Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, January 21st, 2009 - 46 comments
Categories: International -
Tags: obama
If you’re living in New Zealand, President Obama isn’t going to change your life. Remember, you voted for John Key. You’ll have to wait for that ray of hope to shine. But President Obama won’t go un-noticed here, because his presidency means at least four things for New Zealanders.
First: President Obama means you can feel slightly better in the knowledge that fewer children of the world are being maimed or killed. Yes, in charge of the world’s most powerful state, Obama means a more liberal and internationalist ideology will dominate international affairs. It means less war, fewer deaths, more humanitarianism, and more diplomacy.
Second: President Obama means you won’t have to abandon your family bach/crib on the coast. Thankfully Obama’s environmental policies aren’t written by the oil industry (or pre-written in Genesis). So hopefully now, the world can work with the world’s largest emitter to finally make some meaningful progress on combating climate change.
Third: President Obama means you’ve got a better chance of keeping your job in the tourist or agriculture industry. Taking a more ‘interventionist’ approach to the U.S. economy will help minimise the effects of their recessions. And if the American economy is in better shape, Americans will remain huge buyers of our animal products and keep visiting New Zealand in droves (In 2007 more than 216,000 U.S. citizens visited NZ).
Fourth: President Obama represents to us the power of people. He took the helm of a movement of people that defied the conservative institutions of the United States. President Obama tells us as New Zealanders that we don’t have to settle for the mediocrity and moral ambiguity that won out in our last election. A strong, inspirational and successful left-wing movement is possible because people are intelligent and people are moral. Talk, explain, debate, inspire, and people will see the neo-conservative institutions for they really are – there to suffocate the interests of the people.
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vto: Do you mean `native American’?
I mostly accord with PB on this account. Whereas the previous administration (and to an extent the clinton administration, too) was inclined to push people in the direction they want to go, Obama has signalled he intends to lead, and his task is now to convince the world to follow. He has made strong symbolic and rhetorical gestures that he intends the US to rejoin the civilised world; now he needs policy to make it so. We’ll see how that plays.
L
Lew said:
Obama has signalled he intends to lead, and his task is now to convince the world to follow.
Surely this is a problem. Obama is continuing with traditional US imperialist arrogance. I don’t want a world led by the US version of indivualistic (propbably still neoliberal) capitalism. I do expect him to be a lot better than Bush and counter many of the bad things Bush’s government did (thank goodness). I don’t expect him to be that different from past US Democrat presidents, who have always leant towards the centre of the left. That will not do very much towards the kind of world I would like to see.
Glad to hear of the quick moves on Guantanomo and Palestine-Israel.
I hope the left in the US and elsewhere WILL be crtical when necessary and put pressure on the Obama government when it falls short of working towards a more equal, more peaceful, more sustainable, more cooperative, more UN-negotiated, less-consumerist, less US imperialist-dominated, less corporate dominated and less individualistic world.
But didn’t Michelle look nice?
If you want to see shite in action read extracts from Key’s letter to Obama.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10553006
I actually sicked up in my mouth while reading it.
Carol: Obama is continuing with traditional US imperialist arrogance.
No. Traditional (postwar) US `imperialist arrogance’ as you characterise it has been a bully state driving truculent other states along with the threat of a big (economic or military) stick. Obama has signalled that he intends to go ahead, and encourage the world follow if they will. That’s quite different.
That will not do very much towards the kind of world I would like to see.
Political change (especially in the US) must be gradual. It’s an immensely complicated system, and nothing gets done without getting a vast number of power blocs, both formal and informal, and frequently with highly contradictory agendas, on board. But once it starts to move, it takes a lot of stopping. Be patient; the first term is about nothing more than laying the groundwork of political culture for a second term. If Obama can achieve half of what he’s promised he’ll be the greatest progressive president since FDR. (Whether he can or not is another question).
L
Well, I think we’re never going to agree on this, Lew. US imperialism has been advanced in the past by both persuasion and bullying in varying degrees. A lot of Obama’s rhetoric is about restoring US patriotic pride in the superiority of their version of “democratic” liberal capitalism.
Actually, on further reflection I have modified my position a little. Obama seems to be breaking with some US traditional straties, though I think the aims and values remain pretty traditional. He seems to be recrafting and adapting US imperialism to the characteristics of networked, informational capitalism – ie recasting to be more effective in the contemporary context.
