Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union - Documentary Review and Commentary

New HBO Obama doc is race-obsessed establishment pablum meant to distract from the nefarious nature of American governance

The dull and derivative docuseries chooses hagiography over history and style over substance as it white-washes the sins of America’s only black president.

Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union is the new three-part HBO documentary that sets out to chronicle Barrack Obama’s rise from obscurity to the highest office in the land.

The roughly five-hour series, which features no new interview with Obama but rather relies on archival footage and a plethora of sycophantic talking heads, premiered on HBO on August 3rd, and on HBO Max on August 4th, the former president’s 60th birthday. What do you get the man who has everything for his birthday? If your director Peter W. Kunhardt you give the gift of a shamelessly reverential, hagiographic documentary.

Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union is one of those insipid, paint-by-numbers, deferential documentaries that is steadfastly committed to never challenging either its subject or its audience that results in a banal viewing experience painfully devoid of insights.

Designed to do nothing but placate Obama true believers with some ‘no-drama’ nostalgia, the series is resolute in its decision to never give voice to any serious oppositional perspectives. Yes, there are a few talking heads, like the brilliant Cornel West, who delicately air disagreements, but even those are couched in solemn genuflection to Saint Obama.

Not once is someone who actually opposed Obama on principle interviewed or allowed to speak for themselves. The series uses this echo chamber approach in order to appease its target audience of liberals who demand all contrarians and conflicting arguments be purged from their purview, banished forever for their heresy from the kingdom of those “on the right side of history”.

Instead, the filmmakers choose to read minds and project racial animus onto those who fought Obama.

Disagree with Obamacare? Racist! Oppose the stimulus package? Racist!

Ironically, the hyper-racial lens through which the series examines Obama’s meteoric rise and rule is less a monument to America as a racist nation than it is a testament to Obama’s failure and shocking political irrelevance just five years after leaving office, as well as to the intellectual vacuity and lack of imagination on the part of elite establishment liberals.

In this way the docu-series is the perfect revisionist modernization of the Obama myth in that it’s addiction to hyper-racism causes it to be utterly blind to any other topic.

For instance, there isn’t a single mention of Obama’s prodigious use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, but there is an extended focus on black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates being mistakenly arrested by Cambridge police.

There’s no mention of Obama’s immigration policy which resulted in massive deportations and routinely placing “kids in cages”, but there is a focus on Trump’s racist demagoguery and birtherism.

Obama’s complicity in the death and suffering in Yemen, Libya and Syria is verboten, but there is ample time spent on Obama’s love of basketball and his black-centric musical taste.

And of course, Obama’s extra-judicial assassination of American teenager Abdulrahman al-Awlaki is memory-holed but George Zimmerman’s killing of teenager Trayvon Martin is highlighted.

This hyper-racial perspective not only allows the filmmakers to ignore Obama’s egregious sins but to also roll out a cavalcade of kiss-ass clowns like Michael Eric Dyson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Charlamagne tha God, Keegan Michael Key and Jelani Cobb (an executive producer on the series) to spout vapid and impotent inanities about how white supremacy is the DNA of America. The fact that voters, the vast majority of which were not black, overwhelmingly elected a black man to the presidency, not once but twice, would seem to refute that claim.

With its maniacal focus on style over substance, Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union fits perfectly into the usual establishment approach toward all things political.

Style is how Obama got elected, as his cool, thoughtful demeanor and eloquence were in stark contrast to Bush’s cowboy buffoonery. In turn, Trump’s reality tv/wrestlemania shenanigans got him elected post no-drama Obama, and Biden’s creepy grandpa routine got him elected because he contrasted Trump’s erratic freneticism (speaking of which, Biden is shown in archival footage in the documentary but never speaks, no doubt because that would alert viewers to his steep decline since his halcyon VP days).

But regardless of which specific stylistic mask is worn and by which president, its objective is to cover the never-changing agenda of the American political establishment which is imperialism and militarism overseas and corporatism and fascism at home. No matter who or what party is in charge and no matter how they behave on the surface, that insidious reality will never be challenged or changed, and this is why Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union exists…to reinforce that duplicitous and distractionary style over substance paradigm.

Obama, the first black president, wasn’t elected to change the substance of American policy, he was elected to distract from it, and this docu-series gives ample ammunition to the gullible and mindless to continue to focus on race and identity politics instead of on the voracious malignancy of U.S. policy, most specifically the cancer of America’s rigged-casino capitalism and the insatiable beast of the military/intelligence industrial complex.

In conclusion, if you’re a “Hope and Change” sucker searching for a short-lived, rather vapid injection of Obama-era nostalgia, then Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union is definitely the documentary mini-series for you. But if you’re more interested in cold, hard truths and unflinching insights about Obama, his presidency and America, then this is a five-hour waste of time.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Toxic Femininity: 'Badass' US Women Demand Right to Torture, Maim and Kill for Empire...Just Like Men

Estimated reading Time: 3 minutes 56 seconds

Thanks to a new wave of feminism and its call for equality, it isn’t just toxic men who can kill, torture and surveil in the name of American militarism and empire, women can now do it too!

 This past weekend was the third annual Women’s March, which is a protest originally triggered by Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election that encourages women across America to rise up against misogyny and patriarchy.

 As sincere as these women are in their outrage, in their quest for power they are inadvertently reinforcing the immoral and unethical system that they claim to detest. This is most glaringly apparent when this new feminism boldly embraces the worst traits of the patriarchy in the form of militarism and empire.

