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Obama Presidency


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Même si, en effet, son discours n'était pas belliciste, ça restait du grand n'importe quoi : il a quand même lâché « l'intérêt de notre pays est plus grand que la sommes des intérêts individuels » ou d'autres foutaises du genre "on va construire des ponts et des voitures, ça ira mieux après".

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Si j'ai apprécié la cérémonie, le discours était, disons surprenant. Avant tout, ce n'était pas une rhétorique clairement démocrate, enfin si sur certains thèmes mais c'était ultra religieux (façon revival Jimmy Carter) et puis il a sorti des trucs qui laissent paraître des intentions assez interventionnistes au niveau de la politique extérieur (le délire néocons de montrer l'exemple, toutes les nations devant être des copains qui nous admirent).

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Manifestement nous ne sommes pas tous d'accord sur les conclusions à tirer du discours…

Voici quelques pensées personnelles…

On the immediate aftermath of Inauguration Day in the USA, after the oath of the 44th President of America, let it be known there is still some dissent. I would like nothing more than put my lot with just around everyone else in celebrating about the new landowner of the White House, yet there is too much I cannot accept. Whilst everybody seems to relish in the departure of the former President – which is admittedly understandable, though still worth being nuanced somehow – I tend not to be so enthused about Mr Barack Obama. Some lines of his speech ran:

“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in the stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours”.

Whilst I am not about to extol the virtues of selfishness whatsoever, I think there is something incredibly dangerous in this sentence, unless I am misconstruing Mr Obama's words, it is clearly implied than your duty as an American citizen ought to be to forego a part of your work, and therefore of your wages, so as to enable another worker to step in and toil along yourself. What is that supposed to mean? Are you to have to stave off “selfish” feelings and let your family starve so as to allow a nondescript stranger to take your place? I remember Sir Winston Churchill once said that “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of communism is the equal sharing of misery”. Is that what Mr Obama wants to do? Spread the misery as he wishes to “spread the wealth”? You should pay care to words, for they are never innocuous, especially when spoken by politicians.

I was mostly stricken by the use of expressions like “unity of purpose” or “common good”, this should remind us of what the initial use of these terms was. It was meant to aggregate individual interests to create a “greater good” of an ambiguous ilk, for if I walk in the street, I can see individual purposes, I can see one person striving for goals he hold dear, I cannot see the “common good”. How would you define “common good”? “common” is a word that implies there is a shared purpose dear to the whole population. It seems an irrelevant term. For instance, Mr Obama promised to keep taxes lower for 99% of the American population and to raise taxes for an infinitesimal 1%, although it may look like a trifling part, the commitment to cutting taxes does not apply to everyone, this should be sufficient to deny Mr Obama the use of the word “common”. Friedrich Hayek once warned against the danger of resorting to such a word, just like the word “social” has been meant to conceal atrocities in past epochs. This means no less than the triumph of the state over the individual, if the individuality of each person is to be trampled down, then I do not see how Mr Obama dared pay tribute to the Founding Fathers who lived and fought for liberty.

Of course, there will be difficulties in the implementation of reforms, as Mr Obama rightly put it, for I am not writing these remarks for the sake of allocating blame upon a man, the financial crisis is to add difficulties to an already vast agenda. Whilst the hint at the profound crisis the world is going through is most appropriate, I hardly doubt it is anywhere near decency to evoke restrictions and difficulties lying ahead as we are aware that Mr Obama's inauguration cost no less than four times as much as the previous inauguration. So, is it for the common citizen to tighten his belt or does it apply to politicians as well? For someone who overtly wants to tackle climate change as a key issue, I must admit I am somewhat bewildered and dismayed to learn how tremendous the quantity of greenhouse gas subsequently emitted during the inauguration is.

Nonetheless, there is one sentence worth praising:

“Programs will end”.

It is about time someone said it, hopefully, these will not be wasted words. There are definitely countless programs brought about by state intervention that need to be shut down. Albeit I may be getting too enthusiastic, regarding Mr Obama's conceptions as to the breadth of government's trespass upon the individual's own choices.