There will be some improvements and benefits in this (especially in contrast to the evils of the Bush term), but, ultimately it is limited by its ambition for a strong US world power that aims perpetuate it’s values international.
For instance, I’m pleased to see Obama talk to a Palestinian leader, but he seems to be continuing with the Israeli project of marginalising Hamas.
Time will tell, of course. My big worry is the apparent seductivness of the Obama personality cult (something that somehow misses me), IMO this seduction seems to undermine and sideline serious examination and critique of the Obama campaign and government’s approach and agenda. I am very suspicious of such strategies because they are deeply related to consumer-capitalist, branding techniques of persuasion & seduction, not to mention corporate and elite dominated politics, in spite of all the activities that invite participation by ordinary people.
If Lew and PB turn out to be right, then we’ll have a much better world: I’ll celebrate it and admit I was wrong. But if I am at least close to being right, there could be a dangerous lack of necessary critical appraisal of US policies and practices, and continuation of many of the major ills that are besetting this world.
Tigger,
It sounds like an appaling letter from those snippets in the article.
Maybe he should have sent Obama that tourism NZ video he did on youtube in the salmon shirt…. Oh wait, that got deleted because one of his staffers would have shaken their heads and got rid of it.
Are you chaps reading the same article as me ?
“Mr Key has told Mr Obama in a letter of congratulations that he could count on New Zealand “to be a good friend and a partner” on challenges ahead.
He said New Zealand looked forward to continuing talks on trade following the decision of the United States to join the Pacific four agreement last year, as well as Australia, Peru and Vietnam.
Among other issues Mr Key singled out for New Zealand interest was the global economic crisis, the threat of international terrorism, climate change and what he termed “non-proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction”.
“Your leadership will be crucial in moving key issues forward,” Mr Key said.
On the face of it those seem to be fairly reasonable comments to put in a congratulatory letter to Obama.
Carol: Yeah, this is something upon which reasonable people can (and should) disagree; fundamentally I think it comes down to how much compromise you’re prepared to stomach in the name of gradual proress. For me: quite a lot.
A couple of other things, though:
My big worry is the apparent seductivness of the Obama personality cult (something that somehow misses me), IMO this seduction seems to undermine and sideline serious examination and critique of the Obama campaign and government’s approach and agenda.
Up until the inauguration, most Obama supporters have still been in campaign mode. Once he starts enacting policy, you’ll see criticism, because you can’t run a country like the US without pissing someone off. Some of it will for a time be muted on the grounds that it’s the lesser of two evils (and you’re right that there’s a danger in this), but not all.
I am very suspicious of such strategies because they are deeply related to consumer-capitalist, branding techniques of persuasion & seduction, not to mention corporate and elite dominated politics
If such strategies work to put moderate or progressive leaders in power to enact moderate or progressive policy agendas when the alternative is neoliberal or conservative statist leaders like those we’ve just seen leave, then progressives are fools if they don’t embrace them. Because if they work, and all indications are that they do, when one side uses it and the other eschews it on the grounds that it’s impure, they relegate their cause to the political doldrums. Not to say they shouldn’t embrace other strategies as well – but then, the Obama campaign did.
L
Hmmm… I thought my last post disappeared off my screen without being posted. But there it is.
My biggest concern is with the US imperialist project, which came across quite strong to me in the inauguration speech. Obama is very centrist, and with that imperialism, probably there will be a continuation of a version of individualistic neoliberalism internationally.
Kind of like Obama will become the good cop to Bush’s bad cop, with so many of us grateful Obama’s so much better than Bush. It will depend a lot on how much of Bush’s legislation will be pulled back eg the ant-terrorism laws, which went beyond the US so that we got a verson in NZ. And the paranoid increase in surveillance.
“President Obama means you’ve got a better chance of keeping your job in the tourist or agriculture industry.”
Obama will be the most protectionist President since the 30′s. Whether his recovery package will help the American economy is debateable, but there is no doubt that the increased tarriff part of his package will harm the New Zealand economy.
And if a plane load of jihadists fly into the empire state building and Obama begins to put his diplomatic skills ahead of national security he’ll be out on his sorry ass!