|
January 18, 2009
In an extract from his Down to the Crossroads: On the Trail of the 2008 US Election published in The Age Guy Rundle says:
In a capital city designed to both ape Rome and, with its weird monuments, its secret and occult measurements between buildings, to suggest a mysterious and hidden order to things, the inauguration ceremony has grown from a simple swearing-in ceremony, to the quasi-religious passage of a mortal man to some sort of divine status.In America's Civic Religion, published in 1967, the sociologist Robert Bellah noted that founding a society on the separation of church and state had simply created a process whereby the political system of the nation in question filled the spiritual vacuum with a sacralisation of political processes.
Well, that makes some sense of the inauguration spectacle surrounding the emperor god, or in Rundle's words the American God King , who is taken down the cheering avenues to the palace he will occupy for the next four or eight years. The old emperor has gone. Long live the emperor.
The Americans tend to see Obama's inauguration as opening a new book, not a new chapter in American, nay world, history. Robert Kuttner says in American Prospect:
As in 1933, the [economic] crisis is the direct result of free-market ideology and conservative misrule, which once again stand disgraced. This creates a once-in-a-century opportunity for Obama to redeem American progressivism as the nation's majority philosophy, with government playing a far more active role in the economy -- not just to produce a recovery but to restore a more egalitarian and secure society.
Their hope is that Obama and his people will use an activist government to spare American's a depression. It's a big ask. There's a lot of hope being carried by Obama
I see continuation where many see rupture--eg., Afghanistan where the Obama crowd talk in terms of victory. Or the ongoing decline of the US as an imperial power caught up in a financial and economic crisis. Or the continuing bailout of Wall Street (Citigroup, Bank of America) at the expense of Main Street in order to kick start the American economy. The new politics is the continuation of the old.
There are differences of course. The Obama administration will not continue the Bush administration policy of authorizing, ordering and practicing torture at Guantanamo. But it does look as the Obama administration will not launch investigations and prosecutions against the torture crowd in the Bush administration. Or those who spied on Americans without the warrants from 2001-2006, without legislation from Congress and when warrantless eavesdropping was a felony under FISA.
As Paul Krugman points out it’s probably in Obama's short-term political interests to forgive and forget. But at his inauguration he’s going to:
swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime.
|
Most Americans are just happy to see the last of the Bushies. They've outstayed their welcome.