D
Dr. Jai Maharaj
Guest
Holding Barack Obama Accountable
By Bruce Dixon
Black Agenda Report
February 14, 2008
The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has become a
media parade on its way to a coronation. Journalists and
leading Democrats have done shockingly little to pin Obama
down, to hold him specifically responsible for anything
beyond his slogans of "yes we can" and "change we can
believe in". Prominent Black Democrats, many ministers and
the traditional Black leadership class are doing less than
anybody to hold Obama accountable, peddling instead a
supposed racial obligation among African Americans to
support this second coming of Joshua and his campaign as
"the movement" itself. What would holding Barack Obama
accountable on war and peace, on social security, health
care and other issues look like, and is it possible to hold
a political "rock star" accountable at all?
Holding Barack Obama Accountable by BAR Managing Editor
Bruce Dixon
Whether it is truly possible to hold elected officials
accountable in a political system where big money, big
media, big corporations and the very rich call all the
shots is uncertain. But we have tried and will keep
trying. So will others. The stakes are too high not to.
How We Held Obama's Feet to the Fire in 2003
Although close friends and confidants had been talking up a
run for national office since the early 1990s, Barack Obama
in 2003 was still an Illinois state senator running in the
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. This reporter, a
longtime and former Chicago community and political
organizer, had worked with Obama in 1992's highly
successful Project VOTE Illinois registration drive. After
moving to Georgia in 2000, I managed to keep in touch with
events at home, and was well aware of Obama's run for the
US Senate.
While researching a story on the Democratic Leadership
Council for the internet magazine Black Commentator in
April and May of 2003, I ran across the DLC's '100 to
Watch' list for 2003, in which Barack Obama was prominently
featured as one of the DLC's favorite 'rising stars'. This
was ominous news because the DLC was and still is the right
wing's Trojan Horse inside the Democratic party.
The DLC exists to guarantee that wealthy individuals and
corporations who make large campaign donations have more
say in the Democratic party than do flesh and blood
Democratic voters. The DLC achieves this by closely
examining and questioning the records, the policy stands
and the persons of officeholders and candidates to ensure
that they are safe and worthy recipients of elite largesse.
The DLC also supplies them with right wing policy advisers
beholden to those same interests, and hooks up approved
candidates with the big money donors.
Then as now, the DLC favors bigger military budgets and
more imperial wars, wholesale privatization of government
functions including social security, and in so-called 'free
trade' agreements like NAFTA which are actually investor
rights agreements. Evidently, the giant insurance
companies, the airlines, oil companies, Wall Street,
military contractors and others had closely examined and
vetted Barack Obama and found him pleasing.
I revisited Obama's primary election campaign web site,
something I had not done for a month or two. To my dismay I
found the 2002 antiwar speech, the same one which Barack
Obama touts to this day as evidence of his antiwar backbone
and prescience, which had been prominently featured before,
had vanished from his web site, along with all other
evidence that Obama had ever taken a plain spoken stand
against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. With the
president riding high in the polls, and Illinois' Black and
antiwar vote safely in his pocket, Obama appeared to be
running away from his opposition to the war, and from the
Democratic party's base. Free, at last.
After calls to Obama's campaign office yielded no
satisfactory answers, we published an article in the June
5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator effectively calling
Barack Obama out. We drew attention to the disappearance of
any indication that U.S. Senate candidate Obama opposed the
Iraq war at all from his web site and public statements. We
noted with consternation that the Democratic Leadership
Council, the right wing Trojan Horse inside the Democratic
party, had apparently vetted and approved Obama, naming him
as one of its "100 to Watch" that season. This is what real
journalists are supposed to do --- fact check candidates,
investigate the facts, tell the truth to audiences and hold
the little clay feet of politicians and corporations to the
fire.
Facing the possible erosion of his base among progressive
Democrats in Illinois, Obama contacted us. We printed his
response in Black Commentator's June 19 issue and queried
the candidate on three "bright line" issues that clearly
distinguish between corporate-funded DLC Democrats and
authentic progressives. We concluded the dialog by printing
Obama's response on June 26, 2003. For the convenience of
our readers in 2007, all three of these articles can be
found here.
