Will Obama deliver real "change"?

by Mike Novack Wed Oct 29, 2008 16:08

"Tens of millions marched through the streets when Bush launched the invasion of Iraq."

This dream weed you've been smoking? Where can I get some of that stuff?

No of course things won't be that different when (assuming if) Obama wins. There isn't all that much political division in this country, or ratehr there is, but perhpas not around the issues you would like to see us divided on. That's the really shi**y part about democracy, those stubborn people get to decide what issues matter to them instead of concentrating on what you know to be in their own self interest even if they are too stupid/stubborn to see.

(I am of course talking about when democracy is working properly)

For the benefit of you folks over there -- no, while there has been a little opposition to the wars, nothing on the scale of what stopped the war in Vietnam. Simply not a major issue for folks here except for a very tiny minority. There were NOT "Tens of millions marched through the streets when Bush launched the invasion of Iraq". I'm not sure if there were tens of thousands anywhere. Might have been tens of hundreds in some of our traditionally more radical communities.

PS -- lest any of you misunderstand, let me be perfectly clear. What I write here isn't about what I think should be but self delusion. Those of us who want to change things can't afford to indulge in wishful thinking and excuses. Organize, damn it!

by Jim Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:57

Just to clarify - I was not talking about the protests in American cities solely. I was talking about global protests which attracted millions of protestors.
President Clinton and President Carter are both beloved of the anti-war left though both men were as ready to use military force as any other President when they were in office. Obama will be as ready to use military force as Bush was but because he is the "change" candidate he will be immune from criticism.

Thanks for your comment. :-)

by (¢ = ‰) Sat Nov 01, 2008 01:02

Jim, when you number presidencies the way you have done, arguing that Obama will be Bush 2, you must find an acceptable and solid baseline for those exponentials; a constant if you like. GW Bush has for the last 8 years been termed globally & by many of those millions who protested the war who you cite as Bush 2 . For a while we even pondered the possibility of Jeb Bush entering the narrative as Bush 3 . But those narratives are finished now. Nor is it fair to the 44th presidency at the beginning of the 21st century to merely say it will mean change simple because the 43rd presidency was the worst. There have been other horrendous presidencies. Nobody who waffles about American jobs or for that matter European jobs being lost overseas can ignore how Nixon's only achievement built on his envoy George H Bush (who would be president Bush 1) was the opening of China, and that Nixon's presidency is still relevant. Nobody who has begun to learn about finance and the collapse of derivates can afford to ignore Herbert Hoover's presidency. Nobody who wonders why the USA didn't keep its slave system can ignore James Buchanan.

Yet each of those worst presidents paved the way for good presidencies. In the case of Hoover - the new deal of FD Roosevelt, in the case of Buchanan - Abraham Lincoln. Presidencies which defined both the nature of the union, the role of goverment and successfully prosecuted wars which had not ignited from their own policies.

As soon as any war is begun it must end.

There are a variety of ways in which wars might end; none of which may put right the wicked wrongs of warfare, but all of which in the hindsight of those future generations who no longer directly suffer the consequences but rather are formed psychologically, socially, politically et cetera by that war, as both beligerents and non-combatants nor no less observers both active & partisan or passive & apathetic preclude prerequisites of change.

put simply

The moment a war starts it has to end & afterwards everything is going to be different & changed.

Obama's presidency will see the war that less people than we like to remember took to the streets to protest. A war whose casus belli brought less than a dozen whistleblowers from "coalition of the willing" militaries or secret services to brave imprisonment and confirm its illegality under international law and the instruments of arbitration and inspectorates. A war which brought sincere people of many political hues and (in Ireland) strong personal and notably faith based convictions to active opposition. A war which as was written before its declaration could not be prosecuted . But that war as any war, the moment it began - had to end.

I can not argue nor think it appropriate or the place to argue such, that Obama's presidency will not use US hard power, nor direct nor influence NATO in other theatres, (Afghanistan, the ISAF mission, Darfur etc) nor would I waste your article's comment space telling you that sooner or later the parameters of Waziristan and the post-Afghanistan and post-Pakistan territorial entities will demand intervention, plausibly statehood or sovreignity & that must preferably be achieved through UN and proper international arbitration.

