The President of America Is Not Elected by Its People!

A book recently published in Cairo confirms:

President of America is not elected by its people!

Blacks, Israel and the Middle East.. those papers have exposed “Obama”.

Al-Mouheet – Shaima Issa

Despite the American discourse to the world that it always must be considered as a citadel of democracy and a model that should be followed! Therefore, it puts any state under pressure in the name of democracy -Arab countries are indefinitely on the spot- so as to force them abiding its policy. We find it surprising that the U.S. record of practicing democracy and human rights in the world is shameful, beginning from participating in subverting plots of many democratic governmental systems from Iran to Chile, and supporting governmental regimes known for their black history of violations to human rights, beginning from Suharto’s totalitarian regime which started in Indonesia, until Pinochet the dictator in Chile!.

In the book entitled; “How American president is elected?” which published recently in Cairo by El-Shorok International Publishing House, and written by professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and an expert in American Affairs, dr. Manar El-Shorbagy. She says: “It is true that America is on top of democratic countries in the world in civil rights, but it is totally untrue regarding the process of election. To tell the truth, American citizens’ votes do not count but voices of political elite are the only count, such as mass media’s role, interests and money groups who are involved in the making of the president of America who controls policies of the world!!

Dr. El-Shorbagy points out Obama’s real image; a young black American who astonished the Americans with his speeches about the change and his multicultural family background. The author affirms that he will not differ from the former American presidents in dealing with issues of the Middle East or an absolute support to Israel. Even blacks who gave him their votes, danced in streets and shed tears of joy in the moment of his victory announcement, as a president to the country in which they tasted colors of racial segregation, though Obama insisted to assure the American people that he does not belong to them nor seeks to reform their status.

He is, for example, rejecting war on Iraq (only) as it is “stupid”, not because it violated international law. When he promised to withdraw from Iraq, did not do so because his country occupied, destroyed, killed and displaced millions of its citizens, but simply because America cannot be a part in a civil war and cannot save Iraq as long as Iraqi government is slack, as he described! Obama, who refused war on Iraq said: “He is ready to bomb Pakistan if it is confirmed that the Pakistani government is slack in arresting Bin Laden. In addition, he seeks to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq to send more of them to Afghanistan.

Part I confirms that, despite the fact that the U.S. constitution begins with the statement of “We the People”, the constitution itself was designed to elect the U.S. president according to the states not the American people!

We are the States!

In Philadelphia 1787, a conference was held between United States’ first seed which consisted of thirteen states and a new federal government was formed of institutional, legislative, judicial, executive organizations which all of their authorities were distributed so as an organization cannot make a decision by itself.

Also, the constitution established a council of deputies which will represent the states on the basis of the U.S. population by which larger states receive larger number of seats, while all states are represented -regardless of its people number- equally in the Senate, where two members are selected of each state.

The U.S. constitution sets up presidential election to go through a party caucus which is a designated chosen group of state elected individuals so that each state has a number of elected individuals that equals the number of its members in the Council and Senate.

Accordingly, a big state -in terms of population- such as California has its share of votes which is 55 in the party caucus; (53 seats in the House of Representatives and two members in the Senate), while Alaska has only three votes; (one in the House of Representatives and two members in the Senate).

This means that the American president is being elected indirectly. It happens in two phases, the first is a general ballot made by voters. It is a process that is called the “popular votes” then the “party caucus” which calls the votes of its members, the “electoral votes.”

The American president is being elected according to a winner takes all basis which means that a candidate who obtains a highest percentage of the popular votes in a state wins all the votes in the “party caucus”, while his rival gets nothing at all.

The American Regime is a prisoner of interests.

Writings that criticize the influence exercised by interest and rich groups are frequent – rich groups that spend too much money financing electoral campaigns in all federal positions. Thus, they obtain access to political decisions biased to people of interests at the expense of the masses who do not have the funds to defend their visions and demands.

There are four sources of financing campaigns for presidential candidates: public funds and contributions of individuals, as well as contributions of political work committees and parties.

Rules are always put to undermine individuals and institutions financing though they are breached. For example, any organized group such as big corporations and syndicates are prohibited to make contributions to candidates but interest groups create political entities called the “political work committees” that can raise funds and contributions to a maximum of 5 thousand dollars per election campaign. But many circumvent this through the creation of the political work committees with different names, though all are affiliated to one entity in the end. It should be noted that supporters of Israel exploited this loophole; as they have 70 political work committees legally independent from one another and even from main pro-Israel organizations which increases the volume of their influence.

Elusive money – when a committee could make unlimited spending not in coordination with a presidential candidate’s campaign such as television campaigns or sending an infinite number of letters mailed to its members and others to defeat a particular candidate – cannot be ignored

No-party partisans!

A party in the United States is an entity basically designed to win in the general elections and also a system that does not have a handy national interest to defend. This is because branches of a party in the U.S. determine different priorities on account of local interests and counting profits and losses in the state.

The same case is with American citizens’ cause when someone says that he is Republican or Democrat, it actually means nothing more than voting to candidates of that party in the general elections.

