Obama Rising

Barack Obama’s election as the most powerful man on Earth has been interpreted as a historical mark for the United States and, why not, for the world.
He was not only an American candidate, but the world candidate. His election was celebrated in Europe, in the Middle East, in Latin America, and of course in Brazil. The world was indeed tired of Mr. Bush policies.
But who is Barack Obama?
Two years ago nobody knew anything about Barack Obama. Until now, we still don’t know much about Barack Obama.
We know something about his multicultural life history. We know he is a senator for Illinois. We have heard his speeches about change. But really, who is that guy?
Before answering that, there is an interesting phenomenon about the American election campaign to be discussed. Something we knew here in Brazil, but we didn’t believe it was possible in the US.
That phenomenon is called the end of journalism. Victor Davis Hanson wrote um article with this same exact title for the National Review. As he says:
"The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates. Worse still, the suicide of both print and electronic journalism has ensured that, should Barack Obama be elected president, the public will only then learn what they should have known far earlier about their commander-in-chief — but in circumstances and from sources they may well regret."
Obama was shielded the same way president Lula was shielded in Brazil when corruption scandals started to multiply in his administration.
The press had plenty to accuse him. They could have pointed out the way he mixed power and party, the suspicious enrichment of his son, the lobby activities of his brother, the assassinations of some of his party members, his alleged ignorance of the dirty money scheme of his own party and the dangerous liaisons of his party, the Workers Party with Latin America narco-terrorists. But not a single accusation touched him.
Why the press did protect him that much?
We have in Brazil something that can be called the leftist axis: press-university-show business. It has been dominated by leftist ideology since the 60’s. It’s Antonio Gramsci’s dreams come true.
Of course they couldn’t accuse Lula of anything, he was one of them. A man of the people, a worker that had become president.
Lula was cherished by intellectuals, artists and journalists as the man who would heal Brazil’s huge social gap.
In the United States, the axis worked in the same way. Obama had Hollywood, press and intellectuals all by his side.
Larry Rother, a long time correspondent of the New York Times in Brazil just released a book with his best stories for the NY Times. Rother was almost expelled of Brazil when he wrote about president Lula’s drinking habits. Rother was a good observer of what was happening in Brazil during the Lula years. Curiously, his newspaper wasn’t able to do the same in the US, when the subject was Barack Obama.
Investigating Obama’s past and also dangerous liasons was immediately dismissed by the press as a demonstration of racism of the wasp America. By instance, where did all that money from Obama’s campaign come from?
Likewise, investigating Lula was an act of reactionaries from the elites that ruled Brazil for five hundred years.
Melanie Philips, in her blog at the British magazine The Spectator wrote about Obama’s election: “this is a watershed election which changes the fate of the world. The fear however is that the world now becomes very much less safe for all of us as a result. Those of us who have looked on appalled during this most frightening of presidential elections – at the suspension of reason and its replacement by thuggery -- can only hope that the way this man governs will be very different from the profile provided by his influences, associations and record to date.”
The silence of a press moved by ideological believes is however only a symptom of a much bigger issue.
Obama’s election represents the end of one ideal. An ideal born with that very Nation. An ideal conceived by the enlightened hearts and brains of America’s Founding Fathers, the ideal that every man shall be free to pursue his own happiness.
When McCain and Obama met Joe the Plumber, McCain talked about distributing opportunities. Obama talked about distributing money. Americans chose Obama.
Before, Americans always did their own thing, their business, their work, they didn’t care much about politics.
Now they want a saviour, a Messiah, someone to take from the rich and give to the poor. They want a European like super-state to take care of them, to tell them what to do, to make them happy.
That’s also the way Lula thinks. That’s the way every leftist liberal thinks. That´s the way to make individuals less individuals, an more herd like. A source of disaster.
The behaviour of the press, and the election of Obama makes the United States less American, more Latin American.
United States, in 2008 became an official Banana Republic.
And in 2008, the world saw the Olympic Games in Beijing and the worst economic crisis since 1929. It’s not a coincidence; it’s just the beginning of a new Era.
United States is no longer the headlight of the planet.
Obama rising, is China rising. Unfortunately.