But I can tell you the war in Iraq is going to enter the memory of those who were lucky enough to find their involvement with it on the previously mentioned both active & partisan or passive & apathetic section. The war (or more properly written the effects of warfare) shall not stop for the beligerants, combattants or residents of Iraq for another generation.

From the outset the conclusion of the war in Iraq given its beginning, as written above, outside of the legitimate instruments of international law and arbitration, as considering the inability of the USA using either hard or soft power to achieve the stated aims of the Bush / Cheney presidency could only logically lead to one settlement.

to put it simply

You nod to Carter, as a former US Democrat president, I presume. Well let's put it this way - it was under Carter that one half of the USA learnt to respect the Iranians.

Obama is ¢hange. One war in Iraq pronounced Iraq not Eyeraq is going to end. & another war in Iran is not going to start. Indeed Iran won as they always were going to. On that, their side of the spheres of influence, spheres agreed under Carter, which should never really have messed with again simply for not being that important to geopolitical stability in the long run.

But all that's silly, coz Jim, if you really can't see that next week, history is going to go through a global watershed akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Obama is elected, then you pay too much attention to telly and not enough heed to how people outside of the USA, Ireland and EU see the USA, its telly, its White House or...........

even look upon their own people in their own country who have high melanin.

the ¢hange is so obvious it's Black & White & the balls in the other court now

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by Jim Sat Nov 01, 2008 16:09

Obama is beholden to the corporations like any other US President.
Obama has said he will attack terrorists in Pakistan with or without the permission of the Pakistani government.
He says he is opposed to the war in Iraq but he then he says he will pull the troops out and leave a democratic (pro-US) government in charge. The anti-war idiots are blind to his promise to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan!
He is another warmongering US President - his goal is the preservation of American economic and military dominance and he has spoken often about how he will confront Russia and China and Iran.
He is another Bush.
Change? Change of Commander but not change of tactics.

by Julia Tue Nov 04, 2008 03:42

Jim
Excuse my fellow compatriots they know....not much.
Please correct my #s if they're wrong, but weren't there one million in London, one million in Istanbul,
500,000 in Barcelona, hundreds of thousands to one million in major cities all over Europe at just the
beginning of the Iraq invasion? And if you add up all the protestors at all the protests against the "war" for the past six years you'll get many many millions.
Just not in Amerika.
Nobody knows about the huge mobilizations in Italy - not even the independent (in quotes) media has reported it.
Even American lefties are isolationists. We can't help it, they won't let us have any news.

Thanks for saying what I can not say out loud without being attacked by the liberals, progressives (liberals
on a bicycle) and lefties.

by Jim Tue Nov 04, 2008 10:50

The anti-war left and other Americans who have never voted are voting this time for Obama because they genuinely believe that this is real "change." That is what is so tragic. There is myth making about Obama that he is another Kennedy. But of course Kennedy was also as right wing as Bush was in relation to foreign and domestic threats. Kennedy was a classic cold warrior yet his death transformed him intio a liberal martyr. Hippies and yippies and other anti-Vietnam types and blacks would have swept RFK to power had he lived but RFK would have been just as firm as Nixon was in opposition to communism and would have used nuclear weapons to defend the US if it came to that.

Is Obama going to dismantle all ten carrier groups or remove the countless Us military stations scattered throughout the globe or cease the conventional military, nuclear and space race that is in full belt with global superpower competitors in India, China and Russia? OF COURSE NOT!

Obama will preside over the continued American goal of becoming an uncontest capitalist hyperpower.

by Jeeps Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:57

In Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe there is reference to 'The Power" which controls the macroeconomic and macropolitical life of the United States. All citizens including the President are subsumed by this power. Think on a lesser scale of Labour Party leaders and prime ministers in the UK who are taught to attune themselves to the agenda and presuppositions of the Establishment, and jettison any cutting edge economic policies (and defence policies) that are not 'countenanced' by that establishment. President Obama ain't going to rock The Power. He gonna dovetail his policies and mindset into its agenda, man. Unless they assassinate him.

by Okay Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:57

Whoever wins the US Presidential election today, the person in question -- and their spin doctors -- have to be constantly watched very carefully by the The People of the World: and very rapidly and vigorously challenged by all lawful means available, as and when wrongdoing is suspected.

