Peace, love & happiness unto the whole world is what I am expecting Obama to deliver.

As the title of this blog spells out, I long to see a world where there is peace, love & happiness engulfing everyone. When Obama won the election it made me realise that he just might be the man who will help me realise my vision for peace, love & happiness unto the whole world. Barack Obama will become the most powerful man in the world when he becomes president, and it's not just the US which is waiting to see what happens, ordinary people like me who are advocates of global peace are waiting eagerly to see if he will unite the world into one global peaceful village where love & happiness abounds.

Of course his first responsibility is ensuring that the American people who voted him into power are happy. So his first priority will not be international politics, it will be solving the economic depression & its domino effects. Then next probably will be restoring trust in the American government into the hearts of the American people by repairing the damage that the Bush administration did in that regard for the past 8 years. Next will probably be bringing the American people back to a sense of hope & safety that was lost after the September 11 attacks. Americans will be happy if in attacking the economic depression he lays out a template for the next fifty years during his four years in power like what FDR did when he was in power. FDR laid down the template of the modern social welfare state during the great depression of his time. His actions didn't immediately create prosperity, far from it but they expanded opportunities for millions of people, stripped the old elites of their absolute power, and gave Americans their first economic safety net in Social Security. Only after making the American people happy will he be able to look into the business of repairing America's image to the rest of the world. He could start by dealing with Islamic extremism in a good & effective way, shifting away from fossil fuels & attacking global warming with clear, vigorous policies. For many people accomplishing those things will be providing the change that he campaigned about but for us peace advocates it won't be good enough because it won't change the world to be a haven of peace, love & happiness. If he does nothing more, the world at large will not change, the underlying problems in the world like militarism & religious fractures will remain & fester into hinderances to world peace.

What would result in peace, love & happiness unto the whole world is if he implements the following:
1. Get the rest of the world not to fear & hate USA but to love & admire it, by getting rid of America's patronising attitude towards all the other nations in the world. That way he would have eliminated the chances & fears of a repeat of something like the September 11 attacks.
2. Stop dividing the world along ideological lines & religious factions. He needs to be a secular leader, friendly to all sides.
3. Speed up nuclear disarmament until all weapons stockpiles are gone in this generation.
4. Develop an economy that makes profit from peace instead of depending on arms & arms dealing like it is doing now.
5. Take the side of the world's dispossessed people, who only now are seeing the possibility of a decent life in India, China, southeast Asia, and much of Russia.
6. Help Africa obtain humane conditions through sustainable development & eradication of poverty & instill democratic principles into the minds of all African leaders. He also needs to help Africa bridge the digital divide.
7. Stop exploiting other nations' resources like oil, gold & diamonds whilst hiding under disarmament or peace keeping missions.
8. Stop considering himself like the President of the whole world like what other American presidents before him did because most nations will hate him if he does that. True by virtue of him being the President of the most powerful nation he is the most powerful man in the world but for global peace's sake he needs to set a precedent & humble himself & rule the world with love.
9. Restore ethics & integrity into the financial bodies like IMF & World Bank so that they don't employ economic hitman to exploit & destabilise other nations' economies.
10. Facilitate for peace in all the warring nations around the globe.

I hope Obama is thinking along these lines, because if he isn't, the best he can hope for is a prosperous interval in USA, like the Bill Clinton years, while there won't be any change to the rest of the world. Obama has got an opportunity to heal the world & I am praying that he grabs it & uses it effectively, I would if I had that much power bestowed on me.