The verdict on President-to-be Obama
You may remember we heard a lot from Lady Lykez on the programme earlier in the year giving her perspective on the big talking point at the time - teen gangs and knife crime.
She is a performer whose real name is Malaika Hendrickson. Her views, as a black teenager growing up in London, sparked a lot of response from listeners. She spoke for a group of people we rarely hear on the radio - and she had many interesting things to say.
We're going to hear from her again on Friday's programme at the end of a week when the crowning of the first black Formula One world champion was merely the opening act for the biggest story of the week - actually, year - when Barack Obama was elected America's next President.
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Good to hear from the 'youth' again. Obama is an inspiration and a challenge. Keep up the good work and have a good birthday bash.
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Many people think (with the help of mainstream media) that Obama's victory signals a new progressive chapter in US politics and its relationship with the rest of the world.
It's an illusion and it has nothing to do with his colour or race. It's to do with his politics; right wing, neoliberal and clearly militaristic which are virtually indistinguishable from his Republican opponents who have literally bankrupted the USA and all its other client states in the process.
Over a billion dollars was spent by both candidates on campaigns where the stage managed conventions, the cheering, stirring emotive speeches about one's family and all the other bits of razzammattaz was all a facade to fool their fellow Americans that they both represented two alternative choices!
The most ominous factor throughout however is that Obama's race was cynically exploited by many of his electoral opponents within the political and media establishment and its a sure sign how our own political system here in the UK is so bipartisan that this point was never discussed by the mainstream media!
Knowing they faced certain defeat at the polls as a result of their neoliberal policies Republican bigwigs relied on his ethnicity to add a bit of spice, an artficial choice, in the full knowledge that it would inspire millions to believe his election will put a new cultural dimension on everything when in reality he, like all US Democrat Presidents have been in the past, totally governed by the diktats and priorities of US capitalism regardless of what futile pledges they made in their profligate election campaigns!
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We have a new president and a great chance of finding a solution to the political instability in the middle east. Bush was seen by most as far too biast towards Israel but with Obama the people that matter may just sit round a table and find a solution.
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