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Come from the Shadows: Joan Baez and Barack Obama in 2014
In the life of every human being, there is a moment when you hear a song, see a famous face, read about a historical event, and a memory comes forcefully into your consciousness.
The name Joan Baez has stirring memories for me. Ms. Baez is a singer/songwriter/musician/social activist who had more than a passing influence on me when I was young. I first came to know about Ms. Baez after the Bangladeshi war of Independence. She has a song about the Pakistani genocide during that battle that if you are faint-hearted, you should not listen to it.
“Song of Bangladesh” is a haunting, maudlin, angst-ridden melody about what the Pakistani army did in that war. It was genocide that was as horrible as any previous genocidal madness in history.
At the time I really loved that song. It was one of the first albums I bought for my wife when we went to study in Canada. It is titled, “Come From The Shadows.”
The front jacket has an elderly couple being escorted to the police van after being arrested in an anti-war demonstration.
The back flap has a phenomenally beautiful Baez with her German Shepherd. It was on the back cover I wrote, next to the face of Baez, “To my wife Janet, with love.” This is one of my prized possessions. Yes! That album by Joan Baez is one of my priceless collections.
It still baffles me why Joan Baez was never awarded the Nobel Prize for her fantastic legacy of anti-war politics. A few months ago while reading the Guardian (UK), I read an interview that newspaper did with her.
In it, Baez said that prior to Barack Obama, the only American activist she admired was Martin Luther King Jr. Then the great, the phenomenal Joan Baez said some sad words about Obama. And before I quote them, let me say I admire Baez intensely and take what she says to heart.
Here is Baez on Obama; “I wish that Obama had a different enough personality that he would have stayed on the streets. If he had done that then he would have been the closest thing we ever had to King. He had the attention and support of hundreds of millions of people and now there isn’t much of anything.”
Interestingly, Baez did a subtle thing. She didn’t want to look at Obama’s failure by highlighting the achievements of other superb leaders but just after mentioning Obama, this is what she said of the former president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel; “The thing that made him for me was that he was willing to take risks, risks, risks, risks.”
In an interview with the Huffington Post this is what she said of Obama; “In some ways I’m disappointed, but in some ways it was silly to expect more if he had taken his brilliance, his eloquence, his toughness and not run for office he could have led a movement. Once he got in the Oval Office he couldn’t do anything.”
Baez is one of the most politically respected white Americans by the African-American community and one of the most admired women of the 20th century, and for her to say that of Barack Obama, then, I believe something went deeply wrong with the Obama presidency. But equally famous people who admired and helped Obama are expressing disappointment. There is his Harvard law professor, the world famous Robert Unger, who said; “He has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States.” Unger went on to state that:
· “His policy is financial confidence and food stamps.”
· “He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyed interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices.”
· “He has delivered the politics of democracy to the rule of money.”
· “He has disguised his surrender with an empty appeal to tax justice.”
· “He has reduced justice to charity.”
· “He has subordinated the broadening of economic and educational opportunity to the important but secondary issue of access to health care in the mistaken belief that he would be spared a fight.”
· “He has evoked a politics of handholding, but no one changes the world without a struggle.”
The last line of Unger can be linked to what Baez said about risk-taking in President Havel. Big supporter and campaigner of Obama, the actor Matt Damon had some insulting words to say about Obama’s failure.
So is Obama a failure? If you talk to the intellectual crème de la crème of the African American society, they are bitterly disappointed. The question is, apart from health care, what has this guy done to cause him to retain the historic label he so deserved when he first won?
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