It’s almost a year since President Obama was elected in the U.S. Enough time, to evaluate his Presidency. Did Obama deliver the change he promised? How has the new administration realigned U.S. policy on a domestic and an international level? How is the transatlantic partnership affected by the change in the White House?

These and other questions will be adressed in a series of panel discussions organized by the Amerika Haus Berlin during the coming months. “America Reloaded” will take place at Berlin’s Hebbel Am Ufer Theater.

The first installment on September 21st tackles the changes already in place. Invited are sociologist Jean Ziegler, UN official Beate Wagner, Press Secretary of the UN World Food Program Ralf Südhoff and Ugandan globalization activist Yash Tandon. The group will debate signs for a new role of the U.S. in foreign aid, and whether there are new opportunities Barack Obama can seize.

All the panels seem to be held in German. Here is the full schedule:

• 21/ 09/ 2009 – Auf Augenhöhe? US-Entwicklungspolitik unter Barack Obama
• 11/ 10/ 2009 – Politik im Web 2.0: Die Methode Obama
• 16/ 11/ 2009 – Walls between People – Mauern zwischen Menschen
• 01/ 2010 – Zum ersten Mal ein Afro-Amerikaner als US-Präsident
• 02/ 2010 – A Green New Deal? Vision für eine Neuausrichtung der Wirtschaft
• 03/ 2010 – Kampf dem Klimawandel! Die USA zurück im Konzert der Verantwortlichen?

From rags to riches: Steinmeier’s father was a carpenter from Brakelsiek, his mother a factory worker and refugee from Breslau. He was the first member of his family to attend a Gymnasium and get the Abitur and later studied law in Gießen. In 1991, he began to work for Gerhard Schröder and eventually followed him to the chancellery. One and a half Obamas.

Diversity: Nada. Zero Obamas

Vitality: Steinmeier played in the local soccer club for ten years (nickname: “Prickel”), is married and has one daughter. One Obama.

Web 2.0: Clean website, 4,690 Facebook supporters, no Twitter and a real social network, that actually allows user interaction. Easily the best performance thus far, one and a half Obamas.

Policies: Steinmeier supported the German stimulus package, supports the Afghanistan misson and was one of the first to call for German admittance of Guantanamo inmates. One and a half Obamas.

Total:

With five and a half Obamas, Steinmeier takes the lead in our competition. Will he able to hold onto it with only Chancellor Angela Merkel yet to be tested? Find out very soon, here at tapmag!

You can find all the posts of this series here.

We mourn this tragedy. We will celebrate his legacy till our hearts stop beating.

Let his words and deeds be a lesson to us all: Start with the man in the mirror.

Michael, you’re royalty, always. The King is dead! Long live the King!

The First Ladies of Fashion - Screenshot from vanityfair.com

Now, one would think that when world leaders from 20 and 28 countries, respectively, meet within a week, there would be important issues to discuss. Such as how to save our economies in midst of the worldwide financial crises, how to save Afghanistan from chaos, or how to save the financial industry from new regulations (this last point was only on the agenda of some participants, and seems to pose a contradiction to point no. 1).

But then a graceful, tall, pretty first lady entered the picture and everyone was momentarily blinded. The result was that the focus of the media outlets shifted from world conflicts (they’re so hard to convey to the fast-clicking internet crowd anyway) to Mrs. Obama’s outfits. Scandalously, she wore a cardigan to meet the Queen! This prompted Bonnie Fuller to scream that Michelle Obama has lost her mind! and is suddenly “a fashion disaster”. Wow, good thing we talked about that. Afghanistan – who? (What might be added: Bonnie Fuller – who?)

The Obamamania caught on with “serious” news outlets as well, even though their interpretation was different. Christoph von Marschall of Der Tagesspiegel concludes that the visit to Europe “stabilizes her position.” Michelle Obama’s, that is. As U.S. First Lady, it’s apparently essential to have a stronghold in Europe.  Even the complicated links of international relations were broken down to the questions of which first lady dressed better. The result of this “fashion face-off” varies depending on the observer, so at least the two issues have one thing in common.