It was our June 2003 exchange with candidate Obama that
prompted him to restore the antiwar speech on his web site,
though not as prominently as before, the same antiwar
speech which is now touted as evidence of his early and
consistent opposition to the war. Our three 'bright line'
questions invited him to distinguish himself as an
authentic progressive on single payer national health care,
on the war in Iraq, and on NAFTA. And it was our public
exposure of the fact and implications of the DLC's embrace
of Obama's career which caused him to explicitly renounce
any formal ties with the Democratic Leadership Council. We
didn't do it because we were haters. We were doing our duty
as agitators.
Holding Barack Obama Accountable in 2008
That was then. This is now.
The 2008 Obama presidential run may be the most slickly
orchestrated marketing machine in memory. That's not a good
thing. Marketing is not even distantly related to democracy
or civic empowerment. Marketing is about creating
emotional, even irrational bonds between your product and
your target audience. From its Bloody Sunday 2007
proclamation that Obama was the second coming of Joshua to
its nationally televised kickoff at Abe Lincoln's tomb to
the tens of millions of dollars in breathless free media
coverage lavished on it by the establishment media, the
campaign's deft manipulation of hopeful themes and
emotionally potent symbols has led many to impute their own
cherished views to Obama, whether he endorses them or not.
To cite the most obvious example, the Obama campaign
cynically bills itself as 'the movement', the continuation
and fulfillment of Dr. King's legacy. But the speeches of
its candidate carefully limit the application of all his
troop withdrawal statements to 'combat troops' and 'combat
brigades', omitting the six figure number of armed
mercenary contractors in Iraq, along with 'training',
'counterinsurgency' and other kinds of troops. Obama also
presses for an expansion of the US Army and Marines by more
than 100,000 troops and a larger military budget even than
the Bush regime. The fact that both these stands fly in the
face of the legacy of Martin Luther King, and flatly
contradict the wishes of most Democratic voters is utterly
invisible in the establishment media, and in the discourse
of established Black leaders on the Obama campaign. The
average voter is ill-equipped to read Obama's statements on
these and other issues as closely as one might read a
predatory loan application or a jacked up insurance policy,
trying to determine exactly what is covered.
As we pointed out back in December
The Obama campaign is heavy on symbolism, and long on vague
catch phrases like "new leadership," "new ideas," "a
politics of hope," and "let's dream America again"
calculated to appeal to millions of disaffected Americans
without actually meaning much of anything. Corporate media
actively bill Obama as "the candidate of hope," and
anointed representative of the "Joshua generation." There
are good reasons campaign placards at Obama rallies say
"change we can believe in" instead of "stop the war ---
vote Obama" or "repeal NAFTA -Barack in '08." The first set
of messages are hopeful and vague. The second are popular
demands among the voters Obama needs against which his
past, present and future performance may be checked. When
the comparison is made, the results are dismaying to many
who want to support Barack Obama.
Who Will Speak Truth to Power? And When?
No less a luminary than Dr. Michael Eric Dyson last month
asserted that the time to pressure Obama to cut the
military budget would not come till after the election
when, as he said 'we have a seat at the table.' We think
this is transparently wrong. Obama responded to our calling
him out in 2003 because he was still in an election
campaign, and needed every vote he could get. The day after
the election, he could have ignored us with relative
safety, just as Cheney and Bush ignore their approval
ratings in the twenty and thirty percent range the last
three years and more.
But in 2003 Obama was a mere mortal. Now corporate media
have made him a rock star, Joshua, a prince on his way to a
coronation. Those who raise questions about Obama's
commitment to a progressive agenda will have to struggle to
be heard. That's just the way it is. They may even have to
be impolite at times. That's just the way it is too. Rock
stars, royalty and the uncritical adulation they require
make little room for polite criticism or democratic
discussion.
Third party runs for the presidency have sometimes
succeeded in exerting leftward pressure on Democratic
presidential candidates. The best example is 1948, when
Henry Wallace campaigned for president on the Progressive
Party ticket with Paul Robeson at his side defying Jim Crow
laws in dozens of states. It was this credible threat on
the part of the Progressive Party to peel Black voters away
from the Democratic party which led Truman to issue his
election year executive order de-segregating the armed
forces. This year, Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader have
both declared their intention to explore presidential
candidacies this year outside the Democratic party. Both
have exemplary records of public service. Neither is a
hater. Both are agitators in the best sense of that word.
If Barack Obama, or for that matter Hillary Clinton is to
be the Democratic presidential nominee, it's time they felt
the heat to line up with Democratic voters, rather than
with the DLC and the party's biggest donors.
