AMERICAN POLITICS:

STILL MORE ON THE ELECTION OF OBAMA:

As part of her effort to present intelligent anarchist and left socialist comment on the recent American elections Molly presents the following from the Anarchist Federation Blog via the A-Infos site. The AF is the British section of the International of Anarchist Federations.

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Britain, Anarchist Federation on Obama - the Second Coming?:

Below is a collectively produced statement on the election of Barack Obama by Manchester AF.

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Make no mistake, Barrack Obama's victory in the United States does not mean black liberation any more than Margaret Thatcher's government was a victory for women's liberation. Neither does it herald a new dawn for the world.

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We firmly expect that the 130 million Americans who voted in the election will soon be sorely disappointed. Obama looks good because he is young, handsome and above all not George Bush. It was becoming clear to many in the USA and the world that George W stole the 2000 elections by fraud and cheating. The wars he has led the US into are increasingly unpopular with over 4000 troops dead and 100,000 injured in Iraq alone.

The press almost all supported him in the election, even the normally right-wing Murdoch empire. Obama is presented as a Mr Clean who will sweep away the stench of corruption that haunts US politics. They say he will save the world from the current economic crisis, the “credit crunch” and recession. Mr Clean he may be, but he spent over $200 million to get elected – more than $40 million a month. Clearly that money is not coming from the poor – a quarter of African Americans live below the poverty line - or the quarter of the workforce in low paid jobs in a country where the minimum wage is $6.55 an hour (just over £4). It is coming from wealthy donors like bankers and financiers Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and companies like Microsoft, whose founder Bill Gates is worth $45 billion.

Clearly these press barons and big companies are going to expect something in exchange.

We expect the wars to continue. Although he promises to pull out of Iraq eventually, the US will need to keep the government there friendly. Troops will be replaced by advisers and security guards, who are in reality heavily armed thugs. He promises to send yet more troops into Afghanistan. Although we expect him to close the hell that is Guantanamo Bay, we doubt he'll do much for the 2.5 million (mostly black and Hispanic) Americans who rot in prison. We doubt the USA will stop bankrolling the racist Israeli regime and its persecution of the Palestinians.

Most of all capitalism is in another of its economic crises. Obama has the backing of the rich and powerful because he will be better able to inflict pain and hard times on the working people in the States and the rest of the world. He has been elected not to bring change. He will stop change happening.

Elections come and elections go. The faces of our rulers come and go. But the need to struggle and fight against the bosses and the state goes on every day. Whoever the Americans voted for, the government got in. We need to be building a fighting alternative, a massive wave of class struggle to finally sweep these parasites off the face of the earth.