A Tale of Two Presidents

President George W. Bush declares 'Mission Accomplished' for combat operations in Iraq, 2003 (Associated Press)

During the course of a lifetime, six years can be a very short time. Yes, an individual will go through many changes during that period, but for many people, their sense of how they project themselves will change very little.

In global geopolitics however, six years can be an eternity. When responding to a journalist's question of what is most likely to blow a government off course, former British PM Harold Macmillan famously described 'events, dear boy, events', telling us that no matter how forcefully a government plans and enforces its ideals, there'll always be something that can force it to change direction.

As a government represents a nation on the world stage, so the Head of the Government thus epitomises that nation to the peoples and governments of all other nations. I have chosen two pictures for this post that I think represent such a radically different projection of a nation that they could almost be two entirely different countries; one picture of which has just been released and the other of which is now over six years old.

Above, is an image of the previous President of the United States (still currently the most powerful and influential country on the planet). In the picture, George W. Bush stares confidently and defiantly into the camera, backdropped with personnel and apparatus of a navy warship and a banner declaring 'Mission Accomplished'.

The picture tells the viewer that the US is strong, a military force not to be reckoned with, and a dominator over its foes (by extension, over all). In the picture, Bush is clearly addressing a domestic audience to reassure them of the nation's strength, yet the message is also aimed at a global audience to reinforce fear or deferential respect for the US.

President Barack Obama greeted by Emperor and Empress of Japan, 2009 (Reuters)

In the above picture of current US President Barack Obama, depicted at the beginning of a tour of Asia, we can see an utterly different projection of the US to the world. Obama has his eyes cast downwards rather than staring directly into the camera, and he is giving a deeply sombre bow to the Emperor, the traditional form of Japanese greeting given to anybody regardless of their standing in Japanese society. Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko and clearly delighted to receive their guest, given the expressions on their faces.

Such a picture would simply not have happened prior to Obama's presidency. During the Second World War, Japan and the US were prime adversaries. As a condition to their surrender during that war, Japan traded keeping their emperor in return for accepting American occupation. Prior to his radio announcement that Japan was surrendering to the US, Emperor Hirohito (Akihito's father) was considered to be a god by ordinary Japanese. Therefore, hearing his voice was a shock to a war-torn nation and amounted to a renunciation of his divinity. Bush's father even famously vomited in the lap of Japanese prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa at a diplomatic dinner in 1992.

The picture of Obama says that the US is respectful of local traditions or customs, and will act appropriately as an invited guest rather than insist on imposing its own way of doing things. It projects an image of the US that no longer takes a 'with us or against us' approach to international relations, but one of 'we're all in this together' and of equals on the world stage. Obama is stepping out of the confines of a purely domestic audience and addressing a global one (although whether he would be seen addressing Hamid Karzai in a similar manner remains to be seen).

Doubtless, there are many criticisms of the above reading of such an image that could be made, including that one single picture does not demonstrate a complete reversal of US foreign policy and that the US still has military bases across the planet that enforce its will. However, in our symbol-driven, always-on instant-media, modern world, I'd argue that this development is a massive and positive shift in the balance of global power relations.

If the United States can act with humility in the presence of former conquered adversaries, we are indeed living through most intriguing times and should at least have stepped back from the brink of the fears of the Bush era.

Messages From America

Remarkable times. Messages come in from friends across the United States. A Bostonian currently in Hawaii reports:

CNN is doing all it can to stress this a 'transformative moment', going as far as to say the conservative era, ushered in with Reagan 28 years ago, is over and now we have the beginning (of a) progressive era. Obama is visiting homeless shelters and other community activists in DC, people are delirious. We haven't seen anything like this since Kennedy, and even that isn't quite an accurate comparison.

Another one writing from Texas says:

I’m a natural skeptic — I’m wary of anything that has too much of a following. I am wary of anything that has the ability to move others blindly. But also, I am a believer of rhetoric and persuasion...

In voting for Obama — the incoming 44th — I cast hope toward my future and the future of our nation. I redesign my version of the concept of hope and give it my own context, one that is unsure of the future, incapable of committing to the unknown, but willing to allow the unknown to occur beside me.

Two people of many urged to express their connection to the moment with the world.

Obama's inaugural speech was full of the soaring rhetoric that he has become characterised by and which only an American president could get away with. After the abject horrors of the past eight years, it was also very, very welcome in most corners of the globe. Go here for the full version or check the Wordle cloud below for a visual synopsis (courtesy of the BBC).


One last comment. Ever since election night 2000, things have been pretty tough going here on Planet Earth (as if they hadn't been before then).

So long Junior - you ain't gonna be missed. Man, have we all waited a long time to see the back of you!

The end to leftist conspiracy theories? Then organise.

Was BushCo responsible for the attacks of 9/11? Is there going to be an attack on Iran that'll lead to World War III? Is Obama a stooge for the corporate-military-industrial complex?

