A certain mania

Obama-mania reached some parts of London today.

Mania is the right word because it is a form of madness and is based on nothing rational or proven. It is simply based on a feeling and a vague hope.

Even in allegedly serious corporations and firms such as the one I work for, an email was received inviting all those interested to attend the auditorium and watch coverage on TV from 4.45pm GMT. Never mind the credit crunch, never mind work, all were welcome and implicitly encouraged to watch the Obama inauguration. I, for the record, did not go and watch it "live".

We would not do that for a change in our own prime minister so I fail to understand why that is necessary for a change in American president. It is of course political correctness, trend following, jumping on the band wagon or whatever you want to call it.

The ludicrous expectations, it goes without saying, will be disappointed. I am strangely neutral to Obama now certain he will not be as good as people say but not certain he will be as bad as "Obama-cynics" such as myself feared.

As with Blair in 1997, the worst aspect of Obama is not the man himself but rather his ludicrous followers talking as if a new world had arrived. The agenda of some of his backers is to be feared but whether they will prevail remains to be seen. The lesson of Blair is that those cheering loudest today will ultimately be most disappointed while those most cynical today will end up pleasantly surprised. I am sure it will not be an exactly the same but it seems to be the way of things that those who cheer loudest at "new dawns" often go to bed the most disappointed !

So am I simply miserable today ? Not at all. We live, as the cliche goes, in interesting times. Records are constantly being broken, corporations are collapsing daily, jobless totals are soaring, house prices crashing and yet I do not see dispondency.

There is an awakening of something positive and a realisation that the age of unabated consumerism and debt addiction is both over and that it is a good thing too.

The suffering of some people, especially those who were poor to start with, is undoubted. Yet I remain positive that things ultimately will get better. That hope is not based on one man thousands of miles away but on the God-given innate resourcefulness of people everywhere.

In terms of "yes we can" my advise would be not to look at the media-fest played out on every news channel swooning over Obama like lovelorn teenagers. Instead I would look in the mirror. That is where hope and recovery will come from.

Those most effected by Obama-mania are already on the road to taste the bitter fruit of disappointment. For the rest of us, let's just get on real life !

Déjà vu ?

Does this weekend's almost confirmed appointment mean a Clinton will once again be leading the "Free World" ? If nothing else, they appear to be getting closer.

The cartoon below is from the Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/cartoon/) . With apologies to those who feel this blog is rather more transatlantic than its title suggests.........

Of Mutts and Living Presidents

This is the great hope of the world (according to the media at least).

Sometimes you just couldn't make it up :-)

Helping Yourself

I wanted to use a quote from Janet Daley in my last post but I couldn't find somewhere that it fitted well.

Therefore I will post it on its own. I think it is of relevance both to those who feel very fearful at the election of an unknown quantity and also to those with unrealistically high expectations of Obama. We should not expect too much from Obama and if we expect the worst we can still do some things about it. In the end, we may just need to help ourselves.

After all Obama is just a man and just a poltician:

"..........Little wonder that his candidacy is being mistaken for the Second Coming.

What will this mean for the future? What if, as will almost certainly be the case, the great deliverance fails to deliver? The disillusion and sense of betrayal may create divisions in American society that will be greater and deeper than any we have seen for a generation. The sense of hopelessness and bitter disappointment may well be - as Americans say - toxic. Then again, maybe American politics will simply get the grown-up message that no one mortal is the final answer: that the fulfilment of the American dream must always lie within the individual and not with the government. To be fair, Obama himself suggests this when he tells the crowds, "It's not about me - it's about you."

The full article can be found here.

President Obama

Not superman but for better or worse he is American President

A few final thoughts on the election of Barack Obama, before we start turning to "real life" again:

1) Whatever one thinks of him, he appears to have won a genuine mandate from the majority of American people. This was no "landslide" as some are calling it. At least 52 % to 47 % is not a landslide in my book. You don't have to look far back to find bigger margins in the popular vote. 1996 saw 49 % to 40 % in Clinton against Dole. Nonetheless the margin was sufficient to make all reported cases of local incidents of intimidation and fraud (as I noted yesterday) not relevant to the overall final result.

