CNN asked the Socialist Party USA if they think he’s a socialist:
Obama’s opponents have long described him as a socialist. But what do actual socialists think about Obama? Not much, says Wharton.
“He’s the president whose main goal is to protect the wealth of the richest 5 percent of Americans.”
He and others say the assertion that Obama is a socialist is absurd.
“It makes no rational sense. It clearly means that people don’t understand what socialism is.”
Definitions of socialism vary, but most socialists believe workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own or control them.
[. . .]
Those who call Obama a socialist, though, point to his policies. Big on their hit list: “Obamacare,” which they call “socialized medicine.”
Socialists scoff at the notion. They don’t applaud the passage of the recent health care bill either. They wanted a national “single-payer” health insurance plan with a government option. The bill that Obama championed didn’t have any of those features.
Wharton said the new health care bill only strengthens private health insurance companies. They get 32 million new customers and no incentive to change — something a socialist wouldn’t accept.
Obama is more of a technocratic redistributionist than a socialist, at least as the term has historically been used. But while more accurate, calling him a TR doesn’t quite have the same rhetorical oomph, does it?
April 15th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
Hey, the TR folks scare the bejeebies out of me…
April 15th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
Yeah, just like Mao was a “technocrat redistributionist.” Who cares what you call it? It’s legal plunder–theft of the product of somebody else’s labor, forcefully taken and unwillingingly given. And it’s not going to other people; it is going to the government.
April 15th, 2010 | 7:13 pm
I suppose I may be cynical, but my first thought was: Why on earth would one expect socialists to blow the whistle on Obama? Especially if it’s a stealth program to slowly turn our nation towards more and more socialism? At any rate, Obama’s numerous programs and plans certainly don’t resemble any kind of USA I’ve known.
April 15th, 2010 | 8:21 pm
The US is a democracy that is running its course toward possible implosion. One way for it to improve its chances to survive in the long run is:
1) for voters to be required to claim their voting right by filing a federal income tax return. (Not required to pay taxes, but you must officially be in the game. Note that you don’t need to be working or have income to file a tax return.) And voter identification.
2) we must have term limits for all politicians. You can be a career politician, but not in the same office for more than two terms. Start at the bottom and work your way up. The President should be as highly compensated as our highest paid CEOs. At lesser amounts, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, State politicians, etc. should also be appropriately highly compensated. All politicians must also be subject to the same health, retirement, 401(k) plans as every other member of society.
Technocrats, socialists, capitalists and other such have unattainable ideologies so predicting pendulum swings preoccupy many of us modern day nickel and dime philosophers. It’s unfortunate that Bush started the pendulum in the other direction just before he left office. Maybe Obama will send it back in the other direction too just before he leaves office…
April 15th, 2010 | 10:58 pm
Legend has it that during one marathon filibuster, after Olin Johnston of South Carolina, a populist liberal on economic matters, handed off the baton to Strom Thurmond, Johnston went into the cloakroom where many of his colleagues were seated, gestured back toward the Senate floor, and said, “Old Strom, he really believes that sh_t.” —- Norman J. Ornstein
April 15th, 2010 | 11:04 pm
It’s legal plunder–theft of the product of somebody else’s labor
So did God the Father decide that the people he made smart and capable should make multiples more than the people he made dumb?
April 16th, 2010 | 10:53 am
No, God the Father decided to make everyone free. Free to do with their time on earth whatever they wished to do, free to believe in Him or not–free. It is a precious gift from a loving Savior.
Marx, othoh, does not make you free. Marx tells you that you are fated and that your beliefs and decisions have no effect on shaping your existence.
The major myth of Marxism is that one person succeeds only at the expense of another person (the illusion under which you are suffering)–that prosperity is a “zero-sum” game. This is demonstrably false. Marx was a veritable gusher of lousy and harmful ideas–ideas that have been proven to be false.
Prosperity has more to do with character, attitude and hard work, than it does with intelligence. It is not in itself dishonorable. Prosperity also involves opportunity, which is what we enjoy in a free society. Those who live in unfree societies–such as socialist countries–have very little opportunity to prosper. Crooks–those who get up in the morning with the intent to propser at the expense of their fellow man–are best left to the mercies of courts of law.
Being dumb, incidentally, does not exlcude one from the possibility of success. Most politicians, rocks stars, actors, basketball players, and news anchors–for example–appear to have overcome this disablity quite nicely.
