The public relations function of Obama was precisely to put a black face on US endless imperialist war.  Most of the world’s people are non-White and Western racism, particularly American racism, is widely known outside the US. Obama is a public relations symbol to show that American mass murder is non-racist.

It is the same role that Powell played when he told the United Nations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  The same role as Rice.  Obama is now continuing US endless war and conintuing to transform the US power system into the police state necessary to pursue it, since it is also beiing conducted against the American people.

It is against the interests of the American people that the world’s people be decieved into thinking that their has been any change in American foreign policy from the Bushites.

They may “view the US more favorably” but what does that mean? Very little. The key words there are “more favorably.”  It doesn’t mean they trust the US.  When it comes down to it, the whole world is well aware of the history of US international policy.  Many societies have suffered at one time or another because of it—whether from wars, economic pressures, military aid to dictators, etc.  Do they trust the US more under Obama?

Foreign societies also suffer from wishful thinking -we don’t have the monopoly on that.  In many places, the media they have is of the same corporate kind that we have (some are the same companies) which tends to represent the interests of the ruling and/or business classes.

What on earth are polls and surveys anyway?  In order to know how people really feel you must live in a country long enough and be exposed to citizens from all walks of life.

Ed Harges is right about his assessment of the Muslim and Israeli sentiment on this.  It is remarkable how little it is known here about the views of Israelis.  And the lack of knowledge is not just about those who support the hawks. The lack of information is even more acute when it comes to the number of Israelis (in groups or as individuals) who disapprove of government policies and are doing whatever they can (sometimes going to jail) to promote justice.

Funny. I heard this reported on NPR earlier today, and the way they presented it, it was only the Muslim world that was unhappy with Obama. There was no mention of Israeli antipathy toward Obama. I had to turn off the radio before the report was over, so perhaps NPR got to this point eventually. But the emphasis was certainly on the Muslims being the unhappy exceptions. The implication was, “All the reasonable people in the world now love America again because of Obama, so the Palestinians (and other Arabs or Muslims) who are still grumpy are just misfits.” You would think that in any American survey of foreign opinion, Israeli opinion would be the most important news, since we are devoted so slavishly to them. But NPR didn’t want to go there.

And they certainly didn’t want to remind us that the Israelis (unlike the Muslims and everyone else on the planet) actually preferred our previous President — the one who wrecked our country, partly by pursuing ruinous wars of aggression for them.