President Obama's role, if one understand the current crisis as it really is: a cultural crisis

Dr Mangalwadi argues in his latest publication, THE BOOK THAT MADE YOUR WORLD, it was essentially Biblical values that built up the US and North European countries.

He does not say this, but one of the central Biblical values is loving your enemy and accepting what is true, right or beautiful in what s/he says.

With the elimination of Biblical values from public life in the US over the last several decades, we have had the rise of a radical RIGHT which, in Paul Krugman's words, is "prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands". Many of the demands of the right are entirely sensible, but they want the cost of the demands to fall entirely on the middle classes and on the poor.

By contrast, what was apparently a radical LEFT has turned out (e.g. in Clinton and Obama) to be soft and accommodationist.

If President Obama wants to change the world and change the USA, he will have to see change in himself first. Then he will have to lead not only financial and legislative change in the country but also political and cultural change.

So far, he has not proved equal to the few battles that he has taken on. The question is whether he will grow sufficiently in stature in the next few weeks to be able to take on the even larger challenges that he must if he is to leave any sort of positive legacy. Sphere: Related Content