by Cheryl Abraham
While Barack Obama touts his slogan “Change We Can Believe In!” What ‘changes’ is he talking about? Is Obama promising to end the wars and occupations the Bush Regime has initiated and is planning? Is Obama saying he will stop the drive for world domination the Bush Regime has undertaken? What are the facts about just what Obama believes and is doing to make real change in American politics?
While campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama told a crowd he is riding a wave and “you are that wave.” Obama is basing the change he proposes on a new spirit of bi-partisanship that will unite the whole country, a “one United States of America.” But in fact Obama is a super patriot masquerading as a new kind of politician.
In Obama’s first book, “Dreams From My Father,” he writes idealistically about peace, justice, and human understanding, the very ideals which are often the first to be swallowed up in the contentious and “dog eat dog” atmosphere of Washington politics. Obama went on to write a second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” a New York Times bestseller for 30 weeks. In a review of Obama’s book, Ted Glick book wrote, “Independent-minded progressives need to be clear about Barack Obama: he is not one of us.” http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29802 While Obama continues to make “waves” and is called “the Democratic Party’s rock star” by the media, what is at the heart of his message and why is it so clear that he does not speak for anyone who wants an end to the wars and torture and spying the Bush Regime has instituted?
Obama’s “politics of the possible” consists of merrily working in a bi-partisan atmosphere. In a speech given in Iowa Obama said, “..the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can change this country brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand – that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things; because we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States, we are the United States of America..” What he is proposing is that working hand in hand with politicians who have either stood by silently or openly supported the Bush regime’s program of fascistic policies will bring about some miraculous change. To work in bi-partisanship with those who allowed these crimes to continue is not “Politics of the Possible” it is “THE POLITICS OF MONSTROSITY!”
In an April 2007 speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Obama laid out a “five point plan” for his approach to foreign policy. The first four points in his plan concern strengthening and repositioning the U.S. military, modernizing it, focusing military and diplomatic efforts on maintaining U.S. dominance of the world and the Mid East/Central Asia in particular, and doing this in partnership with and through international alliances. Obama concludes his plan for global US domination with a sanctimonious platitude: “the fifth way American will lead again is to invest in our common humanity”. http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/remarks_of_senator_obama_the_w_1.php
Obama also stated in the speech that he had not supported a “dumb war, a rash war”, and has used this stance in many campaign speeches, yet he has repeatedly voted to fund it. What does this say about his commitment to change? http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushill075528994jan07,0,722182.story
In an article by David Sarota titled: “Mr. Obama Goes to Washington” Sarota writes about Obama, “he appears to be interested in fighting only for those changes that fit within the existing boundaries of what’s considered mainstream in Washington, instead of using his platform to redefine those boundaries.” In another article by Sarota from The Huffington Post titled: “Obama on Iraq: Laudable or Damnable,” Sarota says, “Then there is the Iraq War. Obama says that during his 2004 election campaign he ‘loudly and vigorously’ opposed the war. As The New Yorker noted, ‘many had been drawn initially by Obama’s early opposition to the invasion.’ But ‘when his speech at the antiwar rally in 2002 was quietly removed from his campaign Web site,’ the magazine reported, ‘activists found that to be an ominous sign’-one that foreshadowed Obama’s first months in the Senate. Indeed, through much of 2005, Obama said little about Iraq, displaying a noticeable deference to Washington’s bipartisan foreign policy elite, which had pushed the war. One of Obama’s first votes as a senator was to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her integral role in pushing the now-debunked propaganda about Iraq’s WMD.” The article goes on to say, “So here’s what I wonder: Is it a laudable thing that Obama basically kept quiet in 2004 for, as he basically said, the good of the Democratic ticket? Or is damnable, and should he have continued to push his party to stop the war?”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/obama-on-iraq-laudable-o_b_72147.html
This is not to say that the substance of what Obama represents is identical to Bush – but what is the content of the change he advocates? What Obama fails to see, and what all the viable democratic candidates running for president fail to see, is that in order to make real and lasting change in this country these candidates must firmly stand in opposition to everything the Bush regime and its supporters have stood for and demand accountability and justice for the crimes that have been committed. Would anyone sit their family down and break bread with the local sex predator at the annual neighborhood picnic to promote a sense of community? NO! But that is what these candidates are telling us is so necessary: to break bread and work “together” with those who have supported, either whole heartedly or with their silence, the fascistic program of the Bush regime.
Unless and until a viable candidate is willing to repudiate ALL that the Bush regime and its supporters have stood for then no real or lasting change can take place. We cannot afford to put our hopes for the future in politicians! There will be no savior from the Democratic Party. True and lasting change can only be made by a mass mobilization of people in the millions demanding it.