Ironically, Hillary Clinton, also a corporate DLC candidate
to the core, may have been more responsive to some heat
from the party's grassroots on a few questions than Barack
Obama. Clinton has at least promised to repeal No Child
Left Behind, the legislation that has forced an unproven
and unworkable "teach to the test" regime upon public
schools nationwide, and carved tens of billions nationwide
from the budgets of schools to foster a privatized, for-
profit education industry. By contrast, Obama is still
mumbling about "adequately funding" this failed and
malevolent educational experiment. Similarly, in a
California debate which showed the tiny differences between
the Democratic front runners, it was Hillary Clinton who
broke the corporate taboo by at least mentioning single
payer, the workable universal health care system
implemented by every other advanced industrial country on
earth and favored by most American voters. Clinton didn't
do this because she loves us, or because she is innately
more progressive than Obama. She did it because she hard
pressed and because activists are less confused and less
likely to he silenced by the pernicious notion that her
campaign is "the movement" itself.
It's time for a little less respect for the high and mighty
of either party, and a little more action. It's high time
for activists inside and outside the Democratic party to
look for creative, innovative, sometimes impolite and
civilly disobedient ways to reach larger audiences as they
speak truth to the powerful. Even and especially when
those in power are nominal Democrats.
Below are links to the original pages in which we called
Barack Obama out for apparently running away from his early
opposition to the war, and his ties with the DLC
This is the June 5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator, with
the story "In Search of the Real Barack Obama"
http://www.blackcommentator.com/45/issue_45.html
This is the June 12, 2003 issue of Black Commentator
with the DLC story
http://www.blackcommentator.com/46/issue_46.html
On June 19, 2003 we printed Obama's response and his
reason for eliminating the speech from his web site. He
said the web site was for current stuff implied with
the "formal" end to hostilities in Iraq it was
"outdated" and removed by his staff to make room for
more current stuff. Yeah. Right.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/47/issue_47.html
And we wrapped it up by printing Obama's response to
our three follow-up questions, intended to delineate
the "bright line" between being an authentic
progressive and being something else. We wrung from
him an explicit renunciation of the DLC at this time.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/issue_48.html
More at:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=529&Itemid=34
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
By Bruce Dixon
Black Agenda Report
February 14, 2008
The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has become a
media parade on its way to a coronation. Journalists and
leading Democrats have done shockingly little to pin Obama
down, to hold him specifically responsible for anything
beyond his slogans of "yes we can" and "change we can
believe in". Prominent Black Democrats, many ministers and
the traditional Black leadership class are doing less than
anybody to hold Obama accountable, peddling instead a
supposed racial obligation among African Americans to
support this second coming of Joshua and his campaign as
"the movement" itself. What would holding Barack Obama
accountable on war and peace, on social security, health
care and other issues look like, and is it possible to hold
a political "rock star" accountable at all?
Holding Barack Obama Accountable by BAR Managing Editor
Bruce Dixon
Whether it is truly possible to hold elected officials
accountable in a political system where big money, big
media, big corporations and the very rich call all the
shots is uncertain. But we have tried and will keep
trying. So will others. The stakes are too high not to.
How We Held Obama's Feet to the Fire in 2003
Although close friends and confidants had been talking up a
run for national office since the early 1990s, Barack Obama
in 2003 was still an Illinois state senator running in the
Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. This reporter, a
longtime and former Chicago community and political
organizer, had worked with Obama in 1992's highly
successful Project VOTE Illinois registration drive. After
moving to Georgia in 2000, I managed to keep in touch with
events at home, and was well aware of Obama's run for the
US Senate.
While researching a story on the Democratic Leadership
Council for the internet magazine Black Commentator in
April and May of 2003, I ran across the DLC's '100 to
Watch' list for 2003, in which Barack Obama was prominently
featured as one of the DLC's favorite 'rising stars'. This
was ominous news because the DLC was and still is the right
wing's Trojan Horse inside the Democratic party.
The DLC exists to guarantee that wealthy individuals and
corporations who make large campaign donations have more
say in the Democratic party than do flesh and blood
Democratic voters. The DLC achieves this by closely
examining and questioning the records, the policy stands
and the persons of officeholders and candidates to ensure
that they are safe and worthy recipients of elite largesse.
The DLC also supplies them with right wing policy advisers
beholden to those same interests, and hooks up approved
candidates with the big money donors.
