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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

About Climate Change and more...




Internews helps Southern Journalists Hold Key Climate Negotiators to Account at UN Summit JamesFahn/Internews Climate Change fellows interview a German environment official (December 12, 2008) Reporters supported by Internews and its partners at the international climate negotiations underway in Poznan, Poland have made their mark in a series of scoops that have forced negotiators to take their responsibilities towards the developing world more seriously. Navin Khadka, a journalist with the BBC Nepali Service, highlighted a crucial two-year delay caused by bureaucratic fumbling in the approval of Nepal’s national plan to adapt to climate change. His work sparked an escalating blame game between two agencies and led to calls for a complete overhaul of the system. “There is an inherent complexity to access the fund, which needs to be reformed totally if the developing countries are to adapt to the challenges of climate change,” commented Saleemul Haq, head of the climate change group at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Another example of the impact that developing world journalists made on the summit came at an event where the Norwegian Environment Minister, Erik Solheim, announced the creation of a fund to support sustainable energy technologies. In describing an example of what the fund could do, he cited the possibility of replacing the dirty and unsafe mobile generators supplying electricity for shops on the streets of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Little did the Minister know that there were journalists from Sierra Leone and Liberia in the audience. Harold Williams, a reporter for Africanews.com, subsequently asked whether there had been any studies of the impact such a project might have on Sierra Leoneans in the generator business. The Minister had to admit there had been no such studies, but seemed pleased nonetheless to have been posed the question, and before leaving made a point of going up and shaking Harold’s hand. Harold Williams and Navin Khadka are reporting from the UN Climate Summit thanks to the Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP), an ambitious program launched at the Bali Summit in 2006 by Internews, Panos and IIED to scale up the quantity and quality of coverage of climate change issues and the international negotiations. The CCMP has brought 37 journalists from 29 developing countries to Poznan, Poland where the latest talks are being hosted. “We are more than just the largest media bloc here at the UN Summit in terms of number of journalists in Poznan and reach to hundreds of millions of people,” said James Fahn, the Director of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network. “According to the UN coordinators of the negotiations, who have been following our output, we are also providing some of the best informed, balanced reporting to key countries in the climate change fray, such as India.” For Internews and its partners in the CCMP, Poznan is a key steppingstone for the endgame negotiations to be held in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. “Every day here in Poznan our journalists have reported on how their own governments are either opening up or blocking the road to Copenhagen,” said Internews’ Mark Harvey. “2009 will be a definitive year for the world’s climate, and journalists supported by Internews, Panos and IIED will be there in force to ensure that audiences in the developing world get a ringside seat on what is being decided in their name.” The Climate Change Media Partnership’s work in Poland is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the Germeshausen Foundation, the World Bank Institute for Sustainable Development, the Ashden Trust, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation. About the Climate Change Media Partnership The Climate Change Media Partnership was created in 2007 to bring journalists to the UN climate change summit in Bali. The journalists produced around 720 stories during the summit and have gone on to cover climate change in depth over the past year. To interview any of the journalists who attended the Bali summit, please contact: mike.shanahan@iied.org For more information on the Climate Change Media Partnership see: www.climatemediapartnership.org After the success of last year's CCMP work in Bali, there was intense competition for this year's program. Of the 1092 journalists who requested information about the fellowships, 391 applied. The journalists selected to attend this year’s UN climate change summit in Poland are from Antigua; Bangladesh; Bhutan; Brazil; Cambodia; Cameroon; China; Colombia; Ethiopia; India; Indonesia; Jamaica; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Laos; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Malaysia; Mexico; Mongolia; Myanmar; Nepal; Nigeria; Peru; Sierra Leone; Suriname; Uganda; Vietnam; and Zambia. The United Nations Development Programme’s 2007 Human Development Report on climate change states: “The media have a critical role to play in informing and changing public opinion. Apart from their role in scrutinising government actions and holding policymakers to account, the media are the main source of information for the general public on climate change science.” The heads of both the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yvo de Boer, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, have urged the media to do more to address climate change. See: * UN seeks media partnership on climate change * More Media Coverage of Climate Change a Necessity


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The Huffington Post - the Internet Newspaper: News blogs video community
The Permanent Campaign Has No Borders

December 18, 2008

By David Hoffman, Internews Network President

Why stop here? What started in America can spread across the globe. Having demonstrated the massive power of digitally connected social networks to transform the political landscape, the Obama campaign has reinvented the architecture of democracy. Entrenched power centers and special interests will retain substantial influence, but newly mobilized cyber citizens will increasingly define the national agenda. The four-year cycle of electoral politics will give way to the Permanent Campaign.

In the Permanent Campaign, partisan politics are not replaced by bipartisan compromise; they are transcended by post-partisan ad hoc coalitions built around issues. The Rovian politicization of government was a petri dish of inbred incompetence. David Axelrod's shock troops came together to bring about change, but they are more tactical than ideological. The Bush universe was static and inflexible; the Obamian is technocratic, open source and responsive. Politics in America will never be the same.

But neither will it be in the rest of the world. The unprecedented attention and passionate interest in the US election ensures that people everywhere will learn the lessons of Obama's victory. The 2008 election dramatically reverses the global narrative. Osama mania may begin to be replaced by Obama mania. The idea that the son of an African man could become president of the United States is certain to inspire the youth of the developing world. Whereas President Bush tried to impose democracy on the world from the top down and bring regime change by force of arms, Barack Obama's campaign can spread the virus of grassroots activism through the same kind of participatory media that fueled his campaign.

A smart, power-driven foreign policy has the potential to infect closed societies everywhere with the germ of freedom. To take the maximum advantage of this transformative moment, however, the new administration will have to do a radical makeover of the post-WWII, Cold War era United States public diplomacy apparatus. The foreign broadcasting budget swelled to $650 million dollars after 9/11. Arab language satellite television and radio stations were launched, but they failed miserably to gain an audience. Small wonder. People everywhere prefer getting their news from local sources. Al Jazeera's English language channel similarly failed to penetrate the American heartland.