Unbeknownst to many before the last hours to inauguration, Mr Obama announced his will to be sworn in on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln who abolished slavery as of 1863. However, we should not be forgetful about Mr Lincoln's own prejudices, of course, he actually did put an end to slavery in the United States, but he never was an unwavering proponent of abolitionism, he frequently asserted he would choose the Union over a war due to slavery. Most typically, Mr Lincoln was a staunch believer in White supremacy, as is shown in a political debate delving to September 18th, 1858:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race”.1

1 http://www.bartleby.com/251/41.html

He first wanted to ban slavery exclusively in the new Western states, as part of the 1820 Missouri Compromise between the North and the South. Emancipation was intended as a means to strip the South of its wealth as part of an enduring economic vying between an industrialized Republican North and a rural Democratic South. According to the lines you can read above, Mr Lincoln would have most probably rejected Mr Obama as his heir, considering he did not want White people and Black people to intermarry, nor to hold office. Mr Lincoln, if faithful to his speech, would have denied Mr Obama's right to run for President. So much for Mr Lincoln's generosity and openness. Is the situation so worryingly desperate in the US that no citizen knows his history anymore? This is not mean as a slanderous attack on President Lincoln who had undeniable virtues aside from his unwillingness to acknowledge that “all men are created equal” as the Constitution of the United States stipulates, whatever his purported ideals. Martin L. King seems to me a more commendable choice as regards references. At least, I concur with Mr Obama on the absolute necessity to promote reforms on education (though we definitely differ as to the means), it is crystal clear it is badly needed, especially in history.

On the topic of slavery, there is no doubt Mr Obama was lavish in his speech, talking about “the lash of the whip” or segregation. This was a most personal speech indeed, there is no mistaking in the fact slavery was one of the darkest moments of American history as was segregation, yet I think it was hardly appropriate for a man whose role was to coalesce with a figure of utmost importance intended to unite Americans and not turn them against one another. Same goes as to the following:

“a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath”.

Is Mr Obama so desperately lacking inspiration that he sees fit to resort to history?

I, however, do acknowledge Mr Obama made some amends when evoking the diversity of America, the scope of her talents and her founding principles. I especially liked the closing paragraph which brought hope, I hope it will more than apparently empty rhetoric. I shall not judge Mr Obama so harshly before his first steps in the President's shoes. We shall soon seen whether he will live up to the oversized confidence millions of people vested in him, we shall see whether he is able to cope with a heavy-laden agenda without failing his fellow countrymen. Perhaps people have transferred too much of their hope toward him, for he is only a man in a multitude of humans, I just wish I were the one who is wrong. This we shall see sooner or later.

Good luck, Mr President

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Je dois tout de même avouer que cette cérémonie d'investiture a de la gueule. Ambiance american dream sur fond d'unité nationale, avec Aretha Franklin au chant, Itzhak Perlman et Yo-Yo Ma jouant une magnifique compo de John Williams ça en jette. J'ai été particulièrement sensible à certains discours, mettre la liberté sur un pied d'estale et l'idée de pousser les individus à agir pour le pays, ça ne me déplaît pas, loin de là.

De la gueule et a coûté 4 fois plus cher que la précédente, alors que les politiciens nous font la morale sur la crise, ça la met un peu mal…

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Signature de l'acte de fermeture de Guantanamo (si c'est bien relaté par la presse, pas sûr), gel des salaires de son administration. Pas le pire des démarrages.

Mmmmm….

One official said the first will require all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while questioning detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, which creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics.

The second order will set up a study of interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual, including some that may be more aggressive than those currently permitted.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the orders until they are released.

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Obama's grand narrative may unite his country but divide the world

His chances of remaking America are good. Restoring US leadership in a multipolar global system will be harder

Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian, Thursday 22 January 2009

The 47th president was sworn in on an unseasonably warm January day. President Gloria Evangelista, the first Hispanic and second woman president of the United States, took the oath on a Spanish-language bible held by her husband, Victor Chu. The controversy about Chu's lucrative lobbying contracts for Chinese companies was temporarily forgotten. Former president Barack Obama, his hair white since the traumatic last months of his second term in office, stood watching, sandwiched between his Republican predecessor, George Bush, and successor, Kitty McFarlane. The strange weather on this 20 January 2025 was attributed by many to the effects of global warming, which the Obama administration had vainly struggled to slow. In her inaugural speech, delivered partly in English and partly in Spanish, president Evangelista paid fulsome tribute to the Chinese-American strategic partnership, known colloquially as the G2.

So much has been said to locate Obama's "historic" (oh weary moniker) inauguration day in the long sweep of American history, but we should also view it in the perspective of a probable future. According to the latest projection from the United States' own National Intelligence Council, "by 2025, the international system will be a global multipolar one with gaps in national power continuing to narrow between developed and developing countries". This does not require that America will decline; only that others continue to rise. There was a hint almost of melancholy defiance in Obama's inaugural rallying cry: "We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth. We remain …"

In a speech that was very good, but not the overhyped Lincolnian great, President Obama spoke both to his country and to the world. I believe that he succeeded rhetorically and can succeed practically with the first audience, despite all the current difficulties, but I'm less sure about the second. In fact, there's a little-noted tension between the way he speaks to, for and about America, and the way he speaks to and about the world.