In America, any citizen can elect himself or herself promoting a slogan of one of the two parties without necessarily consulting the party and then run an electoral battle with funds he collected himself or herself independently.

In short, the American party is a broad coalition that withholds forces, groups and different trends but not necessarily homogeneously. In addition, these coalitions are not fixed; one of these forces could leave these two parties’ coalition in a certain historical moment in order to join a coalition of a rival party which is known as the rearrangement of alliances.

For example, American Jews since 1850 until the beginning of the twentieth century, used to give their votes to the Republican Party until Roosevelt came into office and succeeded in to unify them with the Democratic Party within other forces for a social justice issue. Since then, Jews have been giving their votes in a large majority to the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. However, George Bush Junior’s stands in supporting of Israel are unprecedented which had prompted many Jews to reconsider the traditional loyalty.

The U.S. Mass Media..

Creating and Destroying a candidate!

The U.S. mass media is not a neutral part that just broadcast and cover events but it is one of the effectively powers that affects in the formation of the election result.

Media men and women believe that there are two criteria we could determine on their basis, whether a candidate deserves attention or not. First: funding volume raised by the candidate and second: his or her popularity according to primary surveys.

Since the first debate held between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960, debates have become of ones of the important events in the campaign.

Candidates resort to paid advertising, particularly in various television stations. Much of this propaganda focuses on attacking the rival which becomes known as negative publicity that always contains false information about the rival and may be a blatant lie.

Media after September 11

The events of September 11 were able to unite the American people with President Bush, despite his low popularity before, this was a result of panic prevailed among citizens.

Media practiced self-censorship and abandoned spiritual responsibility and checking accuracy of what comes out of the executive institution. For example, one of the top officials at CNN issued an internal memorandum to studios’ broadcasters telling them to read certain paragraphs if the report was broadcasted -live- featuring images of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The memorandum contained a text of the proposed paragraphs that should be adhered to by a broadcaster. The paragraphs were put to remind the audience that “we must bear in mind -when viewing this report- that the American military action was launched because of a terrorist attack killing five thousand innocent people in the United States.” There are many examples such as describing the U.S. operations in Iraq as they aiming for the liberation of Iraq which keeps appearing on the screen in title form.

It was proved, in the past two months, that the American citizen was presented to the invasion of Iraq just from the point of view of in the media. It has been proved that 76% of all programs’ guests were current political officials or former ones, while opponents of the war were only hosted in 1% of cases.

After all of this, it is not strange for the American citizen who is known for not being interested in international affairs to approve the American invasion of those countries and approve its foreign policies.

2008 Elections

Obama the movement or Obama the candidate?

The American people tried to express their anger against Republicans’ policies in Congress and in the administration, as they are considered by people of America to be the only reason for every disaster that happened to the country. On the other hand, they looked to the Democratic Party as major candidates of 2008 democratic campaign were Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and John Edwards.

While the media ignored Edwards, Hillary’s campaign was marked as traditional, in addition to her political file which is full of conflicts. Obama focused on his speech to the public that he is symbolizing a new generation and that it is time to take responsibility. These kinds of speeches were welcomed by young generations as Obama used his life story to confirm this effect. He is from a black immigrant father and a white mother. He grew up in Hawaii –symbolized by a multi-racial and large ethnic community- as well as his life in Indonesia. Also, his father’s mother was still living in a small village in Kenya.

As Obama highlighted in his campaign that he is a graduate of Harvard University, he went a long way with his campaign to university students and generally continued with young people through the Internet.

But Obama’s electoral message was also attractive to large numbers of moderate Republican voters who refused Bush’s policies, which reflected only the thought of neo-conservatives and the religious right side and ignored the rest of Republican currents, or those interested in civil liberties. On the other hand, the bulk of generations of activists and political organizers who joined the movement in support of Obama have come part of the progressive forces that are to the left of the Democratic Party for which choosing Obama was the lesser risk.

Hope in Obama: an illusion or a reality?

The author presented a specific thesis stating that Obama’s victory does not mean at all an improvement in the situation of minorities in America, especially blacks.. Also, Obama’s campaign focused on the reality of his father, being a black man. He is not a slave descended but he is a voluntarily immigrant who came to America, unlike those black groups’ ancestral who came handcuffed for forced labor in times of slavery.

He said more than once that the Afro-Americans have achieved more than 90% on the road to full equality in America although this does not reflect the reality in any way. For instance, the difference is enormous in wealth distribution in America; as a black family only owns 10 cents in comparison to a white family who owns a dollar. Also, the Afro-Americans make up half of imprisoned individuals whilst only making up 11% of the population.

Obama denies the black church!

Dr. Manar El-Shorbagy says: “Perhaps Obama’s story with Wright Jermaya who is an Afro-American priest and shepherd of the church that Obama has belonged to for two decades is the most important story regarding its implications”

Jermaya Wright is the shepherd of the church Obama has belonged to for at least 16 years, and is considered one of the most important religious preachers in the black community who has never been accused of extremism. In addition, he is the one who contracted Obama’s marriage and baptized his children. Also, Wright was not only closely related to Barrack Obama until he began his campaign but also was his spiritual mentor and the one whose expression Obama quoted as the title of his most important book, “The Audacity of Hope”, in a clear indication of how big this man’s impact on him.

