Elsewhere Today 492
Aljazeera:
Talks snub angers DR Congo rebels
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
13:48 Mecca time, 10:48 GMT
Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have condemned the government's refusal to negotiate, despite hundreds of thousands of people being forced from their homes by fighting.
Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general leading the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), had demanded direct talks with Kinshasa after government troops fled as his fighters advanced on the town of Goma.
Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, was placed under an overnight curfew on Tuesday with the CNDP maintaining the unilateral ceasefire it called last week.
But Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Goma, said: "We have been talking to General Laurent Nkunda and what he has been saying is they are angry with the government's rejection of their offer to negotiate.
"The rebels are saying this is an invitation for more conflict."
'Humanitarian disaster'
The government refused to give in to the demands for talks with Nkunda saying that dialogue must be between all the armed groups operating in the region.
"There are no small and large armed groups," Lambert Mende, government spokesman, said. "The act of creating a humanitarian disaster does not give special rights."
Nkunda says his fighting to protect the rights of ethnic Tutsis in eastern DR Congo.
The DR Congo prime minister was expected to visit Goma on Tuesday as part of a tour of the region aimed at "comforting the population", a government official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Adolphe Muzito, who took office on October 10, was also expected to visit Bukavu in South Kivu, Kisangani and Dugu.
About 850 UN peacekeepers stand between the CNDP and Goma after government troops fled in the face of the rebel offensive.
UN reinforcements
Alexis Tambwe Muamba, DR Congo's foreign minister, called on the UN Security Council to "redefine" the peacekeepers' mission to allow it to "lead more muscular operations" againt the rebels.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who toured Congo at the weekend and met regional leaders, also said the 17,000-strong force needed tougher rules of engagement and additional troops.
"There are entire brigades that are unable to engage in defensive, let alone offensive, action, because their rules of engagement are insufficient or they are very restrictive," he said.
An aid convoy is expected to take food supplies to some of the hundreds of thousands of people in rebel-held territory north of Goma.
"Around 250,000 people are now believed to have been displaced in the last two months, bringing the total number of internally displaced to around one million, 20 per cent of the entire North Kivu population," the UN children's agency said in a statement.
Tuesday's relief effort comes after a convoy arrived at Kibati camp, where at least 50,000 displaced people were thought to be hiding in the bush, the previous day.
The 12-vehicle convoy provided just soap and plastic jerry cans for holding water in an attempt to guard against a potential cholera outbreak, sparking anger among the refugees who were hoping for food.
"Everybody is hungry, everybody," said Jean Bizy, a 25-year-old teacher who added that he had been surviving on wild bananas for days.
UN officials admitted there were serious problems with hunger at Kibati camp, but said their priority was resupplying clinics looted by retreating government troops.
UN envoy
In New York, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, appointed Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, as his special envoy to defuse the crisis.
Ban also said he was prepared to travel to the region as early as this weekend for talks with Joseph Kabila, the DR Congo president, and Paul Kagame, his Rwandan counterpart.
"There can be no military solution to the crisis in eastern Congo. Our efforts must focus on political negotiation," he said.
"To that end I have held repeated conversations with Presidents Kabila and Kigame, directly and through my envoys. I'm also working closely with world leaders."
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/11/200811472083600.html
AllAfrica: Ban Appoints Envoy
As UN Aid Convoy Reaches Rebel-Held Town
UN News Service (New York) NEWS
3 November 2008
A United Nations aid convoy has reached one of the major rebel-held towns in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), providing urgent supplies to civilians trapped amid the fighting in the region, as United Nations officials led by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon continue efforts to broker a solution to the conflict.
Mr. Ban told reporters today that he has appointed Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president, to serve as his Special Envoy on the issue and to work with leaders in the region and the broader international community to end the crisis.
The Secretary-General also said he is willing to travel anywhere to meet DRC President Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, President of neighbouring Rwanda, later this week for talks aimed at defusing ethnic tensions in the eastern DRC, a region that has remained highly volatile since the official end of the Congolese civil war early this decade.
"Though they have not yet sat down face-to-face, Presidents Kagame and Kabila have begun a direct dialogue, along with their high-level technical teams," said Mr. Ban, who has spoken by telephone with both leaders and dozens of other senior officials in recent days.
"This is a promising development. I urge again all parties to stick to the current ceasefire and devote their best efforts to this nascent political process."
Deadly fighting in recent months across North Kivu province has forced an estimated 250,000 people to flee their homes, joining hundreds of thousands of other internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the clashes have even threatened Goma, the provincial capital and home to about 700,000 people.
The UN aid convoy that reached Rutshuru, a town in North Kivu, carried first aid and basic medicines for local health-care centres as well as equipment to re-establish clean water supplies, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
Blue helmets serving with the UN peacekeeping mission to the DRC (known as MONUC) escorted the convoy from Goma to Rutshuru.
Copyright © 2008 UN News Service. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200811031503.html
AlterNet:
Daring to Dream of a Black President
By The Independent
Posted on November 4, 2008
With Obama on the brink of victory, America's leading black voices share what it means to them.
Maya Angelou, novelist: 'If he wins, it means my country has agreed to grow up'
I never thought I'd see a black president in the White House in my lifetime. I didn't even dare dream it. I feel like a child approaching Christmas, you can't believe election day is finally here. It's been so long since we've had people - Asian and black, white and Spanish-speaking - come together and say YES. Some did during the civil rights struggle but not as many as today. What it means if Mr Obama is voted in, is that my country has agreed to grow up, and move beyond the childish idea that human beings are different.
I'm talking to friends in the UK, in Italy, in China who can't vote, who cannot press anything other than the point home, so I know the world is watching. We have lain so long in the undergrowth of ignorance. Can we really be saved from the rage of consumerism where we identify ourselves by our spending: 'I'm a shopper'. What kind of stupidness is that? Buying things we cannot afford and do not need.
I'm no prophet, I'm no seer, I'm a beseecher - so I have been out to thump the drum for Mr Obama. I started out in Senator Hillary Clinton's camp and I thumped the drum for her.
When it was proven that the majority of people wanted Senator Obama, she stepped out of the race and began to thump the drum for him, and so did I.
I think he has simply proven to everybody that he is very intelligent - and by that I'm referring to what used to be called common sense, which is terribly uncommon these days. You can see him thinking before he speaks, which should be a presidential prerequisite but rarely is. Most of the candidates all the way back, save for two or three, seem to just punch a button. There's a question and they punch number seven and out comes an answer, which had been stored up.
Senator Obama has proven that he knows how to be a president to all the people, not just the rich and mighty, not just to whites, not just to blacks, but all the people. I'm so excited, the excitement can hardly be contained. How will I be spending election night? On my knees. Maybe getting off them to have a very nice Scotch and then getting back down on my knees again.
Toni Morrison, novelist: 'Things are different now. A lot of white people are different'
This election is critical, vital to more than just people in the United States. It's going to make a big, big difference which way it goes. The worst thing is not Senator Obama losing, it's who wins. I am encouraged by the polls and by him but I have lived long enough to know that elections have been systematically stolen. Luckily, I think everybody knows that and is sending about 5,000 lawyers to the polls.
I don't believe in the Bradley Effect - there were a lot of reasons he lost. And this time is different. First of all the country is different. Secondly he's different. And thirdly a lot of white people are different. Several weeks ago I read about the Reverse Bradley Effect, where whites down in the south say they are voting Republican because of their neighbours!
I think the situation is dire, I cannot think of a large issue where things are going right, and Senator Obama will have an extremely difficult time. But there are two things that one should remember. The first is a cliché, but he himself has said it, 'It's not about me, it's about other people'. He cannot do it on his own, he needs the force of those who voted for him. The second thing - and one of the reasons I really respect him - is that he surrounds himself with really smart people, and not just smart people that say what he wants to hear. He likes the dialogue, the questioning, the one who tells him the truth as opposed to the one who strokes ego.
I think the promise with Senator Obama is that we return to an idea known as "the common good" and we have not had that in eight years. I mean, you can't get sick in America, you will be bankrupt. This administration has been very clear in its assumption that privatisation is best. There are jails where you have to pay room and board, you get into debt and when you get out you have to pay it back. And some people who do not have means to borrow go out and steal again. I know that the Democrats are more inclined to take the right position and not regard taxes on the extremely rich as some sort of insult to them.
What am I going to do on election night? I have three choices: I can go to some friends; I was invited to go on a TV show; but I think under the bed may yet prove the safest place to be.
Samuel L Jackson, Actor: 'There's been a warrior culture here. It's time that ended'
We have been through eight years of pretty much lunacy and madness. In America, we have tended to think that we are the greatest living things on the planet and our leadership has exemplified that. There's been a sort of warrior culture here, and it's time that ended. Obama is the president to take us to the next place. He's not part of the establishment, number one. He doesn't have that sense of entitlement that others have had. What he does have is a sense of empathy for people who are on the lower rung of society and he doesn't want to give the people with all the money all the breaks.
It's not just about what an Obama victory will mean to the African American community, it's for the nation in general. It means something for the little Asian kid, or the little Hispanic kid, for everybody of a different origin than Anglo-American. It actually means that the lie that they told us all these years - that you can grow up to be anything you want to be in America, even the president - might actually be true now. Until this election, it was just a fantasy - you had to be white to be president. The closest we got to it was when Jimmy Smits was elected president on the West Wing or Morgan Freeman being president on screen.
I grew up in the segregated South, and there's probably still two generations who grew up next to "Whites Only" signs. We were part of that time in America when we were second-class citizens, so no, I didn't expect to see this in my lifetime. It's really wonderful and revelatory in terms of how far we have come so fast. And hopefully it will signify a major change in how we are perceived in the world community. Obama represents what we hope America can be.
But I will not be comfortable until 5 November. I was in the UK for the 2000 election. When I went to bed in Liverpool that night, Bush had lost, when I woke up the next morning Bush had won. Until I go to Obama's inauguration in January, I won't really believe it. And I'm definitely going, I've made hotel reservations already.
Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader: 'I just wish Martin Luther King was here to share the joy'
It will be the sixth time I've voted for Barack Obama. When he ran for the State Senate I voted for him in the primary and the general; when he ran for the US Senate I voted for him in the primary and the general; and in his run for the presidency I voted for him in the primary and will be voting for him in the general. I will spend election day on the phone, encouraging people to go out and vote. I will not be letting up until the polls close.
Our struggle in America for civil rights started out with the right to vote and now Mr Obama is on the doorstep of the White House. We got the right to vote in 1965, that's 43 years ago, and we have kept evolving over those years. America is a country that continues to grow, it's maturing. This election says to Europe, Africa and Asia that democracy is real and that we must rise above limitations of race and gender to achieve our purpose.
The people of America are ready for a black president now. Senator Obama's race is self-evident, he didn't make an issue out of it. He's reached out to people across the divide and had universal appeal by focussing on the real issues.
There's a great sense of joy. I just wish Dr [Martin Luther] King were here to share it. He would be overjoyed. But he would also know that we have challenges beyond the election. He would be proud of where we are but he would remind us that we are not all the way there yet, until we wipe out poverty and illiteracy and end these unnecessary wars.
Jay-Z, rapper
Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. Obama's running so that we all can fly. I can't wait until 5 November and I'm going to say 'Hello, Brother President'. I can't tell you who to vote for. All I can do is tell you to vote."
Spike Lee, director
I say it's very simple, we have BB, "before Barack," and AB, "after Barack."
This coalition that he's got: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, whatever. It's come together and this has never been done before and I think this thing is preordained or whatever we want to call it. I'm not going to say it's God, but this is not a mistake, this is happening now. He's here when his country is at it's lowest in many many years.
Even though I live in Manhattan, I still vote out of Brooklyn, so 4 November I'm going to be the first in line in Brooklyn. Then I'm going to get a flight to Chicago and I'll be there all day.
Tiger Woods, Golfer
I've seen him speak. He's extremely articulate, very thoughtful, I'm just impressed at how well, basically all politicians really do, how well they think on their feet. Especially those debates. It's pretty phenomenal to see them get their point across. But I just think that he's really inspired a bunch of people in our country and we'll see what happens down the road.
Alonzo Mourning, basketball player
I need to be part of this because this is part of the history of our nation and I do have a voice in the community - I have a presence and it's beautiful to be able to use it on behalf of something I believe in. Some athletes worry something like this might affect their sponsorship deals, but I'm not afraid. Obama has given real leadership. I'm not ashamed to say I'm with him all the way.
Stevie Wonder, musician
He's a combination of JFK and Martin Luther King. With that, he can't lose. I see a time when we will have a united people of the United States. And that is why I support Barack Obama.
James Blake, tennis player
I am proud. I am very proud of Barack Obama. I believe in him and I believe that he will do good things for this country. I hope the country gives him that opportunity.
© 2008 The Independent All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/106044/
Arab News:
Bush presidency: Bitter legacy
Editorial
Tuesday 4 November 2008 (07 Dhul Qa`dah 1429)
THE obituaries for the wretched two-term presidency of George W. Bush will flow thickly in two months’ time when he finally quits the Oval Office in favor of the victor of today’s presidential election. But for now, as has been noted, the 43rd occupant of the White House is forgotten but not gone. The McCain Republican campaign has gone out of its way to dissociate itself from the incumbent, even to the extent that McCain himself intoned to a Republican rally, “I am not George Bush” and got cheers for his effort.
Nor was the McCain camp in the least bit happy when Vice President Dick Cheney, the leading architect of the disastrous Bush neocon agenda, announced his endorsement of their man. Wracked by economic ills, humiliated by a failed gun-slinging foreign policy and embarrassed by an inept, tongue-tied and unrepentant president, most Americans want to see an end to the Bush administration blundering. However they vote today, this is their chance to escape one of the most unedifying two-term incumbencies in their country’s history.
There are those who fear the interregnum between now and Jan. 20 when Bush loses power. Under the 20th Amendment of 1933, the transition period between administrations has been cut. This arose from what historians have described as one of the most dangerous periods in modern US history when the outgoing Republican President Herbert Hoover was due to hand over to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then as now the US economy was in deep trouble and then as now, the retiring president was insisting that America’s finances were fundamentally sound. Like Bush, Hoover was deeply lacking in charisma and both men are seen as among the worst US presidents. On foreign policy, however, Hoover, was no hawk and indeed under the Hoover Plan sought to reduce the world’s naval power by a third and impose an arms embargo on Latin America. There is not much more that Bush can do on the US economy. He has committed his successor and the US taxpayer to trillions of dollars of financial institution bailouts. On foreign policy, however, there is still room for further mischief. As this newspaper noted last week, even a dying scorpion can still sting.
Much relies on the presidential transitional teams that both of today’s hopefuls have already put in place. The incoming team is supposed to work with the outgoing administration to ensure a smooth handover of power. This normally includes consultation on any issues that are going to affect the new president. Given George W. Bush’s consistent failure to consult wiser heads than his own belligerent neocon coterie, there must be concerns that he will not fully honor this constitutional arrangement, most especially if his successor is Barack Obama. The temptation for one last throw of the foreign policy dice, perhaps over Iran, may be too great. While constitutional lawyers ought to be dusting off their law books, senior US commanders and career diplomats should perhaps also be steeling themselves to frustrate or even disobey an insane order from the White House. Until the Bush presidency is dead and buried we are all in danger from one last woeful misjudgment.
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=116056&d=4&m=11&y=2008
Asia Times:
A strike against 'Iranophobia'
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Nov 4, 2008
On the eve of the United States presidential elections, a landmark visit to Tehran by the head of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has been widely regarded in the Persian Gulf region as a major diplomatic overture toward Tehran by the US-backed oil sheikdoms.
Nearly one year after President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's landmark attendance at the GCC summit in Doha in December 2007, where he proposed a "new chapter of cooperation" between Iran and the GCC states - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - the latter have finally set aside their various misgivings and decided to take up Ahmadinejad's proposals on economic, political and security domains.
"We are proposing the conclusion of a security agreement," Ahmadinejad announced in Doha and this has now been echoed by the GCC's secretary general Abdurrahman bin Hammad al-Attiyah, who told the reporters in Tehran that "Ahmadinejad's proposals on security issues are also practical and some working committees are working on them".
A timely diplomatic boon for Iran, al-Attiyah's visit is also a good omen for the embattled Iran-backed regime in Iraq that, until now, has been shunned by the GCC trade bloc, a position that is no longer viable in light of the growing political stability of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, which has now put the accent on the departure of foreign forces from Iraq as a precondition for signing a US-Iraq security pact. Also, Maliki has announced that he will be sending the draft agreement on this pact to Iraq's neighbors for review, confirming this author's earlier prediction that this subject is not simply an internal Iraqi issue, but rather a regional one [1] .
In the aftermath of the US's ill-advised raid inside Iraq last month, causing a serious downturn in Syria-US relations, the Arab world, including the GCC oil states, are in a new assertive mood to stand up to the US's perceived arrogant and destabilizing moves, including with respect to Iran.
Thus, whereas previously the GCC had expressed concerns about the nature of Iran's nuclear program, as a result of Iran's nuclear transparency and twin diplomatic efforts, the GCC states are today fairly comfortable with Iran's nuclear program and are no longer sold to the Washington and Tel Aviv-led "Iranophobia".
"We support Iran's nuclear program, which is completely peaceful," al-Attiyah categorically stated, adding that he was "surprised" that the world had turned a blind eye to Israel's possession of weapons of mass destruction.
So much for the George W Bush administration's strategy of Middle East alliance politics by forging the region's "moderates" versus the "rogue" states led by Iran and Syria, or of wresting Syria away from Iran. None of that strategy has worked and, as a result, a brand new Middle East strategy by the next US president is called for.
Should that be Democratic Senator Barack Obama, then the old pro-Israel hands, like veteran diplomat Dennis Ross, who is advising Obama on the Middle East and has crafted an Iran policy that is bereft of any novelty, will not preclude a real change in the US's Middle East policy. Ross and almost all the other foreign policy advisors surrounding Obama are unanimously sold to the "grave threat" of a "nuclear-armed Iran" and, thus, it must come as a shocking surprise to them that Iran's Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf do not share this threat perception.
With respect to the future of Iran-GCC relations, much like the earlier Tehran visit of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in August, al-Attiyah focused primarily on expanding economic cooperation with Iran, as a precondition for broader cooperation. Already Iran's free trade with some GCC states, such as the United Arab Emirates, is thriving and the focus is now on taking this to the next level by laying the foundations for regional free trade.
Clearly, the GCC states are impressed by Iran's other regional efforts, such as with respect to cooperating with the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has inducted Iran as an observer, although last week Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Iran's First Vice President Parviz Davoodi that Russia embraced the idea of Iran's full membership, as well as with respect to the Economic Cooperation Organization. [2]
The demonstration effect of such regional stability efforts by Iran was bound to impact the GCC's behavior toward Iran sooner or later. Now, after much ebb and flow in that behavior, the GCC states have come to a firm new conclusion about the need to forge more organic relations with their assertive Iranian neighbor, with most, if not all, the GCC leaders perhaps guardedly concurring with Putin's statement that a "powerful Iran is beneficial to the region".
Internally, the noticeable improvement in Iran's relations with the GCC states cited above will be considered a timely plus for Ahmadinejad and his visions and programs for Iran's external relations, thus contributing to his likely bid for re-election next summer. Combining power and flexibility, Ahmadinejad's foreign policy may have been too controversial or even confrontational at times, but after the taboo of direct dialogue with the US was broken by him he has done much to fill the unfortunate vacuum of Third World leadership at a critical moment in global politics.
No wonder other assertive leaders of the developing nations have embraced Ahmadinejad, and that includes Brazil's populist leader Luda de Silva, who is due in Tehran shortly for a much-anticipated Iran-Brazil summit.
All the same, the economy remains the number one concern of Iran's voters, as is the case with US voters today and the big question is if Ahmadinejad will be able to telescope the diplomatic breakthrough with the GCC states into meaningful economic benefits, given the US's intention to tighten sanctions on Iran?
