Images from Daily Kos, one of the more interesting US progressive Democrat blogs
MSNBC Montage of Obama Victory Celebrations...MSNBC is by far the best commercial mass media TV news network, with progressive commentators like Keith Oberman and Rachel Maddow.
CSPAN Coverage of Obama Victory Speech...CSPAN provides by far the best non-commercial US TV coverage of pubic affairs.
By SLLU member Ernest Newman
I'll admit it, I cried in joy, and in fear, and mourning our losses over the years.
So many brothers and sisters are not with us here now to celebrate this great, if mostly symbolic victory, and to help us to push the struggle forward, over the top.
But a new generation is stepping forward, and the struggle continues...
All over the US (and around the world), millions of people poured into the streets, dancing and shouting, cheering and sobbing with joy, and praying to "God" that the right wing reactionary conservative fundamentalist swine don't kill him.
Obama by a landslide! The People have spoken! All Power to the People!
Is it Utopia yet? NOT.
Democrats failed, just barely, to seize sufficient plurality in the Congress to block Republican filibusters. The right will still be able to tie every issue into knots with endless debate and bitter oppositionalism, in determined efforts to sabotage everything Obama tries to accomplish.
And even that much-needed Democratic super-majority in the Congress, which we can still hope to achieve with the next election cycle, will not solve all the problems of a corrupt, commercial bourgeois "electoral process".
There are still far too many "Blue Dogs" in the party, and many more have joined it's ranks, from the vacillating, opportunist "undecided" and "swing voters" who went to Obama only at the last minute, just to be on the winning side.
But the Democrat's plurality in Congress has been substantially increased, such that they will have a lot more clout, and will only have to bring over a few Republicans to be able to block a filibuster, or ram through the legislation they want.
The situation remains far from perfect. But it is much "better", relatively speaking, than the nightmare of a McCain, or, as "God" has forbidden, a Palin Presidency, and the Republican controlled Congress of just a few years ago.
Where will we go from here? If the bastards don't kill him, and/or force a civil war on us, Obama will most likely inject some level headed calm and dignity into dealing with domestic and international issues.
Biden will be a good back up, if the worst happens, and an asset to Obama.
We can expect a surge of diplomacy and gestures of reconciliation, on all fronts.
Hopefully Obama will be able to initiate more than mere gestures, and bring some real substance to a role that has been so notably lacking in that, except in the negative, for so long.
An historic, massive popular democratic mandate has just been expressed, in the most material way possible at this time, under our present circumstances and conditions. That's what really matters.
A huge surge in the youth vote, breaking all records, is a good indication for the future, in their decisive rejection of the dogmatic, doctrinaire cynicism and defeatism of the sectarian "left", including the "anarchists", who have so loudly and consistently tended to call for electoral boycott, "on principle".
This was not a vote for the profound flaws of a corrupt, commercial, bourgeois "electoral" process, but a conscious vote against those flaws.
It was not a vote even for the Democrats, or Obama/Biden so much as a vote against Bush/Chaney, McCain/Palin, and all of their supporters at Faux News, hate radio, local "letters to the editor" pages, ranting right wing preachers and other bitter, vicious wing-nuts, fascists, racists, sexists, eco-rapers, corporate rip offs and imperialist war mongers who have become so absolutely "politically incorrect" in this country.
The best anyone can hope for is that the overt, explicit, vicious counter-revolutionary Republican program will be blocked, blunted, and somewhat suppressed, to give us some breathing room to continue the revolutionary struggle.
But the conditions for that struggle just got somewhat better.
Nevertheless, as good as it is to hold out some hope for improvement, and for the future, people should not get their hopes up too high.
As Obama pointed out in his victory speech, and at his first press conference, which was even more obviously aimed at dampening expectations, it's going to take awhile for him, the Democrats, and people all over the world, to correct 8 years of Bush policy.
The Republicans have looted the treasury and thoroughly sabotaged the economy on their way out the door, and that is not going to be overcome overnight. And Bush still has nearly 3 months to inject whatever poison pills that he can, to sour the Democrats' victory.
Give us a year, or two, and we'll see what he can do. It's not good enough, I know. But it's the best he can promise at the moment. At least we can hold out some hope.
Meanwhile, the whole world is watching, and Obama and the US people need and deeply appreciate your solidarity, where it's due, as well as your principled criticism.
We'll need to hold Obama and the Democrats fully accountable, every step of the way, and maintain that pressure, relentlessly, just like we have have had to do against wrong-headed policies of previous Democratic administrations.
Obama, after all, is just another bourgeois liberal Democrat, even is he is black, heh. And going into it, he has been wrong, wrong, wrong, on many issues. There will be plenty to criticize.
This is not a time for complacency, or naive expectations. But it is a time for hope, and to redouble our efforts for justice and peace, to save the planet.