Surely that is the ONLY way to stop the "extreme lawlessness" described in the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Khut8xbXK8 ?

United States Presidents can only do what the People of the World (and their governments) allow them to do?

Related link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=President+Lincoln%...earch

by Sceptic Tue Nov 04, 2008 13:20

On RFK:
“Hippies and yippies and other anti-Vietnam types and blacks would have swept RFK to power had he lived but RFK would have been just as firm as Nixon was in opposition to communism and would have used nuclear weapons to defend the US if it came to that.” - Jim

The point of the nuclear deterrent is precisely to defend the US if it comes to that at least in response to a threat or actual nuclear attack from another nuclear State.
There were good reasons to be opposed to communism in 1968 and RFK articulated well in his books and speeches his case for such opposition. In the same summer as RFK was shot the soviet tanks rolled into Prague to quash the Prague Spring. The difference between the people in Prague and those in the US was that those in the US had the tools to deter the USSR.

There was not an anti Vietnam majority in the US in 1968 and few experts would agree that RFK would have “swept” into power. The combined Nixon, Wallace and Humphrey votes in November ’68 suggest otherwise. The Yippies incidentally amounted to a few dozen writers who were entirely marginal to politics and the anarchism of the hippies ended in the killings at Altamont and the Tate - le Bianca murders.

On JFK:
“Kennedy (John) was also as right wing as Bush was in relation to foreign and domestic threats.”

Kennedy should not be dismissed in a line or two or invective like that – he had real threats to deal with – the Berlin for instance issue was not something dreamt up. The threat from soviet missile in Cuba was also very real. Kennedy was a liberal on many issues particularly civil rights where he took a proactive and risky stand in favour in civil rights for black people.

by julia Wed Nov 05, 2008 00:37

Obama will be a puppet for Wall Street, the giant multinational corporations, the military and prison industries. The US media has protected him to no end because they want him in. He's the young, hip candidate that even college students can relate to and everyone will go back to sleep (or to their IPods and laptops) and the Machine can continue without protest.
What will it take for Americans to get really angry and shut down the country?
Hell if I know, but I wish it would happen.
Soon.

by Okay Wed Nov 05, 2008 08:51

If you are correct, then the world really is in for a for VERY rough ride.

However, surely Mr Obama -- and the people who elected him -- deserve a chance?

Is it not a little too soon to write them all off so easily and so quickly?

If, for example, all "The People" who helped elect Mr Obama now follow up their efforts, by keeping him aware that his every move is being watched VERY carefully, making full use of the Internet, maybe it will be impossible for him to submit -- as President -- to being "a puppet of Wall Street" as you have put it (assuming that he actually is that at the present time).

Who knows, maybe Mr Obama will yet come under irresistible pressure (from those who helped to elect him) to deal with the extremely serious "Money Masters" problem related at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6076118677860...24204 in a fully responsible manner?

In my view, dealing with the "Money Masters" in an effective and responsible manner will be Mr Obama's greatest challenge; and, if he can pull it off, then the much needed "change" he has talked so much about may well become a reality?

Related link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Money+Masters&btnG...o&oq=

by tallyman Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:43

Julia asked 2b corrected if she was wrong, & indeed the Feb15 figures are exagerrated and were so from the beginning. The 2 cities which saw the highest per capita attendence were Barcelona and Dublin. Barcelona claimed & continues to claim on its city website a figure of approximately 1.4 million julia, not the half million you remember. However, that figure was disproved by a group called "contrastat" who based their revised attendance of 800,000 on the amount of people who could physically fit into the area of city. On that day it wasn't important, "contrastat" were also anti-war, but just as in Dublin, the figures were exagerated and opened the door for further & later exagerations. Every large march afterwards in the Spanish state claimed a million people until the work of "contrastat" finally was taken seriously and it was admitted that 1.3 million people hadn't marched in Madrid to oppose gay marriage and the maximum possiblity based on space was only 750,000 (& that included kids on people's shoulders). The 1916 Easter rising march in Dublin likewise saw official estimates of attendance grossly over-estimated, considering that the space available to the public to watch the event was restricted to the pavements. In the back articles of indymedia ireland there are good pieces which popped up early on in the anti-war campaign which offered revised figures on the "12 million" global estimate. But probably to no avail, as by that stage everyone wanted to believe that many people had marched to the good & that many people didn't march again to the bad.

