By Yousef Abudayyeh
It was impossible to find a major newspaper or magazine anywhere in the world that did not have a headline that read something like “Change has come to America “. I hope what these publications mean is that African Americans finally made it to the White House and racism is gone.But how was the United States really changed? Is the racism that was inherent in what was to become the United States of America from its colonial beginnings of black slavery and white indentured servitude really gone, changed overnight by the fact of one election victory?
Please allow me to tell you how I see what happened on the 4th of November, 2008.
This election, like the ones before it and the ones to come, was between the two traditional political parties, one governing and one in opposition, the Republican and the Democratic. If you were following the polling results for the last six months and just until the middle of last September, you would have noticed that the two parties were running neck in neck. This after seven years of a Bush Administration (Republican) that brought nothing but misery not only to the world but also to the American people. This is amazing, because even chained sheep would have acted differently toward a party that financially bankrupted the country, is fighting two wars against ‘enemies’ that are not ‘the enemy’, fractured the constitution, threatened its people’s civil rights and liberties and incited unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling among the majority of the globe’s population.
As the US economy went from years of crisis to free fall, Obama’s campaign was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the banks’ full stop on credit and a heavily indebted peoples fear of losing everything they have. What changes are people talking about? With the sky falling on the heads of the American people (and the world) The Obama margin of victory was only 6%. Are you telling me that if any other “white” Democrat was running against the Republicans under these circumstances the margin would not have been this close? Both parties used the electorate as voting animals, but the donkey party’s fear tactics for stampeding the electorate were more effective than the fear tactics of the elephant party. Obama’s campaign capitalized on the pent up eagerness across many sections of the American electorate to use their vote to get rid of the Bush legacy. So the vote itself was not ‘the change’. It was the economic fear factor that overrode racial fears -but not by much.
As for what Obama’s win meant to the rest of the world, which the headlines in their media did not mean “an African American” won i.e. racism is dead in the US, because in most of this (rest) of the world, racism is alive and well. The change they really want to see is Bush going away and not being heard from for a long time. The world wants a break from seven years of horror it has lived under. The world wants to know that the gang that robbed them blind and in daylight just few weeks ago is hopefully on its way out. This is what they meant by change has finally come to America, nothing less and nothing more.
But did change really come to America? Does Obama’s victory mean that the Democratic party has changed, is really not much different than the Republican party, or neither? Is Obama interested in or capable of delivering on the changes he has promised?
Obama is a member of a party that shares control of the world and its wealth with the Republicans. At the beginning of his campaign it was clear that he was not the Democratic party’s first choice to win the nomination and later the presidency. Once it became clear that he was pressing on with his campaign and gaining ground against the establishment’s favorite, Hilary Clinton, the party moved in. It set out the terms of what he needed to do to get its full support. After a meeting at Senator Diane Feinstein’s residence on the eve of Obama’s clinching the party’s nomination, the guidelines put forward to him by the party to ensure their full support, were leaked to bring the media and the public to his side. One can note the change in tone and behavior that Obama exhibited ever since, from his stance on war and bringing the troops home to the economy. All the rhetoric was within the parameters of the Democratic party. With the blessing of the party he would eventually win the presidency.
A representative of the Democratic party will not usher in change not nationally, or internationally to alleviate the problems that Americans and the world’s inhabitants continue to face. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing or capable of changing the nature of this country and to alter the relations within it, and with the rest of the world. That is up to the people, and voting isn’t enough. For that to happen America will have to abandon the ruthlessness on which the capitalist system is built. This means universal health care for it’s people, and justice, fairness and color and sex equality to all who call this country home. It also means that the US abandons its appetite to conquer and control the planet’s wealth and resources. Neither Obama nor the US is ready to do this and that’s why the change is yet to come and regardless of the color of who is the in control of the White House, the US hands will remain dirty and its body splashed with the blood and oil of the world.
November 11,2008
Yousef
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http://wewillreturn.blogspot.com
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