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Obama a 'Socialist'? I Wish
I got an e-mail from a group called 21st Century Democrats, bemoaning the fact that a recent poll shows that 55% of likely voters said that the word "socialist" describes Obama and his policies.
The 21st Century Democrats said, "You and I know [that] is not the case."
I only wish it were!
I wish Obama had pressed for single-payer national health care.
I wish Obama had nationalized Citicorp and Bank of America, rather than bail them out.
I wish he would have favored breaking up the rest of the big banks so they couldn't destroy our economy.
I wish he would have forced any banks taking federal bailout money to freeze foreclosures for at least a year and freeze interest rates on mortgages and credit cards.
I wish Obama would have proposed redistributing income from the wealthy to those who really need it by raising the marginal income tax, and the capital gains tax, and the estate tax.
I wish Obama would have proposed a transaction tax on every stock sale so as to curb speculation.
I wish Obama would have proposed raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour, as Ralph Nader has proposed.
I wish Obama would have replaced Ben Bernanke at the Fed with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
I wish Obama would have come out for democratizing the Fed, as Dennis Kucinich has recommended.
I wish Obama would have proposed a public works program to put every American who needs a job to work.
I wish Obama would have ordered every federal building to be installed with a solar panel, and almost every car in the federal fleet to be a hybrid or electric car.
I wish Obama would have proposed opening federal grocery stores in areas that are food deserts.
I wish Obama would have addressed the cruel problem of poverty in America.
I wish Obama would have proposed 12 months of paid maternity and paternity leave, mandatory paid sick leave, and federal child care.
I wish Obama would have advocated the nationalization of the armament companies, as Sen. Robert La Follette did back in 1924.
No decent socialist would have implemented policies that have left unemployment at over 9 percent and foreclosures at record heights.
No decent socialist would have let the banks get off so easily.
No decent socialist would have been caught dead praising the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase and justifying their obscene salaries the way Obama did. ("I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen. I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.")
No decent socialist would have left the health insurance industries in the driver's seat.
No decent socialist would have empowered a panel to advocate the cutting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
No decent socialist would have expanded the war in Afghanistan, a hopeless war being fought by the sons and daughters of America's working class.
So, no, Obama isn't a socialist. Not even close.
But we'd be a lot better of in this country if he were.
- Posted in
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128 Comments so far
Show AllI wish Obama would be put in the same cell as W and Dickhead, those two other "socialists," and kept there forever.
Fat chance!
Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table the minute she assumed the house speaker position, thereby assuring no DC electeds were going anywhere near jail as long as Democrats or Republicans are in control.
Well, as my grandma used to say, "You wish in one hand and piss in the other, and see which one fills up faster."
Socialism would have been much preferable to the "Corporatism/militarism" which has swallowed our country!!!
What we have is 'corporate welfare' or 'corporate socialism', privatization of profit and the socialization of risks.
The corporate 'persons' receive massive government bailouts, subsidies, no-bid contracts, and give-away mining and logging rights on public land.
The human 'persons' receive nothing.
bossyman sez: "The corporate 'persons' receive massive government bailouts, subsidies, no-bid contracts, and give-away mining and logging rights on public land."
Obomber sez: "That is part of the free-market system."
***
"Free" for them ... not so much for you.
What bossyman describes was defined as fascism during the 20th century.
When Obomber alluded to the "free market system" his already wide credibilty gap widened hundredfold. The free market system is an enticing libertarian theory that has never existed.
The fact that 55% of voters consider Obomber a socialist is testimony to the success of the FOX network and Karl Rove's successful revisionist history campaign.
A gaggle of cackling imbecilic corporate media hacks like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck fan the flames of anger and frustrations of the American workers onto immigrants, Muslims, environmentalists and liberals; and the beleaguered public is turning in increasing numbers to the appeals of patriotic fascism, evangelical fundamentalism, and the culture of illusion.