In our hyper-connected digital world, governments cannot compete with YouTube in defining the narrative about international events. "Official" sources of information have little credibility. The government's role, rather, should be one of facilitating the growth of independent media and the unfettered use of the Internet and mobile phone technology. With a tenth of the budget spent on foreign broadcasting, US media NGOs have trained tens of thousands of journalists and helped start thousands of independent radio and television stations. Content management systems in Farsi have allowed new online and print publications to proliferate in Iran. Schoolchildren in Egypt are being taught how to use the new media tools. An SMS text news service is spreading across Sri Lanka. Independent radio stations are broadcasting programs about gender and tolerance from inside the tribal areas of Pakistan, and a network of radio stations has been established throughout Afghanistan -- all with relatively small amounts of US foreign assistance funds.

The principles of applying smart power to international relations are the same as the community organizing strategies that Barack Obama honed on the streets of Chicago. Instead of pre-packaged messages broadcast overseas, building the capacity of local media, independent bloggers, citizen journalists and investigative reporters, promotes transparency and creates a culture of democratic activism. Providing people with the tools to get the information they need and a voice that can be heard strengthens local communities and empowers public citizenship. The message can no longer be controlled. Information breeds freedom.

The Permanent Campaign is a dynamic model that poses a threat to authoritarian regimes everywhere. The hunger for change is not confined to America. If Barack Hussein Obama can succeed in overthrowing George W. Bush, then democracy is demonstrably real and people everywhere, no matter their race or identity, can start saying, "yes we can." President Obama can facilitate the spread of democracy without even mentioning the word. By championing the cause of information access as a universal human right, Obama will spread the Permanent Campaign to every corner of the earth. The technology for viral organizing is there. Two-thirds of the world has mobile phones and two billion people are online. This information space is vastly different than the tightly controlled airwaves of the Cold War era when our foreign broadcasting system was born. A new foreign assistance strategy that supports the growth of local independent media and universal access will restore American leadership in the cause of freedom. In the information age, the Permanent Campaign has no borders.


David Hoffman is President of Internews Network, a non-profit organization that has worked in over 70 countries to empower local media worldwide.

(Source:Internews)

Tuesday, December 30, 2008





SATISFACTORY PREPARATION AND EXPECTATION FROM THE COMING NATIONAL ELECTION :BANGLADESH

By the role of time Bangladesh a prospective developing country stands in a very crucial moment. The coming 9th parliamentary Election in other hand, the mandate of the peoples by this deciding the future of the country and next generation. View of out looking the preparation of election formation organized by the Election Commission, supported by the Military and Civil administration(specially personnel from PID) combined may be said satisfactory. But without the whole cooperation of total country's voters it cannot be implemented and free and fair election. Near 500 foreign observers, local journalists and domestic observers (from various media) are humbly waiting for to examine free-fair and non partiality. But if observers noticed in decepline or objections, the whole initiatives can be refused by the peoples of the country. After 36 years the country the nation expecting true results of opinions and secured future. So, no needed to express any else more. Our friendly countries, their Ambassadors and diplomats, United Nations, Commonwealth and neibourgh countries also hoping the same. Its known very well in the duration of care taking government many good things implemented well but possible to say in every way. Many pending issues and policy are collapsed willingly or postponed for the next elected government. Its true some issues such National Security Council, future International financial policy and responsibilities, Administrative principles, District and Metropolitan administration and ruling policy, Local governments, Education and Agricultural developments, Civil & Defense ruling combinations, Law justic, Upazilla formation & Local Government & Ruling Engineering (LGED), the power sharing and balance between the President and the Prime Minister etc formation possible only by the elected government, waiting for. It can be said suddenly, our expected anti corruption initiatives by the recently formatted National Anti Corruption Commission are being looked slowly the reason unknown. In the acknowledge many claimed and files are trashed totally by unknown cause. The main two political parties are performing their best approaches with much faith and commitments. Though the results depending each committed implementations by the proposed time and period. Now the further expectations depending on honesty, patriotism, true love for the peoples of the country, the election result can say only. In conclusion can be said waiting for accurate time and result of election and the coming elected government and opposition parties each other anticipations can make possible on the next National Assembly.

(Source:MUKTIDOOTH)

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Welcoming the lifting of the State of Emergency in Bangladesh, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh

Welcoming the lifting of the State of Emergency in Bangladesh, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh

Mr. Kamlesh Sharma has announced that the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections of 29 December 2008 will be led by the former President of Mauritius, H E Cassam Uteem.

“These elections are extremely important for Bangladesh, offering an opportunity for the resumption of normal democratic life in the country and the re-constitution of the nation’s parliament”, said Mr Sharma. “The lifting of the State of Emergency means that the election campaign and the election day can now be conducted under more regular conditions for genuine elections.”

“The Commonwealth Observer Group will determine in its own judgement whether the election is conducted according to the standards to which Bangladesh has committed itself, in adhering to national election-related legislation and relevant regional, Commonwealth and other international commitments,” Mr Sharma continued.

The Group comprises ten people, and will be in Bangladesh from 22 December 2008 to 4 January 2009. They will be supported by a staff team from the Commonwealth Secretariat led by the Head of Democracy, Mark Stevens.

The Group was constituted at the invitation of the caretaker government, and follows an Assessment Mission made to Bangladesh in November 2008.

This Assessment Mission established that there is a broad welcome for the presence of a Commonwealth Observer Group for the elections and that, providing the State of Emergency was lifted, the minimum conditions for democratic elections were largely provided for.

The Group will act impartially and independently, and conduct itself according to the standards expressed in the International Declaration of Principles to which the Commonwealth is a signatory. It has no executive role: its function is not to supervise but to observe the process as a whole, and to form a judgement accordingly.

The Group will issue an Interim Statement after the elections. In its Final Report, the Group is free to propose to the authorities concerned recommendations for change on institutional, procedural and other matters which could assist in the holding of future elections.