In all the marvelling, some publications completely lost their heads and even made German Chancellor Angela Merkel part of the outfit competition. The subheading to their picture (see screenshot) says: “Barack and Michelle Obama pose with French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, along with other NATO leaders and their wives at the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany.” Thanks, Vanity Fair, for informing me that Joachim Sauer has taken over government activites from his wife. I almost missed that.

The Afghans were left to save themselves, but I’m not sure anyone noticed.

Update, April 5: Time has written an interesting analysis about the dissonance between Barack and Michelle Obama’s worlds.

By Jessica Binsch

At U Street Corridor, Reps Won't Find Rest

Black Broadway
3:40 p.m. Green line from College Park, Maryland, to Washington, D.C.
Greenbelt metro station: the beginning and end. I am struggling to find a symbolism more befitting this day, Nov. 4th. “The beginning and end.” The train is almost empty, save the few voices announcing their soon arrival at friends’ or families’, set to watch as the nation turns the page on a new chapter of American (political) history. It is rainy and gray as I squint my eyes, trying to turn the gloomy downpour into drops of catharsis. In America, today is the day of reckoning; the “final verdict on eight years [of failed policies],” as Obama likes to call it. Regardless of where one stands, November 4th, 2008, will be a day of either gloom of catharsis; the beginning or end. Some things not even man can control, no matter how hard we try. But today, that won’t keep people from at least trying.

4:00 p.m. Arrival at the U Street Corridor. “Black Broadway,” as it was known in its heyday during the first half of the 20th century. The home of legends: jazz greats “Duke” Ellington (a DC native), Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday, and Miles Davis were U Street staples, and, as the story goes, it is where Dr. Martin Luther King grabbed a spoon at Ben’s Chili Bowl after his “I Have a Dream” speech.

After the assassination of Dr. King on April 4th, 1968, U Street erupted into 4 days of riots, destroying businesses, and causing both unemployment and insurance rates to reach for the sky. Meanwhile, the gates to an inferno of drugs and prostitution seemed to open ever wider with each door closing on “Black Broadway.” The winds of change first swept through the Corridor with the onset of the 1990s, and today is considered to have just the right degree of luring-but-safe ruggedness to make it hip, in a city which, on the surface, tends to get lost in suits, ties and pearly whites.

Politics is for people, by people; a perpetual negotiation of grants – of trust, of power, and of liberty. Win some, lose some. While former D.C. mayor Marion Barry was shunned for being caught smoking crack cocaine at downtown Vista International Hotel in 1990, black Washingtonians assured his 1995 reelection despite a 6 months prison stint: Barry had reached out to the black community, he had created jobs. As gentrification has pushed housing prices up, and the prostitutes down a few blocks, many of the neighborhood’s black residents fear to be pushed away.

U Street is all about politics. And here, as in the rest of country, the people have learned about the proteanism of politics the hard way. And yet, on this rainy day, no one squints. On Black Broadway, everyone is eagerly anticipating the biggest show in town: the 2008 Presidential Election. Judgment Day is here.

The Other Bradley Effect
“If my people, which are called by my name,” 50-year-old Bradley replies in a boisterous voice, when I ask him, whether he is anxious about tonight. He has just voted for Obama, and has been voting since he was 18. Bradley halts in the rain outside of Garnett Patterson Jr. High School, doubling today as “Precinct 22” polling station. “2 Chronicles, 7:14…,” he adds for emphasis, recognizing that I am still perplexed by his first answer.

To Bradley, this election is about redemption; he has said his final prayer in the voting booth, and now it is in God’s hands. We both ponder the scene before us in bemusement: I, 26, white, and ever so European; Bradley, 50, black, DC native, telling me that the fate of the nation is in the hands of God.

