Obama – The First Global President

Global president or global project? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Gary Ghirardi
Friday, 07 November 2008

“Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.”- (p. xiii)

– Zbigniew Brzezinski

In the historical moment of Barak Obama being lauded as the Global President, based on a relieved world press reception for his incumbency, and the United States as a Brand looking for a renewal for its legitimacy and economic status in the world, we may be witnessing the remaking of a country from the bottom up and top down simultaneously.

Certainly Obama utilizing a novel “networked” constituency from the internet has the character of grass root, bottom up organizing, and within this constituency lays the expectation of economic and political reform differently manifested than we have witnessed from previous “liberal” administrations. For some on the left who identify Obama as antiwar based on his voting against the Bush Administrations Iraq invasion and resource cooptation, there may lay the expectation of Obama to be a “Peace Maker” and coalition builder.

For those within the traditional “power” parties of the United States, shifting from the neo-conservatives back to a remade neo-liberal model of government may have had been discussed from many practical political points of view , no less the view from Wall Street and the research establishment of the University systems.

Obama’s second largest corporate contributor, Goldman-Sachs¹ investments has been the biggest proponent on Wall Street of privatizing the Social Security fund and banking and securities deregulation. Traditionally donating to Democratic candidates it is of note where their interests will lie in the Obama Administration. More than likely with the “business as usual” economy of finance capital.

The largest donor, likely through “bundled” individual contributions, is the University of California, which certainly represents one of the key issue areas for the Obama Administration, foremost developing more energy sovereignty for the United States. The University of California at San Diego hosts a research project, Center for Energy Research ² that is exploring the possibilities as stated on their home page: http://cer.ucsd.edu/

Members of CER perform basic and applied research in the fields of fusion energy, solar energy, combustion, and related disciplines.

Likewise, other Academic Contributors to the Obama campaign were Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago, all which aligns Obama’s Administration with the leading edge or organizations likely to play a role in reshaping the U.S. Economy for the next stage of our history, as they have up to this time.

Though Universities may not wish to appear to be involved in military research directly, they are associated with contractors who either were born out of the educational system, like the Lawrence Livermore Labs that saw their beginning at U.C. Berkeley, or are involved in research that often is funded by the Pentagon. The donor list of Obama seems absent of direct military contractors, which may be perceived as a positive sign for the peace community, but there is a crack in the veneer of this premise.

The appearance of Zbigniew Brzezinski as a consultant to the Obama administration, and his ties to traditional financial powers aligned to U.S. and British hegemonies, may indicate that the project may not be that of Obama to rejuvenate the American Democracy but to provide “left cover” for a continued economic war where the U.S. still seeks to assert their dominance over a rapidly emerging Russia, still the largest producer of oil in the world, and China, who’s economic miracle is tied to the U.S. (now world) economy and a global market place.

If Brzezinski is a guiding mentor for Obama’s foreign policy then we can expect continued conflicts militarily within this new administration and no peace dividends anytime soon for the American people. This reality, as for most U.S. Americans, would make Obama a servant of the interests of the Finance Capital Model of government our contemporary society is based upon and our expectations should be tempered by this realization as to what kinds of decisions and “reforms” are likely to come out of an Obama presidency. A continued geo-political war should also question the legitimacy of the Democratic Party as a vehicle of popular empowerment for citizens who are seeking humane government for living on the planet earth.

We may revisit, the historical Brzezinski, by his pitting of Iran and other regional oil states against Russia and China as was done by him with organizing and the arming of the mujahidin in Afghanistan[2] to fight against the Soviet-friendly Afghan government. ³ This approach of funding others to fight your enemies rather than engaging directly, as did the neo-cons in Iraq, may be the distinguishing difference between the neo-conservative and neo-liberal approach to economic warfare.

1. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000085
2. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski

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