XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.religion.christian, alt.religion.islam   
   From: al92653@xyz.com   
      
   Change We Can Believe In?   
      
   Obama's landslide victory marks the beginning of a new era, a moment of   
   enormous possibility and for those of us fed up from the past eight years,   
   long overdue prospect of change. But the change needs our continued efforts   
   and work, unless we are willing to settle for another version of the Clinton   
   years.   
      
   By Anjali Kamat   
      
   This piece originally appeared in Samar 30, published online November 10th,   
   2008.   
      
   It has been less than a week since Barack Hussein Obama's remarkable victory   
   at the polls. Despite a vicious Republican campaign built on hate,   
   ignorance, McCarthyite fear-mongering, and voter disenfranchisement efforts,   
   the junior senator from Illinois won the election by more than 7.5 million   
   votes. He overturned months of speculation about the "Bradley effect" and   
   the projected disapproval of white working-class voters by winning swing   
   states and turning even reliably red states like Indiana, Virginia,   
   Colorado, and North Carolina blue for the first time in decades.   
      
   People across the country took to the streets in droves to celebrate   
   President-elect Obama's victory on November 4th. The thousands of volunteers   
   who devoted time and energy to promote his campaign and the millions who   
   donated, many less than $200, are ecstatic. To all those for whom America   
   has represented generations of racial injustice-slavery, lynching, the Ku   
   Klux Klan, Jim Crow, Emmett Till, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and the Jena   
   Six-the election of America's first Black president marks the beginning of a   
   new era. It's a moment of enormous possibility and the realization of a   
   long-awaited dream that seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. And   
   everyone fed up with the past eight years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare (and   
   two elections stolen from under the noses of Gore and Kerry) is overjoyed at   
   the long-overdue prospect of change.   
      
   But is this really "change we can believe in?" That depends on whether we're   
   willing to settle for another version of the Clinton years or demand   
   something more. Obama won the election primarily on economic issues but   
   unless his millions-strong grassroots constituency holds his feet to the   
   fire, the banks and the corporations will be the only remaining believers in   
   this brand of change. Obama's support of the Treasury's bailout plan, his   
   failure to call for a complete moratorium on foreclosures until just last   
   month, and the fact that Clinton-era champions of deregulation (like   
   Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin) are among those getting the   
   President-elect's ear on economic issues are not encouraging signs. Nor are   
   Vice-President elect Joe Biden's close ties to the credit card industry.   
      
   Obama secured the support many progressives because he was the only   
   Democratic Presidential candidate (besides Dennis Kucinich) who did not vote   
   for the war in Iraq. But his ideas on how to end this trillion-dollar war   
   remain ambiguous at best and his stated commitment to pursuing the "war on   
   terror" in Afghanistan and extending it into Pakistan should be alarming to   
   many. He has repeatedly called for increasing US troops inside Afghanistan   
   and said he supports unilateral attacks on "Al Qaeda targets" inside   
   Pakistan-with or without Pakistan's permission. On Iran, to his credit, he   
   has said he would talk to the leadership but has also argued for increased   
   pressure and tightened sanctions to halt Iran's nuclear program, "before   
   Israel feels like its back is to the wall."   
      
   Israel may well be the Achilles heel of Obama's progressive pretensions.   
   It's particularly disheartening given the respect he once held for reputed   
   Palestinian intellectuals like Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi. A day after   
   winning the Democratic nomination, Obama told AIPAC that Jerusalem should be   
   Israel's undivided capital. Now, just two days after being elected   
   President, he named the hawkish pro-Israeli Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of   
   staff, crushing any hopes that the coming administration might have a fairer   
   policy on the Palestinian question. In another questionable appointment,   
   Obama just named Sonal Shah to his transition team. A co-founder of   
   Indicorps, Shah was also, until 2001, the National Coordinator of the deeply   
   sectarian Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, tied to the Sangh Parivar in   
   India.   
      
   On domestic issues of criminal justice and civil liberties, the Obama-Biden   
   record is not very inspiring either. They both support the death penalty and   
   Joe Biden is infamous for sponsoring some of the most punitive legislation   
   in the war on drugs. Biden voted for the PATRIOT Act and Obama voted to   
   reauthorize it. Equally shameful is the fact that Obama voted this July to   
   cover up the Bush administration's illegal surveillance program. He   
   supported Bush's expansion of warrantless wiretapping as well as retroactive   
   immunity for telecom companies involved in the eavesdropping.   
      
   For eight years, people in the U.S. have endured an administration that has   
   blatantly undermined the Constitution, rejected multilateralism and   
   international law, launched illegal and inhumane wars, refused to believe in   
   global warming, and engaged in unmatched lying, scheming, and corporate   
   thieving. An Obama presidency will indeed be an improvement in many   
   respects. But unless the inspired millions who brought him to power continue   
   to believe their demands matter and insist on holding him accountable each   
   step of the way, it will be Obama's corporate and hawkish friends who   
   determine the domestic and foreign policies of the coming administration and   
   our collective future.   
      
   "We will not be silent" became a popular slogan during the Bush years,   
   signaling opposition to everything the Bush administration stood for. It is   
   perhaps tempting to remain silent now, during this immediate after-glow of   
   Obama's victory, to allow ourselves a moment of relief. While on the   
   campaign trail Obama often quoted Dr. Martin Luther King to explain why he   
   was running for President: because, he said, of the "fierce urgency of now,"   
   because "there is such a thing as being too late." Those words are from   
   MLK's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech, where Dr. King, unlike Obama, called for   
   an unequivocal end to all American war-making and solidarity with people's   
   struggles against injustice around the world. If we're serious about   
   realizing the kind of change we actually do believe in, then it's worthwhile   
   to remember the letter and spirit of MLK's words and speak up before its too   
   late.   
      
   Anjali Kamat is a producer at Democracy Now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)