So the dust has settled over Grant Park Chicago, and the Council's sanitation department has cleaned up all the empty bottles and other rubbish from the grass fields that dominated this public amenity. Barrack Obama is busily annointing the courtiers to his throne, whilst the cheerleaders who were in Grant Park on Tuesday Morning Eastern Time day dream about all the great things Obama will do for the USA now that he has his hands on power - Or will he?
Obama spent a mind boggling $600 MILLION on his election campaign. His PR people kept droning on and on about the fact that, as they put it, so many ordinary men and women were putting their hands in their pockets, and handing over what little cash they could afford as they shared Obama's 'Dream' for The US. But the truth is not full of rainbows and lush green grass on the other side post January 23rd, and Obama's inauguration.
The fact is that a lot of the murky cesspool that has characterised the Bush regime will remain. So instead of Obama getting rid of the political pollution that has reeked America and who's smell has stank across the world, the rotten morass will continue to grow largely unabated. Yes you might have different hands controlling the levers, but they will be driving them in the same direction as Bush and his cronies have been doing for the past eight years.
NOBODY hands over money for nothing, (Well unless you're a Wall street trader treading the markets that is!) and make no doubt about it, a large chuck of the $600M donors will have been given receipts detailing exactly what it is they have bought. If Obama was even 1/4 of the man many are making him out to be, would Corporate, Capitalist America have ploughed so much money into his election campaign? Of course not. I doubt there are many companies giving Money, if at all, to Ralph Nader at this moment in time. They know that Ralph has his problems with the Capitalist system, wheras Obama is quite happy to shake the hand of the devil and do whatever is asked of him, hence all the money he has received in return, during the election campaign.
The average worker will suffer big time as a result of the financial crisis in The States, whilst the banks will continue to get off Scott free. Yes they put a small number of high level bank executives in the Public I.D. parade for one and all to see, whilst they quietly used them to divert attention as the rest of them were allowed to sneak out the back door unnoticed, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. One Senior Wall Street Executive splashed out $6000 on a shower curtain!! You can imagine the look on the face of a woman from Harlem if you knocked on her door and offered her a similar one at the same price!
Healthcare schemes, that are criminally underfunded, will suffer even more, as well as Educational initiatives for kids from disadvantages areas, and other important schemes.
Many couples will find that the box from the Xbox 360 they bought last Christmas is actually there new home, with the government standing idly bye as the banks are allowed to do whatever they please to try and squeeze every last dime they can out of ordinary people.
Just as much as the Bush regime centred so much of it's foreign policy around the need to grab as much oil reserves as he can, so the Obama presidency will in all intents and purposes be the same. Obama talked about a potential mass roll out of renewable green energy sources in The States, but he has produced little or no budget costings or time scales for such a momentous plan. This is because it is highly likely his 'plan' was merely verbal, in order to get more votes, and will not be lifted from the tongue or page and turned into factual, visible reality.
The Dollar is no longer king and plays pauper to The Euro, and the US economy is rolling down a very steep hill with disaster lying in it's wake, but the momentous and thrust is so sever there is nothing people can do, using the implements of Capitalism to stop it.
What we need in the US is democratic Socialist administration of the whole country. The people would have the right to decide how the economy is run, how their local police force operates, and be able to appoint judges in a fair and democratic manner etc. They should also be able to universally get access to free and properly resourced health and education care, and religion would have no official mandate or whatever to interfere in the official running of the country.
So there will still be thousands of troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan heaping misery on the local population.
There will still be Billions of dollars sent to Israel, and hundreds of millions sent to Egypt etc, without any form of accountability whatsoever asked of those two nations.
Many more US citizens will continue to die from easily preventable illnesses due to not having the money to pay for healthcare.
Children will still be taught in totally unsatisfactory environments, and schools will struggle to assemble even the most basic of education programmes due to the severe lack of funding.
Many people will lose there homes and their livelihoods, and will struggle to afford the most basic of necessities in life.
Black ghettos will remain black ghettos, with large amounts of unemployment, drugs, crime and people dying young as they cannot afford healthcare.
Many US based companies will continue to treat workers in their factories in the Far East in a similar fashion that harked back to the days of Black Slavery in the USA all those many years ago. An issue that was oft talked about during the recent election campaign. these companies will still throw tonnes of money at Obama to keep him sweet.
So Two years or so down the line, a Black man who voted for Obama, rang his neighbours and leafletted their houses in support of him; gave whatever little money he had to his election campaign, and got up at the crack of dawn to be one of the first in line for the queue for the rally in Grant Park Chicago - He will stand at the television watching another viscous right wing announcement by the President, as he shakes his head and mutters 'Why Barrack why?'
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