The Commonwealth Observer Group comprises:

H E Cassam Uteem (Chair)
Former President of Mauritius
Mauritius

Hon Francis Kaparo
Former Speaker of Parliament
Kenya

Mr Ahmed Mehboob
Executive Director, Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency
Pakistan

Ms Ilham Mohamed
Head of Transparency Maldives

Maldives

Ms Sasha Mohammed
Journalist
Trinidad and Tobago

Mr Halifa Sallah
National Chairman, National Alliance for Democracy and Development
The Gambia

Dame Jennifer Smith
MP
UK-Bermuda

Dr Sharman Stone MP
Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Immigration
Australia

Mr B B Tandon
Former Chief Electoral Commissioner
India

Ms Judith Thompson
Election Expert
Canada

(Source:Comm.Sec.)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Journalism in Mexico comments from America's Knight Challenge

MEXICO:


Official Denies That Journalism is Risky Profession in Mexico

The chief federal prosecutor for the special office dealing with crimes against journalists challenged reports by several international human rights organizations that say Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to practice journalism, La Jornada reports. (See this report in English by the Associated Press.)

According to the prosecutor, Alberto Orellana Wiarco, only three of the 25 killings of journalists since 2007 were related to their professional work, and only 16 percent of 279 investigations were linked to organized crime.

According to the Associated Press in Spanish, the prosecutor said most of the journalists who were killed had died in accidents, committed suicide, or were innocent observers of other people's killings.


Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Message by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2008










“10 December 2008 marks 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Commonwealth countries were involved in its drafting then, and they are involved in its implementation today. There has long been a close relationship between the countries of the Commonwealth and the promotion of human rights. The Declaration champions the links between human dignity and equal rights; and between freedom, justice and peace. It is a statement of principles, setting out ideals and aspirations for all countries.

As we in the Modern Commonwealth seek to bring this vision of a life of dignity to our almost 2 billion people, there is so much of our work which sees the Declaration turned into the Deeds of the first decade of the 21st Century.

The Declaration speaks to our Commonwealth work on the right to education, to our work on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and to our work on the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of the individual, and of the family.

The Declaration enunciates so many of the principles at the heart of our Commonwealth democracy work. It spells out the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to participate in the government of one’s country. It establishes the right to work, and the principle of equal pay for equal work. Most fundamentally, it declares that ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’ – a principle at the heart of the Commonwealth.

It is through work in schools and colleges – and in the workplace, the court, the police station and the health clinic – that the most important impacts of human rights work are felt.

The Declaration reaches 60 years of age just as the Commonwealth approaches its own 60th anniversary. On this day, I salute the continued relevance and vision of the Declaration, and commit our collective and individual Commonwealth efforts to make real its aspirations.”

(Source:Comm. Sec.)

Thursday, December 4, 2008

World Seven Wonders:A combinations by the children of Israel,Jordan and Palastine

Empowering Local Media:Complementary reproduction by Muktidooth Info.

Transforming Attitudes Towards HIV/AIDS,
One Story at a Time

On World AIDS Day, we honor those journalists around the world who work year-round to shed light into the dark corners of the HIV pandemic and other global health issues. By telling stories that put a human face on HIV/AIDS, people like Kenyan cameraman William Ingaga increase the tolerance and understanding that are essential to overcoming the spread of the virus.

William Ingaga: HIV Chronicler and Cameraman Extraordinaire

William Ingaga filming through a window"Internews . . . boosted my confidence and ability to tackle features. The fact that the topic was HIV was a bonus − it opened my eyes to how big the subject is, and the joy of making an impact in peoples’ lives is indescribable."

William Ingaga, Film Officer, Kenya News Agency

Inganga is working on his 42nd story about HIV in Kenya in less than 18 months, since a training workshop opened his eyes to the impact he could have on the issue and to his own latent reporting talents. (More)

Internews Trains 1,000 Journalists to Report on HIV/AIDS

"Health and journalism is a winning combination. We all know that the media sets the public agenda and helps to set the policy agenda; in essence, the media is the world’s storyteller. We also know that well-written articles impact on individual and collective decisions to adopt healthy behaviors." (More)

Gloria Coe, manager of Communications for Change, USAID Global Health Bureau, at Internews Local Voices event, quoted in USAID Frontlines

Local Voices Training Manuals

Manuals developed by the Internews Local Voices team, on teaching HIV/AIDS reporting and communication techniques, are available for free download (some downloads require registration).


Five Ways You Can Empower Local Media Worldwide

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

GLOBAL CALLS :POVERTY & EQUALITY

CREATING NEW FINANCIAL AND TRADE ARCHITECTURE IS BEST OPPORTUNITY TO END POVERTY

Nov 25th, 2008; Members of the Global call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) from every continent will represent the voices of millions of people at next week's FFD meetings in Doha, Qatar. The alliance, which last month helped mobilise 117 million people worldwide, is calling on governments attending the conference to include the initiatives and proposals of developing countries, civil society and women's organisations in particular, in their discussions and final declaration.

GCAP has been campaigning on aid, trade and debt since 2005 and sees the Doha meeting as a great opportunity for progress on five main areas (more details below);

1) Cancelling irreversibly illegitimate and unpayable debts

2) Mobilising new resources and adopting policies to tackle the food, fuel and finance crises

3) Honouring past aid commitments on quantity and improving aid quality

4) Integrating gender and climate change considerations into the process

5) Reforming the trade system so it works for all

The alliance urges every government attending Doha to reform the global economic system, building on the recent G20 in Washington,, in more democratic forums so the people affected by poverty have a full and equal say. A new financial architecture must deal with global imbalances, the need for government regulation and interventions for each developing country.

"With the ink barely dry on the Washington G20 declaration, we can see no reason why the Doha conference cannot deliver much more. If there is no scaling down on the initial ambitions, both womens and other organisations need to be included in development planning. The long term solution to the financial crisis requires much more than restablishing rich county economies and bailing out banks, " said Kumi Naidoo, Co-Chair of GCAP.

The Civil Society Forum is an opportunity for civil society organizations and NGOs to prepare strategic policy interventions and bring them to the round tables of the Financing for Development review conference. These will all include long term proposals to tackle the financial crisis, improve multilateral cooperation and donor performance and also involve the private sector in future country development programmes.

"We come from Africa, Latin America and Asia with solutions for a new financial and trade architecture that could provide for the poor and often voiceless people in the world" said Adelaide Sosseh, GCAP Co Chair from the Gambia. "We have taken this position to Accra in September, the High Level event on the MDGs in New York so now the political will to implement needs to be demonstrated in Doha."

GCAP will be represented in Doha by; members of the Feminist Taskforce, Arab Region, Africa, Asia, Europe coalitions members and Co-chairs Sylvia Borren and Adelaide Sosseh.

