Together with other millions of people across the globe early last Wednesday morning, my eyes filled with tears of joy as Barack Obama was elected as the next president of the United States.
I followed his campaign closely and was very impressed how he managed to communicate effectively to so many different people: Democrats, Republicans and Independents, black, white, Hispanics and Asians, straight and gay, young and old, persons with disabilities, working and middle class families, college students, persons who are highly successful and those who live on the poverty line. The victory rally held in Chicago showed clearly the diversity of people to whom Obama managed to connect.
Obama stands for what I love about the United States as one of the greatest nations on earth, as the land of innovation, opportunity, enterprise, democracy and diversity. Millions of people within and beyond the USA hope that Obama will manage to repair the damage wrought by eight years of the Bush presidency both at home and abroad with reckless military interventions, Guantanamo, unilateral initiatives that flout human rights, the rule of international law, total disregard for the harm inflicted on the environment and climate of our planet and encouraging ‘casino` capitalism to take over Wall Street and destroy the savings and jobs of millions of people.
There are high expectations for the Obama presidency, not only because of the high hopes he has raised in the last 21 months, not only because the Democrats in these elections have won more power in the House and in the Senate, but also because new generations have arrived on the US political scene that have rejected the politics of fear and greed cultivated by Bush and the Republicans since 2000.
Some years ago, Mario Cuomo (Democrat, former governor of New York) said that politicians “campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose.” Governing requires good hard specific policies. There is no doubt how Obama has succeeded so far to inspire so many millions of people with his poetry. I hope for the sake of our planet that his prose will not disappoint us.

Of bullets and peas
The Malta Labour Party has directed its media to follow a new code of ethics drawn up by a commission appointed by Joseph Muscat. One of the recommendations is not to mention by name any person charged in court, unless this person is involved in public life. The person will only be mentioned once he/she is found guilty or innocent.
The PN, so Christian Democrat and full of neighbourly love, is not bound by any similar ethical considerations. Last week the PN media focused on a young man who was charged in court with injuring another person. It was not enough for the PN media to mention him by name; they also had to repeat over and over again that he is the son of a Labour mayor. The PN has no scruples when it comes to do all it can to depict the Labour Party as the party of criminal, anti-democratic, corrupt sub-humans who live on these islands.
A few weeks ago the Labour media had all the details about the story of the brothers of Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said, who have been charged with raping a young girl. The party leadership ordered the party media not to report this news story, and it was not reported.
Imagine what the PN media would have done if the brothers of a Labour politician were charged with raping a young girl.
Over and over again the PN has shown itself ready to do everything to discredit the Labour Party and hold on to power. While it projects itself as a party of Christian values, ‘fidei difensor’ and the rock on which the Catholic Church is built, the PN is bound by only one code of ethics: to use all the means available to hang on to power.
Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once described war “as the continuation of politics by other means.” For the PN, politics is the continuation of war by other means and the PN leaders are very happy to engage in a war where they fire bullets, while the Labour Party responds with soft mushy peas.

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