2) It is a significant milestone to have a black President (in not wishing to totally forget that he happened to have a white mother !). America leads the world in opportunities for its minority groups. A black Democrat president follows on from two black Republican Secretaries of State. This is the culmination of a wider trend. This shows to be a myth the allegation that America is a particularly "racist country". Instead we should reflect that America is unique in having a minority ethnic group leader. It is difficult to see the same happening in other countries with significant minority groups. There is no sign this will happen anytime soon in Brazil, Canada, France, Australia or Britain to name just a few.

3) His biggest obvious strength by a mile is oratory. His other talents are unproven.

4) His policies are vague and tend towards the "redistribution of wealth" rather than the creation of wealth. He has made trade protectionist noises. If these two traits are reflected in the reality of his policy it would be bad news for the American and world economies.

5) His promises to reduce military expenditure are unfortunate in their timing when the world needs a stronger American military more than ever. Which other nation can stand up to oppressors on the continent of Obama's father ?(Congo and Somalia are pressing issues with the latter a base for Islamic militants so presenting security as well as humanitarian concerns). Which other nation can subdue potential threats from Iran,keep the lids on Iraq and Afghanistan and prevent total collapse in Pakistan ? Which other nation can act as a counter weight to a resurgent Russia that today announced it was moving missiles to the Polish border ? Which other country will deter any crazy actions from North Korea under its ailing leader ?
All these issues are threats to people around the world and ultimately to us all. We would do well to think a little more widely before cheering in a leader promising "Change" and not much else.


6) His regime will be strong but not completely unfettered. The Republicans will control over 40 seats in the Senate so may have some chance of delaying or curbing any plans that are too damaging.

7) He has two years to prove himself before America's next major vote in the mid-term elections in 2010.

Finally, he is not the candidate I preferred but this is not the first time I have supported the losing side in an election (I suspect it won't be the last either !). For now he is President Elect of the USA and there is nothing else to do than wish him success and hope he proves his doubters' worst fears wrong. He has two years with an enviably free hand to achieve something great for his country and the world. What he does in that time will prove his real character and motives once and for all.

Will Rove be proved right ?

The architect of the Bush election victories, Karl Rove is predicting a clear if not landslide Obama win.

I think my views on Obama are fairly clear from previous entries. There are some ludicrously inflated expectations of what his election will bring. That will mean a lot of very disappointed people within a year or so.

Obama's own policies, such as they are, are all about redistribution of wealth by raising taxes. If he sticks to this, it can only be bad news for the US and by extension world economy.

Any reduction in the US military will be a green light to aggressors and tyrants the world over. I certainly don't see any candidates from Europe for the role of world policeman.

All in all, I find the prospect of Obama bad news. A dangerous cocktail of wildly inflated expectations coupled with policies that may weaken the last superpower do not inspire me. I am therefore struggling to understand why so many welcome the election of Obama.

In fact I hope that this time Mr. Rove will be wrong !

Naive and Delusional

If Obama wins tonight, here is one of his many supporters who will experience a dose of reality in the coming months.

She believes that Barack Obama will help her pay for her "gas and mortgage".

How do people manage to get so deluded ?!

Turkeys voting for Christmas ?

That is the simplest analogy I can think of.

America's strength has in the past been based on a low tax, deregulated economy where those who work hard are rewarded while those who don't may struggle.

Obama's policies, such as they are, all seem aimed at rolling back these areas of strength , not to mention weakening the military and in the process giving a freer hand to potential tyrrants the world over. Who else will challenge them ?

If Obama wins tomorrow, I can sincerely say that I hope my worst fears will be proved wrong. There is no pride in being right when predicting disaster.

America needs a socialist-based,redistribution of wealth model like a hole in the head.

Whatever Obama's strengths of oratory and the potential to make history, his lack of experience combined with notions of wealth redistribution make a vote for him like a turkey voting for Christmas.