Fortunately for Iran, the legitimacy of sanctions on it have been much eroded due to Iran's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the important visit of the GCC's secretary general alone is indication of a failing sanctions regime.
Notes
1. See interview with Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Former Adviser to Iran's Nuclear Negotiating TeamCross-Border Attack on Syria Raises Iranian Eyebrows Council on Foreign Relations, October 30, 2008.
2. For more on ECO, see www.ecosecretariat.org.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction. For his Wikipedia entry, click here. His latest book, Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) is now available.
Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK04Ak03.html
Clarín: Obama- McCain:
una elección que pone fin a la era Bush
Según los sondeos, el demócrata lleva una clara ventaja frente al aspirante republicano. El vencedor, que asumirá en enero, deberá hacer frente a una severa crisis económica y a la deteriorada imagen del país en el mundo.
Por: Ana Baron
04.11.2008
Las elecciones que tendrán lugar hoy en Estados Unidos son históricas. Si se elige a Barack Hussein Obama, será la primera vez que ingresa a la Casa Blanca un presidente afronorteamericano. Después de años de esclavitud y de segregación racial será un paso determinante en la lucha por la igualdad y la integración racial en este país.
"Mi abuelo era esclavo. En aquella época mi familia vivía en Carolina del Sur. Trabajaban en los campos de algodón", dijo a Clarín William Donaldson, un afronorteamericano jubilado de 89 años con domicilio en el sur de Chicago en uno de los barrios de su minoría. "Si el viviera en este momento no lo podría creer. Para nosotros Obama es como Martin Luther King o Malcolm X. Es muy importante que gane".
Por el contrario, si los estadounidenses optan por el candidato a presidente republicano, el oficialista John McCain, Sarah Palin se transformará en la primera vicepresidente mujer de EE.UU., algo que también será revolucionario. Si bien la gran mayoría de las feministas estadounidenses hubiese preferido que Hillary Clinton fuese la primera en romper ese tipo de barreras, todos reconocen que una mujer en la vicepresidencia también representa un progreso cultural importante.
Las elecciones de hoy pondrán fin además a una de las peores presidencias de EE.UU. George Bush deja a su sucesor un país en guerra y al borde de una depresión económica parecida a la de los años 30.
Durante sus dos mandatos en la Casa Blanca, el antinorteamericanismo en el mundo aumentó vertiginosamene y la influencia de Washington en la escena internacional se desplomó.
La herencia de Bush es tan negativa que McCain evitó aparecer junto a él durante toda la campaña. Bush fue el gran ausente de este proceso electoral.
Los estadounidenses son conscientes de la dimensión histórica de estas elecciones. Nunca antes se habían visto filas tan largas durante las votaciones anticipadas que hubo en varios estados.
En Florida, uno de los estados claves para ganar estos comicios, votaron más de cuatro millones de personas por anticipado, lo que representa 53,8% de los electores registrados hace cuatro años. Los pronósticos aseguran que la participación electoral batirá todos los récords.
Obama ha inspirado de una forma "kennediana" a miles de jóvenes que salieron a militar por él y que votaran por primera vez.Pero es cierto que también habrá muchos militantes republicanos, representantes de la derecha conservadora que se acercarán a las urnas simplemente para evitar el triunfo de un afronorteamericano"que ha sido calificado por el propio Mc Cain de "socialista".
El proceso electoral ha sido, de hecho, fascinante. Muy pocas veces los estadounidenses han tenido que optar por candidatos que se han mantenido tan fieles a las bases de sus respectivos partidos.
"Las elecciones en EE.UU. generalmente se ganan desde el centro", dijo a Clarín Peter Harte, uno de los mejores especialistas en elecciones de Washington "pero este año fue una excepción".
En efecto, enfrentado con la derecha religiosa desde el 2000 cuando acusó a sus líderes de ser "agentes de la intolerancia", este año McCain buscó congraciarse con ella. En vez de moverse hacia el centro como lo hacen todos los candidatos que tiene asegurada la base republicana, Mc Cain se movió hacia la derecha y eligió como compañera de fórmula a Palin, una conservadora dura.
Por su parte, Obama tuvo un discurso progresista con lo que atrajo a una multitud de jóvenes.
Así los electores están frente una opción muy clara.
McCain es el veterano de la guerra de Vietnam, que cree en la doctrina de los ataques preventivos, en la libertad de los mercados y la propiedad privada. En su campaña defendió posiciones antiaborto, anticasamientos de los gay y respaldoóla venta libre de armas.
Obama es el organizador comunitario que cree en el multilateralismo y la diplomacia en la escena internacional y está a favor de un retorno al New Deal de Franklin D. Roosevelt.
El demócrata considera que la mujer tiene derecho a elegir respecto al aborto y que los Estados deberían legislar qué es lo más convenientes respecto al casamiento entre homosexuales.
Copyright 1996-2008 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2008/11/04/um/m-01795596.htm
Guardian:
Islamofascist slanders
Equating Muslims with Nazis is a hazard in the Middle East, and misfires as a smear on Obama
Anne Karpf
The Guardian,
Tuesday November 4 2008
We live in McCarthyist times, or so it sometimes seems. An Indiana election official, it emerged last week, has distributed a blog that called Barack Obama a "young, black Adolf Hitler", while elsewhere an email was sent to Jewish voters warning of a "second Holocaust" if the Democrat was elected. Meanwhile, campuses around America last week marked "Islamofascism Awareness Week" with events on jihad and Islamic totalitarianism.
"Islamofascism" slips easily from the mouth of war-on-terror ideologues but it has a deeper narrative, too, as it attempts to elide modern Islam with 1930s National Socialism, and equate Muslims and Nazis. Obama, by virtue of his Muslim father (whom he met once), earns a central place in this narrative, where (according to Colin Powell) calling someone a Muslim - accurately or not - constitutes a smear campaign. It follows, QED, that having studied the Qu'ran makes you the antichrist.
It is, perhaps, understandable that Israel invoked the spectre of a Holocaust in the Middle East in the aftermath of the liberation of the concentration camps; but Israeli historians have documented the ways in which, as the country became the dominant military power in the region, successive Israeli prime ministers deployed it as an ideological tool, even as the state demonstrated indifference to real Holocaust survivors in its midst. No one collapsed the differences between the Nazi genocide and the Middle East conflict more unashamedly than Menachem Begin who, at the height of his country's bombardment of Beirut, sent a telegram to Ronald Reagan declaring that he felt as though he was facing Berlin where Hitler and his henchmen were hiding in a bunker. To which the novelist Amos Oz responded tartly: "Mr Begin, Hitler died 37 years ago ... Again and again ... you reveal to the public eye a strange urge to resuscitate Hitler in order to kill him every day anew in the guise of terrorists."
But the biggest weapon wielded by those intent on confusing Arabs or Muslims with Nazis is the person of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In a new book, Icons of Evil, two American academics rehash the charges against the Mufti - that he received funding from the Nazis, met Hitler, sat out much of the war in Berlin, and helped establish a Muslim-Balkan unit in the Waffen-SS. In their inflation of the importance of the Mufti (an inflation deliberately encouraged in Israel by the 1961 Eichmann trial), what such accounts fail to provide is evidence that the Mufti gained any power over Nazi policy. Conversely, plenty of evidence shows he lost almost all his influence over Palestinian Arabs in the period.
More recently, consanguinity is claimed between the Mufti and Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein - all of whom are brought in to retrospectively implicate the Palestinians in the Holocaust, as if this might somehow prove that they're entitled to only a small portion of their own land. Since the Jewish genocide is used so shamelessly in legitimation of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, it's hardly surprising if many Arabs and Muslims respond either with Holocaust denial or by trying to appropriate the Holocaust themselves. In a mirror-image of Arabs-are-Nazis, Zionism-is-Nazism: they accuse Israel of acting like Nazis even while they represent Jews in the crude and offensive stereotypes used by Nazi propaganda.
One consequence of using the Holocaust in this way is that it naturalises antisemitism, turning it into an endemic, unchangeable part of human nature. By refusing to see the differences between different kinds of antisemitism that might look similar but have different historical causes, antisemitism becomes paradoxically harder to challenge. It also encourages Jews to see themselves as permanent victims and live in perpetual fear: we can never escape Auschwitz. And it polemicises the Holocaust, devaluing the real event and traducing the memory of the millions who perished in it - genocide as metaphor.
Invoking the Holocaust won't help solve the Middle East crisis, nor assuage the genuine anxiety felt by Jews who survived it. Nor, however it may chagrin some Republicans, has it succeeded in magicking away Barack Obama.
• This article is based on ideas in an essay in A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity; the volume developed from commentaries at guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/independentjewishvoices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/04/israelandthepalestinians-middleeast1
Internazionale:
Quando diventano re
La cultura non è considerata una visione del mondo o il risultato della interazione tra esseri umani
Binyavanga Wainaina
Internazionale 768, 30 ottobre 2008
Qualche mese fa, nella libreria di una cittadina ugandese vicino al confine con il Ruanda, ho comprato un manuale di storia. E mentre viaggiavo verso il Ruanda, l'ho sfogliato.
Era un libro che conoscevo, lo avevo usato a scuola. L'autore sosteneva che i tutsi erano un popolo speciale e misterioso. Erano molto alti ed eleganti e un tempo si riteneva che discendessero dagli antichi Fenici, diceva en passant. Poi quella teoria era stata smentita.
Erano uomini superiori scesi dal nord con le loro mucche dalle lunghe corna. Avevano portato con sé una sorta di vaga formula culturale per creare un regno, che applicavano ovunque arrivassero.
Quando andavo a scuola, mi hanno insegnato che prima del colonialismo vivevamo nel guscio delle nostre culture. Come tartarughe. Quelle culture avevano caratteristiche precise: erano nomadi e basate sulla coltivazione delle banane. Prima delle tribù c'erano i cacciatori-raccoglitori, che poi erano improvvisamente scomparsi. Le tribù erano arrivate dalla valle del Nilo e dal bacino del Congo.
