By Dr. Elias Akleh
After Obama’s presidential victory a euphoric feeling swept the streets of most of the States. Thousands of people gathered in the Grant Park in Chicago, thousands others went into the streets of their cities celebrating this occasion. They called it a historic election, a nonviolent revolution, a dream comes true, a breakthrough and a victory over racism. Obama was called a hero, a savior, and some even called him a messiah. Obama’s call for change has become an orgy that tantalizes peoples’ feelings and hopes.
This “change Orgy” became contagious and spread to other countries especially in Africa, where Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, declared a national holiday to mark Obama’s victory. Since American foreign policies have a direct impact on almost every country in the world, many world leaders, especially African leaders were hoping to start a new fresh page with Obama’s administration. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Bush administration felt empowered and justified to be more condescending towards the rest of the world, and felt free to do anything and everything to expand its control around the world. With Obama in the Oval Office world leaders are hoping for a “good” change.
Obama’s victory, and more accurately Democrats’ victory, was a sure thing. Through two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war in Haiti, their proxy wars in Africa, war in Georgia, war against Lebanon via Israel, and their violations of international laws, plus the internal wars against the freedom of American people, and the ravaging of American economy, the Republican neoconservative Bush administration had swung the pendulum to the extreme right, and now it has but to swing back to the opposite direction. Everybody knew that after eight disastrous years of Republican rule the Democrats will have their turn. This inevitable change is what brought Obama to the White House. Obama rode to the White House on the people’s wish for change
This has been the most expensive American election so far. The combined cost of both Democratic and Republican campaigns was estimated to about one billion Dollars. McCain raised about $360 millions while Obama raised about $640 millions. In just one month Obama was able to raise $150 millions. Such amounts of money has not been raised from the poor and middle class American families, millions of whose bread winners had lost their jobs to outsourcing, lost their investments and retirement funds, and finally lost their homes. Such money came from the power elite; bankers and corporations, who wanted to have a saying in the decisions of the new American administration. Obama cannot accept such funds without paying a price of loyalty to such donors. With this money Obama was able to employ media power to reach every American minority and to talk to them in their own ethnic languages and their own dialects. He was able to deliver his dream of change to the newly young voters in their colleges and universities. With double the money McCain had, Obama was able to “buy” more votes.
Record voters turned out to vote for Obama; estimated to be 64% with 62.3 million votes. The majority of them were Blacks and Latino. Race, as well as economy, had played the greater influence in electing Obama. This was obvious in all election rhetoric that could not escape using racist terminologies. Unfortunately, a large majority are not aware that race is not the core issue of the struggle. It is, rather, a class struggle; the few filthy rich against the poor. Many colored rich minorities had, and still, enslave the poor of their own color. Let us remember what military black previous Secretary of State Collin Powell and his successor Chevron’s Condoleezza Rice had done to the blacks of America.
Obama is no different. He will soon be exposed the person he really is; just another wolf in sheep clothing. Obama’s promises to protect the middle class are just empty promises. This was obvious after he approved the $700 billion (plus interest) bailout to give more tax money to corrupt bankers, who will use that money to buy weaker banks. The money should have been used to pay portions of the mortgages the middle class owe to the banks, so they could keep their homes. His acclaimed tax cut promise to the middle class means nothing to its unemployed members. The official unemployment rate is 6.5% not counting those, who are not receiving unemployment benefits and are thus not counted. In 2008 alone Americans have lost 1.2 million jobs to outsourcing. Obama’s solution to outsourcing is offering corporations tax cuts as incentives to keep the jobs in the US. Such incentive is nothing compared to the huge savings, in the forms of benefits and retirement funds the corporations are saving by employing very cheap labor force unprotected by any labor laws in third world countries lacking any environmental laws. Obama never talked about the poor Americans. For him they don’t exist.
Obama’s real position concerning the unfair NAFTA agreement, that he aggressively criticized and called for its revocation, was exposed later, when it was leaked that his advisor Astan Goolsbee had called Canadian officials asking them not to take Obama’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric seriously, but “…should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plan”.
People, who think that a president like Obama with his limited political experience could actually change policies, are gravely mistaken. He will be under the influence of members of his administration, more experienced experts and advisers, who will shape his decisions. They are expected to be more right-wing than the Republican neoconservatives. Each interest group, who contributed to Obama’s campaign, will push its own agent into this administration to implement its own agenda that might be different than and opposite to the agenda of other interest groups. His administration will be pulled to too many different directions and the well being of the common people will be forgotten and lost.
Obama’s first appointment (pushed onto him by AIPAC) as his chief of staff is an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran Rahm Emanuel, whose father was a member of the Irgun; a Zionist terrorist group who perpetrated terror attacks in British mandated Palestine. This appointment comes to guarantee and to foster Obama’s promised support to Israel. Obama promised $30 billions of American tax money in military aid to Israel. Ignoring the fact that Israel has violated many international laws, and is an occupying power, Obama declared his support to Israel as a “theocratic” Jewish state with undivided Jerusalem as its capitol. He also vowed to “isolate Hamas” the Palestinian representatives elected in the most free and democratic election as observed and certified by international observers. He also threatened to do everything in his power to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons to threaten Israel.
Hypnotized by “change” and “race” people could not see the similarities Obama has with McCain/Bush/Republicans. They are all for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although initially Obama opposed the Iraqi invasion, he always voted for the surge and more war funding in Iraq. He wants to leave a residual force in military bases in Iraq, and wants to ship another military surge to Afghanistan to keep bombing Pakistani borders. He supported Israeli terror and aggression against Palestinians and the war against Lebanon. Obama is belligerent towards Iran promising to do “everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. He was confrontational towards Russia after the war in Georgia. He is for war against “global terrorist” and promised to bring Osama bin Laden in dead or alive. He is for drug wars (protecting drug trade, whose money goes through Wall Street). Locally, he supports the death penalty, pollutant nuclear and coal industries, and had never talked about abolishing oppressive laws such as Patriot Act, homeland security, internet control, and wiretapping and spying on American citizens.
The most dangerous is Obama’s denial of any evidence that the North American Union (NAU); the so-called Security & Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) that President Bush had signed in 2005 with Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox without the approval of the Congress, will take place. Ohio’s Representative Marcy Kaptur stated “There is a plenty of evidence that this is going on”. Presidential candidate Ron Paul had also denounced this union. The North American Union is based on eliminating the borders between the three countries, and creating a new common currency called Amero; a monetary conversion that would transfer more wealth to bankers similar to what happened in Europe’s conversion to the Euro. Most American manufacturing jobs are planned to move to cheaper Mexico with raw material imported from Africa and South East Asia into Mexican ports, and the manufactured products would be transported via a super highway linking Mexico to Canada through the heart of American middle states. This super highway is planned to be leased and controlled by a foreign body; Spanish Centra Company. Yet when asked about this union, Obama pretended that the term is new to him. It is a sin for a president-to-be to deny such evidence, and even more sinful if he really does not know about it.
Obama is just a sweet dream people will enjoy for a short while. The morning after, people will wake up and will recognize that it was but a dream.
-Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
