A Black in the White House: Would the world start to change?

A few weeks ago, we could see on TV a little grandmother ovationned, brought to arm's length by the inhabitants of her village in the depths of Kenya; his small son had just been elected ... President of the United States of America.
On that day, everywhere in the world, people cried out with joy, concerts were organised, to welcome the election of Barak Hussein Obama : across the Southern states in the USA, but also in Africa (for example in Kenya), , in occupied Palestine, in Latin America, in China...
At home, progressists could not remain indifferent to such an important event in the history of USA, a superpower which dominates our entire planet, directly or indirectly.. Some have responded with great condescension or contempt to this popular jubilation: 'They will be disappointed ! What an illusion ! "... Others were simply delighted. We were among them.
Of course, Obama represents the two-party system which locks the "democracy" in the U.S.A .Of course, he comes from a bourgeois party, alter-ego of the Republican Party, and its program hardly differs from the one of his main opponent Mc Cain. Of course, his black skin was a tactical excuse for the Democratic Party, which played then an important card for these elections. Besides, this election has absolutely nothing to do with a political revolution, unlike what happened with the elections of Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales ... especially because he is the candidate of the big U.S. owners who spent a fortune for his campaign !
The Communists never support a "providential man" who magically induces confidence, but the political expression at a time of the change in power relations, more favorable to the people’s struggles, even if they’re fleeting. Relatively speaking of course, it is not because Leon Blum was one of the gravediggers of the Popular Front in France in 1938, that we should not support him in 1936 during the rise of this front.

96% of black Americans, (many of them were added to the electoral roll for the occasion), 67% of Latinos, many of the white "middle class" jeopardised by the crisis, but also some white racists from the traditional Republican electorate, exasperated by the endless mandate of Bush gave a very clear majority to Obama, in a country that lived few decades ago, under an horrible regime of apartheid...
Against a U.S. bourgeoisie whose history is made of class oppression and racial discrimination, the heroic Civil Rights Movement, started in the 60s here, marked a further and decisive step, which would probably have been welcome by our fellow Afro-American Bolsheviks such as Harry Haywood...

This vote is also a strong signal in the class struggles within the U.S., and the support of Obama by the Communist Party of the U.S.A against the bloody Mac "GI" Cain, has nothing to do with opportunism. Rejection of occupation wars, rejection of unsustainable health system, rejection of liberticidal laws, rejection of capitalism’s crisis consequences; so many reasons to express that the American people is fed up with Bush and his administration.

This election is also celebrated beyond the USA. Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, leaders of progressive countries that have been suffering for such a long time from the imperialist domination of the arrogant U.S.A has welcomed this great victory and the departure of Bush. Objectively, the mere fact that the U.S. bourgeoisie is forced to propose a black president is significant of a change in their political tactics, forcing a weakening in more "flexibility", at least in a first time. This tactical change is not only related to the acceleration of the crisis of capitalism, undermining today ‘s imperialist centers themselves, but also to a new context at the international level, where dominated people are beginning to stand up and restore hope that everyone used to believe lost. The history of struggles turns a dark page of a unipolar world, and announces a "multipolar" world, therefore more fragile towards the socialist revolution for which we fight! When people who believed in the electoral victory of Obama experience its objective limits, they will fight with more and more determination more and more io take their destiny in hand!

Rally of Communists Circles (RCC), France, November 2008

http://www.rassemblementcommuniste.org

rcc@rassemblementcommuniste.org

You can read the pamphlet published by the Henri Barbusse Circle "A Black elected President of the United States of America, a new stage in the struggle for equal rights!" by going to our website or by ordering the paper version by email.

It's Time for Obama to Come Out fighting

by Norman Markowitz

There is a fine article by progressive critic Frank Rich in today's New York Times calling for Senator Obama to begin to go after John McCain.

That should be a no brainer. McCain represents an administration that even centrist analysts have put on the short list of the very worst in U.S. history. His militarism is unabashed. He hasn't a clue to the way a large majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck on the installment plan. He is still "Johnny McCain" trying to prove to everyone that he is right and they are wrong and he can beat them in any game of chicken whoever they are, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Russians.

Obama must lead in bringing the fight to McCain and the Republican right, throwing them back on their heels by making it clear over and over again that this election is about a chasm of inequality obscured by a mountain of public and consumer debt, a government which has literally sold out the American people to transnational corporations, banks and insurance companies, and military contractors--a government that has fought wars for oil and profit and is now putting up as its presidential candidate a man who is likely to fight wars for the hell of it.

This is the best way that Obama can challenge the racism that remains the Republicans ace in the hole--by pledging to the people that he is much closer in his values and aspirations, in the struggles that he has experienced in his life, than Bush or McCain or Cheney.

The nomination of Joe Biden, a traditional liberal Democrat is a good start. But Obama cannot make the mistake that John Kerry made four years--that is, letting the convention become an infomercial, and then waiting while Bush and the Republican Right took the initiative. He should use the convention to showcase the campaign, to appeal to the "righteous anger" of the millions who supported him in the primaries, win over the Clinton supporters who share much of that anger against the Republican Right, and go on the offensive until election day, regardless of media criticisms. Rich cites a study that 72% of media coverage of Obama has been negative, only 28% of the coverage positive, continuing a very old tradition, going back to the late 19th century, where the great majority of the press at first and when it came into existence the electronic media supported Republican presidential candidates over Democratic ones (with Roosevelt it was over 80 percent) and usually the more conservative of the candidates in primaries.

This is Obama's election to win; labor's election to win; all progressive groups election to win. But militancy along with flexibility is the path to victory, not compromise and consensus with a right wing political machine that has no respect for either and which views politics as search and destroy military exercises.