When the White House is quiet as protesters are butchered in the streets of Bangkok, suspicions are raised. Silence often equals complicity. One can only imagine what the US government鈥檚 response would be to a Venezuelan government slaughter: the US media and US President Barack Obama would loudly condemn such an act. The history of US-Thailand relations explains why. During the Vietnam War, the US used Thailand as one of the main 鈥渁nti-communist鈥 bulwarks in an area that included China, Vietnam and other countries that were challenging capitalism.
Barack Obama
Beyond Black & White
By Manning Marable
Verso Press, 2009, 319 pages
Review by Malik Miah
Manning Marable鈥檚 latest book is an update of a valuable critique of Black and US politics first issued in 1995. He revised it last year, adding new chapters covering the period from 1995 to 2008, including an analysis of the meaning of the election of the first African American president of the US, Barack Obama, in November 2008.
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