He will do exactly what he told us he’d do. He’s vague, equivocates, and he’s been known to back down when in it’s in his political interest (e.g., public campaign financing) but I’ve yet to catch him in an outright lie.

The question is: is the system worth the energy to “fight it”; that is to try to push it or Obama? I think energies are best spent creating a world building a national and global outreach based on principles like those laid out in the Earth Charter. We have other threads to take. Power yields to people who know what their doing; particularly when what their doing is ignoring the power and creating alternatives.

I think there is something very ominous about the precipitous drop in oil and gasoline prices. Tsunamis start first by receding and then unleash a fury of tidal waves. There are no new oil finds, no new oil refineries, geologist say we’ve hit peak oil and yet, dispite this, we go from 140 USD to 60 USD?

President come and go. Some times they last for 4 years, sometimes less sometimes more; but these conditions go deep and cannot be sustained much longer. The gov’t shovels dollars into the bottomless US Ship. A president is powerless to do anything but what the system allows.

So, let’s take Civil Rights. MLK fought for more than CR; he fought for human rights and against the war machine. He was assassinated. There are more African American in US prisons then ever before; more under the so-called “poverty line” than when Bobby Kennedy patted the cheeks of little black children in the rural South. There have been a significant number of African American Mayors. The cities they’ve governed have not, for the most part, faired particularly well, certainly no better for the minorities that put them in power than any governed by white mayors.

These are not problems the system can solve – perhaps it has no desire to solve them. The system has built into it “release valves” which allow us to spend energies in protest, petition, and the like; but real change comes from outside the system – not as an enemy of the system, but as a clear and deep and undeniable alternative to it.

(The system of Monarchies was displaced when they could no longer manage the nation-state and it’s empires.)

Seriously, when are people gonna wake up & realise that the ‘liberals’ are as much a part of the problem as the ‘conservatives.’ In terms of foreign policy & economics, there is virtually no difference at all. US foreign policy has always been remarkably consistent, & disastrous economic policies have been embraced by every government for at least the last 35 years.

The Clinton government didn’t just “look terrible;” it was terrible. Remember the sanctions against Iraq, estimated to have caused the deaths of over a million people, which even UN officials described as “genocidal?” Or the bombing of Serbia, which far from preventing ethnic cleansing actually precipitated a massive escalation, as had previously been predicted? Or the maneuverings against the Lavallas movement in Haiti? Or the refusal to recognise the Rwandan genocide for what it so blatantly was? The list is endless.

Similarly, Kennedy began the massive escalation of the pointless, genocidal war against the people of Vietnam (& later Laos & Cambodia) which is estimated to have killed 3 million people (give or take a million. The US military doesn’t trouble itself to count its victims), and which continues to cause great suffering & death TODAY. Kennedy’s government also began attempts to overthrow the Cuban government, began the blockade of the island & threatened nuclear war over the siting of missiles that were very similar to those the US/NATO had in Turkey pointing at Moscow & Leningrad. Again, the list is endless.

If you think Obama has any intention of instigating “fundamental change” you are deluding yourselves. Obama will not “overcome the establishment.” He IS the establishment. How much evidence of that do you need?

Real change will only happen when people ORGANISE & ACT to make it happen. Of course, the “chief economist for a large oil company” (Canadian or otherwise) can hardly be expected to understand that.

Fuck Obama! Trust not in the princes of this world!
Build strong, committed movements to END THE WARS & END CAPITALISM, the insane, evil system that produced them! ACT!

as you say, Obama’s success hinges on his ability to overcome an extremely powerful establishment that is resilient to change with its tentacles on various levers of control throughout the system. The probability of this occurring without an organized movement behind him is impossible. I just made the JFK analogy in an argument yesterday; A president who isn’t willing to concede to the game plan isn’t a president for long.

Best to you.