The US elections in November 2008 draws a special attention. The candidates from the “two great gangs of political speculators” (1) and their running mates seems so different. Barack Obama and John McCain. We have collected links articles in English.

Indhold

• Foreword
• Websites
• Articles
• Reference websites
• Some funny stuff
• US election : … And Hillary?

Foreword

The US elections in November draws a special attention.

The candidates from the “two great gangs of political speculators” (1) and their running mates seems so different.
And first of all because the president at last about to leave is responsible for both wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has become the symbol of the right wing both in US and international. “Our” Danish government is a part of this coalition.

We have selected links on the presidential election, which cast light upon the other candidates than those of the great parties from the “swamp of corruption” (1), – links which refers to debates popping up again and again at all US presidential elections and parlamentarian elections in all countries: the debate of the “lesser evil” (i.e. that Obama is a lesser evil than “one more Bush” (McCain) and the waste of votes-argument (i.e. “in reality you support Bush by voting for an independent candidate”, an argument that in particular has been used against the Nader-campaigns.
As usually our sources are some reference-resources, but mainly we have drawn from the English speaking left wing and socialist press and websites.

Bjarne A. Frandsen & Jørgen Lund
September 11, 2008

(1) from quotation by Friedrich Engels (1891) on the two main parties in US politics.

See also:

• The Webliography: Chicago 1968, on the Democratic Party Convention in August 1968
• On the Denver Aug 24-28 Democratic Party activities:
• Re-create 68
• The story of the split: Convention protest hit by groups’ split (Denver Post, 9.6.08)

See also at Socialist Library:

• The Subject List: USA / United States of America
• The Webliography: Præsidentvalget i USA 2008, with articles in Danish
• The Webliography: Efter valget af Obama / After the election of Obama

US Election – Websites

The Buying of the President 2008

The Buying of the President 2008. “The Center for Public Integrity’ quadrennial investigation of how money shapes presidential campaigns … But unlike the book, which will provide a behind-the-scenes examination of how big money influences the presidential election process, this site is a work in progress …”

OpenSecrets.org

OpenSecrets.org: Money in Politics. “OpenSecrets.org is your nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy. Whether you’re a voter, journalist, activist, student or interested citizen, use our free site to shine light on your government. Count cash and make change.”

Public Campaign

Public Campaign : Clean Money, Clean Elections. “Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.”

SocialistWorker.org

Featured:
– 2008 election
– The Obama phenomenon

SourceWatch

– Election Protection Wiki Portal
“… reports of voter suppression and the systemic threats to election integrity.”

Steel Back Your Vote

Steel Back Your Vote. Free comic book and Rolling Stone article by Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy. Incl. clips from the movie.

Toward Freedom

– Video: Noam Chomsky and Cynthia McKinney on the US Presidential Election (23. October 2008)
– Howard Zinn: Vote for Obama But Direct Action Needed (30 October 2008)

Articles

Against the Current

– Malik Miah: The financial calamity, Blacks and Obama (No.137, November/December 2008)
“The issue of the economy has given the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the first Black candidate for a major party, a big boost …. Yet as television pundits and print commentators have noted, Obama is in a close race with the Republican John McCain for one reason: the color of his skin.”
– Milton Fisk: The Presidential candidates’ health plans (No.137, November/December 2008)
“The issue facing Americans is: Can we expect the captains of the corporatized insurance industry, accustomed as they are to gaming regulation or trying to get it repealed, to submit to regulation now?”
– Malik Miah: The elephant in the room (No.136, September/October 2008)
“Can the United States overcome its history of racial prejudice to elect the first Black president? Race is the elephant in the room, yet few will openly acknowledge its role in this unprecedented presidential race. Code phrases are employed by the media to evade the issue.”
– Allen Ruff: Obama and the Empire (No.136, September/October 2008)
“Obama has certainly remained remarkably consistent in one area, namely the realm of foreign policy and his unflagging support for the U.S. imperial agenda.”
– Malik Miah: Socialists and Barack Obama: Viewing an historic Presidential nomination (No.135, July/August 2008)
“The challenge is to recognize history in the making while not moving away from the goal of a mass labor party and working-class based government.”

AlterNet

– Chalmers Johnson: Is this election the major historical turning point it seems to be? Yes (October 8, 2008)
“A small election victory won’t drastically turn around any of the darker challenges our country faces – only a massive victory can do that.”

Consortiumnews.com

– Robert Parry: Make no mistake: McCain’s a Neocon (June 8, 2008)
“Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq.”

In These Times

– David Moberg: Moving Obama Left (Vol.32, Issue 9, September 2008)
“Even if Obama is more consistent than critics allege, questions still haunt progressives. Does an Obama presidency promise dramatic and progressive change, as his rhetoric sometimes suggests? Or will Obama simply shift from Bush’s neoconservatism back to the confused – if slightly less conservative – perspective of the Democratic Party establishment?”

International Socialist Review

– Politics of change or politics as usual? (Issue 61, September–October 2008)
“Lance Selfa examines Obama’s presidential run.”
– Can the Left take over the Democratic Party? (Issue 61, September–October 2008)
“Lance Selfa explains the futility of working within the Party to change it.”
– Phil Gasper: Bipartisan road to the dark side (Issue 61, September–October 2008)
“Democrats are complicit in the Bush administration’s attack on human rights and civil liberties.”
– Obama: What kind of change can we expect? (Issue 60, July-August 2008)
“Obama has appealed to people’s hopes for change, writes Lance Selfa, but what he really offers is a good deal less.”