by Jim Wed Nov 05, 2008 13:18

Anti-war demonstrators or indeed any dissent against the US wars of aggression will be lucky to arouse any interest following the election of Obama whom John Pilger correctly identifies within the tradition of Democrat expansionists such as Truman, Johnson and Clinton because it will be assumed by sheep that Obama is the "change" President. Whereas all Bush directed military adventures will be remembered as conquest now Obama's military exploits will be sugar coated as a break with the past and principled by a sop to human rights rhetoric that the more "macho" Bush ignored.

by tallyman - (‰) Wed Nov 05, 2008 17:41

Sunday the 16th of April the Irish state marked the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising with a military parade in Dublin. First estimates were of an attendance of 100,000 people which is a nice round number. Thereafter Willie O Dea upped the figure to 120,000. https://www.indymedia.ie/article/75507 Normally when reporting march or protest attendance figures it's a good idea to take the police estimate and then the orhaniser's estimate and find an average, for one is underestimated and the other overestimated. But at key times and for important reasons it suits the authorities to massage the figures. The official record for the antiwar demonstration of February 15th in Barcelona was 1.3 million based on the idea that one in 3 people from the city and the two cities either side attended the Feb 15th march, a population which equals that of Ireland in the 1970's. http://www.bcn.es/publicacions/b_informacio/bi_63/bi_63...2.htm Which brings us to the official record for Dublin's Pope Mass in the Phoenix Park in 1979 is also 1.3 million, or just over 1 in 3 Irish people. http://www.phoenixparkbook.com/events.htm But in both cases the exact same area, hectarage and so on is still available to look at. We can't look at the area of land any of O Connell's monster meetings reportedly & mythically assembled a million to hear chinese whispers. If you live in Dublin take a walk up to the Phoenix park to the Papal cross with ten pals and huddle up close together (no picnics or deck chairs) then measure the area of turf you cover. Multiply that by 130,000 - it's simple before you even remember the logistics of the day with only privilege holder private cars on the road and thus special buses - you should see - that at the very most half a million people went to mass in the Phoenix park. Likewise the aerial photos of Barcelona assist proper analysis of the crowds even though the anti-war even ought be harder to estimate as unlike a Papal mass it wasn't calculated on a "captive audience" who came and went. The fish eye lense photos of the centre of the city that day showed many of the main avenues in the grid city filled with people but the aerial photos show the extent of the blocks which where those people were concentrated. Maximum attendence could only have been 800,000.

So why did they lie? - was it to the authorities credit to claim a 1916 demo had triple the spectators? or a Catalan anti-war demo which was also anti-Aznar and anti-rightwing Spain had nearly double? or that nation was united in Catholic piety?

Last night I attended the Democrats Abroad party for Obama's election, an invitation I was surprised to get about two months ago & since when I've found myself roped into the fringes of a generational renewal of US politics, I was brought into that loop because years ago & it seems so many years ago, I showed a genuine commitment to ani-war activity. I honestly feel I went mad since then. & so last night at 03h30 my time, and 02h30 Irish time, when we knew he was elected, I found myself crying as much as cheering next to sincere Americans who even though they belong to a mainstream party which is a face of the capitalist and militarist and lobby driven empire have felt nothing but shame and dismay this last decade and more for how the power of their country was abused. They believe it can be used properly. I happen to think we'll only feed the world when idealists and closet socialists take control of Nestle and the Grain corporations. I still can't resist the temptations to take the piss out of Americans as I did this morning at that party, "now you can take the Canadian flag off your back pack & raise Martin Luther King from the dead to celebrity endorse those products which Tiger Woods or Lewis Hamilton or Wesley Snipes or Will Smith can't stretch to yet.