For more information or to book an interview contact;

Ciara O'Sullivan Cel.+ 34 679 594 809 ciara.osullivan@civicus.org

Kinda Mohamadieh – local number 974-625 1980

For information on GCAP and blogs www.whiteband.org

For information on the civil society forum http://www.ffdngo.org/

Friday, November 28, 2008

The Terrible Attack in India - Message from H' Sec. Gen




08/57 27 November 2008
“Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Future” is theme of CHOGM 2009
Summit to be held in Port of Spain 27-29 November 2009
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Honourable Patrick Manning, and Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, today announced the theme for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009 - “Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Future.”
The summit will be hosted in Port of Spain on 27-29 November 2009.
Prime Minister Manning said: “The Government and people of Trinidad and Tobago look forward to welcoming the Commonwealth family to our shores. Preparations are well advanced for a successful meeting.”
“This important meeting of world leaders will come at a time when important questions about the globalisation process are being raised. In the face of the instability and uncertainty generated by the latest global developments, it is our duty as leaders to come up with bold and innovative solutions and to restore confidence in the multilateral process,” Mr Manning said.
“CHOGM 2009 will place partnership at the centre of the process of change, while emphasising the inter-connected relationship between the need to strive for equity and the imperative of a human and natural environment that is sustainable,” Mr Manning added.
Commenting on the theme, Secretary-General Sharma said: “The Commonwealth is an example of global partnership at work and the Commonwealth must also be in the vanguard of inclusive and fair globalisation. The critical challenges before the world are collectives ones, as are the solutions. In its work, the modern Commonwealth has been an exemplar of the unity of the global community. The collective agenda – whether pertaining to global governance, democracy, prosperity or environment – has to be approached equitably to be sustainable.”

“The Commonwealth is an association that brings together governments and peoples, nations individually and collectively, and values and actions. CHOGM in 2009 will be about partnership, global engagement and coherence, lifting the intrinsic strength of the Commonwealth to a new level.”
Mr Sharma said CHOGM 2009 would bring Trinidad and Tobago as a nation and the Caribbean into prominence. He said preparations for the event were firmly on track.
The theme seeks to underscore the importance of multilateral approaches to resolving global challenges. Its underlying message is that only through genuine partnership can the world achieve sustainable and equitable human development.
The call for partnership is also a signal for governments, the private sector and civil society in the Commonwealth to work together for a more secure and prosperous future for all.
At their 2007 summit in Kampala, Uganda, Commonwealth Heads of Government reaffirmed their decision to meet in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009.

The CHOGM is the highest consultative and policy-making mechanism of the Commonwealth. It is convened every two years to review political and economic developments that impact on the organisation and to conduct a strategic overview of the Commonwealth's work in support of the interests of member countries and in a global perspective.
For media enquiries:The Monthly Muktidooth,Dacca,Bangladesh.

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08/56 27 November 2008
Secretary-General’s Statement on Mumbai attack
The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, today expressed his outrage at the terror attacks in Mumbai.
“The Commonwealth strongly condemns such despicable and barbaric attacks on innocent people,” he said. “The values the Commonwealth holds most dear – of democracy, the rule of law, openness, tolerance, respect and understanding – will not be shaken by such actions.”
“I convey my deepest sympathy and strongest solidarity to the Government and people of India at this time.”
Source:Commonwealth Secretariat











Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Taking Obama seriously
Anthony Barnett
The United States presidential race is the most exciting and energising in years. Barack Obama has made it so, and in a way that opens a new era of political possibility, says openDemocracy's founder Anthony Barnett. (This article was first published on 6 February 2008)
5 - 11 - 2008
Barack Obama moved in the astonishing month of January 2008 from being an outsider and then a surprise winner of the Iowa caucus to the candidate who could - even in the wake of the intense, knife-edge drama of "super Tuesday", 5 February 2008 - beat Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic Party's nomination for November's presidential election. Obama's ultimate success remains in the balance after the latest stage of an election campaign which - whatever the eventual outcome - he has shaped and transformed. Win or lose, the 46-year-old politician's resonating oratory, his reaching across boundaries and releasing of energies, and - not least - his ability to win votes and states, announce the arrival of something that is more than just individual.What is this "something", and what does it mean - not just for the United States of America but in and for the wider world? My purpose here is to try to answer this question, rather than add to the cataract of commentary on the campaign itself. In doing so, I'll occasionally quote Barack Obama himself at length. But thanks to the web he is also there to be watched; a key factor in his novel rise to prominence.
A political evolution Anthony Barnett is founder of openDemocracy and the author of many articles on the site, including a weekly "editor's note"s in 2002-04 The super-Tuesday results, in which the Illinois senator clinched victory in a swathe of diverse states, leave the Obama bubble intact. The American economy may be plunging, its military may have been humiliated in Iraq, its political system has still to account for how it could possibly have permitted the Bush-Cheney quasi-coup - but no society on earth can yet match the United States for charisma bubbles. Just take a look at the latest, star-studded "Yes We Can" pro-Obama video, vacuous as only Hollywood can be. Inside the bubble the impacts of whatever flaws that lie ahead to be uncovered are also being puffed out of all proportion by the hyper-effervescence of the man. Whether or not it brings him down, it has to burst. Because this is obvious outside America, it is all too easy to patronise the hype and dismiss the significance of the forces that are now being expressed. Like many, I did not at first take him seriously. The idea of an "unknown" black rookie senator running for president had fashionable appeal, clearly. But I was not going to fall for it! In any case I have never identified with the office of the US presidency or its incumbents. An institution designed to manage 18th-century problems of state formation, the presidency is now an old-fashioned semi-royalist system, largely captured by special interests, that generates odious media sycophancy. Every four years one has to take an interest in who becomes president for reasons of global political hygiene - just like one has to do one's laundry. But as a repository of hope...?Thus, when I looked at Obama's second book The Audacity of Hope - evidently contrived to boost his bid for office - I found it dripping with clichés and empty sentences which, like its title, seemed designed to titillate but not to satisfy. I was not surprised and didn't buy it. I watched some of the early "Obama girl" videos and sighed, with a touch of jealousy, at the vacuous energy of the US politico-entertainment system. I learned about his appeals for unity and regarded it as turning triangulation into a circle. If Obama was any good at all, I thought, he should use his platform to ask Al Gore to become president with himself as running-mate, thus giving us a candidate who did beat Bush and will deliver on the environment and give himself some "experience". When he was winning in Iowa I was watching Will Smith in I Am Legend and wrote a blog post asking if Obama could save the world from Thatcherism.In short, I regarded Barack Obama as representing the complaisant if different-in-appearance continuity of a familiar regime. Despite the stench of dynastic succession (which anyway confirmed my view of the American presidency) I expected Hillary Clinton to win the nomination, while the candidate who set out the domestic issues most candidly, John Edwards, was doomed to be closed down by lack of money and the media (the two being related). Finally - and notwithstanding the openDemocracy columnist Sidney Blumenthal's assurances and John McCain's evident infirmity - I remained unable to shake off the settled belief of many friends that Hillary would then lose the election itself to give the Republicans four more years.Now, even if Clinton does gain the Democratic nomination, her losing the election itself has been made more likely. To ensure victory over candidate McCain - now far more clearly the decisive Republican frontrunner - she would need to get the nomination overwhelmingly: riding a wave as the first woman to bid for the office of old white men, making herself, with her longstanding commitment to universal healthcare, the torchbearer of change in a country that gave birth to modern feminism. Only such a perception would cover over the other side of, let's call it, the Clinton record.The challenge of Obama, however has undermined this positioning. If Clinton wins the nomination it will be seen by the media as being thanks to a combination of the machine, the "IOUs" of past organising and interests, the plea of experience and the weird charisma of Bill - and understandable blue-collar caution. For many she will be seen as the conveyer of the dead hand of prerogative and the instrument of disappointment, who crushed the hopes of the young now mobilising in droves for Obama. They, in all likelihood will nurse their wounds, withdraw from the campaign and some may even vote McCain. In this sense - whatever happens now in the wider race for the White House the impact of Obama is already irreversible.
What are his politics?What are Obama's politics? Perhaps the first thing to note is that his ambition is rooted in his early personal formation and ambition. A hilarious spoof video linked to by Andrew Sullivan in which Obama declares as a freshman student at LA Occidental College that he wanted "To be president of the United States" mocks this. "A negro for president of the United States?", concludes the commentary. "Why not? We put a man on the moon." However, there is nothing wrong with young ambition (see the exchange in comment 9 below) and what his compelling autobiographical account, Dreams from my Father, published when he was 33, sets out is a personal foundation for a public life.
The politics and appeal of Obama are examined by John K Wilson who was taught by Obama and has written a full-spectrum account of the attacks on his former professor in order to expose and rebut them. His conclusion is that Obama is a "pragmatic progressive" best compared to Ronald Reagan in his cross-party appeal. (Indeed there is already a word for Republican supporters who are his equivalent of the ‘Reagan Democrats' - Obamacans - who now include Susan Eisenhower.) Michael Tomasky, reviewing The Audacity of Hope in the New York Review of Books in November 2006, may be less of a supporter than Wilson but is more generous in his description of Obama: "He really is not a political warrior by temperament. He is not even, as the word is commonly understood, a liberal. He is in many respects a civic republican - a believer in civic virtue, and in the possibility of good outcomes negotiated in good faith."Good faith. The separation of powers set out in the US constitution was created explicitly because human beings could not be trusted to act in "good faith". It generated a high legal culture and civic sense of the public interest. But at the same time its low expectations built in permission for Hobbesian "hard-ball" politics and the pursuit of self-interest which are coded into American political expectations. No one can successfully pursue the first who is not also a master of the second's darker arts. Obama seems to have a natural command of the double-game. He pitches himself as above partisan party politics, but in a consummately political fashion. He once said, "I've become a receptacle for a lot of other people's issues that they need to work out. . . . I've been living with this stuff my whole life". But he also attracts this identification with himself deliberately so that he embodies the national unity many Americans long for.In an interview with Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Obama said that American politics has seen enough "either-or" - and that he can shift the paradigm to "both-and". This belief is what led him to undertake "the risks and difficulties and challenges and silliness of a modern presidential campaign."What might "both-and" mean? For example, "there is a strong values-and-character component to educational achievement. To deny that is to deny reality, and I don't want to cede that reality to conservatives who use it as an excuse to underfund the schools. . . . Sometimes people think that when we talk about values, that somehow that's making a 'lift yourself up by your own bootstraps' argument and letting the larger society off the hook. That's why I always emphasize that we need both individual responsibility and mutual responsibility.... We as a society can take responsibility for creating conditions in which those cultural attributes are enhanced."In a shrewd report on the candidate then on the campaign trail but before he had declared, Joe Klein tired of his "both... and". The irritated reporter challenged Obama on his evasiveness: "Talk about defensive: this was the first time I had ever seen Obama less than perfectly comfortable. And his discomfort exposed the elaborate intellectual balancing mechanism that he applies to every statement and gesture, to every public moment of his life."His "balancing" is also Obama's way of managing the recent past. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote about the 1960s: "The victories that the sixties generation brought about - the admission of minorities and women into full citizenship, the strengthening of individual liberties and the healthy willingness to question authority - have made America a far better place for all its citizens. But what has been lost in the process, and has yet to be replaced, are those shared assumptions - that quality of trust and fellow feeling - that bring us together as Americans."He put the same point slightly more personally to Robinson: "We've learned that it was a good thing to break down the gender barriers that were keeping women from fully participating in the society; on the other hand, it turns out that things like marriage and fidelity are actually good things.... In people's day-to-day lives, a lot of these issues have been resolved. Our politics hasn't caught up."He then went on to describe what is in effect his domestic strategy "I think that there's the possibility - not the certainty, but the possibility - that I can't just win an election but can also transform the country in the process, that the language and the approach I take to politics is sufficiently different that I could bring diverse parts of this country together in a way that hasn't been done in some time, and that bridging those divisions is a critical element in solving problems like health care or energy or education. . . ."When questioned by Ken Silverstein of Harper's (in an article entitled "Barack Obama Inc") about his links to lobbyists, Obama responded: "Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary. What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I'm not rendered politically impotent."A reformist, just as much as a revolutionary, needs agency to drive the change he or she desires. Obama has rejected mobilising folk via partisan "attack politics", in favour of a popular but not populist call to the American public as a whole. This would be wholly implausible were it not for the religious roots of such an appeal - one to which Obama's blackness gives him an unequalled access.
His Christian dimension While Obama's promise of "transformative" radicalism gains its credentials from his underdog background, the organised, defensive traditionalism of his church espouses (as he puts it) "profoundly conservative values of self-reliance and self-help". The congregation seems to be the heart-beat of his dual appeal to the individual and the society, to togetherness and individual aspiration for improvement. Despite his atheist upbringing, Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ as a 25-year-old. As John K Wilson observes, America enjoys "Sunday segregation": "Blacks and whites worship largely in separate congregations". But the music and cadences of the black allegiance to the gospel and its powerful secular rhythms have utterly penetrated the American white experience (if not the Latino). African-Americans, it seems, are coming round to Obama but remain thoughtful; among many whites he is longed for almost hysterically - and it is Reverend Dr Martin Luther King they reach out to, not Malcolm X: the civil-rights movement not the cultural wars.Barack Obama, ex-president of the Harvard Law Review, can get down and biblical in public. His is not a sectarian Christianity ("I believe there are many paths to the same place"); nor a fundamentalism preparing believers for rapture and the rest for hell. But he can pull out the stops without embarrassment.Soon after he announced his intention to run for the presidency Obama spoke at the commemoration of the voting-rights march in Selma, Alabama. He compared the veterans of the civil-rights movement to Moses, bringing the people through the desert to the promised land. "I thank the Moses generation; but we've got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn't cross over the river to see the Promised Land." He went on to place himself at the head of the "Joshua generation".The book of Joshua also provided him with the text for his talk to the packed congregation in Martin Luther's own church in Atlanta, Georgia on "Martin Luther King day" itself, 21 January 2008. How come the walls of Jericho came down? Was it with one or two voices? No, only when everyone cried out - white and black, Jew and Gentile, Muslim and atheist - could they overcome: "God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern civil-rights era.... ‘Unity is the great need of the hour' is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome."
You can see here the congregational grounding of Obama's approach. Such an appeal also takes force and urgency in the United States from the price paid (the martyrdom even) by those who have called for unity. A man who lays claim to the tradition of Martin Luther King; who has had the mantle laid upon him of both John and Bobby Kennedy; who even has something of the precision and cadence of John Lennon (if without his bite and irony) - such a man must be enjoying himself. The American secret service will never be forgiven if once more it messes it up. This too is something Obama's appeal offers, the possibility that America will not only put behind it the epoch of impeachments - one grave that prevented an imperial presidency (for a while) and vindicated the constitution; one prurient that shredded the constitution - but also can be returned to the earlier narratives that were assassinated before they could be worked through.Does he have the experience?This is all very well, etc, but does he have the experience? John K Wilson lists many of the dismissive attacks on Obama for his lack of the "E" word. The Christian Science Monitor sums them up: "He's too inexperienced to have a long political track record". Others say his advantage is precisely that he has not yet been broken and reined in by the powers of the inner-beltway. Wilson makes the important point that racism has moved on from being crudely indiscriminate: "The ‘liberal' racist doesn't dismiss black people because they are black; he does so because they are ‘unqualified'". Of course, you can actually be unqualified but the warning is well taken. Obama is older than Theodore Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton were when they ran. He has shown the capacity to write an eloquent book to make sense of his background, releasing himself from the confines of identity politics. He has a seven-year record in the Illinois legislature as well as a suggestive arc in the senate. His policies in twenty areas are listed on his website and he has the good judgment to pick people like Samantha Power to advise him. And, for goodness' sake, he is 46.The better question is not about "experience" but rather whether a man so prone to seeking consensus and appealing to the "good faith" of those on both sides of an argument, can make a clear call when he has to - and the quality of such decisions. Obama faced at least one such moment when as an ambitious, rising politician he placed his future prospects on the line: Iraq. Today his stand may seem less distinctive. The fact that he opposed the war while Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted for it (well, not really, they would say) is muddied as Obama now argues that the US cannot withdraw as recklessly as it invaded. But in the atmosphere of October 2002 everything was at stake: Bush was way high in the polls, an atmosphere of intimidation was building, official patriotism was demanding loyalty in the name of the "war on terror". It was in this context that Obama spoke out and put all his prospects for advancement on the line. What is striking is the quality of the language and the cool - and accurate - assessment of long-term consequence: "I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings."No one who has staked his career in this way at that time has done nothing. It was a defining moment and he defined himself. This seems to be the quality of judgment that drew Toni Morrison's endorsement. As important for her was Obama's capacity - despite his Ivy League finish - to be a citizen (rather than "one of the boys"). She also sets out a definitive critique of 'lack of experience':
