The video which needs no introduction, footage of the largest election party in Australia:
http://www.usyd.edu.au/...
As you've all no doubt heard many, many, times the world as a whole breaks strongly for Obama. In Australia 80%+ of Australian's said that they would vote for Obama if given the choice. I guess this just goes to show that Obama might just repair your shattered international image.
A group of young liberals (liberals are the party of the right in Australia.) sat in a corner and cheered whenever McCain won a state. There were about 8-10 of them, that was it. Throughout the whole day there were about 1200 people in attendance and we had to turn people away at the door. All but the young liberals seemed to cheer for Obama.
The US studies centre at Sydney University has two primary aims, to research the US and to repair your very tarnished image in Australia. It's both very pro-American and very left wing, an almost unheard of combination in Australia. They were holding events all throughout the election cycle.
Now the big question is, can Obama live up to what the world expects? If America wants to be taken seriously again it must relinquish unilateralist foreign policy, no one likes a bully and that's just what neoconservatives are, bullies. Both the contempt of Australia for Bush and the Republicans, and the openness to Obama, stems from a common source, hope for a new multilateralism.
If the netroots loves its country, which I’m sure they do, they’ll fight for a multilateralist approach. As Eric Martin, over at Obsidan wings, points out we still need to keep fighting for a more sensible foreign policy approach; neoconservatism is at best sleeping and has endured similar set backs in the past, if anything it shows some signs of reviving:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/...
Keep up the good fight!