Hopeless – Barack Obama and the politics of illusion

The election of Barack Obama sparked long-dormant tingles of optimism in even the most entrenched political cynics. But the promise of an Obama revolution fizzled out even before his inauguration, as the president-in-waiting stocked his cabinet with corporate hacks, cut secret deals with Wall Street titans and plotted a bloody escalation of the senseless war in Afghanistan. Here is a scathing indictment of the Obama presidency from the best writers on the American Left. Hopeless is a view of Obama’s policies from the trenches: the compromises, the backstabbing, the same old imperial ambitions. From Obama’s sell-outs to big oil and the nuclear industry to his continuation of savage Bush-era polícies in the CIA’s global network of secret prisons, this fast-paced chronicle will outrage the politically naive, delight the critical and inspire those looking for an alternative to the dismal politics of lesser evilism. As Emma Goldman famously quipped, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Let this book stand as a painful reminder to those who think anything less than social struggle will net tangible gain.

“Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank have skillfully smoked out the real Barack Obama… the technofascist military strategist disguised as a Nobel Peace Laureate, but owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Pentagon.” THOMAS H. NAYLOR, co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA.

“The writers assembled here hit hard, with accuracy, and do not pull punches.” MARCUS REDIKER, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History

Contributors include: Kevin Alexander Gray, Jeremy Scahill, Joe Bageant, Marjorie Cohn, Brian Tokar, Linn Washington, Jr., Ronnie Cummins, Kathy Kelly, Tarig Ali, Ralph Nader, and more.