Tag: obama

Obama vil afskaffe sommertiden

I USA, altså. New York Times gengiver hans synspunkt via Greendaily:

Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people, including Obama, want to get rid of it.

A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.

Jeg må indrømme, at jeg  aldrig har forstået pointen med sommertid. Ville det hele ikke være meget nemmere, hvis klokken var den samme om sommeren og om vinteren uden noget “spring forwards, Fall back”? Lige siden, den blev indført tilbage i 1980, er det forekommet mig en temmelig overflødig, nyttesløs øvelse.

Via Boing Boing, hvor Mark Frauenfelder heller ikke er begejstret for sommertidens velsignelser: “I hate DST. It throws me and my kids out of whack for a couple of days. I hope Obama gets rid of it.”

Obama og håb

Jeg har skrevet om det før, men VHS siger det meget godt:

Obama har fået folk til at håbe og ønske at tingenes tilstand kan være anderledes. Bevægelsen – som er langt større og meget mere end politikeren Obama – har fået en tiltro til at de kan forandre noget. Det stopper naturligvis ikke med blot at vælge en centrumpolitiker, og Obamas politik har nærmest intet med hans valgsejr at gøre. Det var hans retorik, som ikke bare ramte utilfredsheden blandt vælgerne men også talte til alle de der normalt ikke stemmer, og gav dem et løfte om at forandring er mulig. Hvis den energi og optimisme kan videreføres til alle andre dele af samfundet – de steder, hvor der føres rigtig politik og kan laves rigtig forandring, så kan der bestemt komme noget godt ud af dette valg. Ikke på grund af valget af Obama, men på grund af den energi og det håb, der er blevet antændt rundt omkring blandt den menige og ofte marginaliserede befolkning i USA, og som kan føre til meget mere end en udskiftning af beboerne i Det hvide hus. Obama er ingen revolution, men det håb, der fik ham valgt og som han var med til at antænde, kan bedre føre til grundlæggende forandringer end venstrefløjsvrede og afmagt.

Frygt og vrede er også stærke drivkrafter, men der kommer intet positivt ud af en politik eller bevægelse, der er baseret på disse negative værdier. Det var disse følelser, som McCain-Palin forsøgte at blive valgt på, og det er glædeligt, at den tendens tabte. Gid det samme paradigme-skift også måtte finde sted i Danmark, hvor hadet og mistroen stadig er dominerende i valgkampe.

Men det er ikke bare højrefløjen, som primært kører på vrede. Også venstrefløjen (i både Danmark og USA) har det problem, at vi i vor kritik af systemet får det til at fremstå som en uovervindelig modstander, man ikke kan gøre noget ved. Det appellerer i bedste fald til den aktive følelse, vrede, og i værste fald til passiviserende afmagt, og ingen af disse fører til positive, progressive forandringer. Venstrefløjen bør lære af Obamas retorik og fokusere på muligheden for forandring, der kan give det håb, der gør rigtig forandring mulig.

Jeg er enig. Kritik af systemet og af de kræfter, man er oppe imod er vigtig, ikke mindst af hensyn til at kunne afdække, dokumentere og  oplyse om, hvad der foregår, men det er endnu vigtigere at gøre noget for at tilvejebringe de positive forandringer, man ønsker.

Dette er en grund til, at fri software-bevægelsen er vigtig, ikke mindst som eksempel: Richard Stallman og andre begyndte ikke at samle underskrifter ind mod Microsoft og IBM for at forlange, at de skulle åbne deres programmer, men skabte i stedet og fra grunden et nyt system, som det står alle frit for at bruge, det såkaldte GNU/Linux-system.

Det er også derfor, Luk Lejren er så vigtigt et initiativ: I stedet for blot at dokumentere, hvordan flygtninge behandles i Danmark og frugtesløst kræve, at regeringen skulle gøre noget ved det, tog man selv ansvar og forsøgte (symbolsk) at lukke Sandholmlejren på trods af myndighedernes protester. Både fri software og Luk Lejren er eksempler på direkte aktion, og Obamas grædsrodsbevægelse har mere end en rem af huden.

