Point and Counterpoint

Okay, over the summer I watched the first season of 'flight of the concords' a few months before that I discovered System of A Down. When I was 16 I discovered Led Zeppelin.

I have decided that being late to the party is awesome. In Australia I was on the cutting edge of discovering South Park as an SBS watcher long before the advent of watching all TV available over the internet. And it was really annoying, because after a few weeks everyone was watching it and shouting out 'Oh my god you killed kenny!' and 'screw you guys, I'm going home.' and it was an annoying catchphrase comedy. Fat guys that looked like toadfish bought ties from novelty stores with the southpark kids faces on it to match their silky 'respect my authority' boxer shorts. Nintendo 64 licensed the characters for a shitty shooter game.

In short I find all my experience confirms it really sucks to be on the cutting edge and live through the buzz. I could enjoy Flight of the Concords far more because I'm so late to the party, and don't have to survive conversation with mobs of people that use webphrases like 'woot, omg' and 'rotflol'. The kind of people that continuously seem to enjoy shows because they are popular and not paradoxically because they are intrinsicly enjoyable.

Think of it if you will as going to a themepark on a winter weekday. The rides are just as good, but there's no crowds.

Now this is a really fucking long preamble but what I want to say is that I have every intention of being very late to the Barack Obama party.

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' said some early english philosopher or management consultant or some shit. So I thought I'd look at the case for and against Obama to explain my skepticism. Just as I had to constantly explain my position of 'Chris Lilley is not a genius' and I feel myself already going down that slippery slope so without further ado...

The Case For:

Not because I'm an optimist I just find negatives easier to find and easier to write about so I'll get the case for out of the way.

1. Funding

Barack Obama went one step further than John Kerry's use of move-on.org private campaigning against George Bush. Some of my friends contributed to his campaign. And my friends don't sit on the board of Exxon, Texaco, Friends of Isreal, The Committe for the Realection of President Nixon, Evilco and so fourth. They are people that study, are jobless, do development work etc.
Since the dawn of TV, democracy has suffered by it, simply because voters typically don't take time to inform themselves of facts and actual policies. They simply watch TV. Thus to have a crack at winning an election traditionally you have needed the GNP of several small contries just to have a crack at being President of the US. Think of that! A small countries economy (like New Zealand) is consumed every time there's an election on.
Which means every candidate since Franklin Delanore Roosevelt has had to beg and scrape to raise money in the most efficient way they could. Which is going to the few people with lots of money rather than the lots of people with few money.
Obama has used the internet to at least some extent flip that equation more in favor of many people with few money, which amounted to more money than Clinton and McCain could raise to tackle him.
This simply means that the single biggest cause for hope with Obama is that he (ironically) owe more people favors rather than less people favors.

2. Cultural Empathy.

Barack Obama is black, he isn't poor, he isn't particularly discriminated against any more than say a gay, a lesbian, an athiest, a hispanic, a creationist, a pro-lifer is. I mean if you really honestly had to point to a president that was elected against the most prejudice and most scrutiny it was George W Bush. He was descriminated against by anti-stupidity, anti-religious fundamentalist, anti-conservative haters. Nasty things were said about Bush constantly. Not that Bush is any kind of victim, but his second term was more of a 'miracle' and strategic brilliance than Obama's rise.
But Obama when he looks at proposals like Ring-piece Rudd faced yesterday of showing some sensitivity and shifting the Australia day date he may be more open and receptive.
He isn't the descendant of slavery, but his roots certainly have been fucked around by IMF, World Bank etc. So hopefully there may be some policy change arising from this that represents real reform for the world.

3. The Landslide Victory

Barack Obama cruised through polling day on the strength of all the new voters that turned out for the first time. Maybe he will bank on this giving him strong reelection prospects and that he should take some risks, being that like George W Bush he has a body of voters that would probably still vote for him even if he did something as glactically stupid as wage a multi front war with Canada and Mexico.
Which isn't the kind of risk I'm talking about. I would be talking about risks such as major tax reform, education reform, burdensome socialist reforms, welfare security nets, wipe out some industries that would be nice (but politically costly) to wipe out like car manufacturing, milk production, wheat farming and anything that the public actually subsidise to keep running. So maybe, confident that this recession provides an opportunity to get monkey's off the back of the nation and set a precedent for the world because Obama is happy to sacrifice a landslide for a close run race.

4. Ambition.

Sitting in the white house now, can Obama look higher? Could he be entertaining ambitions with all of his talk of bipartisan, non-partisan, multi-lateral and improved standing in the world talk, ambitions of setting up a participative world government. Instigating a UN that would free him of the shackles of the American public. If the world voted their wouldn't have been a question of McCain ever winning. Obama would have walked a world election. The Republican party would not even exist.
Obama might have the first ever real incentive to give up the very lucrative power offered by the US for a wider net of power offered by a global community. This though is real pie in the sky talk, and I wouldn't trust him to do it or his motives. I think him professional and will probably stick to representing the interests (broadly) of those that elected him and not specifically the interests of those interested in what he is doing. But he may toy with going in that direction and making some headway on allowing more people to have a say in determining their own future.