Parlavano lingue che erano imparentate tra loro. Dopo una serie di migrazioni e di guerre, si erano sistemate comodamente sulla carta geografica in attesa del colonialismo, dell'indipendenza e delle idee visionarie dei loro nuovi leader.
A un certo punto, però – forse a pagina 13 – il mondo è cambiato, e nel nostro universo sono apparsi misteriosamente nuovi concetti e nuove idee. Mercantilismo, comunismo, islam. Alcune di queste idee, come colonialismo e imperialismo, erano sbagliate. Altre, come istruzione, igiene (!) e nazionalismo, erano giuste.
Nella mia testa vedo le immagini di questi popoli che scendono dalla valle del Nilo. Ogni membro delle tribù è circondato da una grossa bolla chiamata cultura, al cui interno gli anziani corrono intorno a una pista chiamata rituale. E quando sono stanchi passano il testimone alla nuova generazione.
Quel testimone contiene un software chiamato Saggezza, che viene tramandato di padre in figlio. Nessuno sa chi lo ha inventato. La saggezza non è mai la creazione di un uomo, è una cosa tetra e misteriosa. Funziona e basta.
Quando gli uomini di una nuova generazione la indossano, cambiano improvvisamente e diventano leader tradizionali. La volontà e l'intelligenza umana non svolgono un ruolo molto importante in tutti questi passaggi.
Così diventiamo botanici della cultura: sempre a caccia di caratteristiche tipiche da scoprire e riprodurre per poter indossare i nostri costumi tradizionali alle Olimpiadi di Pechino e incoraggiare il turismo culturale, oppure per organizzare sommosse dopo le elezioni.
Il turismo culturale è una specie di ecoturismo: persone, piante e animali sono inseriti nel loro habitat naturale. Anche questo è uno spettacolo. Una volta che abbiamo imparato chi siamo davvero, è facile dire cose come: "Questa non è la vera Africa". "Questo non è africano" o "Secondo la cultura africana…".
Possiamo passare da una conversazione in cui si scambiano idee a una in cui le idee rimbalzano sulla cultura, che consideriamo una cosa senza cervello. Non è mai una visione del mondo o l'interazione nel tempo e nello spazio tra esseri umani che pensano e respirano.
Diventiamo musei di noi stessi. Ci affrettiamo a mettere in mostra la nostra cultura. In mancanza di una vera comprensione di sé in grado di superare la prova dei tempi, parliamo dei nostri vicini come se fossero manufatti culturali, il cui destino è deciso da stereotipi irragionevoli e inamovibili.
Poi scoppia un conflitto e ci precipitiamo a sensibilizzare la gente sull'identità dell'altro. Per questo serve un seminario, una presentazione Powerpoint e qualcuno che sappia recitare bene. A volte uno xenofobo arriva a incontrare una delle sue vittime, e allora si spargono lacrime e si cerca il perdono. In Ruanda a scuola non si insegna la storia.
Abbiamo ceduto questo spazio civile agli educatori peggiori del continente. I leader politici nazionali e locali che ci dicono – dagli elicotteri e dagli altoparlanti, alla radio e alla tv – chi sono le persone che vivono dall'altra parte del fiume e perché sono portatrici di idee e pensieri abietti.
Dopo le elezioni, importano nuove automobili da Dubai, convegni sulla verità e la riconciliazione dal Sudafrica e, dal Kenya, mezzi d'informazione che invitano alla stretta di mano e alla condivisione del potere dopo le violenze post-elettorali.
Ci fidiamo di loro perché nei nostri libri di scuola, sui nostri giornali e in tutti i mezzi d'informazione viene dedicato più spazio alle loro idee e alla loro vita che a qualsiasi altra cosa. Perciò nella fantasia di tutti quelli che lo amano e lo odiano il presidente Robert Mugabe diventa grande quanto lo Zimbabwe.
Nella nostra immaginazione di africani, il presidente ugandese Museveni è immenso quanto la valle del Nilo. Quello ruandese Kagame può nascondere il genocidio del Ruanda. Il premier ed ex capo dell'opposizione keniana Odinga e il presidente Kibaki hanno riportato la pace in Kenya. E così ne facciamo dei re.
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Jeune Afrique:
La rébellion accuse Kinshasa de "lancer la guerre"
RD CONGO - 3 novembre 2008 - par AFP
La rébellion en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) a accusé le gouvernement de "lancer la guerre" en refusant des négociations directes avec son chef Laurent Nkunda, tandis que les appels se multiplient pour un renforcement des opérations de la mission de l'ONU.
Sur le terrain, la première aide d'urgence depuis le 27 octobre est arrivée à Rutshuru, ville de l'Est de la RDC en zone rebelle, alors qu'au total les combats de la semaine dernière ont provoqué dans la région le déplacement de près de 100.000 personnes, dont 60% d'enfants, selon le Fonds des Nations unies pour l'enfance (Unicef).
Les humanitaires à la tête de ce convoi ont découvert des camps de déplacés, récemment peuplés de milliers de personnes, vides et rasés. Les ONG ont aussi rapporté plusieurs cas de choléra dans le territoire de Rutshuru, à 75 km au nord de Goma, capitale provinciale du Nord-Kivu.
Dans ce contexte humanitaire difficile, la rébellion a accusé le gouvernement "de lancer la guerre contre son peuple", en refusant de négocier directement avec le Congrès national pour la défense du peuple de la rébellion (CNDP) du général tutsi congolais Nkunda.
"En rejetant l'offre de dialogue direct avec le CNDP, comme recommandé par le Parlement, le gouvernement vient de confirmer sa position militariste", a estimé Bertrand Bisimwa, porte-parole de la rébellion. Le Parlement avait demandé jeudi au gouvernement de dialoguer.
Les hommes de Nkunda sont positionnés à une quinzaine de km de Goma, depuis mercredi dernier, date à laquelle ils ont décrété unilatéralement un cessez-le-feu, respecté.
Lundi, le secrétaire général adjoint de l'ONU chargé des opérations de maintien de la paix, Alain Le Roy, a prévenu que les Casques bleus avaient mandat "d'interdire à des forces armées d'entrer" dans cette ville.
Il a aussi indiqué travailler "sur un renforcement" des quelque 5.500 soldats de l'ONU actuellement déployés dans le Nord-Kivu.
Le chef de la diplomatie française, Bernard Kouchner, dont le pays assure la présidence de l'UE, a pour sa part estimé que la Mission de l'ONU en RDC (Monuc) devait avoir "des soldats différents, des règles d'engagement et une volonté de commandement différents".
Dans le même sens, le ministre des Affaires étrangères congolais, Alexis Tambwe Muamba, a appelé le Conseil de sécurité à "redéfinir" le mandat de la Monuc pour lui permettre de "mener des opérations plus musclées" contre la rébellion.
Le secrétaire général de l'ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a nommé lundi l'ex-président nigérian Olusegun Obansajo émissaire spécial pour tenter de résoudre la crise.
Et la Monuc, qui compte 17.000 hommes, a retrouvé à sa tête le général sénégalais Babacar Gaye, qui avait déjà commandé la force onusienne de 2005 à 2008.
A Bruxelles, le chef de l'état-major de l'UE a souligné qu'une éventuelle opération militaire européenne en RDC serait difficile à monter et que peu de pays étaient volontaires - les Français et les Belges avaient proposé l'envoi d'une force militaire européenne à vocation humanitaire en appui à la Monuc.
Plus d'un million de personnes sont déplacées au Nord-Kivu.
Dès dimanche, Laurent Nkunda avait menacé de chasser le gouvernement s'il refusait d'entamer des négociations directes. Kinshasa a rejeté cette demande lundi, affirmant vouloir dialoguer avec tous les groupes armés opérant dans les Kivu et pas seulement avec le CNDP.
"Il n'y a pas de petits et de grands groupes armés. Le fait de créer un désastre humanitaire ne donne pas de droits spéciaux", a réagi le porte-parole du gouvernement, Lambert Mende.
Le CNDP avait signé en janvier à Goma, avec d'autres groupes congolais opérant dans l'est de la RDC, frontalière du Rwanda et très riche en minerais, un accord de cessez-le-feu, mais les combats ont repris fin août entre les hommes de Laurent Nkunda et l'armée.
La communauté internationale, qui a dépêché plusieurs émissaires dans la région, insiste sur la nécessité d'appliquer l'accord de janvier, ainsi qu'un autre conclu en 2007 entre Kigali et Kinshasa.
L'Union africaine (UA) prépare un sommet régional sur la crise qui pourrait se tenir cette semaine au Kenya. L'UA a aussi nommé un émissaire pour la région des Grands Lacs, l'ex-ministre sénégalais des Affaires étrangères, Ibrahima Fall, qui devrait se rendre à Kinshasa ce mercredi, avant de visiter le Rwanda.
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/
article_depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP84358larbeerreug0
Mail & Guardian:
Moment of truth for United States
Nov 04 2008 07:17
Election officials are braced for the biggest turnout in United States history on Tuesday as voters finally deliver their verdict on Barack Obama and John McCain to bring to an end a gripping, two-year campaign.
Although officials expressed confidence that polling booths would cope, campaigners and analysts expressed fears that the strain could see long queues and stations having to extend opening hours into the night. The effect would be a delay in declaring results in key states.
With all the main polls putting Obama well ahead, political analysts from right and left said they expected him to easily reach the 270 of 538 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, and many predicted a landslide, with him taking 350 or more electoral seats.
The Washington-based Pew organisation, one of the most respected pollsters that accurately predicted the vote in 2004, on Monday put Obama on 52% and McCain on 46%. RealClearPolitics, a website that averages out the main polls, put Obama on 51% to McCain's 44%. If the polls are borne out on Tuesday, Obama would become the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win 50% or more of the popular vote.
The excitement generated by Obama's candidacy is expected to see between 130-million and 140-million Americans vote, easily eclipsing the 121-million who turned out in 2004.
Obama and McCain both began multi-state tours on Monday in Florida, before heading towards their home states on Tuesday. There was a poignant start to Obama's tour when he learned of the death of his 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, while he was campaigning in Florida. She helped raise him and in a campaign advertisement this year he described her as having "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland".
