OBAMANIA

The following short article was written at the request of Attac's "Zindiens" for their November monthly bulletin. It was signed Big Griff and translated into French by "J.Nessoa".

OBAMANIA

The recent US presidential election has already occupied so much space in the French media that this American writer, (and it is a great relief, once again, to be able to confess to that nationality without guilt)feels a need to excuse himself for inflicting yet more about Obama on the patient denizens of the Haut Languedoc.

Now that the media frenzy is at last starting to cool - NO MORE BUSH!, FIRST US PRESIDENT OF COLOR!, PALIN IS HISTORY! and so forth - maybe it's time to pay attention to something more than symbolic realities. Barak Obama won't be sworn in as president until late January. Until then, he will be obliged to make so many difficult, almost impossible decisions that you have to wonder what might persuade any politician there seriously to run for president.

The answer - as usual in the US - is MONEY. Lots and lots of money. Obama, and the Democrat party, we need to remember, have forked over more dollars than anyone, anywhere, at any time has 'paid' to win this high office. Since the good man himself has little personal wealth, he now, as any of us would, owes a great many debts. To whom? True, there has been in this election an unprecedented number of small donations from enthusiastic, private individuals. These are people to whom he needs, ultimately, only to say a heartfelt thank-you.

However, like all US politicians, Obama and his party have also felt it necessary to accept large donations from even larger corporations. The are people - lest anyone be so foolish as to forget who REALLY runs the US these days - who will not be content with a mere thank-you. They will expect to be repaid. They will demand it. So - plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, as Alphonse Karr remarked in 1849 - we must not be surprised if before long we again find, under Obama, as under Bush, international US trade and diplomatic agreements being written by private corporation lawyers, officials in government agencies granting privileges to selected businessmen, huge amounts of public money being diverted to already wealthy manufacturers of armaments. Continued 'war' on drugs,'war' on terror'.

It is difficult to imagine what can be done under such a system. How can the new president produce and set up a health system worthy of the name if doing so means asking the powerful insurance and drug industries to give up about eight billion dollars of their annual income? How can he reduce endemic violence in defiance of the powerful National Rifle Association? How can he expect to negotiate a fair and just path out of the Palestine problem when the powerful and influential pro-Israel lobby in the US opposes it? The public schools - to judge simply by the proportion of US citizens who believe Obama is a Muslim, or the number who believe Saddam had atomic weapons - is in need of serious funding, yet the US military is accustomed to getting more money to spend each year than all other countries' militaries combined, and won't like it if children get more consideration than they do.

And yet. At least now we have - WE in the world, as well as WE of the US - a leader who is, in fact, a leader. We have a man who speaks correctly and intelligently. We have someone who will try, we hope, to take small steps in a positive direction rather than large ones in the wrong direction. Let us have no illusions, but let us keep our fingers crossed.