"The fact that 55% of voters consider Obomber a socialist is testimony to the success of the FOX network and Karl Rove's successful revisionist history campaign."
And the fact that Obomber alludes to our fascistic DC oligarchy as a "free market" is a testimony to the success of 80 years of refined Bernaysian Newspeak and a conservative response to the anti-establishmentarianism of the 60s.
Good article Matt. It is time for a socialist party to enter the U.S. political scene. Provided that a new socialist party wasn't ignored and trashed by the MSM (yeah, right!) I believe the socialist candidate could trump the two corporate parties. Alas, the elites will continue on their path to widen the income gap between rich and poor, fuel the miliatry industrial complex, side with Wall Street and seek to dismantle the minimalist social safety net that now exists with Americnas voting yet again to "stay on course".
>>I believe the socialist candidate could trump the two corporate parties.<<
Given a level playing field, I would agree. However, "socialist" and "socialism" have become dirty words thanks to republican/democratic propaganda. Anything not to the right of center is said to be "left wing extremist" or "marxist" or "socialist".
Those who would be helped most will run from any "extremist marxist", as they will be portrayed in the right-wing-controlled media, socialist candidate.
It's sick.
How much does the word matter? We should not be thinking in terms of selling a brand name or a product anyway. It is the ideas that matter. You can talk Socialism all day long without selling people on the word.
I was in a rural conservative district in the run-up to the election. People were being relentlessly bombarded by "Obama is a Socialist" daily. As the election approached what I heard was "Socialist whatever, we need some serious change and Wall Street needs to be brought down." They had not thought things trough - "gee upon researching the issue I have discovered that Obama is not really a Socialist so I will vote for him." That reflects the thinking of the activists and intellectuals, not the general public. What they thought was "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and we need to fight back" and didn't care if a person was a Socialist or not. They voted for Obama even though they thought Beck et al might have been right and that Obama was in fact a Socialist.
The right wingers are going to call any and all dissenters and critics "Socialists." Who cares? I think we are running from our own shadows here.
Sorry, but I don't live in the same reality as you do.
"...'gee upon researching the issue I have discovered that Obama is not really a Socialist so I will vote for him.' That reflects the thinking of the activists and intellectuals..."
Are you kidding? Activists and individuals coming to the conclusion that Obama is "not really a Socialist" causes them to NOT vote (or vote 3rd party).
"What they thought was 'the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and we need to fight back' --- if this were true, we wouldn't have the majority in this country voting against there own economic interests REPEATEDLY!!!!! (At the local, state and federal levels.)
Two Americas, you need to read Thomas Frank's "What''s the matter with Kansas". Or if you have, let those ideas sink in further before posting such nonsense.
I have read "What's the Matter with Kansas." As a person living and working in farm country I reject his view. There is no need for his ideas to "sink in further." Frank, and others such as Lakoff, write some entertaining things for the amusement of upscale urbanized liberals and that is about it. The very fact that they are writing about what is supposedly wrong with "those people" or how to "frame" things so as to persuade "those people" is insulting and condescending.
The idea that people are voting against their own economic interests is a liberal fantasy. How could we NOT be voting against our economic interests? By voting Democratic? Really?
You say "Activists and individuals coming to the conclusion that Obama is 'not really a Socialist' causes them to NOT vote (or vote 3rd party)." You misunderstood what I wrote. I didn't say that activists and intellectuals were coming to that conclusion, rather that it reflects their thinking - that whether or not a person "really" is this or that makes a whit of difference.
Thomas Frank is correct about his view about the Republican Party in Kansas and we get the same in Oklahoma. Frank mentioned a little about the Democrats but not much until the epilogue. He voted Nader in 2000, Kerry in 2004. Which state are you from? I live in Tulsa.
If you start with the premise that the political battle in the country is between those voting Republican and those voting Democratic - rather than between the haves and the have-nots - that this is what is most important, and hat things would be better if people voted one way rather than the other, then and only then does Frank's thesis make any sense.