Then as now, the DLC favors bigger military budgets and
more imperial wars, wholesale privatization of government
functions including social security, and in so-called 'free
trade' agreements like NAFTA which are actually investor
rights agreements. Evidently, the giant insurance
companies, the airlines, oil companies, Wall Street,
military contractors and others had closely examined and
vetted Barack Obama and found him pleasing.
I revisited Obama's primary election campaign web site,
something I had not done for a month or two. To my dismay I
found the 2002 antiwar speech, the same one which Barack
Obama touts to this day as evidence of his antiwar backbone
and prescience, which had been prominently featured before,
had vanished from his web site, along with all other
evidence that Obama had ever taken a plain spoken stand
against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. With the
president riding high in the polls, and Illinois' Black and
antiwar vote safely in his pocket, Obama appeared to be
running away from his opposition to the war, and from the
Democratic party's base. Free, at last.
After calls to Obama's campaign office yielded no
satisfactory answers, we published an article in the June
5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator effectively calling
Barack Obama out. We drew attention to the disappearance of
any indication that U.S. Senate candidate Obama opposed the
Iraq war at all from his web site and public statements. We
noted with consternation that the Democratic Leadership
Council, the right wing Trojan Horse inside the Democratic
party, had apparently vetted and approved Obama, naming him
as one of its "100 to Watch" that season. This is what real
journalists are supposed to do --- fact check candidates,
investigate the facts, tell the truth to audiences and hold
the little clay feet of politicians and corporations to the
fire.
Facing the possible erosion of his base among progressive
Democrats in Illinois, Obama contacted us. We printed his
response in Black Commentator's June 19 issue and queried
the candidate on three "bright line" issues that clearly
distinguish between corporate-funded DLC Democrats and
authentic progressives. We concluded the dialog by printing
Obama's response on June 26, 2003. For the convenience of
our readers in 2007, all three of these articles can be
found here.
It was our June 2003 exchange with candidate Obama that
prompted him to restore the antiwar speech on his web site,
though not as prominently as before, the same antiwar
speech which is now touted as evidence of his early and
consistent opposition to the war. Our three 'bright line'
questions invited him to distinguish himself as an
authentic progressive on single payer national health care,
on the war in Iraq, and on NAFTA. And it was our public
exposure of the fact and implications of the DLC's embrace
of Obama's career which caused him to explicitly renounce
any formal ties with the Democratic Leadership Council. We
didn't do it because we were haters. We were doing our duty
as agitators.
Holding Barack Obama Accountable in 2008
That was then. This is now.
The 2008 Obama presidential run may be the most slickly
orchestrated marketing machine in memory. That's not a good
thing. Marketing is not even distantly related to democracy
or civic empowerment. Marketing is about creating
emotional, even irrational bonds between your product and
your target audience. From its Bloody Sunday 2007
proclamation that Obama was the second coming of Joshua to
its nationally televised kickoff at Abe Lincoln's tomb to
the tens of millions of dollars in breathless free media
coverage lavished on it by the establishment media, the
campaign's deft manipulation of hopeful themes and
emotionally potent symbols has led many to impute their own
cherished views to Obama, whether he endorses them or not.
To cite the most obvious example, the Obama campaign
cynically bills itself as 'the movement', the continuation
and fulfillment of Dr. King's legacy. But the speeches of
its candidate carefully limit the application of all his
troop withdrawal statements to 'combat troops' and 'combat
brigades', omitting the six figure number of armed
mercenary contractors in Iraq, along with 'training',
'counterinsurgency' and other kinds of troops. Obama also
presses for an expansion of the US Army and Marines by more
than 100,000 troops and a larger military budget even than
the Bush regime. The fact that both these stands fly in the
face of the legacy of Martin Luther King, and flatly
contradict the wishes of most Democratic voters is utterly
invisible in the establishment media, and in the discourse
of established Black leaders on the Obama campaign. The
average voter is ill-equipped to read Obama's statements on
these and other issues as closely as one might read a
predatory loan application or a jacked up insurance policy,
trying to determine exactly what is covered.