The great theme of his whole life until now - including the literature we know he read most intensely, his own best book (Dreams from My Father) and his greatest speech so far (the Philadelphia speech on "race") - is the blending of multiple identities in an America that will finally be at one with itself. He not only is but consciously presents himself as the apotheosis of the American dream. He promises not merely to transcend, at long last, the United States' founding contradiction between liberty and slavery, but also to prepare America for a new order of ethnic diversity. His immediate family of Michelle and the girls already personify the first: every other day will bring some photograph of the black family in the White House. His almost encyclopedically diverse extended family, in which the languages spoken reportedly include Indonesian, French, Cantonese, German, Hebrew, Swahili, Luo and Igbo, represents the latter.

As a wordsmith, he is adept at finding language to evoke this American blending of the many and the one. With time, I believe this sense of a more encompassing "we" can release significant new human energies among the less privileged members of American society. "Our patchwork heritage is a strength not a weakness," he said, and he can make it so. Although it was American financial follies, both private and public, that originally got us all into this mess, America is probably better placed than most European countries to get out of it. That may not seem fair, but whoever said life is fair? What's more, he can seize the chance of this crisis to make transformative investments in energy, education and infrastructure.

So: the remaking of America? Yes, he can. Nothing in the future is certain, except death and taxes, but he has a better than sporting chance, especially if he is given a second term. But reshaping the world under renewed American leadership? Here I'm more sceptical.

Things will surely be better than over the last eight years. That's hardly difficult. (Beside seeing the back of Bush, one of the frankly schadenfreudian delights of Tuesday's handover was to see former vice-president Dick Cheney trundle off looking more than ever, in his wheelchair, like Dr Strangelove.)

Obama struck many notes that the world wants to hear from Washington, and struck them with characteristic grace. He spoke of the "tempering qualities of humility and restraint". He indicated some priorities: combatting nuclear proliferation and climate change, contributing more to development in "poor nations". He sent a special offer to "the Muslim world": a new way forward "based on mutual interest and mutual respect".

The key passage was this: "And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more." Wonderful stuff; but the catch comes at the end. America may be ready to lead "once more" but what if the world is no longer ready to follow? What if it believes America has forfeited much of its moral right to lead over the last eight years, no longer has the power that it used to, and that anyway we are moving towards a global multipolar system, as Washington's own National Intelligence Council predicts?

I am struck by how many little ifs and buts hedged even the customary welcoming words from world leaders. Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel offered warm and Christian congratulations, but added that "no single country can solve the problems of the world". Nicolas Sarkozy said: "We are eager for him to get to work so that with him we can change the world." (So, you see, France is ready to lead once more.) By the time we get to China, Russia, or an Arab world angered by Obama's silence over Gaza, the caveats come not as delicate barbs but as heavy artillery shells.

You may say: but surely Obama, of all people, understands the full complexity of the world. I think that's right, and our great hope. At the same time, the story that he wants to tell the American people demands a reburnishing of traditional notions of American exceptionalism, mission and leadership. American patriotism, linked also to this idea of a mission to lead, is the glue with which he will bind his increasingly disparate nation together. The more disparate it is, the more glue you need. And this is not just instrumental. This story and this mission is also, so far as I can judge, one he himself believes in, for is not his own extraordinary personal journey proof positive of the story's truth and the mission's rightness?

So there's a tension between the vision of revived Kennedyesque American leadership in the world that he unfolds to his own country, and what the rest of the world wants to hear or will now be ready to accept. A tension, I repeat, not an outright contradiction. How to manage that tension will be another of the many complex challenges facing this still youthful master of complexity.

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Signature de l'acte de fermeture de Guantanamo (si c'est bien relaté par la presse, pas sûr), gel des salaires de son administration. Pas le pire des démarrages.

Deux choses également prévues par le fils de Cain.

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gel des salaires de son administration.

Ce qui permettra de rembourser le surcoût de sa cérémonie d'investiture après une bonne quinzaine d'années. Si la mesure est maintenue.

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Bonjour l'ambiance…

Powder Mailed to Wall St. Journal Is Harmless

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA and CHRISTINE HAUSER

Envelopes containing white powder arrived at The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday morning, addressed to top editors and executives of the newspaper, stirring recollections of the anthrax mailings of 2001 and prompting the evacuation of some of the paper’s offices in Lower Manhattan.

The powder, apparently flour- or food-based, was declared harmless after field tests by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said Paul J. Browne, the main spokesman for the Police Department.

“There were at least a dozen envelopes that we know of,” a spokesman for the paper, Robert H. Christie, said. He would not say to whom the envelopes were addressed, identifying the recipients only as executives.

But Journal employees, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said that at least some envelopes were sent to Robert Thomson, the managing editor; Paul A. Gigot, the editorial page editor; and Leslie Hinton, the chief executive of Dow Jones & Company, the unit of the News Corporation that owns the paper.

Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, said, “It appears that the individual or individuals took the masthead of The Wall Street Journal and just wrote down those names.” He put the total number of envelopes, with the addresses typewritten, at 10 to 12.

In all, three envelopes were opened, he said, and each contained white powder and a blank piece of paper. Five employees may have come into contact with the powder and underwent decontamination, he said.

The Journal’s office is in a tower at 200 Liberty Street, in 1 World Financial Center. Two of the letters were opened on the 11th floor, where The Journal’s executive offices and editorial board are housed, and the other was opened on the ninth floor, which contains much of The Journal’s newsroom. The other letters that were found, unopened, appeared to have come from the same source, Mr. Browne said.

Each letter had a different name and return address, but all were postmarked from Knoxville, Tenn.

The 11th floor was evacuated before noon, and employees were prohibited from going to the 9th, 10th and 12th floors, which house news operations of The Journal and other Dow Jones news organizations, like Dow Jones Newswires, Barron’s and MarketWatch.com. By about 12:40 p.m., the ninth floor was also evacuated.

A letter with similar markings, also postmarked from Tennessee, was received on Wednesday at Harvard Law School, addressed to the legal scholar Alan M. Dershowitz, law enforcement officials said. And Mr. Browne said Wednesday’s incidents may be linked to similar mailings of white powder to the Fox News Channel and to several conservative commentators in early December.

The police dispatched emergency services units at 11:06 a.m. to The Journal’s office. Mr. Browne said the department was notified by the building’s management, Brookfield Properties.

Dow Jones instructed employees who were not immediately needed to go home, and set up a center for others in a nearby Marriott hotel, to await word.

Such mailings have arrived in New York City, mostly at media and financial institutions, several times in recent years, Mr. Browne said. Most of those incidents drew little attention, and the powder in the envelopes turned out to be harmless.

But in 2001, anthrax was sent through the mail to several members of Congress and to news organizations, killing five people and shutting down post offices and a Congressional office building. Last year, a scientist at a government laboratory, whom federal investigators considered the prime suspect in the case, committed suicide. The investigation had previously focused on another scientist at the same lab, but he was exonerated.

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Signature de l'acte de fermeture de Guantanamo (si c'est bien relaté par la presse, pas sûr)…

Le New York Times aide Obama à mettre le pansement avant la blessure :

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/mi…;pagewanted=all

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Magic Johnson on White House Hoops

During the inauguration celebration a reporter asked Magic Johnson about President Obama's plan to replace the White House bowling alley with a White House basketball court and whether or not he will get an invitation to play some hoops with the President. Johnson replied that he would obviously lace up his sneakers if he was invited to play. However, when asked if he would take it easy on President Obama during the game, Johnson flashed his famous smile and laughingly said "I will take it easy on him, if he takes it easy on my taxes."

Johnson, who in so many ways personified the joy of the game of basketball, along with Larry Bird saved the NBA in the 1980s. What a joy he was to watch play the game, and his message of self-discipline, hard work and entrerpreneurship is also joyous to listen to.

http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/webl…se-hoops-1.html

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Signature de l'acte de fermeture de Guantanamo

Le report d'un an de la fermeture est une indication sur l'attitude dite "centriste" d'Obama, il ferme, mais d'un point de vue Européen rien ne justifie le délai d'un an (c'est illégal ou ça ne l'est pas, et si ça l'est alors ça l'est même un jour de plus).

L'info sur le type libéré qui devient un boss d'Al-Qaïda, montre à quel point les américains en général restent peu soucieux du respect d'un principe de droit (quand ce n'est pas eux). Bref il leur semblerait que Guantanamo avait du bon, ils le regrettent déjà… :icon_up:

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L'info sur le type libéré qui devient un boss d'Al-Qaïda, montre à quel point les américains en général restent peu soucieux du respect d'un principe de droit (quand ce n'est pas eux).

Cela montre surtout qu'à vouloir mettre n'importe qui en taule, on finit par remettre n'importe qui en liberté. Guantanamo n'est pas seulement une monstruosité juridique, c'est aussi et peut-être même surtout une imbécillité juridique.

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une imbécillité juridique.

Je crains que cela soit plus, c'est le reflet d'une tradition anglo-saxonne qui a une vision pragmatique du droit (utilitariste) au service de la communauté. Dès lors pour quelqu'un qui est hors de la "communauté", le noir avant, l'Islamiste aujourd'hui, aucune règle de droit ne s'impose. Ceci s'oppose évidemment à notre conception "universelle et positive" du droit…. Le fait que dans leur déclaration d'indépendance et déclaration des droits, les droits universels sont évoqués, mais simultanément refusés aux Indiens et aux noirs montre qu'il s'agit d'une "tendance lourde" fondatrice de la culture américaine.

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