Whoever wins might be the loser

By
Manuel E. Yepe                                                                Read Spanish Version

There
is much disbelief regarding the possibility that the U.S. power elite
will calmly accept the rise of an African-American to President of
the United States.

There
are more than enough reasons for such disbelief, knowing that even in
the few opportunities when non-WASP candidates (white, Anglo-Saxon,
protestant) ran for the office, U.S. politologists were reticent to
predict their victory. That rule was broken only when John F.
Kennedy, a Catholic, reached the White House.

A
combination of exceptional situations has contributed to the
unheard-of fact that the United States is considering the election of
a nonwhite, Democratic candidate Barack Obama, to the presidency of
that superpower.

The
disrepute into which the United States’ neoconservative far right
has plunged under the inept administration of George W. Bush is
identified by many as the main cause of the national economic
debacle, which has already affected the ordinary citizen.

The
defeats of U.S. armed forces in their aggressive adventures in
pursuit of hegemony and the country’s attempts at world domination
also have caused national shame, because of the massive battlefield
casualties and the loss of worldwide hegemony in every aspect,
regardless of media manipulations.

The
loss of the United States’ position as leading world economic power
and the displacement of the dollar as global currency by other
currencies have placed the U.S. in the position of a country
dependent on the investments and loans from China, Japan, Europe, and
other sources.

Domestically,
according to experts interviewed by the news network CNN, the bailout
of Wall Street by the current administration will burden each U.S.
citizen to the tune of almost $40,000 by the year 2010.

If
Obama wins and uneventfully occupies the presidential chair, he will
inherit an economic situation and a loss of international authority
of such magnitude that he might be seen as responsible for the
collapse of the empire and “the American way of life” as a global
model.

It
is evident that the sector of big corporations that governs the
United States has not opposed Barack Obama’s candidacy with the
fury with which it combated “the black peril” in the 1950s and
‘60s. Rather, it seems to have accepted it with the cool poise of
the 1970s and ‘80s, through a strategy similarly directed at saving
the system on the basis of minimal concessions.

While
at that time it became necessary to “bury Jim Crow” and promote
the emergence of areas of racial conformity (black judges, policemen,
mayors, artists, legislators and millionaires) so as not to endanger
the capitalist system, the establishment may have now considered
taking that strategy to the White House, for the same purpose.

That
becomes noticeable in aspects as evident as the level of financial
contributions to the campaigns of both candidates.

No
one should doubt that Barack Obama’s charisma has served him to gain
broad popular support. Also, on a worldwide level, mankind rejoices
because in the United States the repugnant manifestations of
oppression and racial discrimination against a significant portion of
its citizens are disappearing or lessening.

But
it is worrisome to think that what’s happening today in relation to
the struggle for the White House is part of a tactic to unload on the
shoulders of the expected first black president in the history of the
United States a situation created by the big corporations and the
military-industrial complex with their sordid management of the
country.

To
allow the will of the same public opinion whose decisions were
violated in the two previous presidential elections to be accepted
only because it is now possible to unload the big mistakes on the
favorite candidate and let him take the chestnuts out of the fire for
a system that is the true culprit is, at the very least, cynical.

But
because the defenders of the status quo seem to have assumed the
risk, it is up to U.S. public opinion to take advantage of the
opportunity to impose its will and later defend it. So that the
winner at the polls will not be the loser.

Manuel
E. Yepe Menéndez is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He is
a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in
Havana. He was Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general director of the
Prensa Latina agency; vice president of the Cuban Institute of Radio
and Television; founder and national director of the Technological
Information System (TIPS) of the United Nations Program for
Development in Cuba, and secretary of the Cuban Movement for the
Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.