INTERREGNUM

Reflections on an Obama Landslide and the Path Ahead

by Michael C. Ruppert
((c) Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Michael C. Ruppert - Please distribute widely.)


Nov. 5, 2008 (Los Angeles) – The American People were freed last night. Not only were they liberated; they were united again. For the first time in many years we, and the nation we live in, were on the same piece of sheet music and in the same key. And for the first time in eight horror-filled years (maybe longer) it sounded like the Star Spangled Banner.

It was the enormity of the landslide that spoke loudest and broke the clouds. All of a sudden the paradigm shift underway on many levels became visible, palpable, and real. Everything crystallized as I watched – gasping through mucous-laden tears – John McCain concede defeat. What did I see as CNN's camera focused on the loyalists at his headquarters? I saw nothing but wealthy, "blingy" whites; well-dressed, some holding wine glasses, getting the notice that the slaves had just revolted during their formal ball. What did I see in Chicago? I saw every race and religion imaginable, standing side-by-side, arm-in-arm, grinning, cheering, crying, hugging. I saw their unmistakable tears well with unbearable gratitude through tired eyes; liberated from souls that had just witnessed a miracle. I saw hope.

I saw Americans all in Chicago, and nothing but Americans. I saw not a trace of ethnic-self consciousness anywhere in that crowd. This is what America is now and we are strong because of that diversity. We proved it. I am a white male. But if I were to walk down the street in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow I could see maybe 20 nationalities in one block. Today, and from here on out, every one of them will feel and know that they are as good as any other American, as any white man. There will be a contagious light in their eyes. Their spirits will be lifted and the price that they paid to get here and become citizens or green card holders will look cheap. Because we know that we are equals now we need no longer even subtly fear each other. We can count on each other; the barriers between us dissolved.

In Arizona I saw a dying class, naked before the world. I saw a Republican Party stripped down to its soul and revealed for what is atits core: rich, reactionary, Southern white people. The Republican Party is dead. It cannot and will not reform, regroup, redefine and re-emerge. The Republican Party is the party of business, and class, and privilege. We still don't know whether Ted Stevens won in Alaska, but if the old fool tries to take his seat he will be forcibly expelled from the Senate just as soon as he is led away in handcuffs to serve his prison sentence. This country and the overwhelmingly Democratic Senate will be disinclined to show him mercy and that will be the final ignominy for the Republicans.

That was only one of many reasons to cheer. The Christian right has been demolished as a political base, perhaps forever. They way they performed for their candidate makes an endorsement from them now a political kiss of death. Latino Americans showed true class and honor– not to mention self interest – by deserting the Republicans en masse.

There will be no economic recovery. There is a part of me that believes that Bush and the Neocons know this and have for at least a decade. But at least we have claimed a sense of unity, of a shared fate. The Neocons have worked so hard to leave Barack Obama with a mortally-wounded corpse. I shudder at what they might destroy in the next seventy days. Just a day after Barack Obama's victory Russia announced that it was moving missiles near the Polish border and sharply attacked the U.S. That message was clear; "Hey America, before you go and spruce up your image around the world, you deal with Russia first and what you have done to us since the mid-1990s. Soon we will be co-equal (former) superpowers but we will still be the biggest kids on the block. We will both still have almost all the nuclear weapons there are."

On a day when one might expect a Dow rally in celebration of regime change it dropped almost 500 points. As I explained to my agent and friend Ken Levine, "If Obama's election would have been good for a 300-point rally, then what happened today was really an 800-point drop."

Peak Oil is here and -- in case no one noticed -- a day before the election "The Financial Times" – reading from a leaked copy of a new International Energy Agency report, disclosed that the global decline rate for oil production has been recalculated at 9.1% per year, up from 5.8% less than a year ago. Put simply that means that if we produced 85 million barrels per day in 2008 then, no matter what, we be able to produce – under the best of conditions – no more than 77.5 million barrels per day in 2009.

Since the worst of the economic collapse has yet to arrive, there will be no possibility of any kind of economic recovery. There is a 96% correlation between greenhouse gas emission (i.e. burning more oil) and GDP growth. Already, projects to drill-for and produce the more expensive offshore, remote and small-pocket oil are shutting down. Too expensive with oil prices falling. Investment in renewable energy is also shutting down. That collapse is now locked-in is one of the safest predictions I have ever made. It's just simple math now. There is no coming back.