Beyond that, poor people vote Democratic not Republican. The difference between say Massachusetts and Kansas, the reason that Kansas is a "red state" is because the wealthy people in Kansas are more motivated to vote Republican while the wealthier people in Massachusetts are more likely to vote Democratic. The wealthier people are the more likely they are to vote. After all, they have something to vote for - their are two parties for rich people - while poor people do not.
Frank's work completely collapses in the face of this. It reflects a strong gentrified upper class bias, which should not be surprising given his own background - growing up in a wealthy enclave and then entering academia. He describes a common condescending fantasy among upscale liberals.
There is nothing wrong with poor or rural people and they are not voting against their own economic interests - they have no way to vote for their economic interests.
I believe the socialist candidate could trump the two corporate parties.
If it's true that 55% of likely voters think a slick reactionary like Obama is a socialist (and I believe this statistic) then there's no way a real socialist could trump the two corporate parties. Idiot USA will ping pong back and forth between the Republicans and the Democrats until all the wheels finally come off and this nation plunges over a cliff to its demise.
For decades, consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been warning American voters about these faulty wheels but they pay the slightest bit of attention to him. Down with the bearer of bad news! We want happy talk! and beautifully designed ad campaigns complete with charismatic models.
Yes, campaigns like Obama's 2008 campaign that won first place in Advertising Age's annual awards.
Yeah, and not to mention it was the most expensive political campaign in the history of the world.
Rothschilds previous stands on issues like Obama and Palestine are irrelavant. I don't care if its author was Dick Cheney. It was a good commentary. How the hell is the US left ever going to organize unless its menbers stop this utterly childish, puerile "more pure left-than thou" and accusations of "insufficient purity!" nonsense.
You are off topic and engaging in irrelavant ad-hominem attacks. Rothschild past writings have nothing to to do with what he wrote in this article. If the article is "trash" point out how it is so. Stay on topic. Read the article again. Rothschild wrote that he wished Obama was a socialist, then gave a good list of what a democratic socialist progream would look like. Perhaps Rothschild is changing his mind about a few things? Don't you want him continue in this direction?
You seem to personalizing and twisting the issue in a really weird way.
Saying: "I wish Obama was a socialist" is in no way supportive of Obama. It is equivalent to saying "I wish the POTUS was a socialist". Don't YOU wish the president of the United States was a socialist?
It is not the word "Socialist" but rather the word "wish" that betrays the author's promotion of centrism and support of the system. The idea that we could elect someone who "is" a Socialist and that this would make any difference is foolish and naive and can only come from someone whose belief in the system is operates more powerfully on their imagination than their identification with this or that brand name ever could.
Today someone says they "wish" for someone who "is" a Socialist, and tomorrow they will be arguing for being practical and settling for the lesser of two evils as surely as night follows day.
I do not "wish" that the President were a Socialist. For one thing, Socialism is not a personal identity or belief system. Many claim to "believe" in Socialism and then advocate moderation, compromise, practicality and being realistic - see the DSA for one example.
I am a socialist. I believe that only a socialist political movement can return America to its promise of fairness and equality of opportunity and reverse the diabolical and destructive course of American capitalism. I recommend to anyone who desires a real change that you identify yourself as a socialist when chatting around the water cooler or waiting in line for your unemployment check and believe me, you will see a change. You don't have to plod through Das Capital or even claim to have heard about Leon Trotsky or Evo Morales. Just think about what might be fair in this or that circumstance as opposed to what is acceptable to say and you'll catch on soon enough. You will also begin to understand the degree of fear that permeates the political landscape. Actually, this article about wishing provides all you really need to get started. I might add a personal note on coming out of the closet so to speak. The air out there is much fresher and invigorating. So go ahead. You want change, here's your chance.
