It’s exciting to be overseas as America begins a new chapter of history, but it definitely makes me miss home, too.  Americans seem ecstatic and overcome with goodwill.  Europeans are also thrilled, and random strangers are congratulating me.  The flight attendants on my Air France flight from Copenhagen to Paris today saw my American passport and turned giddy with questions about Obama. 

Now that the global waves of jubulation have washed over us, the rushes of euphoria and sighs of relief have overtaken us, the pride and hope in the election of Barack Hussein Obama and all that he personally represents have overwhelmed us, let’s all chill for a moment and ask: What now?

This is not the time for us as Americans to sit back in satisfaction, content with having done a good job. It’s time to put our critical-thinking hats back on and make demands on our new President.

What are your criticisms of Obama? 

If you’re not entirely sure, this is understandable since he has been pretty vague.  But he has said plenty to be critical of. If your answer is "none" or "he’s dreamy!," then we have a problem. 

Now that he’s in, what will Obama do?  There’s something funny about ending a two-year campaign and still not having a very good idea at all of what our new President is going to do on many issues.  If his choice of advisers tells us anything, he is largely interested in maintaining the status quo of revolving-door Democratic corporatocracy. Yet, with the right kind of organized pressure from below he could also surprise and shift the Democratic party significantly to the left, and with it the country. I’m hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath, either.

Will he only superficially reduce the country’s prioritization of business profit and consumption over people’s health and survival, or will people finally be put first?

Will Obama go back on his plan for profitable third-party health care and support single-payer universal care, something that he has stated he would be in favor of on principle if the political winds were blowing right?

Will Obama leave American military bases in Iraq?

Will Obama mediate a two-state solution and bring peace and justice to Israel-Palestine?

Will he really work to dismantle the military-industrial complex?

Will he push for transforming our immoral and unprofitable criminal justice system and force treatment for non-violent offenders instead of incarceration?

Will he keep his promises on reforming the US media system, i.e. on media consolidation, minority ownership, and net neutrality?

One of the most memorable juxtapositions of the week was seeing the Obama headlines on the NYTimes website along with the news that the US bombed another wedding in Afghanistan. Obama plans to escalate war in Afghanistan (and feed the war economy at home) despite the ongoing killing of innocent civilians there by the US military (that which we call terrorism when we are the victims but not when we are the perpetrators).

The anti-justice-for-all forces in the USA–older, richer, whiter and consisting of more men than women than the rest of the country as a whole– are well-funded and well-organized, and Obama, a known conciliator and consensus-builder, takes them seriously.   He also appears sensitive to citizen’s demands for a more just society.  Reading his 1994 autobiography it is clear that he understands the immorality of American militarism and imperialism abroad and the nature of racial, gender and economic injustices at home.  He gets it.  However, he is part of a larger system that has it’s own version of American justice and it’s own inertia. So rather than letting Obama lead us, we need to lead him. Here is a good place to start.