"This is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it....Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me ‘proud'.In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates.That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom....Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace - that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as ‘we', not ‘they'? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?"Perhaps the most important part of Morrison's message is the understated opening, her feel that this is a moment of crises coming together and of a chance to start to resolve these before the chasm of violence latent but stirred in America opens up once more. If McCain wins and commits for the long war in the middle east as the economy tumbles... One of the striking things about the Iraq war compared to Vietnam is that opposition to the later took a long time to grow and was fuelled by the draft. Iraq by contrast was greatly opposed before it began but there is as yet no great, autonomous "anti-war movement". If American treasure continues to be poured overseas as job losses mount at home and there is no prospect of an ending because a navy aviator learned adamantine defiance in Hanoi, then once more will the war come home? Will it take a half-Kenyan to stop America becoming another Kenya? Obama may be studiedly vague but he is also distinctive. He can decide to commit and when he does so, he does it well. His extraordinary and so far consummate campaign for the nomination makes this clear enough. The best image or metaphor for him may be that of a surf-boarder: judging the wave, casting his ride, surfing the forces that project him towards the presidency.What we see of him is the skill and balance he displays as he is powered by the giant waves now on the rise in the United States. He has already proved himself the master of keeping upright on his narrow board. But what are the forces below the foam?
There are at least three:* the need for a post-9/11 politics that makes sense to the rest of the world* the need for a left-of-centre politics that can prevent open domestic conflict in the face of recession and the failures of neo-liberalism* the need for a politics that can relate to the growing power and energy of the internet and social networking. The first post-9/11 candidateThe invasion of Iraq was - as John le Carré succinctly described it in openDemocracy - "mad". How can American politics be put back on a saner basis? Only by moving on from talk about "evil". In his new, 2004 preface to his first book - Dreams from My Father - Obama wrote: "I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammelled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder - alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware - is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of the lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all." This was his conclusion to a meditation on the nihilism of terrorists. He had already noted that:"(The) bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life - the buildings and roads and faces of Nairobi, Bali, Manhattan; not merely because, as a consequence of 9/11, my name is an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous republican operatives. But also because the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty towards those who are not like us - is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale in this book."No other candidate has the resources to address 9/11 in this fashion. It is not just that Obama links the global south to the broken zones of American cities; he also provides a starting-point for an international politics that does not make things worse. Or, at least, might not. There has to be a break from the dangerously childish twaddle of Bush and company asking why they "hate us" and concluding they are "evil". The normalisation of America - an essential theme which Anatol Lieven, Godfrey Hodgson and Tom Nairn have very differently anatomised in openDemocracy - can only begin when it stops being so faux innocent and "surprised" by terrorist attacks upon it. This is not necessarily the work of a new generation, but Hillary Clinton shows all the signs of having conceded the Republican definition of the "security" agenda and has decided that she has to show that the lady is as tough as any of them. This traps her in the paradigm of the "war on terror". No candidate may yet dare to denounce it, but there is a current of recognition that the entire Bush strategy is indeed a folly and needs to be replaced. The starting-point for this is an understanding of the other side which is more than intellectual or rhetorical. Does the American electorate know that their country has really screwed up and needs a new direction? At some level, yes, and Obama seems to be an expression of this. The first post-communist candidateFrom the liberation struggle in Vietnam, to Mao's "cultural revolution", to the Prague spring and its crushing, the emancipation of the late 1960s took place under the shadow of different forms of communist coercion. This marked and polarised the politics of the cultural wars that followed the ‘60s in America. Obama knew those times (he was 28 when the Berlin wall came down), and there is a leftist streak to his career as well as his origins, reflected in his return to community organising after Harvard. But his radicalism is not associated with any threat from an organised left anywhere in the world. The Communist international is long dead. The last attempt at influential global agenda-setting on the left was the gurgling sounds of Clinton and Blair seeking the "third way" in expensive hotels. This makes a candidate who seeks the better government of capitalism a lot less disturbing. At the same time the catastrophe of neo-liberalism and what George Soros has called market fundamentalism is all too evident - not least, or perhaps especially, to those who have been its main beneficiaries and are now desperate for federal assistance. Meanwhile, millions are (and are becoming) poor in America, and the working classes (now called middle-classes) have seen almost no real salary increases while basic costs, especially for medical care and college education, have risen. Few now remember "trickle-down"; but at the birth of neo-liberalism the Anglo-Saxon publics were assured that wealth-creation at the top would generate jobs and the largesse too would, well, trickle down, perhaps even gush a little, and all would benefit from market freedom....Obama backs capitalism, as how could he not. Wikipedia quotes his view of the economy: "We should be asking ourselves what mix of policies will lead to a dynamic free market and widespread economic security, entrepreneurial innovation and upward mobility [...] we should be guided by what works." In "Barack Obama Inc", Ken Silverstein charges that Obama supported limiting class actions because of the funding he got from financial interests; he states that Obama "opposed an important amendment, which was defeated, that would have capped credit-card interest rates at 30 percent". Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's notorious chief strategist, has just nailed Obama on the Clinton campaign website for being... in the pay of lobbyists (I guess it takes one to know one). One such creature of DC influence who insisted on staying anonymous, perhaps to inflate his self-importance, assured Silverstein that Obama is "a player".However, as Sartre might have put it: Barack Obama is in the pay of lobbyists, no doubt about it. But not everyone in the pay of lobbyists is Barack Obama. Along with the fact that he is a successful and acceptable part of a compromised American political system, Obama brings to it a new alliance of forces committed to racial integration, citizenship mobilisation and "widespread economic security" (a formulation careful chosen to be short of universal but nonetheless a challenge, especially when the economy is all too close to a tailspin). The wealthy party inside the Democrats represented by the Kennedys have chosen their man. In an age of pre-emption they have selected their Franklin D Roosevelt before the recession.Tomorrow the main threat to global interests of the USA will come not from a communism that appeals to the workers of the world but from an authoritarian China now flexing its Olympic muscles and exercising its special international influence from Burma to Sudan. Here again the dumping of Bush-Cheney's rebarbative style and policies and a quick restoration of American soft power looks essential. This can only come from the centre-left. Clinton would qualify were it not for her dynastic baggage and all that that entails. Obama is preferable, embodying a clean break from the disasters and bad faith of 20th-century leftism.The first internet candidateObama is among the first presidential candidates and potential world leaders to have integrated the web into his communications, and he is the first to have done so in a way that reflects and adapts the development of the technology itself: he has integrated social networking into his campaigning. When the internet made its initial, definite impression on a US election in 2004, it was in an insurgent role - when MoveOn polled its members, backed Howard Dean and funding and projected him as a surprise candidate who sharpened Democratic opposition to the Iraq war. This time the web and online funding have been integral to most campaigns from the start. But Obama also has a natural video presence. As a result his persona as a candidate, his charm, intelligence