Obama: A legacy forged

President Barack Obama’s visits to Cuba and Argentina have virtually put the finishing touches on what will be his indelible stamp on American history. It is, finally and forever, a legacy that should make Obama and us who voted him into office proud twice. Very proud.

I will talk about the reasons for this conclusion in a minute. But first I want to admit that for a long time I had my doubts. I have been critical of Obama and I stand by those criticisms. My major disappointment is that he didn’t crush finance capital when the big bankers and money men of Wall Street were flat on their backs, bankrupt monetarily and morally, and he could have delivered a kill shot that would have broken their awesome economic power and their outsized political influence.

They deserved it–their wheeling and dealing, their greed, their outright dishonesty, their arrogance and blindness that extended to ignoring the economic law of gravity did more harm to the American economy and hurt more Americans than 9-11. Of course, the damage that the terrorists did on 9-11 went deeper. Lives were lost, families were destroyed. Nothing that the not-so-wiseguys on Wall Street did compares. But looking at the amplitude of the socio-political criminality of the banks and their many tentacles—the pain inflicted on Main Street where people lost their livelihoods, their homes, often their very sense of identity—the crimes of the “masters of the universe” had a broader reach.

Make no mistake. Lives were lost because of their misdeeds too. Suicide. People who lost first their jobs, then their health insurance, then their lives. Why should this elite emerge unscathed while we rained hellfire on Al-Qaeda and their hosts, the Taliban? But that was then (2008-2009) and this is now.

Gorbachev tore down the Berlin Wall without ever intending to, merely by the complex concatenation of processes that he set off without ever imagining how it would all end. By tearing down the Miami Wall, that invisible political force field, the core of which was Cuban exile diehards, that prevented myriad presidents from adopting a reasonable policy toward Cuba, Obama has pulverized a wall too. Unlike Gorbachev, he did it intentionally and deliberately. He also did it more skillfully than Gorbachev and just as courageously.

The crux of the new policy is an old and well-established principle of international relations, that of sovereign equality. Equally important is the related and simple recognition, unthinkable and unacceptable within the ideology of Manifest Destiny and the long standing expectation in the United States of American hegemony, especially in this continent. The key change: the recognition that Cubans will determine the future of their own country.

Obama broke the cast dyed in 1960 when President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order for an operation that would evolve to become the Bay of Pigs invasion. This wholly made-in-the-USA plot was justified, in black and white, not just to bring about a government more acceptable to the United States. Remarkably, the executive order also sets out the objective of bringing about a government more in line “with the interests of the Cuban people.”

Obama crossed the Rubicon when he rejected the notion that the interests of the Cuban people should or can be defined by the United States. That, in itself, is a legacy, one that resonates throughout Latin America.

But there is considerably more to it. And Obama’s presidency is not yet over. He may yet put a final exclamation point on it all.

Another reason why Obama’s legacy is a source of pride is that he is one of the few presidents in decades that has not lied to the American people. The sainted John F. Kennedy lied about the Bay of Pigs—even to Adlai Stevenson, his UN ambassador, who made a fool of himself before the General Assembly by denying U.S. involvement in the invasion. Shortly thereafter, the cover story was blown to smithereens by the media and Kennedy had to take “full responsibility” for the “perfect disaster.” A harbinger of Colin Powell assuring the UN about Iraq’s non-existing weapons of mass destruction.

Lyndon B. Johnson, a great president on the domestic side—his leadership on the War on Poverty and his support for civil rights for African Americans should always be honored—lied about the Vietnam War, from the justification of the war to its conduct and consequences.

That’s why LBJ is a tragic figure. He had the courage to stand up against the legacy of racism with which he grew up, but he was unable to transcend the Cold War blinders that afflicted U.S. presidents for decades. The cost was millions of Vietnamese lives, hundreds of thousands of U.S youths killed, grievously injured or psychologically traumatized for life. For what? Today the United States has cordial relations with the government of Vietnam, still ruled by the Communist Party.

Richard Nixon lied in so many ways there is no space to detail them. Only one word is necessary: Watergate.

Jimmy Carter was the most honest president of this epoch. But even he faltered when he backed away from his opening to Cuba, mostly because of Cuban involvement in Africa.

But few recall the context. Cuban troops went there mainly because the apartheid regime of South Africa wanted to create buffer states in Angola and what is now Namibia in order to deny safe haven to South Africans freedom fighters and continue apartheid forever.

In order to do that, the apartheid regime supported proxies who were so corrupt and ineffective that eventually the regime had to deploy its own troops. The South African military was formidable and would have succeeded. But Cuba sent its own forces and had a surprise for the apartheid army. Cuban troops, fighting on foreign soil, defeated the vaunted white South African armed forces. Meanwhile, the United States supported the same proxies as the apartheid regime and was the principal apologist for South Africa on the international stage. The myth of Boer invincibility was shattered, and eventually South African leaders saw the handwriting on the wall, freed Mandela, and the rest is history.

The primary credit for the crushing of apartheid belongs to Mandela’s leadership and the bravery of South African freedom fighters. But Cuba played an important role in that victory. That is why, as a U.S. diplomat told me, at Mandela’s inauguration, when African and world leaders went to the podium, their images projected on huge screens, the second largest ovation was for Fidel Castro.

Bill Clinton lied to us about Monica, but that was a personal peccadillo too trivial to concern anyone beside his family and the circle of latter day Puritans and Republican hypocrites in the United States.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, lied to us about weighty things—Iraq especially, and too many other things to detail. The cost has been huge.

Obama, in contrast, said during his campaign that he would reach out and even meet with foreign adversaries. He has fulfilled that promise. The Iran nuclear deal against the fierce opposition of the “Israel right or wrong” lobby was the most significant. Then there are all the pictures of Obama cordially meeting with Raul Castro, something unthinkable just a couple of years ago.

Add Obamacare to the mix, imperfect but a step forward, the protection of immigrants brought here as children, and many smaller things, such as renaming Mount McKinley Denali in recognition of Native Americans. It’s a terrific legacy.

I have to say that in the end, I have fallen in love with Barack Obama, at least to the extent a decidedly heterosexual man can fall in love with another decidedly heterosexual man. Obama, as people younger than myself might say is, among other things, way cool. The image of the centenarian he invited to the White House, who danced for joy and said she did it because she never thought she would live to see a black man in the White House and now “I am ready to die” is as poignant as it gets for an unsentimental hard-ass like me.

Finally, I should say that one of the things I love most about Barack Obama is the hatred he generates among all the dastardly, selfish, bigoted, small-minded people that still make up a large but diminishing slice of the American population. I overhear them all the time, at the cigar shop, wherever. I know that this is an ugly and perverse pleasure. But it is real.

Like Obama, I am not a pacifist, but I am against stupid wars. The war that the rear-guard of Cuban-American, old-school Anglos, and right-wing white supremacists launched against Obama from day one to this day is a futile and stupid war. For me, it is the final proof that, like another president much-hated by the same scum in his time, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Hussein Obama is one of the greatest presidents in the history of this nation.

[Photo at top: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza]