'IN
TRIUMPH, A ROMAN COMMANDER WAS ACCOMPANIED IN HIS
CHARIOT
BY A SERVANT WHO REMINDED HIM OF HIS MORTALITY
BY
WHISPERING, 'LOOK BEHIND YOU! YOU ARE BUT A MAN!'
Le Figaro, France
Some Reasons for Obama's Popularity;
McCain's Only Chance
"Obama symbolizes the spectacular rehabilitation of the
American left, for which he defends all the important ideas: pacifism,
protectionism, anti-militarism, increasing taxes and greater solidarity based
on much greater [financial] redistribution. All of this was acquired notably
through the particular charm of his personality, and something that is even
more unusual in the Afro-American community: the lack of any tangible
racially-based resentment."
Sometimes the fortunes of how a page is laid are symbolic:
today, with a little more than two pages at my disposal, I will take the
opportunity to quickly expedite the problem of Barack Obama. It is indeed
beyond all discussion that Barack Obama has revolutionized the presidential
competition, and even deeply, the entirety of U.S. politics. He symbolizes both
the dramatic promotion of Black elites (three CEOs of the largest corporations,
a chief of the Army and the current secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice), but
also the no-less spectacular rehabilitation of the American left, for which he
defends all the important ideas: pacifism, protectionism, anti-militarism,
increasing taxes and greater solidarity based on much greater [financial]
redistribution. All of this was acquired notably through the particular charm
of his personality, which is eloquent and brilliant, but something that is even
more unusual in the Afro-American community: the lack of any tangible
racially-based resentment.
That the United States must one day elect an
Afro-American president (male or female) is inevitable. Just as it is
inevitable that the generation of children of humiliated communists and
progressives, who are today rich and in power, would be tempted to inflict a
spectacular defeat on the American right, which remains arrogant without having
done quite as well as its children. Barack Obama has managed to combine these
two movements inherent in American society.
It isn't only the talent of the candidate that
explains such alchemy. As for Kennedy in 1960 when the anti-Catholic roadblock
blocked the emergence of the post-war generation, here the roadblock of
anti-Blacks and anti-left are giving way under the weight of a massive
rejection of the Reagan revolution.
Reagan assured the United States a spectacular
economic recovery, but nevertheless, paid for it with social inequalities that
little-by-little have surpassed by way of inconvenience the advantages brought
by free markets.
More and more Americans, particularly baby-boomers,
feel increasing resentment over the absence of universal health coverage.
Overwhelmingly, employees of industry and services have seen their income
stagnate since 2002. The subprime crisis is only the fourth occurrence of the
explosion of a speculative bubble.
ELECTION FUN: A BRIEF HISTORY OF
2008 CAMPAIGN
Such a bubble is entirely in keeping with a mode of
development based on easy financial facilities that end up producing an
irrational allocation of resources, just as inflation has in the past, badly
frustrating the lower middle-class which has been directly effected by the
collapse of the real estate sector.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
On top of this, one must add the sometimes incredible
stagnation of all public facilities in a country where the pressure for lower
taxes has kept railroads, airports and sometimes roads at the technological
level of the 1970s. It was at New Orleans in 2005 that the bankruptcy of the
American state in the face of both a predictable and addressable natural
disaster which proved to a majority of Americans that government intervention,
in the manner of Franklin Roosevelt, is sometimes necessary.
Finally, if we add the fact that the economic and
financial crisis will reach its peak around October, just a few days before the
presidential election, one gets a better understanding of Obama’s lead over his
Republican rival, John McCain.
A single element could disrupt this triumphant march,
which fits in perfectly with classic American "messianism":
the undeniable victory at the finish line of George Bush in Iraq, which should
be combined with tough negotiations with Iran. This isn't the conception of the
world developed by Obama, Hollywood and American academia. This is the only
point where the Republican candidate McCain has a genuine comparative
advantage.