Begrebet “direkte aktion” leder tankerne hen på de tidlige anarkister, der i stedet for at reformere staten eller vente på, den skulle reformere sig, ønskede at opbygge et frit samfund nedefra og op ved hjælp af brugerstyrede kooperativer.

Og rent faktisk hedder VHS’ indlæg “Kropotkin om Obama og håb”. Kropotkins observation om Obamas kampagne var den enkle, at vellykkede revolutioner udspringer af håb, ikke af fortvivlelse. Det er muligt, at Obama ikke selv hverken vil eller kan forandre det helt store, men han har givet mange mennesker håb. Og det er måske i sig selv den bedst mulige begyndelse.

Link: Kropotkin om Obama og om håb

Fortsat krig mod stoffer

Et område, hvor vi ikke skal vente megen forandring  (i hvert fald ikke til det bedre) under præsident Obama, er narkotikapolitikken. Den konservative blogger Daniel Larison skriver om Obamas track record som kriger i kampen mod narkotika:

John Schwenkler notes that Rahm Emanuel was and is a drug war hawk and this has been leading some libertarians to expect continuity in drug policy, but it’s not as if this should come as a big surprise.

To make the point about Emanuel clear: his appointment tends to confirm what we already know about Obama’s policy views; it is not evidence of a sudden shift away from views that he has held in the past. It is because Obama is a drug war hawk that Emanuel’s views on this subject will simply reinforce Obama’s own, and the same is true about other subjects.Obama has stated his support for Plan Colombia, which is the clearest expression of militarized interdiction and combining anti-narcotics efforts with meddling foreign policy, but heavy-handed, useless drug war tactics will not be limited to other countries. As he said in May:

We have to do our part. And that is why a core part of this effort will be a northbound-southbound strategy. We need tougher border security, and a renewed focus on busting up gangs and traffickers crossing our border. But we must address the material heading south as well. As President, I’ll make it clear that we’re coming after the guns, we’re coming after the money laundering, and we’re coming after the vehicles that enable this crime. And we’ll crack down on the demand for drugs in our own communities, and restore funding for drug task forces and the COPS program. We must win the fights on our own streets if we’re going to secure the region.

Not to worry–infringing your constitutional liberties is necessary to make sure that farmers in Colombia cannot make a living, so it’s all for the greater good.

Det er USAs hovedløse “krig mod narkotika”, der sammen med en nådesløs “klyng dem op”-politik har gjort dette “land of the free and the brave” til det land i verden, der fængsler flest af sine indbyggere (USA udgør i dag 5% af verdens befolkning men har 25% af alle verdens fanger).

“Change we can believe in” er altså tiltrængt også på dette område, men efter alt at dømme ikke på vej.

Obama, blot endnu en præsident?

Ja, måske. Den amerikanske venstrefløj har ikke megen fidus til ham, og udnævnelsen af en højredemokrat med israelsk statborgerskab som stabschef lover ikke umiddelbart godt for fremtiden.

Men der er en forskel, nemlig i den retorik, Obama har anvendt for at nå sit mål (aldrig har en amerikansk præsidentkandidat været så radikal og påvirket af borgerretsbevægelsen i sin retorik, indholdet eller mangel på samme ufortalt) og i den græsrodsbevægelse, der både har skaffet Obama sejren og fået millioner af mennesker over hele USA til at føle, at de selv har en aktie i den.

Tithi Battacharya gæsteblogger på Lenin’s Tomb, og gør det godt:

This is where the Obama electoral campaign will be remembered for its uniqueness. In an economy devastated by free market capitalism, in a society torn apart by racism, at a time when the combined cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan has been over $3 trillion grassroot organizers campaigned tirelessly to elect a black, anti-war man who spoke openly about corporate greed. The campaigners gave the election campaign the flavour of a grassroots social movement.