'coming out of the closet so to speak," IS A GREAT WAY TO PUT IT. But it does require courage and a safe work environment, neither of which should be taken for granted. It's the best, the quickest and most effective way to demonstrate to other people who haven't yet 'seen the light' just what socialism is. The best way to deconstruct the convoluted web of lies and bring them along.
Most people aren't the right-wing, anti-govt. republicans thry've been told they are, most people are red-blooded socialists, they just don't uasually realize it yet.
IMO, that's our job. To bring them along so they can bring others along. We haven't done a great job of that. Yet.
Right on Wexxton!
We disagree.
I have never had a job where people chatted around water coolers, nor where people discussed politics as a matter of identification with a brand name or as comparing personal belief systems, so that may be why our viewpoints differ. People - most people outside of the circle of professional people, middle management people, academics and others in the upper 10% income bracket - talk about conditions, power and economics, about who does and who does not have access to resources. They don't talk about their personal philosophy or beliefs or which team they identify with. Apply class analysis in those discussions. Winning people over to "the team" or indulging in self-expression is the approach to politics of the ruling class. Putting new lyrics to the same old song and dance - "here is my personal belief system" and "if I were king for a day" - changes nothing.
Converting people to a Socialist belief system or selling them on brand Socialist is an exercise in gentrified self-expression and operates to preserve and defend the current conditions and power structure.
I think the way Obama manipulated the people a la MLK by raising hopes and then systematically disappointed them is even more cruel than the maneuverings of the Smirking Chimp.
Don't we have great choices...an inarticulate white male crook, or a highly articulate black male crook who barely beat out a somewhat articulate white female crook in the primaries.
America is a land of choices...we can be lead by a wide demographic of crooks.
Choices galore in The Homeland.
Just went down aisle 9 and had 37 choices of the same-sugared cereal.
Matt Rothschild has it exactly correct.
Jim Shea
But it's hard to imagine that the right wing media would attack him any more fiercely if he were a real socialist and strangely the counter punch, the defense that Obama is not a socialist is seldom or only weakly used. This environment allows supposedly middle of the road commentators like Chris Matthews and Mark Shields to label Obama, whose policies would be characterized as center-right in the rest of the world as a Democratic Socialist indicating that he represents the leftmost possibilities of the American political system. All of us to the left of Obama, all of us who are out in left field are thereby marginalized as unrealistic and thereby ineffectual players. If we want to play we have to move over to where Obama is playing somewhere in center right field. That of course is just what does make us ineffective. Obama calls us off and tells us, "I got it, I got it--don't run into me our foul the play." Instead we need to hold our position. It's not like we don't get balls lobbed in our direction but we can never catch or return them if we are so far out of position ourselves. They just drop and we to make matters worse we get the error called on us. The very least we can do is to stop playing that rigged game. If the Democrats will not let us play left field--we need to be on another team. All we need to win is to lob balls into their left field since they don't have a player covering the position.
"If the Democrats will not let us play left field--we need to be on another team."
Now that's a fresh new idea! I like it!
Why are progressive voters tagging along behind the rightward moving Democrats? Don't they realize they're at the wrong end of a cleverly designed scam?
How many votes did the hard working, loyal, truthful, smart Ralph Nader get against the lying, militaristic, free trader, best friend of big money, $Obama$. No contest.
Who got all the votes and all that insane love? Barack Obama! Let's hear it for Barack! But the biggest winner is the US empire, winning 8 more years of unfettered evil. Republicans may win back the POTUS and some insecure seats and there we have it, another 8 years!
Heck of a job voters!
" If the Democrats will not let us play left field--we need to be on another team."
Try getting a new party on the ballot in one state, much less 50. Your chances in New York State are essentially zero. Then try raising enough money to buy TV time in the big market cities. Face it! the system is stacked against the idea - which is not necessarily bad. Think about the mess a multi-party system has made in Italy.
Obomber is just another wealthy politician representing his economic class.
Legally and morally, Obama's a criminal. 'Nuff said.
