Een rijke verzameling van goeie, genadeloze, linkse kritiek van de Obama-hype vind je op www.counterpunch.org

Wie is Rahm Emanuel?
Obama's toekomstige Chief of Staff is lang niet alleen maar een pro-Israel hardliner. Alexander Cockburn verfijnt het beeld: "Working in the Clinton White House, Emanuel helped push through NAFTA, the crime bill, the balanced budget and welfare reform. He favored the war in Iraq,..." Enzovoort!

"It’s certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter’s installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniev Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the dawn of his “change is here” administration in 1977."
Lees: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11072008.html

Ideologische backlash
Ook zeer interessant: Jean Bricmont over het 'Obamaprobleem' van Europa. Te lezen als een waarschuwing voor de ideologische backlash die er zit aan te komen. Een fragment:

"Besides, there is hardly any Right in Europe that is anti-Obama. In fact the Right and most of current social-democracy love Obama because he will let them be openly pro-American again. Because the United States is less egalitarian (in an economic sense) than Europe, the social wage is smaller, there are weaker unions and fewer worker’s rights, the European elite views the United States as some sort of capitalist paradise. The problem with Bush is that he was so brutal, arrogant, inefficient and stupid that it became increasingly difficult for them to openly express their admiration for the United States. But now, everything changes -- by shifting the attention from social issues to ‘’race’’ , they can turn the tables around and make the United States look like THE progressive country of the West. The very pro-American, “New Left”, French daily Libération has already suggested that the election of Obama is a lesson in democracy for France. Curiously, they cite long voting lines as evidence for this, while of course such lines in non-Western countries are taken as a sign of inefficiency or, worse, of the government’s intention to dissuade people from voting.

A final problem is that Obama’s critics will automatically be suspected of racism. Already being “anti-American” is identified by Zionists with being antisemitic, so with a African-American president, we can expect the worst of both worlds.

The question therefore is, how much will Obama be able to get away with, if and when his foreign policy clashes with the expectations of his leftist European supporters ? Because of the strength of the illusions, it is of course very difficult to combat them before he has done anything. The only hope is that people will take him, not at his word, because he has not promised anything, but at what they think his word is, and will react furiously when he betrays their (unfounded) hopes. Only that can prevent the United States from escalating its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere."

Lees: http://www.counterpunch.org/bricmont11072008.html