This was done in several ways. As early as October 6 the much discussed Acorn claimed to have registered 1.3 million new voters. Although the NY Times argued that these numbers were vastly exaggerated the meticulous task of organizing these registration drives on a national scale, in door-to-door campaigns and campus mobilizations can hardly be denied. This process could not but have a historical resonance with people of colour in general and the African American community in particular where memories of the right to vote are still laced with violence. The usual process of voting was thus transformed in this election from the very start into a much more politicized practice.

Obama himself did not fail to see this transformation. His speeches repeatedly alluded to past social movements and more importantly to the power of social movements. “Words on a parchment” he told us in his speech on race in Philadelphia “would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage”. What would be needed instead were actual people who “through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk” narrowed the gap between ideals and reality. At a large anti-war rally in Chicago in 2002 in a sharp invocation of classical left-wing rhetoric he urged us to stop “the arms merchants in our own country” from “feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe”. More explicitly, dubbing the elections merely as an agitational platform in faux-Leninist fashion he reminded us that the campaign was merely “the occasion, the vehicle, of [our] hopes, and [our] dreams”. Over and over during the course of the campaign words such as community, grassroots and organizing were used in a fashion that matched the fervour and the demographic of the anti-war and anti-globalization movements of the recent past. Whole sections of people roused by this call plunged into the campaign as though it were a social movement and not merely an electoral campaign. But the most important thing to understand is that their doing so actually made it such.

In my small mid-western University town the Obama campaign included old social and labour activists, young students who had never been at a demonstration before and whole sections of people, particularly women and minorities who have been actively disenfranchised not just from the electoral process in the past but from society itself. It is also significant to remember in this context that in Indiana for instance although Obama secured a historic victory for Democrats, the first time in 44 years, none of the other local Democratic candidates fared well. Indeed only 22.2% of the votes polled in my county were straight Democratic votes. A vote for Obama was thus only nominally a vote for the democratic party. It was largely I would argue a vote for a radical new direction that the voter felt he represented. The Democratic Party label became almost incidental, Obama the man and his historic significance spilled over the ordinariness of a democratic party ticket and that is the man the ordinary woman/man voted for. There was an African-American woman at our hotel in Chicago that night who had come to the rally with her 84 year old father. My partner’s friend, an African American historian told us that he was “bawling like a baby” when Obama gave his speech at Grant Park. We will always remember those truly historic images of Jesse Jackson and even Oprah Winfrey crying that cold night at Grant Park. They all worked for the “movement” and not for the election of a Democratic Party candidate. So when victory was declared on November 4 th most of them were shocked to see Democratic party bureaucrats take over the floor of the campaign office and make speeches. One of my friends there told me “I was shocked to see these people. All I wanted to do was dance”. . We had all apparently forgotten that this was an electoral campaign to elect the head of the leading imperialist nation.

So as President Obama surrounds himself with big-business backers such as Robert Rubin and Paul Volcker, shapes his foreign policy in consultation with former secretaries of state and ex-CIA officials what is to become of the all the people who joined the “movement”?

There is a short answer to that question, given by a young black woman in Harlem. When asked by CNN about Obama’s victory, laughing and crying she said that she had helped achieve it and she was going to stay active to make him accountable. I cannot emphasize how right she is.

Rune Engelbreth er også lidt inde på det. Men hvor kom vi fra: Folketaleren og aktivisten Obama har givet en masse mennesker håb.

Det er meget muligt, at politikeren Obama nu er nødt til at sætte en regering op, der kan føre en politik, som han kan få igennem Senat og Hus, og som ikke kan undgå at skuffe mange af de håb.

Men, her er en del af humlen: Manden har selv sagt, at kampagnen kun er “the occasion, the vehicle, of [our] hopes, and [our] dreams“.

Ret beset er det vel ikke for meget at håbe på, at en del af den bevægelse, han selv har været med til at skabe, rent faktisk tager ham på ordet og opretholder presset. Der er al mulig grund til at være skeptisk og forbeholden over for manden Obama og hans politik, men der er også al mulig grund til at håbe, at den bevægelse, der trods alt ligger i symbolet Obama og måden, han blev præsident på, kan holde ved.