Obama decided to continue with his appearances and later told a rally in Jacksonville, Florida: "After decades of broken politics in Washington, eight years of failed policies from George Bush and 21 months of a campaign that has taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are one day away from change in America."
Obama was unable to avoid providing occasional glimpses throughout the day that he expected to become the 44th president. In a courteous gesture he might not have made if the race was closer, Obama said he wanted to "congratulate McCain on the great race that he has fought".
Exuding confidence, he told a rally on Sunday night: "The last couple of days, I've been just feeling good."
'Out of bounds'
As polling day arrives, he has become more reflective, telling CBS on Monday that he had found the toughest part of the two-year campaign was the right-wing attack on his wife, Michelle. He described this as "just completely out of bounds".
McCain, at a rally in Tampa, Florida, insisted he could still pull off a surprise win. "The pundits may not know it and the Democrats may not know it, but the Mac is back. We're going to win this election."
The Democrats, as well as political analysts, were less sanguine than election officials about trouble-free voting, saying that with 300 000 precincts across the country, there would be problems.
Democratic officials complain that in some states Republican election officers are not opening enough booths in areas that are predominantly African-American in the hope that some voters, put off by queues, will go home without voting.
Professor Michael McDonald, an election expert at Virginia's George Mason University, said: "I would not be surprised if we had long lines, potentially keeping polling places open longer on election day." He anticipated problems in states that had not allowed early voting in significant numbers, such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
The Democrats are outspending the Republicans on final-day advertising by at least two to one. They are also likely to have more staff and volunteers out, with 770 offices nationwide to McCain's 370.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-11-04-americas-moment-of-truth
Mother Jones:
The Great Persuader
Obama needs to make the transition from inspiration to leadership
Kevin Drum
November 03, 2008
Liberals have been feeling pretty energized about this year's election. And why not? While Barack Obama might not be the "most liberal member of the Senate," as National Journal claimed in January (10th or 12th is more like it), he's still a fairly reliable progressive on this year's key issues of health care, foreign policy, and climate change. His energy plan, in fact, is the best we've seen from a prominent national politician in—well, forever, and even his reluctant acceptance of increased offshore drilling if it's part of a "comprehensive" package demonstrates a welcome desire to actually get things done instead of holding out for the impossible. Democrats are almost certain to increase their control of both the House and Senate, which means that a President Obama would need crossover votes from only a handful of moderate Republicans to pass major legislation.
So that's that. Elect Barack Obama and it's smooth sailing starting at noon on January 20. Right?
If only. This is the thing that keeps me up nights about the Obama campaign: I can't help wondering whether he can actually get any of his agenda passed. It's one thing to win an election, but another to build a movement that makes an impact for years. (And if Obama loses? Then it's really back to the sustainability drawing board.)
So what will that take? In the same way that sustainable development is built on social, environmental, and economic pillars, you might say that political sustainability is built on three pillars: congressional majorities, electoral coalitions, and public opinion. Those are Obama's big challenges.
The first one is the easiest to deal with. Not only will Democrats probably have a bigger majority next year (even Republicans have pretty much given up on doing anything more than contain their losses in November), it's likely to be one of the most liberal Democratic caucuses ever. Past Democratic majorities may have been durable—until 1994, anyway—but they've also included so many conservative Southerners that, for all practical purposes, they were center-right. (The only exceptions came during a couple of brief periods in the first terms of FDR and LBJ—though even then the seniority system gave conservative Southerners control of many key committee chairmanships.)
But those days are gone. Genuinely conservative Democrats are largely a thing of the past and today liberals hold most of the key chairmanships. Obama—who got plenty of primary endorsements from his Senate colleagues, has an experienced legislative staff headed up by Pete "101st Senator" Rouse, and has shown an impressive ability to work across the aisle—will almost certainly have a congenial Congress at his disposal. He just needs to persuade it to take some political risks.
Obama's electoral coalition is a different story. It's usually described as a combination of African Americans, upscale whites, and the young—hardly natural allies. What's more, other elements of the classic liberal coalition (labor, for example) have been late, and sometimes lukewarm Obama supporters; the abortion rights group naral's endorsement of him, even though it came near the end of the primary season, caused massive blowback within the organization's own ranks.
So this is the state of play: If elected, Obama will be dealing with a Congress that's fundamentally on his side but cautious about taking political risks, and an electoral coalition that's hopeful but keenly sensitive to possible slights. This isn't a bad place to start from—just ask Ronald Reagan—but it can also be a pretty slippery place to start from—just ask Bill Clinton. The difference between the two, the difference between large-bore change and small-bore change, rested on control of public opinion.
Here, too, Obama starts on favorable ground. After eight years of Bush/Cheney, the public is increasingly ready for serious action on a raft of big issues. And Obama is, of course, a terrific public speaker. But watching him in action for the past year, one thing has become more and more clear: He doesn't seem inclined to use his oratorical skill to truly shape public opinion. He's only using it to win votes.
Franklin Roosevelt, that most subtle thermometer of public opinion, understood the difference. In a possibly apocryphal story told by I.F. Stone, FDR once met with a group of reformers who explained at length why he should support their cause. "Okay, you've convinced me," he told them. "Now go on out and bring pressure on me."
FDR—even with huge congressional majorities and a solid electoral coalition—knew he needed outside help to shift the electorate. But he knew how to do his part as well. His early fireside chats weren't just national pick-me-ups; they were designed from the first word of the first sentence to build public support for liberal ideas. Likewise, years later, when he was trying to persuade an isolationist American public to actively oppose the Nazi occupation of Europe, he gave a folksy speech comparing Lend-Lease with the loan of a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire. It worked: With the public on board, Congress passed the enabling legislation and Britain survived long enough for America to join the war. Majorities may come and go, but FDR built a liberal legacy that outlasted him because, by the time he left office, the public believed in the New Deal and everything that went with it.
Now fast-forward 70 years and ask yourself, What is it going to take to pass serious climate change legislation? A liberal majority in Congress? Check. Interest groups willing to rally? Check. But to paraphrase an old military saying, the opposition gets a vote too. And the opposition's message to a public already tired of high gasoline prices is going to be simple: Liberals want to raise energy prices. Your energy prices.
And make no mistake. Barack Obama's cap-and-trade plan to reduce carbon emissions may be technically one of the best we've ever seen, but it will raise energy prices. That's the whole point. So once the public understands that there's more to Obama's plan than green-collar jobs and serried ranks of windmills on the Great Plains, they're going to have second thoughts. And those congressional majorities, who face election in another couple of years, are going to have second thoughts too.
The right way to address this won't be found in any of Obama's white papers. There's a story there, if you dig deep enough, but it's long and complicated and relies on things like increased efficiency, consumer rebates, and R&D funding that pays off in another decade or so. In the short term someone is going to have to tell the public that, yes, there's some sacrifice required here, but it's worth it. Someone needs to come up with a garden-hose analogy to convince a financially stressed public that doing something for the common good is worth a small price.
That someone, of course, is Barack Obama, but it's not clear yet if he gets this. His speeches soar, but they rarely seem designed to move the nation in a specific direction. Is he pushing the public to support cap and trade even though it might cost them a few dollars? Or merely to vote for "change"? It's sometimes hard to tell.
This is hardly an original concern. Liberal pundits have been stewing for months over the question of whether Obama is too cautious to win big victories, too invested in a narrative of bipartisan unity to get his hands dirty in a real street fight. As a former community organizer he understands the power of direct action, but does he understand how to shift public opinion on a national scale? And is he willing to try?
Because that's what it's going to take to build a sustainable progressive movement: a public that's firmly committed not just to change, but to specific change. A public that makes it clear to Congress that it wants—and will reward members who support—universal health care, withdrawal from Iraq, and serious action on global warming. That it supports a broader, more dynamic vision of collective action in the service of the public good. And not for 100 days, but for years to come.
Maybe Obama will get there. After all, FDR himself ran a notably fuzzy campaign in 1932, becoming the master of public opinion only after he was safely elected. But one way or another, Obama needs to make the transition from inspiration to leadership. In politics, public opinion is at the root of every enduring movement. It's time for him to get working on it.
Kevin Drum is blogger and correspondent for Mother Jones.
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.
© 2008 The Foundation for National Progress
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/11/the-great-persuader.html
New Statesman:
The back of Bush
'With conservatives in the majority in Europe and America, fear and fatalism have dominated. Obama's message of change brings hope.' Denmark's ex-PM looks to a brighter future.
The end of the Bush era provides opportunities for an new era of cooperation
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
Published 03 November 2008
George W Bush has done more than any other US president to undermine the reputation of the USA in the world. Less than one in five Europeans approve of President Bush's handling of international policies. Europeans are not anti-American - almost four out of 10 Europeans still believe that US leadership in world affairs is desirable (although this figure is down from over six in 10 in 2002).
So what is my expectation of the new president? I understand why some people think that anyone is better than George W Bush, but surely Sarah Palin makes people doubt McCain's seriousness. As president of the PES - the European political party bringing together Europe's socialist, social democratic and labour parties - I am unashamedly excited at the possibility of a young, charismatic Afro-American called Barack Obama becoming President. What difference would it make? I believe there would be three significant changes.
First, whereas Bush cut social spending and gave tax cuts to the super rich, Obama's Plan for America offers clear commitments to widen health care, tackle poverty and improve education for all.
A US president with a commitment to the well-being of ordinary citizens would generate renewed interest in social justice and social policy worldwide. It would be good not only for the workers of America but also for social democracy in Europe. It would inspire trade unionists and progressive politicians throughout the world.
Already the US Democrats have engaged with European social democrats on reform of the international financial markets. Like the PES, the Democrats want financial markets that sustain jobs in modern industries instead of seeking excessive, short-term profits at the expense of others.
Second, whereas Bush is an oilman and was for many years a climate sceptic, Obama wants to tackle climate change. It is a monumental task, but one cannot afford not to take on. The prospect of the US and the EU sharing the same goals would make meaningful global action far more feasible. Committing to Kyoto would alone be a reason for rejoicing, and here even McCain is better than Bush.