So - You hava a point Jim, that if Bush was the easiest US president to oppose and thus showed us what a monster the USA is - then Obama will be more difficult but why? because US pensioners will have a medicare and Irish ones don't? Because the USA might use its soft power and bring the soldiers home from Iraq and then only station them in Afghanistan under a legal UN mandate which to be revised must be done legally at the UN? Because somehow the highest electoral turn-out in generations of real counted votes cast by people many of whom never voted or thought to vote before is a lie? Let's measure Obama's first 100 days not in dollars saved or spent - but lives spared. Let's give him a chance till we know what it is we are opposing.

& Yes - he will be the worst president if he doesn't deliver. But his deliverance is in itself a change. It demands a change in tactics & strategy from those who attended anti-war demonstrations in the dozens not legions.

I was one of those & I reckon so were you.

i've no more to add or contribute - thank you Indymedia for the space to express opinions, passion & solidarity without prejudice across borders.

by We the People Wed Nov 05, 2008 20:28

It is very unlikely that Obama will re-instate Habeas Corpus and repeal the Constitutional repressive executive orders installed by Bush.

It is very unlikely that Obama will abolish the FEMA death camps throughout the corporate 'United States'. (google youtube fema camps).

It is very unlikely that Obama will cease the printing of Notes (rfid chipped) called Money out of thin air.

It is very unlikely that Obama will admit anything about the E.U. styled North American Union.( already in existence since 2005)

It is very unlikely that Obama will admit the AMERO currency exists to replace the orchestrated demise of the Dollar.

It is very unlikely that Obama will do any of the above against the Bankers who put him there.

It is the informed opinion of many,that if he did, he would end up like JFK. Very dead.

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by hmmm., Wed Nov 05, 2008 22:05

The last commentator has given us a wonderful thought provoking list of things it is unlikely that the 44º president of the USA will do. Not because he can't do those things but because they wouldn't be what we expect from any US presidency. For as we know across the world people know where they are with US executive power. It's white anglo saxon hereditary privilege lobby sponsored zionist fueled puppetry.

aint it?

So if he dies then we've got Joe Biden a catholic as President. Good precedents there on the white ango saxon hereditary privilege lobby sponsored zionist fueled puppetry front. That would be 2 eternal flames for the price of the largest voter turn-out in 3 generations and an election which like it or not (& it is surprising how many people don't think out of the box & seem not to like it) has seen the American electorate vote the way we wanted.

against Creationism in schools.
against privitisation of heath.
against the war in Iraq.
against anglo-saxon-hereditary-privilege-lobby-sponsored-zionist-fueled-puppetry affrontism.

but that would only be the case if he wrote his own speeches!


He actually writes those words before he delivers them with proper pronunciation and in the back of your brain precision.

So..,

Those lads in the photo 40 years ago made the news coz they wanted to make a generational statement. Tibet wasn't the thing back then. It was the Vietnam war and the peculiar segregation apartheid thing which the USA had & had just been blamed on assassinating its only Catholic president. The boyo your grandparents put on the wall next to pope John 23. They got expelled from international sport for their smartery where today people get expelled for doping but not as of yet genetic manipulation.

the gloves come off ----------- the gloves go on again

the gloves go on : the gloves go off

by literary type Wed Nov 05, 2008 23:10

I looked twice at this long compound adjective in the above post - 'anglo-saxon-hereditary-privilege-lobby-sponsored-zionist-fueled-puppetry affrontism'. Wow, what literary flair! Will it merit inclusion in the next edition of the great Oxford English dictionary?

I look forward to reading the following headline in the Irish Independent some day:-

Backbench TD slams anglo-saxon-hereditary-privilege-lobby-sponsored-zionist-fueled-puppetry

By our political correspondent

In a late night Dail debate yesterday, Richard Barret Brown, Independent TD for Dun Laoghaire, denounced Fianna Fail collaboration with anglo-saxon-hereditary- [continued page 157]

by Ciaron - Dublin Catholic Worker Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:22

Obama likes to quote Dorothy Day, founder of the christian-anarchist-pacifist Catholic Worker movement (George Bush tried at Notre Dame when he became Presdient but got a heap of blowback form Dorothy's daighter Tamar Hennessy (RIP) and some fo the grandkids. Grandkid Martha Hennessy will be giving a talk in the Teachers Club Sunday Nov 16 7.30pm.)

