Cometh the hour cometh the man

After a strange 3 month odd hiatus in which we all held our breath and hoped Bush did not do anything else horrendous, a last satanic hurrah, it seems Obama is finally upon us. And praise be.

Ever since that night of hope back in November expectations have been high. In fact expectations have been so high that the media's sole role since seems to have been to collectively manage our expectations, at least in the UK. Right wing commentator after right wing commentator has lined up to tell us 'don't expect any major changes, don't expect things to be very different.' If Obama ran on the ticket of change, then the pre-inaugural message has been one of moderation.
Change is upon us, but don't expect too much of it.

The reasons for this are clear. In order to actually get elected Obama needed to reach much further to the left than any president in my living memory. The anti-war and anti-bush majority fell into line and voted in their masses in a way they simply seemed not to for
Kerry. Obama has been voted in on a mandate not of radicalism, but radical expectation. It leaves questions hanging with speculative optimism in the air

When will climate change be addressed in earnest?
Will the Palestinian peoples' rights and sovereignty be afforded the
same recognition as Israel?
When (not if) will Guantanamo close?
How will the economy be saved?
When will troops pull out of Iraq?
etc etc etc

Bush has indeed left a painful legacy.

This Iraq question, for me at least, is moot. While a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, and the sparks will not settle in the region for some time to come, commercially Iraq is a tentative success for the West. The oil reserves are being sold off, and oil men who
stood to benefit most from the invasion will see to it that the effort and loss was, for them, necessary. Haliburton, Shell, BP, BHP Billiton, et al- they are more or less happy. And as long as they are happy then the withdrawal will commence, more or less on schedule I guess.

Of course Guantanamo can close too. After years of torture and denial of adequate legal process the detainees, as they are called, are sure to have given up any information deemed useful for fighting the War on Terror. Even for the most embittered hawk Guantanamo has passed its
use. As for the war on terror this will now surely be fought with different tactics. And probably, hopefully, under a different name. Unilateralism is out. Diplomacy is in. Expensive military actions are no longer the order of the day- the country is broke.

Forgive the cynicism here. But I cannot see how the kind of change, redistributive, green, and equality based, envisaged by many of those who voted for Obama, is truly possible in the United States. Even if the man himself is willing the machine is not. The mechanics of state will surely resist realignment, and the kind of fundamental shifts in the social economic model necessary to produce meaningful change just don't loom large enough, with enough determination, in the American psyche. The kind of de-centred socialist programme that is hoped for by many will be kept in a state of deferral. Neo-conservatism is dead and gone for now, its economic raison d'etre in tatters and its motives deeply unpopular and unsustainable, even in a democracy a
flimsy as the United States. Capitalism is still alive and kicking and as hungry as ever however. And in order for its appetite to be sated it requires fresh meat and thinking. Neo-Keynsianism is the order of the day. The workings of trade and commerce will continue to be bolstered and bailed out, with massive investment in public works to at least keep employment as high as possible. More 'expensive' or 'radical' proposals will be on hold.

Genuine progressives and revolutionaries are set to be disappointed, but it is not all doom and gloom. At least, with imagination, even within the limits of Keynsian liberalism, it would be possible to undertake massive and urgent investment in green energy. With international leadership on this issue and US commitment to reducing carbon emissions cataclysmic climate change might, possibly, just, be avoided. Catastrophic wars will be less frequent too. A less aggressive trade policy with some parts of the third world is also likely. There will be no ethical foreign policy magic bullet, especially with economic protectionism prevalent in the trade arena, but things will surely be an improvement on the years of Bush.

In all it is a telling indictment of the hole in which we find ourselves that even limited and cosmetic change is seen as cause for one hell of a party.

Obama is, in all likelihood, just cosmetic change. Famously he is, as BBC reporter Paxman keeps telling us, as if we hadn't noticed "the first black man to be president of the united states." This is a tremendous symbolic hurdle to be crossed. It was needed. Equality is on the agenda and the lips. It is now clear that with ambition and ability that we can all of us climb to the top of Rat Mountain (unless of course you are, for example, Prince Harry and born into privilege,
in which case you don't have to). Of course we have seen significant symbolic leaders in other countries too. Here in the UK we got our first ever (and only to date) female Prime Minister back in 1979. She dove-tailed Reagan's economic policies, went to war with Argentina,
smashed trade unions, splintered community and social cohesion, decimated primary industry, and was ultimately forced to resign over popular revolt against her taxation policy. She didn't do much for feminism, and spent the best part of her career portaying a distance from her sex. She was the Iron Lady, a woman beyond the supposed limits of her biology. Clearly Obama is of a vastly different school from Thatcher- but just it goes to prove that symbols need to be judged above all on the content of their character. And politicians should be held to account on the basis of their policy. We in the UK have also had a populist leader hailing from the left after years of conservative misrule. Unfortunately that was Tony Blair and we all
know what he will be remembered for.

Ultimately, with all my thoughts on this spent, I am guilty of playing the media's game that I criticised at the outset of this article. I am a tiny part of the industry of expectation management. I risk the kind of cynicism that breeds that apathy so apparent across the
British Isles. But maybe not. The promise was Change We Can Believe in.

Now is the time, for all those wonderful Americans who voted for this change, to continue to strive for it. Mutual responsibility and hunger for change begins, it does not conclude, at the ballot box. If Obama disappoints, or is frustrated in office, it is the American people who must continue the process that reached the first of many potential crescendos on November 4th.

In the words of Peter Falk- one last thing. Imagine for a moment if we woke this morning to Mccain and Palin. Imagine the almost universal depth of despair. Now remember again that we have Obama and be glad. God bless America. It is the first time in years, even in jest, that I find myself saying that.

Adios Guantanamo
Goodnight torture and special rendition
You shall not be missed.