Sunday, November 09, 2008

Between hopes and fears

Leer "entre miedos y esperanzas".

Looking at the joy faces of so many voters and non-voters in the USA after Obama's victory, you would say that they are watching a new messiah and not a new president. They don't look just happy, they are in ecstasy. They are looking for a new hope, something that can change their lives for better.

But is just an illusion, something that happens regularly, the people in the USA, as well as the people in any "democratic" country is driven by a pendulum of fears and hopes. While the economy goes well, the people is driven by fear, the fear to change, the fear to the different. When the bad times come they move to the hope for change, hope for something different that can improve the situation.

The current economic crisis, driven by very bad decisions and policies, has made the people disappointed of the Republican party, and the economic recipe they have pushed as the solution for everything. "Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem," said Ronald Reagan. And this principle would guide the economy for the last years. But now they have real problems at home; the layoffs, the unemployment, the unpayable mortgages are what worries them. And the government seems now to be the only one able to fix the problems.

When a exceptional speaker as Barack Obama appears in scene and tell them: "yes, we can," is not just a nice speech, is a real hope, a promise. But Obama's plan is much more conservative that people listening to him thinks. He is not thinking about changing the basic rules of the game, only trying to make them less overwhelming to the small players. Giving some handicap to the smaller rat doesn't change the rat's race. It is still a race with only one winner, a race with millions of losers.

I think next president
of the United States won't be as bad as current one, but I cannot be very optimistic about him. I think it is the usual business, the hope that will be followed by the disappointment, the fear and then the hope again.

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Who is Roxana Gap?


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