"The desire to rule is the mother of all heresy" --Saint John Chrysostom

Back in Iowa when the primaries began, Kathy Kelly (presently camped outside of Obma's house in Chicago and present in Dublin at all the Ptstop Ploughshares trials)Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Catholic Workers from a variety of communities occupied all the Republican and Democrat campaign offices in Iowa to demand the end to the war on Iraq.

In a day-before-the-caucus effort to obtain from Senator Barack Obama
a pledge of withdrawal from Iraq, nonviolent actors representing
"Voices for Creative Nonviolence" and the Des Moines Catholic Worker
community witness a spurned media and turned backs at the Senator's
Des Moines campaign office.

Barack Obama campaign office occupation SODaPOP

http://thechristianradical.blogspot.com/2008/11/barack-....html

Obama is only the President of the U.S. Republic, Those who call the shots in the American Empire never face a ballot. To them, all are expendable Obama, you, me, JFK, Oswald, Jack Ruby, the million Iraqi dead, the 4,000 young Americans (most) who went through Shannon Airport to their deaths in Iraq, the 20,000 who returned never to walk, talk or go to the bathroom by themselves again (they had the smarts not to ship the dead and wounded through Shannon, could have woke up the Irish, don't want that!).

American liberals may have to defend their president (if he's not bought) against the American imperial elite (read Gore Vidal on this distinction!) What radicals do at this moment is going to require some thinking and some courage...hopefully we have people who can think and act and poeple who can act and think!

A good move is the 100 Days to Close Guantanamo campaign at the White Houes...check www.witnesstorutrue.org to offer your support

Also the demand that Obama immediately closes the School of the Americas at FtBenning, Georgia, USA BUSY training Colombian troops to torture and kill their own people on behalf of U.S. foreign policy and business interests
checkout www.osaw.org

We'll be doing a solidarity vigil at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin Sunday Nov 16 1pm-3pm with the 20,000+ folks heading down to Ft. Benning the following week. Consider joing us fora couple of hours

by Freedom - None Fri Nov 21, 2008 01:45

I have clicked on to this site for the first time today. Having read some of the contributions, it was very easy to eralise that there are some very anti democratic and anti freedom indoctronated people using this site to to flaunt their propaganda type sentiments. History proves that the United States and it's Allies have always come to the aid of the free world when it was threatened. If you want to prove this staetement wrong, go look in the history books (good way of maybe unbrainwashing oneself) then of course one must have an open mind. Each President of the United Staes lived in different times and therefor many of their decisions were governed by the happenings in the world at the time during the years of their office.

So those of you who are propogating anti Obama feelings against President Elect Obama , even before he takes up the Office of US President, should discard their crystal balls which are clouded with propaganda crystals, try waiting for at least six months, that way you will no have that terrible problem of eating your words and showing the world really what you are. Thank God you are in the m inority and just belong to 'Rent-A-Crowd.

by Rational Ecologist Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:29

I'm afraid you will need to have a look at your own history to realise that the USA has not helped others as a result of altruism but merely to copper-fasten it's own economic interests. Lessons learnt early in your history, namely the genocide of the Native peoples, have merely been exported.
Rent-a-crowd could best be applied to those who put faith in Obama. I would be very happy to eat my words, believe me.
Can you show me some policies where Obama will bring " CHANGE"?
Obama is the darling of the mainstream media, that in itself is cause for concern.

by We the People Fri Nov 21, 2008 19:19

Here we see the planned demise of the Dollar and it's planned replacement by the AMERO.
Could this be the announcement of the Century when Obama takes up Office?

People who have their ear to the ground are expecting a very important statement from Obama in January/February. Some say it will be nuke attack on Iran , some say it will be a statement on the demise of the Dollar.
Lets wait and see.

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