Link: “Why I went to Grant Park on November 4th“

Barack Hussein Obama

Gør et mellemnavn den demokratiske præsidentkandidat Barack Obama til en mindre pålidelig person, end han ellers ville have været? Forfatteren Khaled Hosseini bemærker, at Obamas mellemnavn kun adskiller sig fra hans eget efternavn ved to vokaler, men sætter herefter hårdt og brutalt fingeren på det rigtig ømme punkt:

The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama’s middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened. The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain’s call Friday to “be respectful.” Back in February, the Arizona senator apologized for the “disparaging remarks” from a talk-radio host who sneered repeatedly about “Barack Hussein Obama” before a McCain rally. “We will have a respectful debate,” McCain insisted afterward. But pretending to douse flames that you are busy fanning does not qualify as straight talk.

What I find most unconscionable is the refusal of the McCain-Palin tandem to publicly condemn the cries of “traitor,” “liar,” “terrorist” and (worst of all) “kill him!” that could be heard at recent rallies. McCain is perfectly capable of telling hecklers off. But not once did he or his running mate bother to admonish the people yelling these obscene — and potentially dangerous — words. They may not have been able to hear the slurs at the rallies, but surely they have had ample time since to get on camera and warn that this sort of ugliness has no place in an election season. But they have not. Simply calling Obama “a decent person” is not enough.

Is inaction tantamount to consent? The McCain campaign certainly thinks so when it comes to Obama and incendiary remarks from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. By their own inaction, then, are McCain and Palin condoning these slurs? Or worse, are they willfully inciting the angry and venomous response that we have been witnessing at their rallies? If not, then what reaction are they hoping to evoke by their relentless public suggestions that Obama is basically an anti-American liar who won’t put “country first” and has an affection for terrorists? Do they not understand the kind of fire they are playing with?

Svaret er nok desværre, at de kun er alt for godt klar over, hvilken ild, det er de leger med. Alt for sejren, kan man sige.

Link: McCain and Palin are playing with fire

Keating: McCains ven, bedrageren

Palin og McCain er begyndt at gå meget hårdt til Obama, blandt andet fordi Obama vist har haft en vag, organisatorisk tilknytning til en person, der blev dømt for terrorisme begået mens den unge Barack var otte år gammel.

Så grimt går de til den, at nogen sågar taler om fascisme. Men skal der være gilde, så lad der være gilde. Obama-kampagnen er kommet i tanker om, at McCain var et fremtrædende medlem af Keating 5, 5 senatorer, der i 1991 fik en påtale for at intervenere og forsinke undersøgelser til fordel for Charles Keating, CEO for Lincon Savings and Loans Bank, der senere brød sammen og måtte reddes af den amerikanske regering. Redningen kostede skatteyderne 3,4 milliarder dollars, og Keating blev idømt først 10, senere 12½ års fængsel.

McCain havde til gengæld modtaget forskellige økonomiske “begunstigelser”, herunder kampagnebidrag og en ferierejse med alt betalt. Siger denne gamle historie noget om mandens dømmekraft i dag?

Hvis det skal handle om mudderkastning, lader Obama  i alle tilfælde her til at have fundet noget lidt mere relevant at kaste sig over. Som Lawrence Lessig skriver på sin blog:

It has surprised me that this, the tremor before this recent financial disaster, the Keating Five scandal, has not been at the center of this campaign before. But now, apparently in response to Palin’s suggestion that the fact Obama knows Ayers is relevant to whether he should be president, the Obama campaign has released this very strong 15 minute documentary about the Keating scandal.

For those not old enough to remember, here’s the outline: 5 Senators, all of whom had received campaign funding from Charles Keating, intervene with regulators to get them to overlook criminal behavior by Keating, leading to the collapse of Lincoln Savings, leading to a $3.4 billion bill for Americans. The only one of those 5 Senators to receive both personal and political benefits from Keating: McCain.