 The rise of the #MeToo, Time’s Up and the anti-Trump Women’s Movement has brought forth a new wave of politically and culturally active neo-feminists. This modern women’s movement and its adherents demand that “boys not be boys”, and in fact claim that the statement “boys will be boys” is in and of itself an act of patriarchal privilege and male aggression. The irony is that these neo-feminists don’t want boys to be boys, but they do want girls to be like boys…at least the morally degenerate boys.

The inherent contradiction of that ideology was on full display recently when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) put out a guide to treating men and boys. In the guide’s summary the APA makes this extraordinary claim, “Traditional masculinity – marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression – is, on the whole, harmful.”

 These APA guidelines blatantly turn “traditional masculinity” and “toxic masculinity” into synonyms, and never once mention testosterone, revealing a staggering ignorance of male biology. The APA is in essence blaming the bull for his horns. Further diminishing their credibility, how can anyone look at the mess that is the current emotional state of our world and think we need less stoicism and not more?

 The hypocrisy of the APA guidelines are glaringly evident because everywhere you look nowadays girls and young women are constantly being urged to be more competitive, dominant and aggressive. I guess when women do it, it is empowering, but when men do it, it is dangerous.

 Women, and some men, often tell me that if women were in power, the world would be a better and safer place. But that old trope, which obviously animates the feminist movement of today, is foolishness. I mean have none of these people ever heard of that pernicious beast Margaret Thatcher? And does anyone think that Hillary Clinton’s proposed no-fly zone over Syria or her tough talk about Russia would have led to more peace and less war?

 Another example of the vacuity of this ideology is the group of Democratic women with military and intelligence backgrounds who won seats in Congress in 2018. These women, who have dubbed themselves “The Badasses”, how toxically masculine of them, are being touted as the “antidote to Trump”.

 No doubt these former military and intelligence “badasses” will be so much less toxic than their male counterparts when they demand the U.S. “get tough” by militarily intervening across the globe to further American interests. This sort of star-spangled belligerence is no less toxic in a pantsuit than a three-piece suit, and will only lead to more victims of America’s “competiveness, dominance and aggression” around the world.

 Other toxically masculine women in government are also being hailed as great signs of women’s empowerment. Gina Haspel is the first female director of the CIA and women now also hold the three top directorates in that agency. Ms. Haspel proved herself more than capable of being just as deplorable as any man when she was an active participant in the Bush era torture program. No doubt the pussy-hat wearing brigade would cheer her “competitiveness, dominance and aggression” when torturing prisoners…most especially the traditionally masculine ones.

 Hypocritical Hollywood has long been a haven for toxic masculinity, be it in the form of depraved predators like Harvey Weinstein or Woody Allen or counterfeit tough guys like John Wayne. Hollywood has also long been the propaganda wing of the American military machine. It is well established that for decades Hollywood and the Department of Defense have worked hand in hand in creating films that tout muscular American militarism and empire.

 Now Hollywood and the Department of Defense are using the social justice calling card of “diversity and inclusion” to take the next step in indoctrinating young people with the noxious ideology of American exceptionalism and aggression…but this time they are targeting girls and young woman.

 The latest product of the Hollywood and D.O.D. propaganda machine is the Disney/Marvel movie, Captain Marvel, which comes out this March. The film, which has a budget north of $150 million and stars one of the leading feminist voices in Hollywood, Academy Award winner Brie Larson, tells the story of Carol Danvers, a former Air Force pilot who “turns into one of the galaxy’s mightiest heroes.”

 With Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans set to potentially leave their roles as Iron Man and Captain America respectively, Disney is positioning itself to replace them as the face of the multi-billion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, who is described as a “badass superheroine”…one more flag-waving, baddass lady for the girls to look up to!

 The movie has been described as “the recruiting tool of the Air Force’s dreams”, and will no doubt be a huge boost to female recruitment, much like Tom Cruise and Top Gun boosted male military recruitment in the 1980’s.

 The Department of Defense has been partnered with Marvel since 2008’s Iron Man. The D.O.D. and Air Force demand that any film project with which they assist “portrays the Air Force and military in an accurate way and that it is in the service’s interest to partner on the project.”

 It is good to know that ultra-feminist Brie Larson is cashing in by partnering with the Air Force to make a movie that indoctrinates millions of American kids, specifically girls, with the dream of being able to bomb innocent brown people across the globe from miles up in the sky and look really “badass” while doing it.

 I’m sure Ms. Larson, a public and outspoken advocate for abuse victims here in America, has meticulously weighed the pros and cons of being a recruitment tool for the U.S. military, who in recent years have aided and abetted, or been directly responsible for, the murder of women and children in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

 The cacophony of feminist voices in the public square has effectively challenged some minds about some things, but not the right minds about the right things. The mendacious U.S. establishment and its virulent military industrial complex have co-opted this current feminist moment and are using it to further solidify their deadly stranglehold on the American consciousness and Brie Larson is now an accomplice to that crime.

 Is this what the new wave of feminism is all about, putting lipstick on the pig of American empire and militarism and calling it a victory for equality? If so, I’ll pass on that toxic femininity. I’ll stick with traditional masculinity, you know, the stoic kind, whose adherents, principled men like Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Daniel Ellsberg, Pat Tillman and Edward Snowden, among many others, all did the right thing in the face of enormous opposition, and who didn’t tout themselves as “badass”, didn’t start fights but finished them, didn’t torture, didn’t spy and didn’t bomb innocent women and children into oblivion.

 I strongly believe that men and women should be equal in their rights and opportunity, but I also believe that regardless of gender, no one has the right to kill, maim and torture for American empire.

This article was originally published on January 25, 2019 at RT.com.

©2019