Political analyst Patrick Martin weighs in on U.S. president’s Martin- Zimmerman performance
Editing by Carolyn Bennett
False Face True face
The Obama administration “in its domestic policies has
systematically defended the interests of the super-rich against the working
class and middle class population of ─
…all races and ethnic origins:
Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant—all sections of the working class have
borne the brunt of the economic crisis that followed the 2008 financial crash.
…Wall Street profits and CEO
bonuses have been fully restored (but) the jobs and living standards of working
people have never recovered.
“The Obama administration supplied trillions to the Wall
Street banks and tens of billions for the auto bosses but offers nothing at all
to the people of Detroit.
The same day that (the president
gave his Martin-Zimmerman performance ), the White House flatly rebuffed
suggestions that the federal government should come to the assistance of the U.S.
city of Detroit, forced into bankruptcy last week.
Barack “Obama does not speak for Trayvon Martin. He speaks
for a different social class, one whose interests are deeply antagonistic to
those of the Martin family and the broad mass of working people and youth of
all races and ethnic groups. Hundreds of thousands of working people in Detroit,
most of them African Americans, face extensive punitive cuts in public
services, jobs and living standards.”
As to violence, invasion as the principal currency of this
realm, Patrick Martin calls it like it is: This government “has repeatedly
asserted the ‘right’ to kill
its political antagonists overseas ─ including American citizens, using
drone-fired missiles. 
“It is engaged in systematic spying on the communications of
the population of the entire world.” Referencing Martin Luther King, Martin continues,
“The American government is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.”
Performing stage center
“There is a tremendous amount of cynicism, self-interest and
hypocrisy in the official reaction to the killing of Trayvon Martin, including
from groups like the National Action Network, the pro-Democratic Party
organization run by Sharpton that organized the demonstrations over the
weekend.”
The president’s latest performance surrounding the
Martin-Zimmerman case “lumped together privileged multimillionaires ─ such as
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Obama himself ─ with the masses of African American
workers and youth who have been the hardest hit by the crisis of American
capitalism and the policies of the Obama administration.…
“A whole layer of fake ‘progressives’ whose stock-in-trade
is identity politics ─ including well-off African American politicians, pundits
and professionals ─ is using the tragic killing of Martin to promote the
politics of race, upon which their salaries and sinecures depend.
The
aim is to advance the interests of more privileged layers of the upper-middle
class.
Under
conditions where millions of people begin to understand that there is something
deeply rotten and dysfunctional about the existing economic and political
system and begin to see more clearly the widening chasm separating the
financial aristocracy from the broad masses of the people ─ these forces (‘fake
progressives’) harp on (distract with) the issue of race in order to sow
divisions within the working class and to channel social opposition to return
or reinforce backing of the Democratic Party. 
Waiting in the wings
Patrick Martin addresses the rest of us who are not multimillionaires but are not fools either and are unwilling to tolerate the repeated insult of being taken for fools.
“The central task of the working class,” he says, “is to
free itself from the political influence of these pro-capitalist elements and
build an independent mass political movement that will unite working people of
all races and ethnic backgrounds in a common struggle against the profit
system.”
Sources and notes
“Obama, race and class” (Patrick Martin World Socialist Web
Site, wsws.org): “The statement Friday by President Obama during a carefully
staged “surprise” appearance in the White House briefing room was a calculated
effort to exploit for definite political ends the popular anger over last
week’s acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer. Seventeen year old Martin, an African
American, was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman
in February of last year,” July 22, 2013, Original text Copyright © 1998-2013
World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/22/pers-j22.html
Patrick Martin is a World Socialist Web Site contributor, leading
political analyst, writer and party member
_________________________________________________
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