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One curious feature of the November 4 election that casts a dark shadow over the lead-up to the almost certain ascendancy of Senator Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency, is the lack of real choice and the narrow range of those who get to participate.

Barack Obama will be the most powerful human being in the world as President of the United States. His decisions will affect the lives of 6 billion people and yet fewer than 0.0001% will have had any say in his elevation to this office. Where is the justice?

That is a scary prospect when you consider the venal effects of the Bush presidency on the world. Bermuda is not immune from the slings and arrows of U.S. foreign policy.

The choice of Barack Obama for President is the lesser of two supreme and mendacious evils, because he represents a continuum that underscores James Madison's dictum, "that power should be in the hands of the wealthy; that responsible set of men who respect the rights of private property." In Madison's view the government's job is to protect the "minority of the opulent against the majority."

Barack Obama is a silver-tongued, Harvard educated millionaire. He embodies and perpetuates the Madisonian thesis of American politics. For Madison, the people are "meddlesome outsiders" who need to be kept out while the elites rule.

I predict that once Obama takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, his elevated rhetoric of change will dissolve into the uninspiring, reformist, ennui of governance.

Which elites shall rule?

While Obama is a better choice than McCain, we must be clear about why. The election of November 4 is not whether the rich shall rule. That is a self-evident truth. The question is which elites shall rule? Democrats and Republicans (PLP and UBP) are different shades of one faction.

For those of us with progressive sentiments, we resented the imperial ethos of British arrogance before 1945, and we are just as angry and upset at the continued march of U.S. style imperialism since 1945, right up to this moment. The hue of Obama's skin is irrelevant to the aspirations of Bermudians to live in a more just world.

The bigger question is what can we, a mere 70,000 persons on 21 square miles of sun-kissed paradise, do to hold the next emperor of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen accountable and responsible?

The British Empire carved up the world and killed and colonized millions while it preached freedom and democracy. The American version of this story is no different. The mighty make the rules and will dispatch legions of soldiers to squelch progressive voices and critics anywhere.

So what will Obama's ascendancy mean for our fractured island home where race and class and access to resources continues to be a painful present reality for the majority of our people? I believe that the Obama presidency represents a tiny opening. His administration represents a microscopic kernel of possibility that things can change as long as we do not delegate the work of governance to the political and professional classes. Elections are fine but they are not enough!

Obama in America and our government in Bermuda cannot be and will never be change-agents until the electorate, you and me, organize ourselves and then engulf our leaders in a social movement that insists on justice and demands that the people be heard.

Our job as Bermudians concerned with social and economic justice, is to build a diverse and multi-cultural coalition that our political masters cannot ignore. It is from here that justice will spring.

John-Anthony Burchall, a former journalist and ex-public affairs officer for the Bermuda Government, is now a student at Howard School of Divinity in Washington, DC.

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