Will President Obama be a disaster or just a disappointment to his own supporters ?

With many commentators now predicting that the election of President Obama, is a foregone conclusion, it is probably worth noting a few points about the man who could effectively be "the most powerful man on the planet" from next week.



Nothing I have read, and I have read fairly widely, gives me a serious idea about what policies he is proposing other than some broad outlines. The broad outlines, I frankly find disturbing especially in the troubled times we live in.


My summary of the broad outlines Obama has revealed are as follows:



1) Raise taxes and increase spending. Hardly inspirational in times like these when the economies of the world are so fragile. The Wall Street Jounal summarised his tax plans like this:

2) Introduce trade protectionism- not a particularly positive plan at a time of world recession.

3) Withdraw US troops from Iraq. On examination this amounts to a little more than a discussion over timing so is hardly a radical proposal, whether right or wrong.

Obama's only clear message is "change" without any definition of what this change really is. Worse still, most of his supporters do not seem to have any clear idea what this change is about except that it must be something good. This is to imagine that change in itself is always good which seems very dangerous. Surely the leaders who have caused the most change were the most revolutionary or brutal. Hitler and Stalin certainly brought about a lot of change.

Obama's most obvious skill is his ability to speak. This seems unarguable to me. By extension this could be seen as an ability to inspire. However without clear plans or with some undesirable broad outlines, this seems no reason to elect him.

Perhaps most telling is a story being reported by today's Telegraph referring to a 2001 radio interview Obama gave when he spoke positively of the need for "redistributive change". That can mean many things but what he seemed to be saying was that it was not enough for the courts to do this but that legislation would be required.

Here are some extracts from the interview:

So one possibility is that Obama will be elected on the basis of some vague emotional notion of "change" to introduce redistributive based legislation and taxation at a time of global recession. That seems a recipe for disaster.

The other option is for him to be another Tony Blair and be elected to the cheering screams of his most extreme supporters only to be remarkably unradical and in the process alienate most the people who first supported him. This may also be possible and certainly has its precedent ! It is possible to imagine in that scenario that in 4 years he is viewed as little different from a black CEO of a major corporation and the most ardent critics will be the signifcant number of black voters who supported him but feel nothing has changed for them.

However the option to be most worried about is an increase in taxation and legislation to support redistribution of wealth (as described in his radio interview). At a time of global recession not even the Liberal Democrats are proposing that.

So unless there is a surprise next week I will not be joining the majority view in cheering the result. I will be quietly worried as to what Obama change really means. I will be watching with concerned interest.

Pastor Problem

Here is what was euphamistically referred to on CNN yesterday as Barak Obama's "pastor problem".

In full flow is Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Strangely only since these videos made it to mass circulation has Mr. O decided to officially drop Mr. W as his official "spiritual adviser".

A storm in a turban

I personally think too much is being made of the alleged smear campaign against Barak Obama by circulating a photo of him in traditional Somali dress (including Turban). Alarmingly I find myself agreeing with the Clinton campaign (a first time for everything !) that how can it be insulting for someone to be pictured wearing a national costume unless you devalue that nationality in the first place.

As seen above, our very own HRH Prince Charles is no stranger to unusual costume- although he's not wanting to run the country just yet !

I think the concerns over Obama are different and much deeper than unusual costumes.

For some reasons the Times has broken ranks from the media pack on at least 2 occasions to run critical articles on him.

This one deserves a read regarding the hidden funding from an Iraqi Billionaire given to the man who may well be the next president of the world's only superpower:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3433485.ece

Mansion 'mistake' piles the pressure on Barack Obama

James Bone in New York and Dominic Kennedy in London

A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.

The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

It's worth reading on at the link above. All in all, mysterious loans from shady foreign businessmen doesn't sound very "new politics" to me....

Rather childish but.......

with backers like this, you have to wonder. Here Senator Edward "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy makes an awkward slip of the tongue in referring to Barack Obama.