“They could put both in office, for all I care,” says a withered voice behind me. A short man passes me, and joins Bradley in contained excitement. He is easily in his late-60s, with keen eyes behind tinted glasses in brown plastic rims, gleaming from under a red baseball cap. They shake hands, and nod consentient. “But you just voted, so you must believe there is something you can do, right?” I try. “Well, I’m voting for everybody else; for the future generation. Obama, a black person, that’s historical,” says Bradley, and shakes my hand goodbye.

Captain Crystal
Inside, a speech-impaired woman greets me warmly over a steaming Styrofoam box. Admittedly, reports of endless lines and long waiting hours had me bracing for a long, busy day “in the field.” “It’s been crazy out here,” Captain Crystal, three-time Precinct Captain, reassures me, as I, to my great surprise, discover a meager line of 6 people waiting to vote – in 5 minutes, it will be down to 2, tops.  “It’s the rain,” the Captain insists, “just give it another hour.”

Crystal boasts how this year, they have done their best to accommodate the large turn-out by providing Optical Scan screens to ensure that impaired voters, too, get to cast their ballot. “Everybody wants to vote,” Captain Crystal tells a small team of local young journalists from Howard University and myself, “so we’ve trained volunteers, line control workers, and hired management to make sure to help them – the elderly, the illiterate, disabled people, and the deaf and blind. We’ll help them vote, but we’re not going to tell them who to vote for.”

Captain Crystal is markedly proud. She and her team has been at the station since 6 a.m., and do not expect to leave Precinct 22 before 10 p.m. She bolts to and fro.

“International man! Over there, that’s the press area,” the Captain demands, pointing to a green paper patch stretched along one side of the polling room floor. “International man,” that is me. I hear the budding journalists from Howard U giggle behind me, strutting their notebooks and digital cameras. They are not a day over 20. Meanwhile, I try to “capture the moment” with my 2 megapixel camera on my Nokia phone. My digital camera ditched me last weekend at the Beauty Bar in NYC, and has probably been living it up with Cosmo-sipping hipsters ever since.

Precinct 22: No irregularities, no nothing. No 2004 voter suppression scenario, no dirt to dig up. This ship won’t sink on Captain Crystal’s watch.

The Promise
It is rainy still. A stocky, middle-aged man greets me with a gratified smile, and calmly seeks shelter under his umbrella. He lends an air of class to the grayness – no squinting necessary. Trivial exchanges give way to conversation. Meet Robert Harp, self-proclaimed long-time Democrat (with the exception of Gerald Ford in 1974).

“What’s your proudest moment during this election?” I ask him. “Obama has run a noble campaign. He’s stuck with the issues, and stated them clearly. And he’s provided comprehensive solutions,” Robert begins. “He could’ve played the race-card, but he didn’t,” he continues, signaling a silent nod to the historicity of U Street, and the polling station behind me, where a majority of the voters I have witnessed today are African American.

We discuss McCain and the early primary debates. “He could have made a good president,” Robert says, “but then he started bolting from one position to another,” reiterating the claims that McCain has appeared “erratic” in the final stages of the campaign. VP pick Palin, the negativity, and then the economic meltdown: “the darkest moments of the campaign.”

My jacket turns a darker shade of grey, as our conversation continues under the drizzling DC sky. From a working-class upbringing in Brooklyn, NY, through making peace with one’s roots, to a successful life in Boston and DC; Robert’s life reaffirms that the appeal of Obama’s story, in many ways, rests in the shared experience of the American people.

Our conversation makes a last stop at the debate over “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” as Palin dubbed him, in what seemed a blatant attempt to invoke fears so effectively aroused during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s.

“What about the American promise? Do you suspect that’s why there’s so much talk of the middle-class? And if there’s an upper- and a middle-, then there must also be a lower-class,” I reason. “The ideal of individual liberty ranks high with Americans. Are they afraid to constrain that liberty by identifying with the lower-class?” Robert’s eyes light up. “That’s a keen insight,” he says. “What I’ve learned from this election is that we are one nation. But in the last years, that has been constrained.”