Third, Obama promises to renew American diplomacy, and to talk to foes as well as friends. The Texan cowboy will be gone. This would offer an opening for a renewed partnership between the EU and US, and possibly more cooperation with the UN. Obama does not see the world only as a security problem - a place to pursue a global war against terror - he knows the other issues: climate, energy, poverty, disease.
I am not naïve. Differences in EU-US priorities would not melt away. The new president would have to protect American interests through a recession. US Democrats are suspicious of world trade. But the difference if Obama was elected is that US Democrats have a real desire to engage with others, to find common ground, to work in partnership.
With conservatives in the majority in Europe and America, the fear and fatalism have dominated. Obama's message of change brings hope. Perhaps the biggest factor is psychological - a new, young, gifted President offering the possibility of a new dialogue on the world's problems, the hopes of the planet. It won't be easy but it will be better. I am looking forward to it.
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, is President of the Party of European Socialists, and was Prime Minister of Denmark 1993-2001
The discussion will continue at America Votes, Europe Responds, a conference held by the Fabian Society on 8 November
http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2008/10/obama-usa-vote-president-bush
Página/12:
El fantasma del fraude, un invitado de último momento
El candidato demócrata, Barack Obama, llega a las presidenciales con una ventaja clara en las encuestas sobre su rival, John McCain. Los seguidores de Obama aseguran que la diferencia es mayor a la que muestran los sondeos y temen que se repita el fraude de Bush.
Por Santiago O’Donnell
Desde Chicago
Martes, 4 de Noviembre de 2008
Se dice con miradas, gestos cómplices y confesiones en voz baja. En la ciudad de Obama la vigilia empezó hace rato y todavía falta un poquito más. Nadie quiere celebrar antes de tiempo. Barack Obama se enfrenta hoy en las elecciones con el senador republicano John McCain. Si gana, se convertirá en el primer presidente afroamericano en la historia de Estados Unidos.
Sería de un hito cuya trascendencia es difícil percibir en las calles de Chicago, aun en los barrios negros, donde la propaganda electoral brilla por su ausencia. No hay marchas ni manifestaciones ni vendedores de pins y remeras ni mesas en las veredas para juntar firmas ni graffiti ni pegatinas electorales en las paredes. No es por falta de interés de la gente, sino porque hace semanas la campaña se trasladó a otros estados, los considerados clave, donde los candidatos pelean a brazo partido por un puñado de votos electorales... Acá, en el patio de Obama, ambos bandos asumieron que la suerte ya está echada.
El único indicio de que algo grande está por pasar es el lío de tránsito en una ciudad que, a diferencia de otras del país, no los sufre demasiado. Pero ayer, como en toda la semana, gran parte del centro de la ciudad fue acordonado por policías que desvían el tráfico para darles lugar a los trabajadores municipales, quienes trabajan para ajustar los últimos detalles del escenario gigante y las torres de iluminación en Foster Park, donde se espera a un millón de personas esta tarde para celebrar con el candidato demócrata. Obama llega a las elecciones con una ventaja clara en las encuestas, alrededor del seis por ciento a nivel nacional, pero sus seguidores aseguran que la diferencia es mayor aún, ya que los sondeos se hacen con llamadas a teléfonos fijos. Dicen que hay millones de jóvenes que piensan votar por primera vez y que apoyan por abrumadora mayoría al demócrata. Y aclaran que esos jóvenes sólo contestan teléfonos celulares y mensajes de texto, mientras los sondeos se hacen con llamadas a teléfonos fijos.
La expectativa no se ve en la calle, pero es fácil de percibir cuando se habla del tema con cualquier afroamericano en esta ciudad. Como Mark Powers, 41, cocinero del Hyatt. “Es una elección que los afroamericanos venimos esperando desde hace mucho tiempo, pero no por lo que Obama pueda hacer por nuestra raza, sino por lo que pueda hacer por los pobres. Tenemos muchos problemas porque la gente no puede pagar sus deudas, la violencia entre nuestros jóvenes está fuera de control, el uso de drogas está fuera de control. Si no se detiene la entrada de drogas a nuestro país, debe ser porque el gobierno federal lo permite. Eso tiene que cambiar”, dijo ayer Powers, mientras esperaba su pedido en la puerta de Harry’s Jamaican Chicken, cuyo pollo picante tiene fama de ser el mejor de la ciudad. Harry’s está en la calle 79, la arteria comercial del sur de Chicago, donde el 80 por ciento de la población es negra. “Yo creo que Obama no puede perder si no hay robo porque está demasiado adelante en las encuestas. Si pierde tengo miedo de que pase algo malo porque va a haber mucha gente enojada. No estoy de acuerdo con que se arrase la comunidad, pero es muy posible que eso pase.”
¿Y si gana Obama? “El miedo que tenemos –contesta Powers– es que sea asesinado.” Acá en Chicago, entre la población negra, la sensación es que la elección está ganada. Que su candidato ha hecho los méritos suficientes para ganarla y que las encuestas reflejan que ya ganó. El miedo es que se la roben. Cualquier derrota sería interpretada como un robo y la comunidad afroamericana no estaría dispuesta a tolerarla. Foster Park se convertiría en un polvorín con un millón de mechas encendidas. Barrios enteros podrían arder como pasó en Detroit en el ’67, Chicago en el ’68 y Los Angeles en el ’92, después de la paliza a Rodney King.
Es la mezcla de miedo e ilusión de millones de personas que cuando niños nunca se atrevieron siquiera a imaginarse que algún día podrían ser presidentes de Estados Unidos. Ahora, con Obama, lo ven como algo posible para sus hijos y sus nietos. Lo ven pero les cuesta creerlo, porque la historia es larga y porque aún hoy siguen en pie injusticias sociales teñidas por el racismo.
Se siente en el tren de la línea roja que atraviesa el sur de Chicago, al hablar con Dennos Welter, de 25 años, empleado de una tienda de electrodomésticos. “Obama quiere ayudar a la gente común y la clase trabajadora y es algo que estamos esperando, que nos quede algo para nosotros”, dice, mientras deglute una hamburguesa extra large de McDonald’s. “A nadie le gusta trabajar cuarenta o cuarenta y cinco horas para cobrar un cheque que, después de pagar tus cuentas, te quedan veinte dólares. Así nadie puede avanzar.”
Se siente en el ascensor del Holiday Inn del centro de Chicago, donde Latasha Rush, 28, empleada doméstica, ante una consulta sobre Obama, contesta “yo ya hice mi parte” sonríe y baja la mirada. Así, con dulzura, sin que suene a imposición, con apenas cinco palabras, no deja dudas sobre lo que quiere decir, pero por respeto o miedo no lo hace: “Yo ya voté, ahora te toca a vos, hacé lo correcto”.
Se siente en el Hard Rock Cafe de Chicago, donde cuelga una guitarra de Jimi Hendrix, hablando con el manager del local, Ron Malvin, 42, que, antes de cambiar de rubro y empezar su carrera en el bar temático se enlistó en el ejército, estuvo destinado en Corea y después fue mandado por el Pentágono a Turquía como experto en comunicaciones.
“Cuando estuve afuera aprendí mucho sobre propaganda norteamericana y aprendí que lo que le vendemos al mundo no tiene nada que ver con la realidad. Vendemos que acá es todo dorado y grande y lo mejor, y no es así. Y no decimos la verdadera razón de por qué estamos en otros países. No para ayudar, sino porque hay dinero para ganar. Si nos podés ayudar allí estaremos y si no, pasamos por encima con una aplanadora”, dijo ayer en su oficina atrás de la cocina, mientras revisaba el inventario por computadora. “La gran esperanza que tenemos es que Obama se va a relacionar con el mundo de manera más realista, sin tanta hipocresía”, concluyó. Cuando se le preguntó si puede haber una pueblada si Obama no gana, el ex militar echó a reír y como gesto de aprobación ofreció chocar puños. “Tú sabes de lo que estás hablando”, remató.
Se siente en distintos rincones del país, aun en un lugar como en el aeropuerto internacional de Miami, donde un agente aduanero dijo con inusual candor, mientras le sellaba el pasaporte a este cronista el sábado a la noche: “No vamos a dejar que nos roben la elección. Esta vez no. Usted no sabe de lo que somos capaces de hacer”.
Pero claro. En Estados Unidos los negros sólo componen el diez por ciento del electorado y Obama todavía no tiene las elecciones ganadas. Pero cada hora que pasa parece más cerca, aunque la batalla es encarnizada en estados como Ohio, Pensilvania, Florida, Mi-ssouri y Virginia, donde casi todos los días hay visitas de candidatos, el aire está saturado de propaganda electoral, desde Internet no paran de llegar pedidos de contribuciones, especialmente de los demócratas, y los voluntarios saturan los buzones y gastan los timbres de los votantes indecisos.
En las últimas horas los analistas registran un repunte de McCain en algunos estados de clase trabajadora como Ohio y Pensilvania, donde la propaganda negativa de última hora, un clásico republicano, parece dar algún resultado, El hit del momento es un aviso de diez segundos, muy sencillo, con la cara de Obama y la siguiente leyenda:
“Barack Obama
Demasiado radical
Demasiado impredecible”.
Pero esos mismos analistas dicen que aun habiendo acortado la distancia, McCain sigue perdiendo en esos estados, y en los demás estados clave, y que no tiene tiempo para descontar la ventaja. Ayer la principal discusión por televisión era si una supermayoría de demócratas acompañaría a Obama, o no. O sea, lo que se discute, aun con la supuesta cautela de los pronosticadores mediáticos, es cuán desastrosa será la elección para los republicanos.
Mientras tanto el debate se terminó y las apariciones más importantes de los candidatos se hacen en los programas de alto rating, ya sean cómicos como Saturday Night Live o deportivos como Monday Night Football, en los que Obama hace la plancha y McCain se victimiza porque no tiene dinero para hacer campaña y pide a los suyos un último esfuerzo para alcanzar el milagro, todo en tono de broma y buen humor.
