Will the real Barack Hussein Obama please stand up?

The American people right now are giddily supporting their president. The feeling of unity and excitement is palpable. The feel is not unlike the days after the tragedy of 9/11/01, when Americans were told they were attacked by terrorists who hated freedom. Many young Americans rushed to join the military to wreak vengeance on "the enemy". All politicians unquestionably supported legislation such as the Patriot Act that had deep ramifications even though the legislators admitted they had not read the Act. Almost all Americans and the U.S. media competed to support wars of aggression against Afghanistan and then Iraq as though pre-emptive wars were appropriate and even necessary to protect the American people.

People were wrong then.

And times have changed. Now many, if not most all of the same Americans are heralding a new day. A black man has been elected president. This makes black people giddy, even though the new black president spoke absolutely nothing of the grievances of black people during their history of oppression for five hundred years. But the new black president spoke of hope and of change. Specifics about hope and about change were mostly lacking.

Now inaugurated, the new black president is talking about pain. He seems to be telling the American people that pain they can count on lies ahead. But he explains very little about why that pain is coming at this particular time. He is saying very little about the rationing of pain, which seems to be likely to parallel the rationing of wealth and bailouts in this society.

The new black president has already spoken in favor of protecting the American way of life, which is unsustainable. The new black president has already warned the Muslim World and all nations that would listen that Americans would reach out to those who held an open hand, and not a hand with a clenched fist. But Mr. Obama forgot to consider that many nations of this work, including Muslim nations, have clenched their fists in a defensive posture against the aggressive militaristic economic posturing of the U.S. Mr. Obama forgot to mention that many of the most despotic regimes in the world, including the Muslim world, are friends and partners of the American government even as they oppose and destroy democracy in their own societies. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait come to mind. Mr. Obama seems to forget that Iran and Venezuela are democracies who have suffered from American meddling in their affairs and have adopted defensive postures out of the need to survive American aggression.

The new black president of the United States speaks of hope and change, but he does not promise that he can deliver. He seems to be saying that American presidents have great power to bring harm or ruin, but limited power to reduce or mitigate pain and harm to American citizens or others.

Mr. Obama has decreed a hiatus on Guantanamo military trials, which must be wonderful news to men locked up for six or seven years and now facing delays of more months of confinement away from their families. The promise to close Guantanamo must really be encouraging to those who are imprisoned at Bagram or in other locations around the world still undisclosed to the American people. The promise that men who have been tortured may still be held indefinitely somewhere because the American government cannot think of a way to release them probably does not make the prisoners nearly as giddy Americans are feeling about the hope and change promised the American people.

Could it be that the American people are so manipulated by marketing and manipulation that they are giddy for synthetic reasons? Do black people in the U.S. actually believe that having the first black president will reduce the disproportionate imprisonment of black men in American prisons? Will Barack Obama’s presidency result in increased towards equality in pay scales between black and white Americans, or between men and women? Why did the first elected black president in American history have to be the first non-threatening black man ever to run for office in this country? Could Barack Obama have been elected as U.S. President if he had actually stood for justice and insisted on fairness instead of insisting on colorblindness?

Who is the REAL Barack Obama and what will his presidency REALLY be about?

The answers will emerge soon enough. Already we see that foreign nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela and Cuba have no giddy belief that relief from American hegemony is at hand. Palestinians must feel positively betrayed.

Barack Obama talked about the situation for America in his first day or so in office. He mentioned that America is involved in two wars, but he failed to mention that America has invaded two sovereign nations without provocation, and that oil was involved, according to high government officials. America was not attacked by Iraq, nor by Afghanistan until American soldiers invaded their territories in order to control their natural resources. Barack Obama stands for the American way of life, which makes these resource wars happen.

Barack Obama has promised hope, change and pain. Is that going to make Americans happy as his administration unfolds?