Now I have not lost my mind or my basic understanding of the world. Barack Obama is not a Messiah and I have not become Pollyanna. What was set free that makes all the difference, however, was us -- and we are the ones who most needed liberation to meet what lies ahead. Now we can meet it as a nation. While those in Chicago felt their souls expand in true liberty, the Republican reactionaries had to stand in front of the camera and swallow hard to realize that they are just Americans too, like the rest of us. "OK you privileged, wealthy, reactionary, criminal, white Southerners, it's your Constitution too, now obey it and shut up. In the last eight years you raped that Constitution. You took away parts of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments. But you could not kill its heart."

And that is why the landslide was so important. Any attempt to take that election away, that moment in the sun, would have provoked an instant and bloody revolution. That is why I am also certain that President-elect Obama will be inaugurated in January.

We all have to honor the Constitution; that magnificent document framed so long ago by some real God-inspired men. The government of, by, and for the People was returned to them last night. And even if that is not completely true -- even in the Neolibs try to proceed in furtherance of an overarching agenda as co-conspiratorial protectors of a dead paradigm – what matters is that the People have regained a sense of their own God-given power. They have seen that they can do something. Nothing will be more important as we continue into the darkness and tests of collapse. We the People will respond together. And while the Neocon architects who planned and executed the last eight years may chuckle at the thought of leaving a black man as their janitor, they have completely overlooked the Power of the People whom they have held in such bitter contempt for so long.

All of that was vouched safe last night.

In 1998, I was asked to speak at a rally at Santa Monica City College for the Crack the CIA Coalition. Comedian Dick Gregory was the lead speaker and moderator. He made me sit on stage beside him for the whole event. He was that proud of my confrontation with CIA Director John Deutch. When he called me up to speak I said something that turned out to be prophetic. I said that if African Americans were to truly save themselves from injustice, they would have to save all of us white folk in the process or they would never get what they wanted. Is that not exactly what happened last night? Dick Gregory and I became good friends. A few months later he called me his "white son"on Joe Maddison's radio show on WOLB in Baltimore.

I think almost all of America cried last night. I have heard many on TV describe it the same way that I experienced it. At that moment in time when CNN, or CBS, or ABC all said, "It's over. It's done. Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States," the trap-door opened and a sense of relief more profound than I could have imagined exploded out of me. I am still not the same twenty-four hours later.

After learning that Bush had called Obama to congratulate him and listening to an amazing speech from our President-elect, I crawled to the bed and collapsed in sleep, taking only my shoes off. The Bush-Cheney years have been particularly and personally hard for me. I awoke this morning not knowing who I really was.

Know this: as it was with a young JFK who was quickly surrounded by advisers who later betrayed him, this time there will be those who remember those tricks and will work to thwart them. Know that for the first time in decades I am truly proud to be an American because of what I saw last night. Know that in the days and years ahead, last night liberated and energized the best qualities in us and that is the one renewable resource that we have most needed to set free. We are one nation of many peoples. We are a nation where all men and women are endowed equally with unalienable rights. Know that we can now find a way to harness and use that particular power that is so uniquely American.

Our struggle now is to save human civilization. As it was when this nation was founded, under that magnificent, self-correcting document, it is my prayer that -- as it was in 1776 -- the hopes and dreams of mankind will all look to this amazing place to see what mankind can do with a freedom that is real; with a freedom that we will fight to protect.

Yes we can.

Yes we can.
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MCR wrote:

I am more convinced than ever that the opening barrage of the collapse in September was mild compared to what's coming -- and soon. The automakers are crumbling and the slowdown is paralyzing everything. Meantime the derivatives bubble has only deflated by about 5%. At Reuters, MarketWatch, Bloomberg and elsewhere the heavyweights are all saying the same thing: "The worst is yet to come." Wait for Citigroup.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110202150.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR


JO wrote:

Quote of the Day:

"The Dow is a dead banana republic dictator in full military uniform propped up in the castle window with a mechanical lever moving the cadaver’s arm, waving to the Wall Street crowd.”

– Michael Bolser, Le Metropole Cafe

From the "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not following you" department

Federal Court Allows Bush Administration to Withhold Records Detailing Torture and Abuse of Guantanamo Prisoners
Buffett's MidAmerican has Constellation Anti-Trust OK
Paulson's Swindle Revealed
Effectiveness of AIG's $143 Billion Rescue Questioned

John Olagues:
View from the equally grim other side of the coin; hyperdeflation instead of hyperinflation, for instance
Peak Cops
The Solar Energy Equivalent of Soylent Oil
National Security Sprawl
End of California

“Changing The Globe” Presents:

“The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream”

Monday, December 1st, 12:30-2:00pm
In Student Services Lobby, Campus Center East
At Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga Campus
Includes brief introduction and Q & A session after the film