front page

As we get into dry season, it also becomes peak marlin fishing season in Pacific waters and a scene of what that entails is featured among the videos in this issue's Cool Internet sites. That page wanders from Harlan Ellison's outrageous tales about the three most important things in life (sex, violence and labor relations) to a music video of cumbia master Osvaldo Ayala, from the coronation of the 2008 Gay Carnival Queen to a link to a famous bookstore and publishing house.

Meanwhile, the first Russian warship to transit the canal since 1944 passed through town and while some folks went into a frothing at the mouth tizzy, Jose Ponce was one of the people who took advantage of the opportunity to catch a free concert that our local Russian community threw for the occasion.

And is it presumptuous, or just plain silly, to be giving the incoming administration advice?

Moreover, should people with my kind of politics be alarmed about many of Obama's appointments to cabinet posts and other high offices?

If the appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state means a return to many of Bill Clinton's policies toward Latin America --- a veto power over policies toward the region for the Miami Cuban exile community, Plan Colombia repeated as Plan Mexico, US embassies whose contacts with the societies in which they represent American interests are almost exclusively centered on their countries' wealthy elites, fantasies about the War on Drugs and so on --- those would be reasons for disappointment. But this will be an Obama administration in which Hillary --- who is a different person than Bill --- will be carrying out Obama's foreign policy. Moreover, I think that we are dealing with intelligent people who are capable of learning from the failures of the past. Also, much of Bill Clinton's foreign policy was a success. On a grand scale, I like the idea of getting back to a foreign policy that precludes the United States from charging off to a "preventive war" that almost all of the closest allies advise is lunacy. Down to the small but important details, I'd like to see a US State Department that sends us jazz bands and other cultural missions, as Bill Clinton's administration did on a regular basis and which the Bush administration hardly ever did.

The bottom line is whether Hillary Clinton is competent to do the job. I think she is, and even though I chose Obama over her in the Democrats Abroad primary, I'm comfortable with the appointment to her new position.

The other bottom line? Can public opinion be mobilized to nudge Obama in a more progressive policy direction? He's a good man but he's a cautious politician, and there won't be too many times that he defies public opinion because some element of the Democratic Party wants him to do so. Already public opinion is mobilizing in favor of a new economic orientation, so it won't be hard for Obama to turn his back on the market extremist dogmas that have been in vogue since about the late 70s. A different US policy toward the rest of the Americas is not front and center in the American public's mind, and it will require those interested in such a thing to go out and convince people that it's needed.

Our local chapter of Democrats Abroad, with a big boost from the Obama campaign, did an extraordinary thing this year. At the end, Panama's Republicans were so thoroughly routed that they didn't run an active campaign. But the elections are over, and now is the time for local Democrats to shift gears and become a forum to debate and advocate policies of concern to the American community here. Broad themes of foreign policy are part of this, but so are practical matters like services to US citizens living here. Obama has asked his supporters to remain active and engaged, and those who worked for meaningful change this year shouldn't let the hope for it slip away by just staying home and letting all the usual old people purport to speak for Americans in Panama.