Fair? Totally relevant to the question whether the judgment of this candidate is the sort that’s needed at this time. Totally relevant to the basic question whether his philosophy — deregulate — is what this sector needs at this time.

Wise? Not sure. I’m not sure Americans distinguish between hard-hitting-and-fair criticism (which this is) and hard-hitting-and-unfair criticism (which Palin’s is). One might worry that they’re “burn[ing] down the house to roast the pig” but I assume they’ve reckoned that.

Link: and then things got ugly (via Boing Boing).

Hvor er racismen?

Læserbrev sakset fra Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

How racism works

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5“?
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election
numbers would be as close as they are?

Obama, McCain … er der forskel?

I Michigan er man ved det igen – ved at finde på krumspring og krummelurer, der kan forhindre sorte i at stemme. I Florida vil man afvise 85.000 nye vælgerregistreringer, skriver Greg Palast. Jeg gætter på, det er et mønster, vi vil se gentage sig i de nærmeste måneder.

Men gør det egentlig en forskel, når det kommer til stykket? Hvor stor en forskel kommer til til at gøre for den gennemsnitlige Joe American, hvem der sidder i det Ovale Kontor?

På den amerikanske venstrefløj kan man finde mange forskellige bud:

  • Obama har solgt så meget ud, at det faktisk kan være lige meget: “How can I or any progressive vote for a presidential candidate who goes from opposing a war to saying he not only supports the idea of keeping troops in Iraq for another five years?”
  • Dette er et aldeles afgørende valg, som vi aldrig kommer til at se magen til i vore liv: “The cascading effects of right-wing control over most of the federal government have been cumulative and devastating. After the election in early November, it’ll be President McCain or President Obama. We’ll never pass this way again.”
  • Obama og McCain er i virkeligheden begge marionetter for det samme militær-industrielle kompleks drevet af økonomiske hensyn mere end af almindelige amerikaneres ve og vel, som John Pilger skriver:
    “John McCain may well be a media cartoon figure – the fake “war hero” now joined with a Shakespeare-banning, gun-loving, religious fanatic – yet his true significance is that he and Obama share essentially the same dangerous prescriptions.”
  • Jonathan Freedland skriver i The Guardian, at hvis USA nu vrager Obama og håbet om forandring efter otte år med Bush, vil verden vende sig væk fra USA i væmmelse, og den “anti-amerikanisme”, vi kender i dag, vil kun være en bleg skygge af, hvad vi vil få at se. Republikanerne kan nok vinde USA, men de vil miste verdens opbakning i en tid, hvor USA i forvejen taber terræn til Rusland, Indien, Kina og Brasilien.

Hvis folk på den amerikanske venstrefløj er desillusionerede over Obama, er det ikke svært at forstå. Richard Stallman udtrykker det meget godt, i en kommentar til republikanernes valgsvindel:

I don’t hold any enthusiasm for Obama; at best he will be like Clinton but even less liberal. However, systematic destruction of democracy is dangerous even if there is no good candidate is likely to win this year.

And you can be sure that if Obama loses because of this disenfranchement, Democrat activists will blame it on the Green candidate.

Men hvor godt man end kan forstå denne desillusion, er der en forskel. Det er rigtigt, at Obamas snak om “change” til en vis grad er fluff og candy floss – som om, Obamas retorik reducerer “change” til et indholdsløst mantra og “feel good”-ord, som man kan lægge i, hvad man vil.

Men samtidig er Obama en repræsentant for meget af det, der er godt i USA, og han er især indbegrebet af en moderne, kosmopolitisk amerikaner. Hvilket vil sige: Han er ikke nogen stupid redneck, og han forsøger heller ikke at kapre stemmer ved at lade, som om han er en stupid redneck – han appellerer slet ikke til det segment.

Obama er med andre ord en intelligent og veluddannet mand, der ikke skammer sig over at være intelligent og veluddannet – og det har, med forlov, været en sjældenhed i omegnen af Det Hvide Hus i en alt for lang årrække.

