11-05-08, 9:51 am
Original source: CubaNews
By the time this article is finished, it will be less than 24 hours before Barack Obama is elected President of the United States and thus forced, no doubt, to deal with the worst economic crisis ever to fall to the lot of any US heads of state right on Inauguration Day.
On the other hand, he will be fortunate enough to succeed one of the most unpopular presidents in his country's history.
Having shown himself to be a smart, intelligent person, Obama is a far cry from his predecessor. Throw in the fact that he's young and of mixed race, and we have a new president who raises hopes for ethical changes in a society long affected by the rule of conservatives and racists.
With the US economy making a beeline for a crisis so deep as to be only comparable to that of the 1930s, the end of the 'prosperity era' – taken to outrageous limits first by Richard Nixon's decision to allow the dollar-gold rate to float and later on by Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.'s deceptive policies of cutting on rich people's taxes to boost the economy in the name of general well-being – the 'bubble crisis' and recession make up the hot potato that the neoconservatives have dropped on Obama's lap.
In light of the serious deterioration of the US's role in the international arena and with its world leadership status as good as lost, people all over the world seem to expect the new occupant of the White House to meet their hopes… varied though they may be.
Most look forward to an end of America's record of worldwide intervention and aggression, and above all else to the withdrawal of US and other troops from wherever they're currently deployed, convinced that the superpower – under somebody else's guidance – can bring forth a peaceful world and, for good measure, recover the prestige and bonds of friendship it once had.
The world community hopes that the new White House team gives up any intention of arm-twisting the world into accepting the US-made international agenda and democracy model and to accept instead that the world economy, including its own, be under international control; embrace policies in favor of global disarmament and ban nuclear weapons everywhere, including the US; welcome the multilateral democratic process needed to strengthen and modernize the United Nations and to recognize the authority of the Nonaligned Countries, the existence of new regional blocs and China's role as a world power; stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and pull out both its troops and those it coerced its allies into sending to those nations; foster a peace process in the Middle East that includes recognition of and rights for Palestine; relinquish the use of NATO with imperial purposes, admit its obsolescence now that the Cold War is over and to work toward its disintegration; lift the fifty-year-old economic, financial and commercial blockade against the Cuban people and the gruesome naval base in Guantánamo; renounce its goal of turning Latin America into the proving ground for its imperial purposes and abandon its craving for dominance in other countries of the world.
Yet, there are other, extremely powerful wheels are in motion, in the US and elsewhere, which favor Obama's election just because they believe he's better fit than his contender to try and renew US leadership the world over, based precisely on the different image the senator projects, as they count on him to save the essence of imperialism by making it look less violent, chauvinistic and cruel and more skilful, agreeable and multicultural, all through a less quarrelsome and more conciliatory stance. They deem the senator a minor risk, a necessary concession in order to stay clear of a greater danger.
It's for the American people, not for the US monopolies and their military-industrial complex, to make sure the White House marks the beginning of a road that will lead to universal rectification, cooperation and peace.
--A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