But in 2008, media showed selectively some certain phrases mentioned in Jermaya Wright’s previous sermons. He said in one of them: “The events of September 11th could have been avoided as they resulted from wrong American foreign policies.” Another statement of his said: “Rich whites are those who dominate America.” When Wright did not withdraw his statement, Obama condemned him strongly, declaring his absolute split from the Church. And that he would not join any other black church until the end of the year.

History tells us that when Africans were brought to be slaves in America, all means were used to make them fully submissive. Therefore, slavery systems have given due care to the elimination of their indigenous cultures. Also, they were denied access the white’s Christianity, whether they were free or slaves.

But the practice of religion has become a form of black resistance and this meaning has been present in the current black culture for both Christians and Muslims.

Even after allowing the black a gradual embrace to Christianity, teachings of Christianity received by slaves were designed to make them subjected to the white man through a continued emphasis of their inferiority by presenting this as God’s will who created the whole universe.

After lynching a group of black in 1787 when they unintentionally prayed in a place reserved for white men in a church, a black church was established. The black church has become a social club and a political party which expresses their dreams and oppression as well as a source of breeding symbols of leadership, including Martin Luther King junior.

Also, two trends appeared reflecting the development that has taken place in the black community; where middle class and wealthy elite appeared among the blacks. The first trend calls to give a greater priority to adapt to the white community, preaching the blacks to only seek Paradise in the hereafter, not on Earth and giving priority to ethical sides which are responsible for the collapse of society, such as abortion and homosexuality.

The other trend mainly addressed rich blacks, encouraging its followers to consider wealth as a sign of Divine satisfaction. It is a kind that did not mind putting responsibility on the blacks for their deterioration. As for Obama, he kept on taking advantage of all blacks surrounding him, taming this support not to turn the whites into enemies.

Obama, Arabs and Israel

According to dr. El-Shorbagy’s view point, after the situation taken by Obama against the church, it not a surprise at all, to see him going to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) making an extremely supportive speech for Israel.

In his speech, Obama focused on the need to bring black and Jewish relations as they were before; working together in civil rights movement. However, the truth is far from from what Obama has said. It is true that in the early stages of the civil rights movement, Jews played a very positive role and struggled with black figures to put an end to racism and oppression in the American society.

But Israel’s situation in support of the racist and reactionary South African Government’s situations towards all national liberation forces at the time and the American Jews’ refusal to condemn the Israeli situation in Palestine has been a source of deep reluctance of the blacks who participated with them in the civil rights movement in view of their co-struggle and search for freedom that has a similarity of what they have experienced in America. In return, Jewish figures had not accepted the black support of the Palestinian liberation movement.

In addition, the Jewish figures had began exerting pressure on major black organizations at the time, aiming not to appoint any black leaders who are in favor of the Palestinian rights in a leading position.

Among what this black trend has been denied in its country’s foreign policy is the blind support to Israel’s policies and also accusing Islam of Middle Eastern problems.

In these few weeks, we have noticed that after Obama’s victory, he took situations regarding various issues after which he retreated from positions he took along his preparatory campaign. For example, he made promises to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months subject to the military leadership in Iraq and also on the ground developments which is precisely the logic of Bush.

Language of force among the nations

The author excludes relying on Obama in improving the situation in Egypt; as establishing good relations between Egypt and the United States requires three conditions: Egyptian interior health that depends on providing a genuine democratic climate, strong regional presence and a governing institutional presence in America that is more balanced in managing its relations with the world and less extremist in its bias to Israel.

For the reader’s knowledge, the first and the second conditions are much more important than that of a governing none-extremist institution requirement, and Turkey is a living instance as being a staunch ally to the United States and having close relations with Israel. Turkey through its democracy and regional review of its policy was able to build a relationship with America that is of a high autonomic degree, despite the coalition in a way that permitted it to achieve the highest national interest.

In 2003, Turkey refused to put its territory under American use in its invasion to Iraq and that was a cruel surprise to Bush’s administration, because Turkey’s decision has cost America too much, strategically and militarily. Although Bush’s administration with its intransigence, extremism and clear anger, was not able to blackmail the Turkish, because the resolution issued by the Turkish parliament and the Turkish government had appeared backed up with a strong domestic situation and clear consensus on that resolution, which made it much more difficult, because America has to confront with the entire Turkish nation, not specifically with the government.

Also, Turkey has built in the past few years good relations with both Syria and Iran, and invited Khaled Meshaal who is one of Hamas’s figures, to Ankara. Some forces in America tried to use pressure on Turkey by reopening the Armenians’ file; pushing towards issuing a new resolution by the Congress stipulating that what happened to the Armenians before the Ottoman Empire was a “massacre”. But Turkey has used regional papers that are critical to America. Thus, Bush’s administration was the one that fully pressured on the Congress until those members of Congress swallowed their tongues after some of them had filled the lower noise on the subject of the Armenians in the name of “human rights”. All of a sudden and in less than two days, the situation in the Congress changed totally to its opposite!!!