Entre los blancos que apoyan a Obama hay una sensación de alivio, de ya está, de que se viene un cambio que puede ser bueno y que llegó un punto en que cualquier cambio es bueno. Se percibe el hartazgo con la guerra y también con ser percibidos como los malos del mundo. Parecen cansados, más bien hartos de que los republicanos sigan con sus aventuras en el exterior en vez de ocuparse de los problemas muy reales que tiene mucha gente en su propio país.
“Está bien, es hora de cambiar”, dice Steven Zinamon, 42 años, escribano dedicado a las hipotecas inmobiliarias, mientras recorre la ciudad visitando posibles clientes. En los últimos tres meses su oficina se redujo de 40 a ocho empleados. Y en una hora de recorrida no cerró ningún trato y se le cayeron dos negocios. “Es que cerraron los bancos y las instituciones hipotecarias o se asociaron al gobierno, lo cual significa que socializaron el riesgo, no que nacionalizaron el crédito. Entonces los precios están bajos pero el crédito está difícil y hace falta poner más dinero por adelantado. La gente que tiene dinero tampoco aprovecha los precios bajos porque todavía no sabe si seguirán bajando, entonces nada se mueve en esta ciudad”, se lamenta. “Como buen liberal que soy me pone contento lo de Obama, pero a mamá, que es más conservadora, le cuesta digerirlo un poco más.”
En tanto, entre los seguidores de McCain se percibe cierto clima de resignación, de oportunidad perdida por errores de campaña. Errores como la elección de Sarah Palin, como compañera de fórmula. McCain había intentado evitar el debate sobre la economía con un golpe de efecto que significaba elegir a una mujer desconocida después de la campaña de Hillary Clinton, pero el truco no funcionó. Para la gran mayoría de los norteamericanos, el problema es que Palin simplemente no está calificada para el cargo y su nombramiento demuestra que McCain no tiene la claridad suficiente como para tomar buenas decisiones cuando está bajo presión. Tampoco funcionó bien la campaña negativa, porque Obama no mordió el anzuelo. Al mostrarse conciliador y bajarle el tono a la batalla ideológica, el demócrata se ganó el crucial lugar del centro en la percepción de los votantes indecisos, dejando a McCain sólo en el ring tirando trompadas al aire.
Al menos eso dicen los “estrategas republicanos” citados por estas horas en la conservadora cadena Fox, que ya han acomodado sus discursos al mensaje de las encuestas.
Se los cita como única referencia de los republicanos porque acá en Chicago, en las últimas horas, se hizo muy difícil encontrar a alguien dispuesto a admitir públicamente que va a votar por McCain.
sodonnell@pagina12.com.ar
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-114458-2008-11-04.html
Página/12:
Las noches de Perky Pat
Por Rodrigo Fresán
Desde Barcelona, Martes, 4 de Noviembre de 2008
UNO La semana pasada, bajando en un funicular hacia Barcelona, de camino a una mesa redonda sobre el escritor J. G. Ballard, en los primeros minutos del anochecer (apunto todas estas circunstancias espacio/temporales aunque no haga demasiada falta porque sé que jamás olvidaré ese momento) por fin leí como no-ficción aquello que siempre había imaginado como ficción. Lo leí en uno de esos diarios gratuitos que se usan y se tiran y ya está mientras, a mi lado, en el funicular, una nena jugaba con sus muñecas Barbie. El titular de la noticia era A juicio por matar a su ex marido virtual y allí se informaba que una japonesa de 43 años podría ir a la cárcel por destruir el personaje de su ex marido virtual en uno de esos sites tipo Second Life. Parece que la mujer y la víctima mantenían desde hacía tiempo una relación sentimental cuando el hombre decidió poner fin al romance. Y no hay infierno más grande que el de la furia de una mujer virtual despechada y hacking y una mañana el tipo fue a buscarse y se encontró con que había sido borrado del mapa. Ahora, la mujer se enfrenta a una posible pena de cinco años de cárcel o a una multa de 5000 dólares. Me sorprendió lo desproporcionado de la sentencia física en relación con el, comparativamente, no demasiado dinero a pagar. ¿Cómo se habría llegado a semejante veredicto? En cualquier caso –continuaba la nota– apenas una semana atrás, en Holanda, dos adolescentes de 14 y 15 años habían sido condenados a 360 horas de servicios a la comunidad por haber obligado a otro joven –mediante insultos y golpes y amenazas a su avatar virtual– a entregarles varios bienes virtuales en los barrios bajos de otro site. La noticia era breve y venía en las páginas interiores. En la primera plana se daban detalles del muy real y terreno juicio a tres jóvenes de Barcelona que quemaron viva a una mendiga en un cajero automático “porque olía mal”.
“Ahí tienes”, le decía, feroz, la niña a su Barbie que, de pronto, había perdido la cabeza.
DOS Por lo que decidí ponerme a releer el ejemplar de Milagros de vida, autobiografía de Ballard recién aparecida. Página 147. El momento en que Ballard descubre las posibilidades de introducirse, como un virus, como un troyano, en la ciencia-ficción, para hacer lo suyo: “Me parecía que, a pesar de su vitalidad, la ciencia-ficción estaba limitada por su tendencia a especular ‘¿Qué pasaría si...?’ ... A mí me interesaba más abordar el ‘¿Qué pasa ahora?’”, recordaba Ballard.
Buena pregunta.
Y lo que pasa ahora es lo que ya entonces pasaba en la cabeza de quienes tal vez hayan sido los más certeros visionarios de finales del siglo XX. Los que supieron antes que nadie lo que ocurriría casi enseguida. Ballard es el único sobreviviente del trío. Los otros dos –Andy Warhol y Philip K. Dick– se murieron justo en el momento en que el mundo comenzaba a adquirir, inapelablemente, la textura de sus más dulces pesadillas. Andy Warhol fue quien dijo aquello de “En el futuro todos serán felices durante 15 minutos” y aquello otro de “Si pudiésemos convertirnos en máquinas, todo nos dolería menos. Seríamos más felices si estuviéramos programados para ser felices”. Y Philip K. Dick... bueno... ¿acaso hay algo que Dick no haya visto?
La nena jugaba con sus pedazos de muñeca, yo terminaba de leer eso de la japonesa asesina y los holandeses torturadores y me acordé de un pequeño gran cuento de Dick titulado “Los días de Perky Pat”. Dick publicó su relato en 1963 y allí se cuentan las vidas de varios sobrevivientes de una catástrofe nuclear –provocada por marcianos invasores– que viven y matan el tiempo, en aburridos refugios californianos, adictos a un juego de muñecas llamadas Perky Pat que les permiten imaginar vidas mejores y una realidad alternativa. Dick volvería a escribir sobre los Perky Pat en una de sus mejores novelas –Los tres estigmas de Palmer Eldritch, de 1965– donde los muñecos cumplen la función de distraer a los colonos espaciales y, al ser combinados con dosis de una droga llamada Can-D permitir, por un rato, recuperar los placeres de la idealizada existencia en una Tierra cada vez más lejana corporizándose el juguetón alucinado en el Perky Pat de su preferencia. Algo así como lo que hace cualquier niño sin la ayuda de ninguna sustancia artificial, pienso, mientras a mis pies rueda una cabeza de Barbie.
TRES En Divine Invasions –la biografía de Philip K. Dick firmada por Lawrence Sutin– se cuenta que la idea de las Perky Pats se le ocurrió al escritor luego de regalarles a sus hijas unas Barbies para la Navidad de 1963. Allí, una de ellas, Hatte, recuerda la furia que le produjo ver a su padre medir cuidadosamente las proporciones de las muñecas para enseguida informarle que las Barbies jamás podrían existir en el mundo real ya que sus cabezas eran demasiadas pequeñas para sus cuerpos.
Y, sin embargo -–de regreso de lo de Ballard, contemplando el noticiero–, nuestro planeta rebosa de personas con la cabeza (y lo que va dentro de la cabeza) demasiado pequeña para su cuerpo. Ya saben, postales de la crisis, banqueros fracasados que se van a casita con indemnizaciones que van de los 50 a los 500 millones de dólares. Economistas explicando a un ballardiano lo que pasa ahora y sonando como consumidores habituales de Can-D y soñando los viejos tiempos que ya no volverán. Y Zapatero insistiendo con que España tiene que estar en la cumbre esa en la que se refundará el sistema financiero. Repeticiones –una y otra vez– de Zapatero mostrándole un agradecido pulgar hacia arriba a Sarkozy por las gestiones del francés para conseguirle una silla en la mesa quien, acto seguido, se despacha con un discurso frente al español donde afirma que la delegación continental llegará a la reunión con “un rostro único” que, como presidente de la Unión Europea durante este semestre, no será otro, me temo, que el suyo. Pero no importa: se sigue trabajando. “Ofensiva diplomática”, insisten. Y me pregunto si este juego no debería jugarse entre bambalinas para informar al gran público recién en la hora del triunfo. Parece que no. Tenemos novedades del asunto con frecuencia de partes meteorológicos explicando el súbito invierno –12 grados menos de un día para otro– que llegó en estos días de otoño. La última es que el rey –los presupuestos para el 2009 han aumentado el dinero asignado a la Casa Real– dice que seguro que allí estaremos, en Washington, aportando ideas. Yes We Can.
CUATRO En una entrevista de 1996, Ballard explicaba que “se está llevando a cabo una enorme migración virtual, dejando atrás el mundo externo para irse a vivir a un mundo interno” y que “el mundo se está volviendo muy complicado y desprolijo, así que ¿por qué no construir una réplica que nos haga felices?” Warhol entendía su arte de manera parecida: “Yo creo que todo tendría que gustarle a todo el mundo. Que te guste todo es un poco como ser una máquina. Hacer lo mismo una y otra vez”.
