Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama never said the illegal invasion of Iraq was wrong, merely that it was a "mistake". Thereafter, he voted in to give Bush what he wanted.

Yes, Obama's election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class. The courageous Martin Luther King recognised this when he linked the human rights of black Americans with the human rights of the Vietnamese, then being slaughtered by a liberal Democratic administration. And he was shot. In striking contrast, a young black major serving in Vietnam, Colin Powell, was used to "investigate" and whitewash the infamous My Lai massacre. As Bush's secretary of state, Powell was often described as a "liberal" and was considered ideal to lie to the United Nations about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Condaleezza Rice, lauded as a successful black woman, has worked assiduously to deny the Palestinians justice.

Obama's first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent "neoliberal" devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an "Israel-first" Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians – an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people's loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.

The once respected Observer newspaper, which supported Bush's war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that "America has restored the world's faith in its ideals". These "ideals", which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.

Prior to Blair's criminal warmaking, ideology was denied by him and his media mystics. "Blair can be a beacon to the world," declared the Guardian in 1997. "[He is] turning leadership into an art form."

Today, merely insert "Obama". As for historic moments, there is another that has gone unreported but is well under way – liberal democracy's shift towards a corporate dictatorship, managed by people regardless of ethnicity, with the media as its clichéd façade. "True democracy," wrote Penn Jones Jr, the Texas truth-teller, "is constant vigilance: not thinking the way you're meant to think and keeping your eyes wide open at all times."

The UK Daily Telegraph advises its share-shocked readers that Sotheby's contemporary art sale in New York last week (11 November) defied fears of an imminent international art market collapse.

These fears failed to materialise at the Sotheby's auction of 63 artworks where ‘the majority of bidders were American, raised $125 million, significantly below the $200 million presale estimate, but Sotheby's stressed that the estimate was set in September, before the financial crash.'

The clearance rate was a modest 68 per cent but Sotheby's remarked it was "very happy" with the sale. The Outsider was pleased to see that one work by Damien‘dollar-thirsty'Hirst failed to get a bid.

The Telegraph then goes on to say ‘The fact that so many works were sold below their estimates reflects Sotheby's success in persuading sellers to lower their expectations and adjust the minimum price they would accept.' Now either this is a fatuous piece of spin to rationalise a poor sale or the owners must have stolen the artworks in the first place. Maybe it's a bit of both. When Eli Broad a high roller among collectors, who spent $8 million at the sale, describes the auction as a "half-price sale" you know the world is nuts.

One thing however you can rely on. Art is long and life is fleeting. Valuing beats valuation every time.

Marcus Kapitza was sentenced to 12 months jail after pleading guilty to one charge of riot.

Brent Lohman was sentenced to 11 months jail with a parole period of six months for repeatedly punching a man of Middle Eastern appearance in the head at Cronulla railway station.

Yahya Serhan, a Lebanese Australian was convicted of one count of being an accessory after the fact of malicious wounding over an attack outside Woolooware Golf Club in Sydney's southeast on 11 December 2005, that ended when a knife snapped off in the victim's back. Serhan had acted as the "getaway driver" during the attack and was convicted in April 2007 to which he was sentenced to thirteen months jail with a non-parole period of nine months. However, he was released on the day of his sentencing as he had already spent nine months in prison.

What is the difference between these men? Lex Wotton led a riot that caused no physical harm to a human being. Lex Wotton is also an Indigenous Australian.

I'm fluctuating between being stoked the sentence was so much smaller than expected, and horribly depressed that we were forced to keep our expectations so low that this seems like a positive outcome.

It's not. 

Reports haven't hit the mainstream media yet but there's been a sudden jump in suicides - a new category, unique to christian USA, of "I'll never live" deaths of people living up to their oaths - people who argued their points with the words "I swear I'll never live to see the day when a black man becomes President of the USA". Their suicides are sad but show a great moral strength. Media are avoiding coverage to stop the copycat effect.

Of course many people in the rest of the world also thought they'd "never live to see the day" (for opposite reasons to those Americans) because we doubted America's ability to do the intelligent, honourable thing. To me Jimmy Carter was the last president to match up to that criteria. Bill Clinton (who didn't match that criteria) was on David Letterman a few weeks ago and, amidst an answer about the credit freeze crisis, he laughed and misquoted and misunderstood the great Churchill summary "The United States ... can always be relied upon to do the right thing after it has exhausted all the other possible alternatives" (to be spoken with intense sarcasm). By changing a few words Bill softened it to mean "we get it right in the end". Neither Churchill nor most ecologists have taken that for granted because when important things are deferred and deferred sometimes any change is too late. In the last few years Americans have killed and impoverished vast numbers and our planet is polluted & in dire peril - deciding to do the right thing, at last, doesn't mean it will come right in the end. But Americans, including Barack, believe in American ‘exceptionalism' and that the world revolves around America.

Back to the jump in suicides - it should also be noted that some Americans have taken a less moral attitude to their oaths and have re-interpreted "the day when a black man becomes President...." as being Inauguration Day in January 09 and they have re-sworn their oaths to that end that they'll never live to see such a day. As I said earlier in the year "May God help him".

The fact that there's going to be a black family in the White House can't be underestimated in terms of the impact that will have on black consciousness in the United States. I think it's important in its own right for that reason.

As for what the policies are going to be, the situation is pretty depressing. I mean, Obama, during his campaign, didn't promise very much, basically talked in cliches and synthetic slogans like "change we can believe in." No one knows what that change is. In foreign policy terms, during the debates, his-what he said was basically a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies. And in relation to Afghanistan, what he said was worse than McCain, that we will actually-we should take troops out of Iraq, send them into Afghanistan and, if necessary, go in and take out people inside Pakistan without informing that government.

Now, I think once he is in power and sees the intelligence reports coming in from Afghanistan, he will realize that that's not a serious option. I mean, the British are already saying that sending in more troops isn't going to help, because the war is lost. The United States intelligence agencies are already involved in panic discussions with the people they are fighting, the neo-Taliban, to try and persuade them to join the coalition, which they're refusing to do as long as there are foreign troops there. So, escalating the war I don't think is a serious option. And if he does it, it will be a very, very serious mistake, on the same level in scale as invading Iraq. So, he would be very ill-advised to do it. And I think some of the people around him will probably tell him that that was a foolish and intemperate remark in the heat of an election battle, so not to seem too wimpish, since he was already supposedly opposed to the war on Iraq, and that he will pull back from that.

(INTERVIEWED BY DEMOCRACY NOW)