Wednesday night saw me exhilarated upon learning from CNN that Barack Obama has just claimed victory. Now the presumptive Democratic nominee is campaigning to capture the White House from the Bush regime, arguably the most unpopular US president. I know that Barack and Hillary are both traditional establishment candidates in the sense that they represent the status quo in American politics, the same economic elites who had been dominating the superpower's political order for a long time. Though being racial and sexual subalterns these two show to us the sharp battles where the achievements of the civil rights and feminist campaigns of the past decade have entered the mainstream and are seized by the doxa. Remember how the fiery rhetoric and spiritual practices of the militant black church has been rebuked by Obama in his severance of ties with Rev. Wright and church exit, auguring an appeasement of the conservative disposition of a safe and state-supportive Christianity. Unfortunately for the rest of the world and the non-Christians as well as Americans who think differently, the Christian Right is determined more than ever to impose its self-righteous perception. Note: they are linked with big business, the oil corporations, are anti-Arabs and anti-Islamic, hideous of their anti-Semitic bent and are militantly opposed to democratic, patriotic and progressive interests.
Yet there is this powerful sense that Obama has tapped the veins of discontent with the way things have been going for so long in US and global politics that offers him as the solution, even a messiah. His rhetoric and charisma enjoin many to partake of his cause. Let us forcefully challenge that he bring into fruition his progressive calls such as the end of foreign occupation. Warning: he has just issued his support for Jewish security in a program of a most influential pro-Israel lobby group. Hope and dream then, however limited the possibility of positive change there is come November.
Image from www.barackobama.com/photos/
3:27 am
Friday, 6 june 2008