El mundo adelantado por Ballard & Dick & Warhol ya está aquí, en esa Internet que algunos ya diagnostican como superpoblada y a punto de caer haciendo más ruido que Wall Street. Un snow crash en toda regla. Un infocalipsis del metaverso. Muchos –entre anónimos y alias– enloquecen ahí dentro. Todo bien mientras todo quede y se quede ahí. El problema es cuando los emigrantes vuelven a casa, afuera, como máquinas, sin todas sus fac... f-a-c-u-l-t-a-d-e-s intactas para encender fuegos. Una y otra vez. En lo que a lo demás y a los demás respecta, no estaría mal proveer a los banqueros y a Zapatero con sendos sets de muñequitos para que gocen escenificando booms y cumbres (otros se representarán como magnicidas de Obama o le clavarán alfileres a Sarkozy) mientras, afuera, se viene la noche, las noches de Perky Pat.
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-114456-2008-11-04.html
The Independent:
Obama may lack experience, but he doesn't lack command
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Only in America. Tonight, or early tomorrow if John McCain makes a close race of it, the world will learn who is to be the 44th US President. And, unless we are about to witness an upset that would make Harry Truman's comeback win in 1948 against Thomas Dewey look routine, that person is expected to be Barack Obama.
At this brief moment of calm, when the campaigning is over but the result is not known, it is worth stepping back to consider just how amazing the event would be. At one of the most difficult moments in its modern history, the US seems about to reach not to a grizzled senator or governor, not to a general or a businessman – but to a new and dazzling political talent who was virtually unknown barely four years ago.
Of course, Mr Obama has been fortunate. He ran in a year that even before the financial meltdown was always going to be difficult for Republicans. His marathon 50-state primary battle against Hillary Clinton meant he had a solid organisation in place across the country well before the general election campaign began. Indisputably, he has also had a gentler ride from the media than Mr McCain. But gifted politicians make their own success. Over the past two gruelling years, we have learnt a great deal about Mr Obama. He is formidably intelligent. Unlike the "tested" Mr McCain, he did not become rash or flustered at difficult moments. The three candidates' debates showed he is poised and collected under pressure. It was said of Franklin Roosevelt, one of America's very greatest presidents, that he had a second-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament. On all the available evidence, Mr Obama is top class in both departments. And by now the "inexperienced" tag has become somewhat worn. Yes, assuming he is elected, he will bring a thinner CV to the office than perhaps any president in history. But the past two years have tested him mightily.
Mr Obama has never run anything, it is said. Not true. He has run arguably the longest, the biggest and the best organised campaign ever. Its discipline has been astonishing – in contrast to the campaign of Mrs Clinton that was once supposed to sweep all before it. And he has taken on the Democratic Party establishment as represented by the Clintons. In two years, Mr Obama has not made a major blunder. Yes, he has had a dedicated, top-notch team around him. But that too augurs well. Clearly, Mr Obama knows how to put the right people in the right jobs, a vital part of being president. And then, of course, he has style. Not since JFK will America have had as charismatic and inspirational a leader. Charisma and soaring oratory do not guarantee good government. But America is demoralised, exhausted and broke. It needs to turn the page on its recent past. And for that, it needs words, as well as deeds, to inspire it.
The election of Barack Obama will be a gamble. He may prove a disappointment like Jimmy Carter – another leader who emerged from nowhere, full of good intentions but overwhelmed by the job. There is no knowing. Nothing quite prepares a man for the presidency.
What is certain is that Mr Obama provides excitement, a desperately needed jolt of political electricity. If he is elected, America will instantly be seen in a new light around the world – not just because the unloved George Bush is gone, but because the country has found it within itself to turn to someone truly new, whose astonishing ascent could have happened nowhere else on earth. Only in America.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/
leading-article-obama-may-lack-experience-but-he-doesnt-lack-command-989654.html
The Nation:
Why We Vote
This article appeared in the November 17, 2008 edition of The Nation.
Editorial
October 29, 2008
This past week, a flier of unknown origin was circulated in Hampton Roads, Virginia, bearing the seal of the state Board of Elections and instructing Democrats that, because of an emergency order of the state General Assembly, they were to vote on November 5... the day after election day. Across the country GOP lawyers are working overtime to erect barriers to keep people from voting, and the McCain campaign and its surrogates have spent weeks smearing ACORN for engaging in the audacious and outrageous act of... registering poor people. That the group submitted 400,000 registrations that were flawed-making the total more like 900,000 than the oft-cited 1.3 million-should not overshadow the fact that it has been part of a much larger and apparently effective drive to expand the electorate. So as we (finally) approach election day, we find ourselves in a familiar situation: the left wants the maximum number of eligible citizens to vote, and the right does not.
Progressives have long stood for a wider franchise that includes the propertyless, women, African-Americans and young adults. The same is not true of conservatives: from Edmund Burke, who worried about the "cruel oppressions" the many have-nots might visit upon the few haves, to activist Paul Weyrich, who admitted in 1980 that "I don't want everybody to vote.... As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down."
For several decades, starting around 1964, conservatives were winning this battle. Turnout declined from 63 percent in 1960 to just over 51 percent in 2000. Last election we witnessed enough of an increase to detect the rumblings of a reawakening. Now we appear to be in the midst of a full-fledged democratic renaissance. By every measure-from the number of small donors and volunteers to the number of those who cast their votes early-participation is at its highest level in a generation.
Particularly poignant is the role black voters are poised to play as they head to the polls. All across the South, men and women once barred from the ballot-forced to brave dogs, insults and terrorism simply to add their names to the voting rolls-will, on November 4, be able to cast their ballot for an African-American man to be president of the United States. Imagine the emotion of 109-year-old Amanda Jones, whose father was born into slavery, when she voted early this year in Texas.
Along with the ugliness, this election has produced a tremendous number of grace notes: the recent report of employees at an Indiana call center walking out rather than read anti-Obama talking points; the McCain supporters who confronted and shunned an Islamophobe outside a rally (captured on YouTube); and the story (reported on Politico) of how a McCain backer in line to vote early in Hamilton County, Ohio, lent his NASCAR jacket to three elderly Jewish women after overhearing that they would not be allowed to enter the polling place wearing their Obama gear. While chatting with the women, who spoke of the alliance of Jews and blacks during the civil rights struggle, the man was seized with the desire to be on the right side of history; when it was time for him to cast his ballot, he voted for Obama as well.
This last story gets at something profound about why we go to the trouble of voting. We vote in order to change the country, to exercise our rights, to make our voices heard and a hundred other clichés as shopworn as they are true. But we also vote because it places us in direct fellowship with other citizens; we vote because it is a secular sacrament, an act of civic solidarity. Because it is the ultimate declaration that we are, indeed, all in this together.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/editors
ZNet:
President Obama: Change the world can believe in?
By Dr. Sunera Thobani
Source: Rabble.ca
November, 04 2008
As the widely anticipated election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States grows closer, the priorities that will shape the early days of his Administration require critical attention.
With the banking system still in crisis and financial markets on a volatile rollercoaster, the pressure will be great for a President Obama to focus on domestic issues. But the new Administration will also be saddled with the increasingly unpopular War on Terror. How will Obama deliver on his promise of change to Americans, as well as those around the world who have greeted his candidacy with such enthusiasm?
The election campaigns have demonstrated Americans are more concerned about their houses, retirement savings, jobs, healthcare and education than they are about international issues, and Obama has successfully distanced himself from the deregulation promoted by the Bush Administration. But it will be critical for Obama to likewise detach his Administration from the disastrous Bush foreign policy.
Three steps could signal a clear break with the past: ending the Afghan war, closing down Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and prosecuting war crimes.
Senator Obama seems resolved to end the Iraq war quickly. But it appears that he plans to escalate the Afghan war by sending in more American troops. This has the makings of a disaster that could well bog down his Administration in a quagmire.
American, British and Canadian forces have been unable to provide security to Afghans, or stabilize the Karzai regime. Anger is mounting in that country at the ongoing occupation. As a number of top military commanders, including the British Commander, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, have acknowledged, the Afghan war is militarily un-winnable. The only exit strategy is negotiation with the Taliban for a political solution. The sooner the Obama Administration does this, the quicker the mounting of casualties can be stopped.
Another Obama priority should be the immediate closure of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and all the secret prisons that the U.S. has set up around the world. The Abu-Ghraib photographs, the graphic testimonies of Moazzam Begg and other British detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, as well as that of the young Canadian, Omar Khadr, all confirm a seemingly cavalier use of torture at these prisons.
The investigation conducted by General Taguba substantiated allegations of torture. In her recent Guggenheim prize-winning book, Jane Mayer of The New Times describes how Vice-President Cheney publicly made the case for going into the ‘dark side' to win the war. One of the most pernicious effects of this war has been the rationalization of torture, and the urgency of closing the prisons cannot be overstated.
While shutting down the prisons would signal Obama's rejection of attempts to legalize torture, a critical third step that would decisively transform the U.S. role in global politics would be the prosecution of war crimes. The testimony presented at the Winter Soldier Hearings, as well as General Taguba's report confirm that war crimes have been committed. Attorney Vincent Bugliosi has laid out a case for the prosecution of George Bush in a U.S. Court, arguing not only that Bush knowingly lied about the Iraq war, but that he should be held responsible for the deaths of 4,000-plus American soldiers.
Taking swift action to investigate and prosecute war crimes will be the clearest commitment that an Obama Administration could make towards ending the imperial hubris of the Bush Administration, which tried to make the case that it was above the law. Not only will this reflect a commitment to hold Americans accountable to the rule of law, it will also value the lives of all those killed in the two wars, regardless of whether they were Americans or not. Although it is difficult to get reliable statistics on the civilian death toll, the Opinion Research Business estimated it at approximately one million in January 2008.
There will no doubt be much celebration in the U.S. and around the world for an Obama victory on November 4. But if this victory is to be meaningful, Obama will need to mobilize the American population to transform its relationship to the rest of the world.
Acting quickly and decisively to end two of the arguably most ill conceived wars in American history, end the use of torture, and hold the United States and its citizens accountable to international (and U.S.) law will be change we could all believe in. This would make Obama's meteoric rise to power a truly transformative moment in modern history.
Dr. Sunera Thobani is a professor in the faculty of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19333
posted by attilav at 13:16
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