For millions of Americans like Robert, the 2008 Election is not just about reclaiming Washington, but about reclaiming the nation – the promise. Or as Obama would have it: reclaim the audacity of hope.

I bid Robert farewell, and head down U Street. Still rain. I squint my eyes as I pass a barbershop. 4 kids are lined up, getting groomed for the moon landing of our time – a new frontier – while their parents are out trying to guide the hand of God.

Peter Dahl

[Show as slideshow]

Also, this election is increasingly fought out not on the TV screen or in newspaper editorials and op-eds, but on the Internet – which adds another historic element. German journalist Tobias Moorstedt has travelled the US to find out more about this development and the changes, challenges and criticisms digital campaigns evoke. He touches on all of these questions in his new book and in the following interview with tapmag (you can also read the interview in German on my private blog).

tapmag: Your new book is called „Jeffersons Erben“ („Jefferson’s Heirs“). You discuss the influence that the Internet and other new media have on political elections in the US. How can this change be described and what does it mean for voters and candidates?

Tobias Moorstedt: The net brings change to our private life (Instant Messaging), the entertainment industry (MP3) and the economy as a whole (Amazon). Who could imagine getting through university without the help of Wikipedia and Google nowadays? Email, Skype and webcams let us stay in touch with friends across the globe. Why should the new information technologies and the change they bring leave the political system untouched? After all, this system is based on the exchange and processing of information.

In a nutshell: The Internet has made it easy to collect ever more data, to share it with other people and to organize action with those people. Just think about the tedious process of political action fifteen years ago – you had to design a leaflet, produce copies and distribute it. Today, you just write an email to an audience which size is technically infinite.

tapmag: Who are Jefferson’s heirs and what connects them to the ideals of the American Founding Fathers?

Moorstedt: On my journey through the Internet (and the real USA) I met very different people who are all politically active on the net; a student from Texas who isn’t of voting age yet, but is campaigning for Obama in his conservative community nonetheless, a blogger who reaches hundreds of thousands of readers by the click of his mouse, a computer engineer who dreams of programming a new constitution.

Almost none of these net activists invoked Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, but they might be surprised how many beliefs they share with the Founding Fathers. Jefferson called Information the currency of democracy. He tried to find ways to directly include citizens into the decision making process of the government – and thus educate them to be better, more responsible citizens.

Also, I think he would have liked the energy and passion of the bloggers and activists. He once remarked: “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

tapmag: Barack Obama was able to reach out to a lot of his younger voters via social networks like Facebook, MySpace and his own platform MyBarackObama.com. Republican Mitt Romney has tried similar tactics in his campaign for the nomination of his party, but failed to build up support online. Are Democratic voters more Internet savvy?

Moorstedt: Democratic voters are on average younger, better educated and have traveled more. There is a sort of digital divide between the two American parties – which doesn’t imply that Americans in the heartland of the US do not use email or have no knowledge of Wi-Fi.

I spoke to Republican strategists in Washington; they think that their candidates have a problem with the open structure of the net. When I present myself online to a certain degree I have to give up control over how people use my picture and statements and what they write on my website.

Republicans have mastered the art of the classical, top-to-bottom campaign in which everyone stays “on message” all the time. They are control freaks. Plus, the Republicans never had a reason to use the net for a long time. They beat their opponents with the old media. Because they had this success with traditional media, they now face an innovation backlog.

tapmag: To which degree did Obama’s success in the primaries depend upon his Internet strategy? How might the Internet help him to succeed in the Presidential election?

Moorstedt: The Internet was a huge advantage for Obama – he understood to use it in a new way, which matched his campaign. Obama was new, young, exciting and different – he was like a funny YouTube video or a young band, a kind of thing that spreads fast in social networks. Obama had hype potential and the Internet is a hype medium – a perfect match.

