Dr. Freeman

I wish it was otherwise, but Obama has not really been practicing bi-partisanship. On the contrary, in the recent passing of the Stimulus Bill democratic procedures were de facto suspended. One Congressman (Ron Paul) called the legislative process “atrocious”. Not a single member of Congress even had the time to read the 1000 page document. While special interets had prior access, the Bill was not made available to Congress until midnight the day before they voted. It included spending initiatives never articulated on the floor of the House, it had all sorts of insertions and addition written in pencil throughout its pages, and included programms that had nothing to do with the real economic problems at hand. Hardly democratic, let alone bi-partisan. How can anyone vote for a bill when they have no idea what they’re voting for? Not to mention that it was the biggest spending bill in American history…

It’s pretty clear that the financial meltdown has confronted us with the blatant irrationality of global capitalism. When it comes to real matters of social justice and human dignity - the fight against Aids, hunger, lack of water or global warming, we all recognise the urgency of the problem, but there is always time to reflect, to postpone decisions. Not so with the financial meltdown, the urgency is now unconditional; an inconceivable sum of money is immediately found. Saving endangered species, saving the planet from global warming, finding a cure for Aids, saving the starving children . . . All that can wait a bit, but ‘Save the banks and the big corporations!’ is an unconditional imperative which demands and gets immediate action. The panic has been absolute. A “bi-partisan” consensus was immediately established, all grudges among world leaders are now being momentarily forgotten in order to avert the catastrophe. Enormous sums of money are being spent not for some clear ‘real’ task, but in order to ‘restore confidence’ in the markets – i.e. for reasons of belief or faith.

As far as I can tell, Obama’s message (Change, Hope, Unity) is beginning to sound like a “signifier without the signified”, i.e. words that in the end no one knows what they mean or refer to. It seems as if Obama’s “words” merely allow us to consent to what we know is a lie so that we can avoid a direct encounter with Reality: the unconditional claim of Spirit that demands we change fundamentally the way we live in relation to each other and the world. In other words, with Obama’s soaring rhetoric, it is Capital whose demands are now more absolute than ever - and far more pressing than the demand to transform our social and natural reality. That is, what if the Obama presidency merely allows us to think and feel that we (through US national politics) are contributing to a better world all the while staying comfortable within our protected enclaves?