America: time of trial
Marek Jurek
The fact that the fate of authority in the biggest countries concerns the whole world has been known at least since the time when Constantine the Great, winning over Maxentius ‘in the sign of the cross’, granted freedom to Christians. Power is always released and makes the entire world better or worse. As a rule the American election should be treated as a global event. The election showed two Americas again. In spite of the overwhelming victory of Barack Obama Senator John McCain won in many conservative states, from South Carolina through Texas to Montana. It turned out that the surveys that a month before the election gave Obama even several points more than McCain and foretold Obama’s victory in all states created the ‘atmosphere’ rather than gave a real prognosis. By the way, the production of obamomania did not succeed. America of traditions lost. John McCain, who represented a rather liberal wing of the Republican Party, was an authentic war hero. As he said a few years ago his life in the communist prison was saved by the inscription that he noticed on the wall of his cell: the words ‘I believe in Almighty God’ scraped by some American prisoner. His vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin is an authentic leader of the Christian right wing and an authentic mother who bore five children and cared for her daughter when she, unexpectedly to the parents, was pregnant. Barack Obama was not only known for his pro-abortion views but for his radical pro-abortion policy in the American Senate. He manifested his support for gay movement demanding a legal obligation to accept their ‘marriages’ even in the states that did not permit them.
Do this election mean
a revolution in geopolitics?
McCain was not only a soldier but also a politician involved in the opposition against the Soviet Union, expressed by America and the free world. He understands post-communism. That’s why he reacted in a decisive way to the Russian aggression against Georgia. For him NATO is still an indispensable factor of Europe’s stabilisation. Obama’s reaction towards the Georgian drama had a rather formal character. His politics will transfer America’s interest towards Africa and Asia, which can constitute a relative benefit of his presidency since Africa should not be a forsaken continent where the world treats violence, epidemics and famine as elements of the local culture. However, one can expect Obama’s smaller involvement concerning Europe. Generally speaking, Obama will pay bigger attention to international organisations. That’s why, contrary to George W. Bush, he will be inclined to look for far reaching agreements with the political leadership of the European Union, which can seriously narrow room for manoeuvre of the Polish politics. What is especially important is the
constitutional dimension
of electing Barack Obama. His followers hope for a radical change of the composition of the Supreme Court. This tribunal is ‘a voice of the Constitution’ in America – the Supreme Court interprets and makes its rules concrete. Thirty-five years ago the verdict in the case Roe vs. Wade opened the way to legalise killing of the unborn. This verdict acknowledged the children’s right to live as subordinate to the absolutised privacy of mothers. Thus for years the Supreme Court has been both the area and subject of the struggle between the conservatives and liberals. With the consent of the Senate the American presidents appoint the Supreme Court judges. However, it is the liberal candidates that are much closer to finish their activities in the Court than the conservatives that have been appointed recently. The hope for the revolution in the constitutional jurisdiction may not be fulfilled. Since one should remember that the term of the US President is only four years after which his power is verified. No president can be sure of his re-election. A time of trial begins for conservative America.
"Niedziela" 46/2008