It costs little or nothing to tactically cast a vote that will effectively block the worst fascist swine from power (and I don't mean a wasted vote for some 3rd, 4th, or 5th party guaranteed loser and splitter, which serves only the interests of the fascists), or even to put some energy into "supporting" broader mass tactical participation in the bourgeois electoral arena, especially if that is done in a principled manner, pointing out the inherent flaws of that "process"
The fact is, the detriments of those flaws can be overcome in only one way, and that is through truly massive popular democratic participation aimed at breaking through, toward eventually eliminating those flaws, such as what has just happened, with this election.
That is the primary, and perhaps the only real genius, or flaw, as it were, LOL, of the "American" system.
The US "founding fathers" hated and feared only one thing more than the monarchy and nobility, and that was the concept of universal suffrage. Their polemics of the day stated repeatedly that they believed actual mass democracy would be a disaster, leading only to "chaos, and anarchy", lol.
That is to say, a loss of control by the the small elite of rich, white, Protestant male land owners who wrote the founding documents.
All of the "checks and balances" of the system they set up were intended merely to ensure that power struggles between various factions of that elite would not result in the kind of consolidation of power that could lead to formation of a new monarchy and nobility on the models of the past.
It was never about the popular democratic mandate, really, but totally about reserving power to a strictly enforced coalition of elites, to rule on an "equal footing" with each other (certainly not on an equal footing with the rest of us).
However, they also theorized that some day, maybe, people would be ready and able to handle real democracy, through universal access to education, and other very futuristic ideas.
Jefferson, for example, actually stated that he thought black people, if raised from childhood with all of the advantages of whites, in terms of education, living conditions and moral and social support, could, theoretically, be just as intelligent, capable and "human" as any white person. But, as he saw it, "of course" that was not yet feasible, in his time.
Reprehensible as it may be, that he was a slave holder, the fact is that he was, relatively speaking, for his time, a true revolutionary, because such views as he held were not at all widely accepted, but more likely to get even a white man killed.
The "founding fathers" left a back door open, for potential eventual future exploitation by the masses, if and when "they" were ever ready and able to develop and express the unity of will to use it.
And rhetoric and theory have a propensity to develop legs of their own. The rhetoric of "one person, one vote" has indeed come to be extrapolated in the public mind from that small bourgeois elite, to mean the entire population.
Everyone knows it's not really like that, yet, but the vast majority of us want it to be so, and the pressure is growing, to make it so.
This is not going to be easy, but it can, and must be done, if we are to see truly revolutionary change in the US, or anywhere.
By all means, continue to build exemplary alternative social and economic models for what you want our lives to be like, and for group and community communication and decision making, as well as individual choice. By all means, ardently criticize and resist injustice, privately, and publicly. By all means, do continue to make revolution.
But get real. The "American" people have spoken, and to dis or resist that popular democratic will is not a viable revolutionary strategy.
Indeed, the right will find that out, if they continue to call for "revolutionary" (counter-revolutionary) civil war "against the government and the left". We will crush them, if they raise their ugly heads again like they did most recently under Carter and Clinton. This is not the 1960's, the 70's, or even the 80's and 90's. That was then, and this is now.
Most likely, as irrational as they tend to be, Aryan Nations, et al, will recognize that cold reality, and it will serve as a deterrent, at least for a time. They may hold back, initially, and wait for things to calm down, and for the full effects of Republican sabotage to take hold and to demoralize and destabilize things more.
Either way, ultimately, those who join with such traitors, in unprincipled alliance against the popular democratic will, will be crushed, regardless of their "motivaton". It won't be about being mean to anyone, grinding their face in the dirt, or getting revenge.
But we have urgent priorities that must be addressed, for justice and peace, to save the planet. The counter-revolution must be suppressed, for us to move forward.
Don't get suckered into letting yourself be identified with the wrong side, comrades!
At best, you will be disregarded or held in contempt. At worst, you may find yourself lumped in with the fascists, whether you yourself recognize that, or want it to be so, or even whether it may necessarily be technically, theoretically "accurate" or "fair".
There is little tolerance anymore in the US for "violence" and "terrorism" of any stripe, and it would be best to remember that. We've been there, and done that, and we've rejected that, as a tactical or strategic method.
Only the cops, their dupes, and the right are advocating violent "revolutionary" civil war in this country, at this time.
Beware those in your own ranks who put forward rhetoric and tactics that ultimately serve only the interests of the enemy.
Those who advocated boycott of the electoral process here have also just delineated themselves to be on the wrong side, in this popular democratic mandate against right wing extremism, whether that was their intention or desire, or not.
This is not about "tailing" the masses, but about accepting the leadership of the people, and supporting their legitimate demands for change.
On November 4th, things did change, not only on the surface, but also in the hearts and minds of the "American" peoples.
We will not be denied.
All Power to the People!
Democracy is the most fundamental revolutionary concept.
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