[Marxism] A Cuban look at the incoming Obama presidency

[Walter Lippmann]

There's been a great deal of discussion about the election of the
first Black president of the United States in the Cuban media and,
in particular, at the LA JIRIBILLA website where many of the very
critical commentaries by Amy Goodman, Micheal Moore, Noam Chomsky
and many others are being translated into Spanish. While most of
LA JIRIBILLA's content is online, there is also a print edition
distributed on the island as well. Since they don't post their
print editions online as GRANMA and JUVENTUD REBELDE do, I don't
know if this one is or will be in the print edition. Some of this
author's work is reproduced at the PROGRESO WEEKLY site in Miami.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
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LA JIRIBILLA
November 15-21, 2008
Obamotherapy
By Jorge Gómez Barata • Visiones Alternativas

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2226.html

In the United States they call “change” any adjustment made on a
regular basis to recycle necrotized parts or straighten out flawed
applications. Such corrections, not always made for the best, take
place whenever bells ring to announce something has gone wrong or
fallen out of use. If practiced from the top down, this ability
allows the system to get updated without the need for institutional
alterations or traumatic ruptures. The abolition of slavery was the
only exception, as it gave rise to national division, a civil war,
and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It’s not a question of making
just a few cosmetic modifications, but neither are these changes
excessively radical.

Since he’s not a black employed by the white elite in the style of
Powell or Rice, who were never elected to do anything, Barack Obama
will perhaps make the difference. His accession to the highest
echelons of government is somehow connected to a long, intense and
singular popular struggle: that of the black people for their rights,
the only one that has really remained in effect for more than two
hundred years.

The new president is not in power thanks to the upper crust’s
unanimous wish, but despite what some of its members wanted. To a
large extent, the first black occupant of the White House owes his
victory to the youth, Latinos and African Americans who voted for
him, as did a middle class which in that country includes part of the
working class, the farmers and the civil servants, and before he
climbed to the top he had to defeat a powerful collection of
reactionary ultraconservative forces. Much as it affects the form,
the fact that he was backed and funded by another sector of the same
elite changes nothing in terms of its content.

In a nation where everyone but the Native Americans came from
somewhere else, the blacks were the only ones who arrived as
something other than emigrants. Hunted down like wild animals and
brought from the far corners of Africa to be exploited as beasts of
burden, they went through a terrible ordeal that started in 1619 and
still goes on, all significant progress notwithstanding. No stratum
of the U.S. society has fought as effectively or for so long.

No one should expect the next administration to redo the system,
undertake a sweeping reform of the American way of life or give up
the imperialist rule. Presumably, however, the United States will try
to regain the lead it boasted in the postwar period; redesign some
foreign policies based on its deeply-rooted fondness for war,
aggressiveness and violence; be more considerate toward and
consistent with current ecological phenomena –especially climate
change– and foster development policies on the Third World similar to
the Alliance for Progress in order to turn billions of poor people
into more or less solvent consumers.

Maybe Obama will be bright enough to deal effectively with the energy
crisis and understand that it’s not just a financial problem but the
outcome of irrational, outdated and unfair structures, so that he can
put into practice a security plan which proves smarter and more
efficient than Bush’s and use the proper methods to make many other
countries join the effort and not only a small group of acolytes like
the Azores troika.

Barack Obama is not a fighter à la Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King
and has nothing in common with the Black radicals, but neither is he
a politician spoiled by decades of practice nor a lobbyist used to
hanging around the offices of the powerful in hopes of being granted
privileges. He submitted to none of Bush’s flag-waving volleys and
has never been known to be partial to any of the many chapels of
Washington. In fact, he owes as much to the people who gave him their
vote as to the gentry who gave him the money.

Given the U.S. political ways, we should not expect the new
administration to be self-critical, offer its apologies to its
victims or do a U-turn over its policies on behalf of the
Establishment, although there are signs that it might take 
a more moderate stance in the near future.

Be that as it may, we’ll have to wait and see how Obama and his team
will perform on the hot line and whether he stops talking and starts
doing when it comes to the crunch. Let’s hope he won’t make his debut
against a crisis which puts his ability and serenity to the test.

Unfortunately, while changing tack is typical of the system, so is
the violence that at least on two occasions –in Lincoln’s and
Kennedy’s time– brought it to a standstill.

ORIGINAL:
http://www.lajiribilla.cubaweb.cu/noticias/noticia.asp?Id=10375




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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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