Additionally, he collected enough donations over the net to successfully compete with the richest and most powerful family of the Democratic Party [Ed.: The Clinton family]. Obama is the first candidate who made the net an integral part of his campaign – it is more than just another channel to send the same message out.

MyBarackObama.com is a network or platform on which local groups can form and organize independently from the campaign central. These volunteers make calls and knock on doors for Obama and have created a “surge on the ground” in the last days.

The Republicans used to have an advantage here; they could draw from the network of churches and organizations in which they were traditionally organized. Obama uses the virtual net to reach out to the reality on the street.

tapmag: How does John McCain – the self-proclaimed Internet-illiterate – use the Internet for his campaign? Does Obama still have a substantial advantage, or are his campaigns well copied and applied by all candidates?

Moorstedt: McCain did say, he is in the process of learning how to use “the Google”. I think that sounds as if he views the search engine as a sort of sovereign oracle, an übermensch creature. Maybe he’s actually one step ahead of us.

Seriously, of course McCain has email groups, social networks, and he also twitters, chats and podcasts. Still, the activity surrounding Obama online is much more substantial. He understands the mentality and the culture of the web far better. We will see how the number of Facebook friends translates into votes.

tapmag: Before Barack Obama, Howard Dean build up a lot of support online for his 2004 bid for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, which did not help him win the nomination. Was the social magnitude of the Internet too small in 2004, so that the enthusiasm of the Dean-followers could not cross the border into mainstream?

Moorstedt: Four years are a long time on the Internet. Not many people had DSL or Wi-Fi in 2004. YouTube and MySpace didn’t exist. Smartphones were the exclusive gadgets of the business elite. A lot of experts believe that 2008 is the first true online election.

It is true that the Dean campaign couldn’t bring the enthusiasm that surrounded Dean online to the voting booth. But, one shouldn’t forget that Dean, once he took the lead in polls and donations, was attacked from all sides with TV ads and negative campaigning.

It is a mistake to assume that only because Dean didn’t win, the Internet has no political magnitude. Joe Trippi, his campaign manager said to me: “It was the first time a candidate lost, but his campaign won.”

tapmag: Is the Internet a battle ground to win over new voters, or do you only preach to the converted online?

Moorstedt: Every politician, every party and every NGO has to advertise him-, her- or itself on the Internet – because that is where their audience increasingly can be found. There are no reliable studies yet whether interactive media like the www can increase political activity of the citizens.

What we know for sure is that Internet users who visit the website of a candidate are very likely to vote for this candidate. That is why the candidate’s websites should be more than virtual copies of the campaign posters and leaflets, but a platform which the members of a political community, that ideally emerges around a candidate, can use to meet and coordinate.

tapmag: Obama claims to have broken the power of the big corporate checks with all the small donations he has collected online. Can the Internet contain the influence of special interest groups?

Moorstedt: Of course Barack Obama receives and accepts donations from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. However, he managed to win over hundreds of thousands of small donors who gave ten dollars one time and fifty the next time. This turned out to be a critical advantage during the primaries against Hillary Clinton.

The pool of potential donors has grown. It might very well be that a politician, who is funded by a lot of small donations, is granted a specific independence because he doesn’t need to take into account the agendas of the unions or big business.

However, it would be financial populism to claim that the corporate lobbyists and special interest groups now have to take a back seat. The more interesting question is: How can the small donors hold politicians and parties accountable? Their line of arguing could be: We supported you. Now we own you!

tapmag: How are your findings comparable to Germany and Europe? Hubertus Heil just twittered from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, will that bring him any closer to the young voters? Which strategies could be implemented, which would fail because of transatlantic differences?

Moorstedt: A journey through the US is, at least with respect to media technology, a trip to the future. The US has a five-year lead against Europe when it comes to the usage of smartphones, Wi-Fi or Pay-TV.

I am confident that the German blogosphere will develop into an important voice in the political debate in the near future. Also the SPD has a social network now, called meinespd.de, which is online but hasn’t really attracted a lot of members yet.