Mona Eltahawy, som med sin ægyptiske baggrund selv er et skoleeksempel på en kosmopolitisk “orientalsk” amerikaner, håber således på at slippe af med den evindelige, selvcentrerede amerikanske stupiditet, der især rammer folk fra fjerne og eksotiske lande:

I remember a dinner-table conversation in Mumbai a couple of weeks ago when Sanjay — an architect and businessman — turned to me quite earnestly to proclaim, “Americans are inherently stupid.”

“How do you live with them?” he asked.

There we were — an Indian and an Egyptian — discussing America over dinner at the Royal Yacht Club, built by British colonialists for the enjoyment of white privilege and off limits to us brown people back when they ruled India.

Then Manique, a Sri Lankan woman, joined the conversation to tell us that during a visit to the United States a few years ago, someone actually asked her if they had bread in Sri Lanka. I asked her, half-jokingly, if it was the same American who asked my dad at an Athens hotel over dinner years ago whether we had fruit in Egypt.

More than just shocked amusement, these incidents show why all of us would vote for Barack Obama if we could. He would never ask us if we had bread or fruit in our countries. Why, Obama is much like us. He has traveled. He has lived abroad. And he has family in several countries. He has a different script for what an American is. He is an American who is comfortable as a citizen of the world – with or without his lapel pin.

Og som sådan ville en præsident Obama gøre en kolossal forskel for resten af verden. (Obamas fingre ville også være bedre placeret ved den termonukleære knap end Sarah Palins – just sayin’).

Men måske det bedste i virkeligheden ville være en gentagelse af miseren fra 2000: Obama har vundet valget – på en hårsbredde. Men så begynder rapporterne at rulle ind om valgsvindel i Florida,  Michigan og andre svingstater, og efter en omtælling i tre counties i Florida og Michigan ender McCain med at vinde med 327 stemmers overvægt. Det er også klart, at optællingen af de 327 stemmer er forfusket, og at vi i alle tilfælde kun er så langt nede, fordi republikanerne har frataget på den grimme side af 500.000 sorte deres stemmeret.

Obama har vundet valget, men det er McCain der bliver præsident. Amerika var klar til forandring, verden var klar til forandring, men valget er stjålet. Igen. Og en kolossal vrede løfter sig, gør det umuligt for McCain at komme nogen som helst steder med kongressen de næste, og efter i fire år at have trådt vande, drevet USAs fattige længere ned og givet flere skattelettelser til de rige, skylles Obama 2012 ind i det Hvide Hus på en bølge af vrede, der denne gang har tvunget ham til at tale med en klart venstreorienteret, antiimperialistisk retorik.

Eller måske ikke. Og ja, måske det vitterlig ikke er en stjålen McCain-sejr vi skal håbe på. Men … hvem ved? Det er ikke altid det mest oplagte, der er det rigtige.

Touché: En kenyaner og en vred araber

Angry Arab skriver om Barack Obamas kandidatur og postyret omkring det, især i USA:

The rise of Barak Obama, regardless whether he will win or not, will now allow Americans to engage in their favorite sport: self-praise and self-congratulations. You remember what Alexis de Tocqueville had said about Americans: “The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. . . . They unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes.” I say this because I already hear words about how great it was for America to have an African-American rise to the highest position (or candidacy more accurately). I mean, women led empires and countries centuries before it has ever happened in the U.S.–and it still has not happened. The French revolutionaries sat a freed slave in the National Assembly almost right at the same time when Thomas Jefferson wrote his Notes on the State of Virginia in which he compared African-Americans to monkeys. Also, many white Americans love to say: how far we have gone. Many African-Americans prefer to say: how far we have to go.

As’ad tilføjer, at det nok også er værd at spørge, hvor “vi” i det hele taget er på vej hen.

Måske det vitterlig er mere bemærkelsesværdigt, at kandidatens race eller køn overhovedet stadig kan være afgørende for folks stemmer, end det er, at USA nu er kommet så “langt”.

Og måske der bliver mere end rigelig lejlighed til at minde amerikanerne om dette,  når og hvis Obama bliver præsident.