I saw an official highway sign that said:
"Your taxes at work:
Building Roads
Creating Jobs"
I thought it would be fun to add a sign below it saying:
"Socialism at work"
But that would be a criminal act because the heads of too many DittoHeads would simply explode.
Why do so many people have a kneejerk reaction that Socialism is evil? They reap the benefits from Socialism every day.
Unfortunately, Socialism CAN be used for evil purposes such as nuclear power and the "services" of the war profiteers.
>>I thought it would be fun to add a sign below it saying: "Socialism at work"<<
You would be charged with "defacing government property" which would be regarded as a terrorist action. You would be picked up in the middle of the night and carried off to a secret government brig where you would be tortured into confessing to "advocating the overthrow of the federal government" or some such trumped up charge.
Don't believe me?
Go put up the sign...
You are joking, right?
Maybe. Go put up the sign...
As someone who has worked on many government public works, I can assure you nothing would happen. It would sit unnoticed for a long time, then maybe someone would take it down.
Those public works projects are not socialist...the only reason they get funded is because rich construction company owners, their subcontractors and vendors lobby the government to award contracts to them.
Even CD posters don't remember how we defined socialism back in the 20th century.
I'll put it up.
Good points. The latest mantra being spouted simultaneously by the smug and- comfortable-but-for-some-reason-fearful white middle class suburban masses is the utterly mindless and absurd: "Government cannot create wealth - "Only private enterprise creates wealth".
I hope no explanation is need as to how absurd this is, and how easily it can be shot down.
All the anti-Socialist types in my office can't wait to get Medicare so they can afford to retire.
What is the difference whether we pay for health care and services we need or if we pay for electronic junk we import? If spending is necessary to produce economic activity, shouldn't we spend on what's needed and lacking?
If Capitalism is leading to the neglect of infrastructure and human needs at the expense of toys, then isn't that the kind of fault I used to hear about in Civics class against Communism; that the system isn't responsive to real needs?
It is hard to figure why those anti-socialist employees would accept Medicare. Aren't they against this type of "welfare" as much as they are against unemployment compensation "welfare" for people they don't know who cannot find work?
Keep your damned socialist hands off my Medicare!!
When you turn 65, and are not retired military, you have to take Medicare if you want health insurance. Even if you were a union member that retired from a company that provides retirement benefits, such as GM, AT&T, etc. The insurance provided by those companies becomes the "secondary" coverage when you turn 65, and you can only be covered if you are enrolled in Medicare. Otherwise, you will lose coverage provided by those companies.
If you retire and do not have union or company provided insurance that becomes the "secondary" insurance, Medicare is the only health insurance that is available at a reasonable cost. Medicare Part A is provided at no charge, but you pay for Medicare Part B (helps cover doctors visits). The amount you pay for Part B depends on how much money you earned the year before.
So some of those people that are waiting on Medicare apparently will not have any other health insurance until they qualify for Medicare. Sometimes it is not that you want to accept Medicare, it becomes your only choice.
"Keep your damned socialist hands off my Medicare!!"
In this example socialism is the boogeyman created by elite propaganda, and completely detached from reality. USans can't cite one example of socialism from experience (even though they depend on significant socialist infrastructure carefully censored in the media). This "socialist" thing they fear is purely in their heads, put there by elites in order to enslave the people to (sinful) material gluttony. Can you imaging being enslaved to systematically violate your own principles without your awareness?
Those who pay attention beyond what the media wants people to believe KNOW that President Obama is not a "socialist", he isn't even a "liberal" or "progressive". His policies have continued many of the worst of former President Bush or represent the Republican agenda (AHIP and Heritage foundation written health care bill, escalation of wars, not breaking up too big to fail banks, etc., etc.).
What I want to know...will The Progressive Magazine, along with "progressive" pundits on radio, television, and the internet, "advise" us to vote once again for President Obama in 2012 knowing he is not remotely a "progressive" president?