London Review of Books

– Jonathan Raban: Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill (Vol.30, No.19, 9 October 2008)
“Sarah Palin has put a new face and voice to the long-standing, powerful, but inchoate movement in US political life … its contempt for metropolitan elites, fuelling the resentment of the provinces towards the capital and the countryside towards the city, in its xenophobic strain of nationalism, sturdy, paysan resistance to taxation, hostility to big business, and conviction that politicians are out to exploit the common man.”

Monthly Review

– Edward S. Herman and David Peterson: Jeremiah Wright in the propaganda system (Vol.60, No.4, September 2008)
“Beginning in March 2008 and extending through the last Democratic primaries of early June, the United States witnessed the most brazen demonization in its history of a person based on his race, his creed, and his ties to a presidential candidate.”

The Nation

– Naomi Klein: Obama’s Chicago Boys (June 30, 2008)
“The head of Obama’s economic policy team is one of Wal-Mart’s most prominent defenders.”
See also video below at Toward Freedom.

New Left Review

– Walter Benn Michaels: Against diversity (Issue 52, July-August 2008)
“Tears and triumphs for race and gender have dominated discussion of the 2008 US election. Walter Benn Michaels argues that the Obama and Clinton campaigns are victories for neoliberalism, not over it – serving only to camouflage inequality.”
– Robert Brenner: Structure vs conjuncture (Issue 43, January-February 2007)
“Robert Brenner reads the US mid-term results against deeper structural shifts in the American polity. The rise of the Republican right seen in the context of the long downturn and dismantling of the liberal compact: from New Deal and Great Society to the capitalist offensive under Reagan, Clinton and Bush.”
– Mike Davis: The Democrats after November (Issue 43, January-February 2007)
“With anti-war sentiment growing – if still passive – in the US, how will Democrats use their recapture of Congress? Mike Davis analyses likely outcomes on the questions – Iraq, corruption, economic insecurity – that confront a Party leadership hooked on corporate dollars, and myopically gazing towards 2008.”

New York Review of Books

– Andrew Hacker: Obama: The price of being Black (Vol.55, No.14, September 25, 2008)
“We can see how being a farmer or a bond trader or a gun collector might influence your vote. And we understand why black Americans would want a person of their race in the Oval Office. But just what is there about being white that might incline someone toward one candidate instead of another?”

Red Pepper

– Debate: Holding Obama’s feet to the fire (June 2008)
“With his appointment of a series of Clintonite economic and foreign policy advisers, Barack Obama has attracted fire from the American left. But does this mean that hope in his campaign for the presidency is misplaced? Doug Henwood, Gary Younge, Jo-ann Mort, Betsy Reed and Ta-Nehisi Coates debate the politics of Obama’s candidacy and the huge mobilisation of support behind it.”
– Redrawing the map of US politics (April 2008)
“Barack Obama’s campaign for the US presidency may still have a long way to go, but the levels of participation by African-American and young voters in this year’s primaries have the potential to transform the shape of US politics. In particular, they could neutralise the racist ’southern strategy’ that has produced such an inbuilt conservative bias since the 1960s. Frances Fox Piven and Lorraine C Minnite investigate.”

Socialism Today

– Ten things you should know about Obama (Issue 117, April 2008)
“Barack Obama has tapped into the anger of millions of Americans who want real change … But would an Obama presidency bring the change we need? Is he really different from the rest of the corrupt, corporate-controlled politicians? A deeper look reveals that Obama does not deserve the support of workers, progressives or youth. Here are ten reasons why.”

Socialist Review

– Gary Younge: US elections – is real change coming? (Issue 327, July 2008)
“Barack Obama has risen from idealistic Democratic outsider to become the first black US presidential candidate of a major party. Gary Younge explores the importance of the Obama phenomenon which has inspired millions, but also the limitations of his political agenda.”

Socialist Worker (US)

– Lance Selfa: Is Obama really a radical at heart? (October 31, 2008)
“If Obama is acting like a centrist now, it’s most likely because he is a centrist – rather than a radical posing as one to get elected.”
– Topic: 2008 Election

Solidarity (US)

– A brief to-do list for the next President’s first day…
Plus articles about The Obama phenomenon, Realities of the Democratic Party, Keep the movements alive, Independent political action and VoteTruth08.com.

Solidarity (UK)

– Barry Finger: Why the left should not back Obama (3/134, 26th June 2008)
“The symbolic significance of an African-American so close to the presidency in a country whose politics is so fundamentally scarred by racism cannot be underestimated. This enthusiasm seems to have upturned the usual justification on the part of progressives and leftists for voting Democratic … Sadly, this grassroots ardour is also based on a studied ignorance of Obama’s political record.”

Toward Freedom

Video:
– Noam Chomsky and Cynthia McKinney on the US Presidential Election (23 October 2008)
– Howard Zinn: Vote for Obama but direct action needed (30 October 2008, 11 m.)
– Naomi Klein on Obama (26 August 2008, 10 m.)
“Klein speaks about Obama and the intellectual and political integrity of the progressive movement.”

Reference Websites

Some Funny Stuff

US Election – … and Hillary?

BarelyPolitical.com

– Hillary Man Fan Video

SocialistWorker.org

– Did Clinton lose because she’s a woman? (June 13, 2008)
“Michele Bollinger looks at one explanation being put forward for Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the Democratic primaries—that she was the victim of sexism.”
– Clinton’s last stand (June 5, 2008)
“When all else seemed to fail, the Clinton campaign turned to racism in the hopes of pulling out a victory.”
– Hillary Clinton: The candidate for women? (January 18, 2008)
“Elizabeth Schulte looks at the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton—and whether she would meet the expectations of many women that she will act on the issues that matter in their day-to-day lives.”

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

– Hillary Rodham Clinton