flimsy in his lecture.
He asks us:
Why did the government give the money (economic stimulus package) to the national banks? And not to the people?
Because if you let the banks die – you kill the whole economy!
And of course if you let the banks die – you let the citizens die as well (because you revoke their means of existence).
Yes, sure – it could have been better to prevent a crisis like that. But that was not Obama’s job at that time.
So, give everyone $200 and let the banks die
(= destroy their savings over $100.000 from the deposit guarantee fund)?
Or what?
Anarchy is no solution, I guess we all know that.
His theses quite annoyed several listeners.
Mitchel Cohen uses the famousness of new president Barrack Obama to distinguish himself. “Oh, come on, here I am! Look at me. I have nothing to talk about, so I talk about Obama. Oh, you already heard a lot of good stuff about him? Okay, let’s try it the other way round and make even some more money.”
He has no real criteria to argue. When he is asked concrete questions, he has no real answers. He accepts opposite views and listens to opposite statements. But he has no criteria against it. Confronting him with facts, the whole thing is over.
So, what about him?
Is he really doing against Obama’s politics? Or against Obama as a person? Where is his motivation? Gender/Race/his own profit…?
Obama may have some mistakes. He isn’t perfect. Of course nobody is. He is only a human being like all of us. Don’t forget that! And it is crystal-clear that he cannot achieve this wonder that everyone anticipated from him. The whole nation hopes for a new world, some kind of paradise where Obama is the only key. But this image is not what he created himself. He proclaimed a change. But he did not promise a miracle. That was what his fans conceived. But the point is that Obama is not the bad guy Cohen tries to turn him out to.
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Here are some reasonable quotes:
What is politics?
Concerning to the 60s everything is political:
“Whatever you do – or don’t do – is political.”
You cannot be apolitical, that is factual impossible.
- M.C. -
“Nobody’s accepting to suffer a little bit in order to gain the most.”
“We create our own authorities in our heads.
But in the consequence we try to fight these authorities.”
- M.C. -
“The margin between the ‘haves’ and the ‘not-haves’ is increasing. That is the root of our financial crisis. To solve this problem we need to create a vast powerful middle-class. But contrary to that the political attitudes converge more and more: a new party is created: the Republicrats.”
- M.C. -
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Asinde from his political views – concerning to our regards, it is very obvious that Mitchel Cohen definitely had the wrong audience.
References:*Flyer TU Dortmund, Institut für Amerikanistik
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Dear Kirsten,
ReplyDeleteMaybe you just haven’t listened well what Mitchel Cohen said, because in my opinion there are several mistakes in your entry:
First of all, it was not Bush who blocked the Kyoto Plan, but Vice-president Al Gore.
Moreover he did never say that the swineflu is dangerous and everywhere. He said completely the opposite. In his opinion it is not that bad as the media tent to say. For Cohen it is more about pharmacists, who want to try out and sell their medicine.
As far as I understood Cohen also does not live in France. He just went there for another guest lecture.
Furthermore you shouldn’t talk about other listener’s opinions. If you take a look to Julian’s, Martha’s or my blog, you’ll see that we weren’t annoyed. Sure, not everybody shared Cohen’s opinion, but to speak for me I found them at least interesting to think about. It was a discussion and sure Cohen didn’t have a solution. He told us what is on his mind and appreciated other opinions and was open-minded for other thoughts. Why weren’t you?
Mitchel Cohen is an activist for years and as you already mentioned went to prison for his believes. I can’t imagine he has nothing to say!
However, I also have to admit that I don’t understand your arguments. It is not him, who has “no criteria to argue” but you. So, what do you say about Cohen’s thesis that Obama has intensified war in Afghanistan? And he endorsed the genetic engineering of plants? Do you have any proof that this is wrong? Moreover, in one of your blogs you just wrote that Obama’s decision in Guantanamo were disappointing. Maybe as Svetlana said Obama is “the guy in the white shirt” who wants to change, but still it’s a fact that actually it is not an easy job to do in the American system and we have to wait till we know how many things will change.
Next time, please stay to the facts. Mentioning “Race/ Gender/ Profit” as one of Cohen’s motivation is really made up out of thin air. Sentences like “Oh, come on, here I am! Look at me. I have nothing to talk about, so I talk about Obama.” shows just that your entry is not good researched.
Sincerely,
Silke