Although not a US citizen, I stayed up on Tuesday to watch the US election results come in. Despite my own normally over-zealous cynicism and the inherent banality of 8 hour news broadcasts, I couldn’t help getting swept up in the power of the moment.
euphoria is a four letter word
Even now, having had time to calm down, I am overwhelmingly pleased that Obama won. Despite early misgivings, the Obama campaign has eventually won me over. Especially this video interview with Joe Biden and some of Obamas later speeches. The sense is there, that this might actually have been an election where it was possible to vote for somebody rather than against somebody else.
prediction is hard. especially about the future
What I would like to do here is to give a brief idea of what Obama would need to do in order to keep this faith. At least as far as I’m concerned. As I see it, there are four major problems facing him at the moment:
- The way the US is viewed in the rest of the world
- Keeping the still almost 50% of the US population that didn’t vote for him happy
- The economy
- The rest of our problems
plans are easy
Obama has to address all of these things to keep the undeniable momentum he has, and the faith that people have put in him. There are obviously countless ways that these things could be addressed, but I my agenda would be the following:
To get a US led mission out of Iraq as soon as possible. By which I mean within months. Keep troops there, but relinquish all strategic control to the UN. This would go an incredibly long way towards restoring America’s world standing. Especially if it was done in a quick and humble manner.
To push through with the house gains that the democrats have made and the good feeling towards them, a vastly extended universal healthcare program. There will be massive objection to this from the ‘interest’ of the medicine industry, but should he manage to push it through in such a way that benefited the average American, I cannot believe that once it was in operation it would have any other outcome than to consolidate the moderates he has won over, and also quite possibly to win new voters of the disillusioned republican variety.
To commit America to more renewable energy and reductions in greenhouse gasses than is currently thought possible. This would also be a hugely positive move in terms of world opinion and establishing America in the position that she seems to want to take. America is a hugely inventive and highly developed (technologically speaking) country. If anyone will rise to the challenge, it will be them, and for the first time they have a leader with enough political capital and enough of a mandate to make it happen.
And then comes the task of sorting the economy. For which I have no solid propositions to offer with regards to how it can be ‘sorted’. Possibly, if you were committed to radical green policies as above then you could begin to operate a New New Deal type program whereby you partially state-sponsored both research into the development & deployment of green technologies, and also the improvement of existing practices. As an industry, if backed by serious tax breaks, the energy efficiency industry could be massive.
[cynicism]
In truth I suspect that very few if any of these things will happy in a way that I will be able to endorse wholeheartedly & without strong reservations. Just for the minute though, I am still happy to hope.
love regards etc