Is change really a-coming?

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Is change really a-coming?

(Friday 17 October 2008)

PAUL STREET
by IAN SINCLAIR and RICHARD BAGLEY





INTERVIEW: Obamamania is firing the spirits of millions seeking a new era of US policy. PAUL STREET isn't so sure.

CHANGE, change, change. It's been the mantra of the US elections and one man in particular has been promising an awful lot of it.

Barack Obama, Democratic candidate for the US presidency, is currently racing ahead of Republican John McCain in the ratings.

Barring a shock upset, all the signs are that Obama will be the next occupant of the White House after the November 4 poll.

But, while many US trade unionists are backing Obama in the face of rightwinger McCain, the change man has no shortage of doubters.

Among them is Paul Street, whose new book Barack Obama And The Future Of American Politics is released in Britain in January. Street sees plenty of reasons why the US and the world should be wary of his arrival.

"The changes under Obama would be largely about style and image, not substance," he argues. "Obama will put a friendlier and vastly more popular face on the US empire project. Much of the nation's foreign policy elite - a significant part of which has joined or supports the Obama campaign - is excited at the prospect of being able to dress America's quest for global dominance in the supposedly peaceful clothes of Obama."

Street warns that it should come as no surprise if a president Obama maintained or even escalated Washington's warlike foreign policies.

"He has made sure to repeatedly remind that elite of his basic commitment to the imperial agenda," says Street. "He will continue the occupation of Iraq for an indefinite period, escalate US assaults on Afghanistan and Pakistan, reflexively defend Israel's oppression of Palestine, continue the United States provocation of Russia, oppose independent and left nationalism in Latin America and possibly assault Iran.

"He recently told CNN that the US has done nothing which it should apologise for in terms of its foreign policy, because we are a force for good in the world."

Street also highlights an essay by Obama last year in which the Democrat candidate set out his vision for the US military machine.

"The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew," wrote Obama. "We must not rule out using military force" in pursuit of "our vital interests.

"A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace." We must "revitalise our military" to foster "peace," Obama wrote, calling for 65,000 more soldiers and 27,000 more marines.

"We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests, but we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground."

Obama added: "I will not hesitate to use force unilaterally, if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests … we must consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defence … to provide for the common security that underpins global stability."

Street believes that these statements were designed to reassure "the more militarist segments of the US power elite that he would not be hamstrung by international law and civilised norms when our vital interests - translation: other people's oil resources - are at stake.

"Obama has won accolades from US neoconservatives like Robert Kagan, a leading McCain adviser, for such language."

Street acknowledges, however, that a McCain victory would be scarier for the world.

"McCain is an arch-militarist hothead, a real loose cannon," says Street. "During the US presidential campaign, all 'viable' candidates have to talk like they'd be ready to blow up the world at the drop of a hat.

McCain might actually do it. He may actually be more dangerous than George W Bush."

If Obama offers little prospect of fundamental change on Washington's foreign policy, what are the prospects of change for ordinary US citizens? Street again warns against being too optimistic.

"Alexander Cockburn recently described Obama as Wall Street's errand boy. That's exactly right by my estimation," he says.

"Not just Dennis Kucinich but John Edwards and even Hillary Clinton ran to Obama's left on domestic policy, especially health care and homeowner relief, during the primary campaign.



'He recently told CNN that the US has done nothing which it should apologise for in foreign policy.'






"Obama's recent willingness to carry the water for the Paulson-Bernanke-Bush Wall Street bail-out plan says it all - $700 billion of corporate welfare to the very parasitic firms that created the current financial crisis in the first place and with no meaningful relief and assistance to debt-ridden homeowners and working people.

"In 2005, Obama voted to make it more difficult for ordinary Americans to recover proper damages in court from misbehaving corporations.

"Earlier this year, he voted for expanded federal wiretapping powers under the Patriot Act with retroactive legal immunity for big telecommunications corporations who helped George W Bush spy on Americans after 9/11."

Street also highlights the multimillion-dollar sponsorship that Obama's campaign has attracted from corporations.

"Obama has floated to national prominence on a remarkable sea of Wall Street cash," he says. "He is much closer to the Goldman Sachs-Citigroup-Morgan Stanley crowd than McCain.

"That crowd does not write big cheques for anti-establishment revolutionaries. They see Obama as someone they can trust not to rock the boat with starry-eyed ideas about social justice."

But Street acknowledges that an Obama presidency would be less likely than McCain to follow the reactionary path laid down by George W Bush on some domestic policy.

McCain, Street says, "will continue Bush's tax cuts for Americans who earn $200,000 or more each year, which Obama won't, pursue the privatisation of social security, which Obama probably won't, tax people's employment-based health care benefits as income, hoping to force them into the insurance market beyond the workplace, and appoint enemies of abortion and civil rights to federal courts."

Nevertheless, there appears to be relatively minor differences between the two candidates. US dissident Noam Chomsky has consistently pointed to opinion polls which show that a large majority of US citizens consider presidential elections a farcical game played by rich contributors, party managers and the PR industry.

Street comments: "Astute commentators since at least the progressive age (1890-1914) have noted that campaigns market US candidates like they sell cars, candy and toothpaste.

"Both of the presidential candidates and parties are well to the right of the populace on basic foreign and domestic policy issues."
But is there any way that this can change?

Street cites some of the solutions outlined in his book - "the full public financing of US elections, proportional representation in the election of state and congressional representatives, free media time for candidates, sharp restrictions on corporate lobbying, restrictions on the right of corporations to draft laws governing their own industries, the break-up of the corporate media monopoly and encouragement for public and alternative media - I could go on.

"These are all good things to advocate, but the ultimate problem is the underlying contradiction between capitalism, with its inherent tendencies towards the ever greater concentration of wealth and power, and democracy. As Chomsky says in his book Failed States, reforms will not suffice."

Paul Street's Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics is published by Paradigm Publishers in Britain in January. It is currently available from the US via www.paradigmpublishers.com

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