Again, we shouldn’t forget that we have a different political system in Germany than in the US – parliamentary democracy vs. a strong President, multiple party system vs. election coalitions, etc.

But also in Germany the numbers of registered party members are falling. The tendency to bind oneself to a single party for a long time and fill out a membership application is shrinking. Which doesn’t mean that the citizens are becoming more and more egoistic, their engagement just follows another fashion – shorter but also more intense.

tapmag: Which dangers could arise when the election campaigns take place on the Internet? Do you think that a fragmentation and gradual radicalization of the public along political party lines is a threat, as Cass Sunstein describes in his book “Republic.com”?

Moorstedt: There are a lot of threatening scenarios, for example the possibility to anonymously spread false information. The web is an ideal medium for propaganda.  The handling of personal data of voters has also to be controlled tightly.

Sunstein talks about a radical effect of the blog communities. Because blogs like MyDD, Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs only attract activists from one side of the political spectrum, who reinforce each other’s opinions, these opinions and beliefs will become more extreme over time.

It’s an interesting argument. It is true that Internet users can avoid the possibility of cognitive dissonances. When you get your news online you don’t necessarily encounter different opinions or news you don’t want to know about, or photos you don’t want to see, which you would be more likely to come across if you had flicked through a newspaper.

A conservative American who only surfs the websites of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Instapundit will naturally encounter only a very few positive arguments for universal health care; he lives in his own news cosmos. Some experts call this the balkanization of the Internet.

The harsh tone of the discussion and the partisan rhetoric of the politics blogs seem to back this thesis; however, I find the activity of the bloggers rather inspiring than alarming. Even if sometimes the discussion becomes excessive, I prefer the energy of the American bloggers to the apathy of the average voter.

Interview by Kolja Langnese

Tobias Moorstedt: Jeffersons Erben – Wie die digitalen Medien die Politik verändern. Published by Suhrkamp Verlag: edition suhrkamp 2571, 165 pages, Euro 9,00 (ISBN 978-3-518-12571-7).

Today, July 5, is the Day of the Kiss. It’s like Christmas time, only without the mistletoe! Kiss your love, your crush, and whoever you feel the need to- when better to do that than today?

And when you’re done (and in Berlin), head to Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the opening of the U.S. Embassy. The tapmag team will be there!

Pangea Day – tomorrow – is a joined effort to turn this supercontinent into reality again. It will bring together an audience of 500 million or more people in a worldwide filmfest, which you can follow in thousands of venues around the globe, or simply on your PC screen. The festival features two dozen outstanding short films, the crème de la crème of more than 2,500 entries worldwide.

The films cover a wide range, from Asia to the Americas, from tragedy to comedy, from animated clips to short films entirely shot on a mobile phone; they all provide cultural experiences of an intimate sort. Join the Laughter Clubs of India – a new form of yoga that promises eternal happiness through laughing out loud. See the neigborhoods of New Orleans which still suffer from the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Hear two men in Lebanon speak about life being torn apart by war

The films will be broadcasted live from six locations: Cairo, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, London and Kigali in Rwanda. Celebrity supports comes from Forest Whitaker, Cameron Diaz, Robin Williams, and – no way around him – Bob Geldof. But let’s leave the usual star cred aside; what is really outstanding, is that everyone can set up a public venue right in his or her living room. Thousands of people have done just that and entered the locations on the Pangea Day website.

The whole event was brought into life by the US-Egyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim. She won a TED award for her work and was granted a wish; if it was a good idea, the TED organization would help her to turn it into life. Noujaim, director of the highly praised Al-Jazeera documentary “Control Room,” decided to use the power of silver screen dreams to bring the world closer together. As a result, tomorrow we can participate in the very first Pangea Day. While the supercontinent Pangea later broke into Gondwana and Laurasia, which then further separated, the people living on the surface of these land masses need not to face the same fate.

By Kolja

Some film stills from the movies being shown:

[Show as slideshow]