As we pointed out back in December
The Obama campaign is heavy on symbolism, and long on vague
catch phrases like "new leadership," "new ideas," "a
politics of hope," and "let's dream America again"
calculated to appeal to millions of disaffected Americans
without actually meaning much of anything. Corporate media
actively bill Obama as "the candidate of hope," and
anointed representative of the "Joshua generation." There
are good reasons campaign placards at Obama rallies say
"change we can believe in" instead of "stop the war ---
vote Obama" or "repeal NAFTA -Barack in '08." The first set
of messages are hopeful and vague. The second are popular
demands among the voters Obama needs against which his
past, present and future performance may be checked. When
the comparison is made, the results are dismaying to many
who want to support Barack Obama.
Who Will Speak Truth to Power? And When?
No less a luminary than Dr. Michael Eric Dyson last month
asserted that the time to pressure Obama to cut the
military budget would not come till after the election
when, as he said 'we have a seat at the table.' We think
this is transparently wrong. Obama responded to our calling
him out in 2003 because he was still in an election
campaign, and needed every vote he could get. The day after
the election, he could have ignored us with relative
safety, just as Cheney and Bush ignore their approval
ratings in the twenty and thirty percent range the last
three years and more.
But in 2003 Obama was a mere mortal. Now corporate media
have made him a rock star, Joshua, a prince on his way to a
coronation. Those who raise questions about Obama's
commitment to a progressive agenda will have to struggle to
be heard. That's just the way it is. They may even have to
be impolite at times. That's just the way it is too. Rock
stars, royalty and the uncritical adulation they require
make little room for polite criticism or democratic
discussion.
Third party runs for the presidency have sometimes
succeeded in exerting leftward pressure on Democratic
presidential candidates. The best example is 1948, when
Henry Wallace campaigned for president on the Progressive
Party ticket with Paul Robeson at his side defying Jim Crow
laws in dozens of states. It was this credible threat on
the part of the Progressive Party to peel Black voters away
from the Democratic party which led Truman to issue his
election year executive order de-segregating the armed
forces. This year, Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader have
both declared their intention to explore presidential
candidacies this year outside the Democratic party. Both
have exemplary records of public service. Neither is a
hater. Both are agitators in the best sense of that word.
If Barack Obama, or for that matter Hillary Clinton is to
be the Democratic presidential nominee, it's time they felt
the heat to line up with Democratic voters, rather than
with the DLC and the party's biggest donors.
Ironically, Hillary Clinton, also a corporate DLC candidate
to the core, may have been more responsive to some heat
from the party's grassroots on a few questions than Barack
Obama. Clinton has at least promised to repeal No Child
Left Behind, the legislation that has forced an unproven
and unworkable "teach to the test" regime upon public
schools nationwide, and carved tens of billions nationwide
from the budgets of schools to foster a privatized, for-
profit education industry. By contrast, Obama is still
mumbling about "adequately funding" this failed and
malevolent educational experiment. Similarly, in a
California debate which showed the tiny differences between
the Democratic front runners, it was Hillary Clinton who
broke the corporate taboo by at least mentioning single
payer, the workable universal health care system
implemented by every other advanced industrial country on
earth and favored by most American voters. Clinton didn't
do this because she loves us, or because she is innately
more progressive than Obama. She did it because she hard
pressed and because activists are less confused and less
likely to he silenced by the pernicious notion that her
campaign is "the movement" itself.
It's time for a little less respect for the high and mighty
of either party, and a little more action. It's high time
for activists inside and outside the Democratic party to
look for creative, innovative, sometimes impolite and
civilly disobedient ways to reach larger audiences as they
speak truth to the powerful. Even and especially when
those in power are nominal Democrats.
Below are links to the original pages in which we called
Barack Obama out for apparently running away from his early
opposition to the war, and his ties with the DLC
This is the June 5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator, with
the story "In Search of the Real Barack Obama"
http://www.blackcommentator.com/45/issue_45.html
This is the June 12, 2003 issue of Black Commentator
with the DLC story
http://www.blackcommentator.com/46/issue_46.html
On June 19, 2003 we printed Obama's response and his
reason for eliminating the speech from his web site. He
said the web site was for current stuff implied with
the "formal" end to hostilities in Iraq it was
"outdated" and removed by his staff to make room for
more current stuff. Yeah. Right.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/47/issue_47.html
And we wrapped it up by printing Obama's response to
our three follow-up questions, intended to delineate
the "bright line" between being an authentic
progressive and being something else. We wrung from
him an explicit renunciation of the DLC at this time.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/issue_48.html
More at:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=529&Itemid=34
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.