and novelty, have been transmitted online. The large numbers of young people who have campaigned for him have seen him for themselves: on their computers. The success of an early Obama MySpace site, run by a volunteer, was a harbinger. Today his official Facebook site has 360,000 members (and the unofficial "Barack Obama for President" has nearly 450,000); by contrast, Hillary Clinton's official Facebook site has only 88,000 members (and "STOP Hillary Clinton" has over 750,000). There are sixteen social-network groups plugged into Obama's official site, Hillary's has five. It seems a telling comparison that Facebook's "McCain for President" has just 5,500 members and there seem to be no social-network links on his official site at all. Obama's stellar presence on the web is supported by his early development of policy for the web, with creative-commons guru Lawrence Lessig as an advisor. Obama's Wikipedia entry reports that he met Google employees in November 2007 and pledged to appoint a chief technology officer to oversee the US government's management of IT resources and promote wider access to government information and decision-making. In reaffirming his commitment to net-neutrality legislation, Obama said that "once providers start to privilege some applications or websites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose." One senses that McCain wouldn't know what he was talking about and Hillary barely so. The web works best when it transforms by reinforcing and enhancing what people already want to do. This makes it open to incorporation by existing brands and companies even when it changes them greatly in the process. But it is very hard for individuals who were fully formed before the web to re-gear their communications. Obama, and his even younger advisors and speechwriters, are internet naturals at ease with its innovations. His website is easy to navigate (apart from the absence of a site search-engine) and itself feels at home with the medium. All this has left the million-strong MoveOn, now too large to be a pepper group, without an independent role. But as soon as John Edwards dropped out and a clear majority choice was possible, it polled its members. Greg Sargent in Talking Points Memo reported that a MoveOn spokesperson said roughly 300,000 members voted in twenty-four hours (it took three days to reach that number in 2004, with Howard Dean in the mix). On 2 February, MoveOn announced that by a clear 70/30 majority its members had decided that it would campaign for Obama. If he wins, what will President Obama make of this exceptional force of his web and internet presence? His constant refrain is that "change does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up". Numerous times he has said that he cannot deliver unless the demand is there from below. While this is a wise perception, modest about his own power and inspiring for those to whom it is addressed, it is also a get-out-clause for an Obama presidency. For how can there be pressure from below? And without it, he has already declared, his promises may prove worthless. There are steps he can take on the ground to encourage "bottom-up" pressure: by taking federal measures to ensure that all citizens have the right to vote and to prevent gerrymandering, not to speak of reforming the electoral college to prevent the scandal of 2000 from ever happening again. But a new president with the Obama team's know-how could well enable participation and organisation online. This, of course, is certain to generate its own energy and autonomy, unconstrained by beltway special interests. So there is now a way of putting pressure on Washington "from below". Obama should be warned as well as congratulated: those who live by the web can die by it. The power of wordsThese three shaping forces of the Obama wave do not take away from him two intrinsic factors that are greatly in his favour: he is young and he was right on the war, the key issue of the decade. In itself there is nothing intrinsically positive about being young in politics; it depends on the times. But this is a time when a generational change is to be welcomed. Take the point of view of an American who is now 30 years old - who was therefore born as the forces of neo-liberalism and Iranian fundamentalism flexed their muscles and Pol Pot ruled Cambodia. Such a person grew up through the Bill Clinton and George W Bush presidencies. How could she or he not see both presidents, whatever their differences, as two baby-boomers each of whom dodged the draft to stay out of Vietnam, took drugs, and are in denial about both these obviously important facts? If we are to "restore trust" and clean up politics, it is obvious where to start. Call me a traitor to my generation, but I say clean out the stables. Put it this way, if Obama makes it to the White House, it will reveal Tony Blair for what he is: old and wrong. To win, Obama has to persuade as many American voters of Blair's age group as he can. At the end of January, I was taken to a small Obama meeting in a downtown pay-bar in Manhattan. It was a political gathering not a fundraiser. Its organiser was a Chinese-American, a young mother who used to drink in the bar before she had her child. The main speaker was an experienced black organiser from Unite Here, the garment and hotel workers union. The two volunteers from the Obama campaign were young white women taking time out from college. It was an evenly mixed (black and white), largely middle-aged gathering; perhaps seventy people came and went. Obama's speech at the Apollo in Harlem was screened at the end. The mood was cheerful and thoughtful. Edwards had been the preferred candidate for Unite Here but he wasn't going to win and Obama "gave straight answers". But there was still disbelief that he might succeed. It was only a few days after Bill had played the race card and the Clintons suffered what may yet prove to be a deciding revulsion from their cause among many Democrats. But the blue-collar working families look back to the Clinton years, and in the face of an economic downturn that many of them regard as much more important than Iraq they are sticking with Hillary, in her New York bastion and elsewhere. Obama's many victories on "super Tuesday" notwithstanding, winning the support of such citizens by the millions is hard work. If it can happen at all, and so far as the Democratic primaries are concerned, Obama may not have the time he needs.
Three ways to see himThere are at least three ways of looking at Obama. The first is to see him as a mere product of the American system, shallow window-dressing for its global pretensions and further evidence of the transformation of its politics into entertainment. A second is to say, "What a capitalism!" If it can undo racism from the top and select a figure who writes and speaks as well as Obama, this alone deserves a salute for its flexibility and inventiveness. In a more pinched European country these qualities would have excluded him. There is a third. When the Helsinki agreement affirming human rights and civic freedoms across cold-war boundaries was signed in 1975, neither (post-Nixonite) Washington nor (Brezhnevite) Moscow believed a word of it. But the principles of adherence to human rights it set out were seized upon in Soviet-dominated east-central Europe. The ideals signed up to as "mere" words by the idiot bureaucrats became a means of helping to pull away their power. As Rajeev Bhargava wrote in openDemocracy in 2002 on the importance of India's constitution as "a weapon of security and protection": "Words are not mere ‘pieces of paper'. They become effective when believed in, and powerful when institutionalised and made legitimate." The experience of Europe and India here offers lesson in the way that the fine aspirations that nation-states proclaim can - that's can - be turned against them into demands for delivery of same. President Obama, the description still sounds improbable, would confirm the possibility of racial equality in the United States. Economically it will take a long time to see but there are huge racially inscribed injustices and prejudices to be cleaned up which he could lead. However, my feeling is that he is more the beneficiary of something that has happened than the architect of its progress. It is in the international arena that Obama might make an original and significant difference. There have always been two sides to America. From the start there was the law-based, constitutional state of checks and balances and Enlightenment ideals. But this was constructed so as to expand the country and assist it in sweeping away with genocidal lawlessness the peoples of the plains who lived between the thirteen founding states and the Pacific. Economic expansion and domination overseas followed in endless wars and expeditions, each accompanied by its equivalent of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Globalisation has to mean the end of this reckless, lawless claim to privilege and Bush's notorious refusal to "do nuance". He flouted international law, tortured and imprisoned without trial abroad like the best of them. This has to stop. A president with Obama's international experience and capacity could - that's could - convince the United States of the need to live by its ideals abroad.

(Source:Open Democracy)