And those are the only real possibilities for reform I can entertain as the case for. Now for my skepticism.

The Case Against:

1. The Democratic Machine

It is a fact that Barack Obama was elected by the exact same system that elected George Bush (the second term), George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Harry S. Truman, Woodrow Wilson etc.
The democratic game works on the fundamental aim of retention of power. That means cowtowing to your contributors (noting the lack of any condemnation of Isreal's latest attacks against UN buildings), and bailing out failed businesses.
The little man wants their job because they don't want to save themselves. The big man wants to pursue the same old US hegemony because of the flawed economic system we run on that requires command of natural resources as the key determinant of power in this world.
Why on earth has president after president, many of whom barely even knew eachother pursued the same agenda's to varying degrees. If Geneva was enforced both hawk and dove presidents alike would all have been hung to this point.

2. Cultural Empathy

While it is true Obama can trace his roots to some of the least fortunate people on earth, it is also true he has been a benificiary of all the material advantages provided by US hegemony of the world. From his upbringing, law degree, real estate, security and political career is drawn from resources that in many cases have been funded by taking from the rest of the world. Bleeding south america dry, pursuing veto of world oil supplies in the Middle East and Africa and what not paves every advantage the US enjoyed. Much of a muchness that Paris's Louvre contains paintings that have been bled out of every nation it beat up in the Renaissance when it was the major player in the world. Or the Spartan's military kingdom was propped up by the slavery of neighbouring states. Or Britain's conquering of 2/3 of the globe in the colonialism days.
As always though Chomsky puts it better:

I mean, what's the elections? You know, two guys, same background, wealth, political influence, went to the same elite university, joined the same secret society where you're trained to be a ruler - they both can run because they're financed by the same corporate institutions. At the Democratic Convention, Barack Obama said, 'only in this country, only in America, could someone like me appear here.' Well, in some other countries, people much poorer than him would not only talk at the convention - they'd be elected president. Take Lula. The president of Brazil is a guy with a peasant background, a union organizer, never went to school, he's the president of the second-biggest country in the hemisphere. Only in America? I mean, there they actually have elections where you can choose somebody from your own ranks. With different policies. That's inconceivable in the United States. - Chomsky

Put simply, just because Barack is African American does not mean he is a reformer. Just as wearing a denim jacket doesn't mean a guy is gay. Sucking another man's dick makes you gay just as reforming makes you a reformer.
I wasn't around to see it but my father said the model of reform remains Gough Whitlam whom on his triumphant election night was already pulling troops out of Vietnam. No caution, no compromise. He won, he had 3 years to do as much damage as he could and he did it. If it weren't for an allegedly CIA backed dismissal.

3. Symbollic but empty gestures and 'Reality'

Is Obama better than Bush? Well almost definitely. But is he better than Rudd? will be the real question. I have heard analysts draw the comparison between the two men in political styles.
WHat this means is that just like Rudd was left some low hanging fruit by Howard, so too has Obama been left big goodie bags by Bush.
Guantanomo bay immediatly comes to mind. It is not like Obama is doing anything 'ballsy' or unpopular by closing it down. What was ballsy was Bush ignoring the rulings of the US supreme court (the same court that apointed him president the first time) who ruled it was illegal and should be closed down.
As such Obama is simply complying with the law.
I compare this kind of reform to Rudd's sorry day. A fine moment in history to be sure and it seems the only sad thing about it in hindsight was that Ringpiece Rudd was the man to do something so wonderful.
But it cost nothing to do. To me I have no fucking idea what the fuck Howard's problem was with doing such a huge symbolic gesture that unifies the nation without making any real commitment to any real change.
Even tackling climate change has become one of these things, Rudd signed the Kyoto protocol when it didn't cost anything to do it, then came up with a worst case solution which was a 5% cut target under the flawed cap and trade system.
I would expect that Obama might do similar.
Rudd keeps conforming in his decision making process to political 'realities' as opposed to realities and I don't see Obama doing any different.

4. US is playing Catch Up.

Obama I think knows, as most in the world know that America is far from the best or most free country in the world. Despite talk of 'only in america' It is a brilliant country in many respects it's constitution and first amendments are remarkable precedents for the world. But the US is trying to catch up with the rest of the world in healthcare, education and whatnot. Particularly nations like those found in Scandanavia, the Netherlands, Germany and France. Those are great places to live that barely have to kill anyone to maintain their place in the world.
Obama in other words has a full plate before the US is ready to 'lead the world again.' So I don't see Obama doing much for the world yet.

