The election is over and everyone who is tired of the war in Iraq or sick over the $700 Billion bail out was not sorry to see the Bush era coming to an end. Change! is the mantra of the day. And change there will be. But on the issues that moved the voters most to replace George Bush and the Republicans with Barack Obama and the Democrats, will change really follow? I have my doubts.
To those who are incredulous over this statement, please consider a few important points. To be sure, there will be a change in policy on stem cell research, there will certainly be tax increases on higher income earners and others, and labor unions will have much more power than in recent years, but what about some of the biggest issues of the last eight years and the next four?
The last candidate who ran on a platform of change, pledging to end America's military intervention on foreign soil was a man named George Bush - that's George W Bush, Bush 43, the man who is leaving the White House in January.
Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, made it a major campaign theme in fact. They did not want to continue the Clinton administration's policy of "nation building", and wanted to end America's involvement in Bosnia, which they did. They did not want to have the kind of disasters we had in Somalia repeated, nor to set ourselves up for more attacks such as were made on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port.
That's not all. Bush came as a "uniter not a divider". He came with a reputation as Governor of Texas for reaching out to Latinos and across racial lines and drew considerable support from African-American churches and pastors.
But perhaps the biggest thing that faces the country right now is the economic turmoil we face and the government's $700 Billion bail out of the financial industry. Obama supported Bush's proposal from the moment he put it on the table. In fact, while John McCain was displaying his ill temperment by temporarily abandoning his campaign to save the country from this crisis, Obama and Bush rather calmly and compliantly moved in lock step to get as much taxpayer money thrown in the direction of the problem as they could.
In the final analysis, it's true that Obama is on the other end of the narrow political spectrum that prevails over our Presidential politics. But he has much more in common, on much bigger issues, with George Bush than he will differ with him on.
Even so, the really bad news could be that where he does differ from the current President, it may not create the blissful wonderment we all had hoped. Be happy for the change, but we wary and on your guard nonetheless.
The new election will have good and bad impacts on the India after Obama. Outsourcing industry of India is in panic since, the statements of Obama have had been twisted by media and intellectuals in such a manner that a havoc got created that outsourcing work to India will be curtailed. On the contrary, Indian Healthcare and Pharma companies have every reason to cheer over the victory of Obama in US as he has pledged to strengthen global fund.
The author is a business editor of www.made-from-india.com
Posted by: Social Bookmarker | November 10, 2008 at 12:46 AM