“Yes-we can!!!” The big question I ask myself is: WHAT should we
can
?

Radically change the USA complex, or at least reform it, or

Give it a cosmetic makeover to leave everything as it is?

No one in the media seems to be asking this question at the moment. From “Bild” and “Die Welt” to “Süddeutsche” and the TAZ, a “messiah” is being celebrated everywhere.

A hero seems to be born before he has even done anything.

That makes me prick up my ears. The entire establishment is paying homage in unison – as it always has in the last twenty years. But there has never been so much rhetorical change! Why is that? Has everyone suddenly realized that capitalism can no longer go on like this? After all, “The West” with its leading power is definitely at its most critical point to date: the world order based on its military and economic dominance is on the brink of collapse, threatening to erode both in terms of foreign and domestic policy.

What to do? Dare to embark on a new era or simply “save what can still be saved”?

What would I do if I were one of those who had the greatest interest in the continuation of the prevailing conditions, even though the car has been driven completely into the mud?

I would try to take the pressure out of the boiler.

I would appease.

I would play for time.

I would act as if I had made mistakes that I am now ready to learn from.

I would make promises.

I would talk as much as possible and change as little as possible.

I would let the critics speak in public in such an inflationary way that they would soon be out of the audience’s ears.

I would stage as much shouting as possible and generate symbolic acts (resignations, castling, legislative initiatives) and hope that the smoke would then slowly clear.

I would like it to only appear that way to the general public,

I would officially vacate my positions (of power and influence), but de facto keep the reins in my hands so that I would be even stronger in the foreseeable future than before!

It seems downright naive to me to believe that the winged pincers of the arms/car/oil/food/pharmaceutical and financial industries (to name just the most obvious forces) would simply let the world be from now on, under the motto: “o.k., we will ruefully and humbly accept whatever you dear democratic people decide from now on”…

To put it plainly: you can only become a candidate for the US presidency, let alone American president, if you agree with the powerful!

And if that is the case, what will remain of the “change” that is being trumpeted everywhere?

“What can we can“? Let’s assume that Obama is only pretending to play the game as a sympathetic façade of an ugly face and that when he takes power he will drop the mask in order to really want to change the system, hoping for the support of the majority of the American people. How many days would he survive? (Other presidents, politicians and civil rights activists have been eliminated for less…).

I dare to predict: after Obama’s election (which I am sure will happen), the essentials on the tableau that the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz and so on consorts have built up will remain frozen – with minor tactical cosmetic repairs that can then be celebrated by “moderates” as wonderful progress.

The financial system and its untouchable power will remain as they are.

Social injustice in the US is here to stay, perhaps with the bow of half-hearted healthcare reform and a little less public racism and chauvinism.

The USA will continue to rearm and rearm and rearm and wage further wars of aggression in the NATO alliance – with a more subdued official tone.

The “war on terror” will continue, or rather the fight against (old and possibly new) rogue states.

The US will NOT withdraw from ANY country where it is armed today.

The USA will remain the world’s main climate killer, main resource waster and main debtor.

And at some point – if at all – the hypocritical, hypocritical media catcalls will start: “Obama hasn’t kept his promises. Things haven’t “improved” at all under Obama, etc.” Will more radical solutions then be brought into play, or will politicians of a more progressive nature be put forward? Certainly not!!! Because then the good old alternative will once again be: “Now it’s back to the Republicans. By then, they will certainly have put one or two T-party fundamentalists in place who will make the rest of the world (or rather the countries that do not belong to the “Western community of values”) shudder… And so everything will stay the same. A lot of airtime and thinking time will be filled with seemingly heated debates and people will once again be faced with a grandiose (fateful) “choice” which, when viewed in a sober light, is not a choice at all…

I sincerely hope that I am wrong. But I’m afraid I won’t be.

Berlin, September 1, 2008