5. The Moron's that Vote for Him.

Moron's are a subset of all the people that voted for him. Much like Obama might take this landslide buffer to take some risks, so too might he be destroyed by Moronic expectations. This is directed at you fucking hippies that became a 'fan of Barack Obama' on facebook without ever reading a speech or any of his proposed policies. People who vote for him based on his 'calm and measured tone' and 'consistent message' this could easily apply to someone who repeats 'change' over and over again to someone who says 'kill the poor' over and over again. People who would vote Bono/Geldof into the Whitehouse as soon as Barack Obama.
People who think that Barack Obama is going to... what? March the army into Texas and tell the people to stop being creationists? Strip the assets of those idiot investors in California that built the Subprime real estate bubble and give them to the poor who have lost their homes? Line the clowns in Wall Street up and deliver them to Chinese factory workers who lost their jobs this new year?
You see, Obama used the same tactic as priests have used for centuries to sell christianity. He simply substituted 'Heaven' for 'Change we can believe in'. You see everybody knows heaven by definition is 'paradise' but whose paradise? My paradise would be living much the same lifestyle as a dog does, eating, sleeping, running around and hunting, foraging, playing, having sex. All I'd need was a nice lush and temperate environment to do it in. For others it might be a French Chateu with heated toilet seats. But Heaven doesn't give specifics and that is how it maintains maximum appeal.
Notably I remember my Greek friend at Uni mentioning the Islamic myth of a garden filled with 70 virgins had little appeal. 'Have you ever had sex with a virgin? they give shitty handjobs, the condom slips off all the time, they don't know what they are doing...' Which may ultimately by Islam's undoing in the west.
SO too is 'Change We Can Believe In' what change do 'we' want. Well for me I'm Australian, and so its irrelevent. I am not part of 'we' though I'm sure Obama would happily take my money. There is a peppering of undefined terms in Obama's main tagline that got him elected. He campaigned on change, and people wanted change. A match was made and he got in. But now people just need to work out what that change is. Hillary complained about the lack of scrutiny recieved by Obama and maybe she is right. Certainly he recieved a shittonne of 'faith based votes'.
Was he better than McCain? Yes. That's the reason to vote for him. Is he president now? Yes. That's a great reason to dog his every step.

6. The Clinton Administration.

The height of my anti-american period was during the Clinton administration. Bush was a monster and I'd enjoy putting him and Cheney on a mysterious Island in the pacific where they had to hunt eachother more than doing the same to Clinton and Al Gore but the fact remains. Comparatively Clinton was better than Bush, but that didn't make him good enough. He was no Michael Jordan.
Obama has largely appointed a heap of Clinton's old advisors. Rage Against the Machine captured my heart and soul in their music that they wrote about NAFTA, Iraq, the Middle East etc.
They made money for America, but they also set up the Internet Bubble which was a direct precurser to the Subprime mortgage market collapse. Even in the Clinton days the economy had all the makings of the destruction of the world economy through debt funding.
So already Obama has passed up an opportunity for change. Same could be said of Biden where instead of reinforcing his inexperience as a catalyst for change he undermined it by appointing some old white dude. It was a much better decision than Palin was for running mate but it doesn't communicate to me a real commitment to change. More a commitment to backpedal 8 years. And the world has changed regardless.

7. Safety

To many Obama was the maverick personification of change. But I think many more voted for him as the safe option. The aforementioned 'measured tone' his political savy that is constantly referred to he strikes me as anything but audacious. He makes safe decision after safe decision. I have not known him to take a risk. The money followed him once it became clear he would win both in primaries and in the election.
Unlike that Mormon guy that spent $60 million of his own fortune running for the Republican ticket was a risk taker. He was a moron that was out of touch with reality and that is what I call audatious. Obama is more audatious in the way that Usain Bolt was going to the Beijing Olympics. He knew he had the body to support his ambitions and audatiously he entered the race he honestly believed he would win.
Obama knew he had an almost cult following of excited hopeful people who had read his book and in the exact same way that hollywood make movies out of celebrated Comic books like 'the long halloween' which formed the loose basis of 'The Dark Knight' or Alan Moore's Watchmen which now has a massive following of idiots craving validation of their own nerdiness from the mass market.
Same same for Obama, he was infact a much safer candidate than any other in terms of book sales. He was the safe option. I believe fundamentally that he will continue to play it safe and 'stay the course' apart from large symbollic gestures that don't cost anything. Just like Rudd.

So I'm not saying Obama winning is a bad result. I'm not saying he will necessarily be a bad president. I just don't think he is a Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (Ted or FDR).

Instead I would say to all the people praying for Obama to save them, to fucking get off your fucking droopy arse and save yourself.