In such troubled times as those we've been living through for the past eight years, it's been very easy to come up with all manner of theories as to what's behind it all, and that there's a grand right wing design emanating from the US led by the neocons who are bent on embedding American Empire across the planet for generations to come.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories, for example, occasionally seem deliciously plausible when told that controlled explosions brought down Building Seven or that there was no evidence of a plane found at the Pentagon.

Although it's sometimes been difficult to deny the possibility of the existence of such conspiracies, I've always preferred to take such theories with a pinch of salt.

Yes, it was evident to millions of people across the world that the Bush administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and that Saddam Hussein didn't have the famed 'weapons of mass destruction' that were used to justify the invasion. Had it not been so obvious, it's unlikely that so many millions of people across the planet would have taken to the streets in protest a month before the 'campaign' began.

However, I've always felt that the march of history has not been one of grand design but rather one of stumbling accident. Could anyone have predicted or even planned that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand would have ended up being felt so forcefully in the ash and bones of the people of Hiroshima? Not a question that I feel requires an answer.

In every example of despotism stamped upon a people or peoples, those with the grand designs have eventually come undone. Rather than establishing a nation 'pure' for the Aryan races, Hitler ended up shooting himself in a bunker. As Martin Luther King famously said, 'the arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice'. In other words, bad shit happens, but it all comes good in the end.

I came across an interesting article by Philadelphia-based writer Dave Lindorff on Common Dreams today that chimed with my thinking on these matters, which can be found here. It reminds people that if (as is looking increasingly likely) Barack Obama becomes President Obama next week and as the man himself has said, the work really begins.

The evidence provided so far through the long, dark night of the first 'world US election campaign' suggests that he is a good man with great potential who may well prove to have a genuinely historic presidency. The reality, however, is that even cleaning up after Bush is an insurmountable task for any man, let alone a nation. That's before even beginning to deal with the multiple challenges facing the planet at this juncture in our history.

It would not be enough to simply prepare to be disappointed by yet another world leader that showed early promise and then turned out to be as rotten as the rest. Now, more than ever, it the time to organise, to take action, to get educated, and for people across the world to come together and find common cause in orders to solve our collective problems together. Whether economic, environmental, cultural or political, the peoples of this earth have more in common with each other than not.

We can all do our bit, however small.

W endorses McCain (WN0011)

I've been getting so bad at blogging these days! Whereas my wife seems to manage at least a post a day, I've not put anything up for about seven weeks - terrible behaviour.

In the past, I've tended to have so many consecutive projects on the go that things don't really get completed except at a very slow pace. Nowadays, I'm trying to actually finish things before I pick up something else.

The blog is an ongoing activity, so this is an attempt to throw a little something out there from time to time, so I don't completely get out of the habit.

I've been away from this blog for so long as I've had my head down in a large project - my first book. It's almost ready to go public, and I hope to launch it soon. There's also the Shelf Life UK tour to report on, which is heavily overdue.

With 10 days to go before the election that is probably going to decide the direction that the world is going to take over the next four years, I throw in here a clip from 'Saturday Night Live' (SNL).

SNL's Tina Fey has spoofed McCain's VP candidate Sarah Palin so well. In the above clip, Will Ferrell joins her with a pretty good Bush too.

'The Big Lie: Iran Is A Threat' (WN0007)

'Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States...'

Thus begins an article by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. In the midst of the threat of the Bush Administration heading towards YET ANOTHER WAR (and one that would undoubtedly be even more disastrous for the world than the Afghan and Iraq misadventures), there are some sane and very knowledgeable voices setting the case against such actions.

Ritter's piece sets out very clearly why Iran poses no threat to the US and contains some very useful background information on the country itself. It should be required reading for anyone that thinks an attack on Iran is necessary.

The article can be read here.

'The Great Iraq Swindle' (WN0005)

Ever wondered where all the money spent in Iraq went? All those US tax dollars that mysteriously disappeared? The recent edition of Rolling Stone has this story on where it all went.

'In the history of balls, the world has never seen anything like the private contractors George W. Bush summoned to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Collectively, they are the final, polished result of 231 years of natural selection in the crucible of American capitalism: a bureaucrat class capable of stealing the same dollar twice -- once from the taxpayer and once from a veteran in a wheelchair.'

'Bush's Brain leaves' (WN0004)

Hard to tell which was better news - Rove's departure or Rumsfeld's? A clear sign nevertheless that the lame duck presidency is now in for the final act of its downward spiral.

The biggest concern however has to be whether Rove knows something very significant that is about to happen - Darth Cheney unable to prevent himself from attacking Iran, for example - that even he couldn't possibly be associated with.

Hopefully though, it's just the crumbling of the Bush Nightmare, at last. What on earth will we be left with when the final curtain has fallen?

Google news sources here.