April 16th, 2010 | 11:05 am
why should we believe the Socialists? One prominent Socialist declared that Trotsky was a right-winger.
April 16th, 2010 | 11:10 am
“1)WE DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT UNDERTAKE THE OBLIGATION ABOVE ALL OF PROVIDING CITIZENS WITH ADEQUATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND EARNING A LIVING.
2)THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CLASH WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY, BUT MUST TAKE PLACE WITHIN ITS CONFINES AND BE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL …
3)WE DEMAND THE NATIONALIZATION OF ALL BUSINESSES WHICH HAVE BEEN AMALGAMATED (INTO TRUSTS).
4)WE DEMAND THAT THE STATE SHALL SHARE IN THE PROFITS OF LARGE INDUSTRIES.
5)WE DEMAND THAT PROVISION FOR THE AGED SHALL BE MADE ON A VERY GREATLY INCREASED SCALE.
6)WE DEMAND A LAND-REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS, THE PASSING OF A LAW FOR THE CONFISCATION OF LAND FOR COMMUNAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF INTEREST ON MORTGAGES, AND PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.
7)WE DEMAND AN AGRARIAN REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS;
THE ENACTMENT OF A LAW TO EXPROPRIATE WITHOUT COMPENSATION THE OWNERS OF ANY LAND THAT MAY BE NEEDED FOR NATIONAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF GROUND RENTS; AND THE PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.
8)…THE STATE SHALL ORGANIZE THOROUGHLY THE WHOLE CULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE NATION . . . THE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE IDEA (THE SCIENCE OF CITIZENSHIP) SHALL BE TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. WE DEMAND THAT SPECIALLY TALENTED CHILDREN OF POOR PARENTS, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR STATION OR OCCUPATION, SHALL BE EDUCATED AT THE COST OF THE STATE.
9)IT IS THE DUTY OF THE STATE TO HELP RAISE THE STANDARD OF THE NATION’S HEALTH BY PROVIDING MATERNITY WELFARE CENTERS, BY PROHIBITING JUVENILE LABOR, BY INCREASING PHYSICAL FITNESS THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION OF COMPULSORY GAMES AND GYMNASTICS. . . .
10)(WE) COMBAT THE MATERIALISTIC SPIRIT WITHIN AND OUTSIDE US, AND ARE CONVINCED THAT A PERMANENT RECOVERY OF OUR PEOPLE CAN ONLY PROCEED WITHIN ON THE FOUNDATION OF “THE COMMON GOOD BEFORE THE INDIVIDUAL GOOD.”
Well…how far off _are_ we?
April 16th, 2010 | 11:11 am
By the way…
The above was taken from: — From the “Twenty-Five Point” Programme of the German National Socialist Workers Party, authored by Adolf Hitler and others on February 24, 1920. (Konrad Heiden’s translation in A History of National Socialism)
Interesting, no?
April 16th, 2010 | 12:46 pm
No, God the Father decided to make everyone free. Free to do with their time on earth whatever they wished to do, free to believe in Him or not–free.
You mean like black slaves were free, and their descendants were free under segregation, and their descendants are free from the behavioral effects of the forced break-up of the slave family and the decades of Jim Crow humiliation? And like kids growing up in the inner-city are free from the pressures of that dysfunctional society?
I’m not a Marxist. I don’t believe that for one man to succeed another must be exploited (although plenty of exploitation does occur). I believe that people need to be held responsible for their actions, and that character is a major determinant of fate. But a lot of folks who preach “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” have had advantages they don’t realize or acknowledge.
I also think that as Christians we’re commanded to be a lot more concerned with feeding the hungry and caring for them when they’re sick than with some of them (many of them, I’ll acknowledge) ripping us off by being, well, only human and prone to sin like we are in different ways.
April 16th, 2010 | 1:36 pm
Ken: In my opinion, you have a very imperfect understanding of the world. I’ll leave it at that.
April 16th, 2010 | 9:53 pm
Yes I agree 100%. We are one the verge of becoming a socialist society especailly with the passing of the Health Insurance bill. One good thing will come out of this soon. NO MORE DEMOCRATS!!!!
April 17th, 2010 | 1:53 pm
I would like to hear the Progressives who deny the charge of socialism to explain what, exactly, is wrong with socialism. What would they say? They couldn’t say that it is an injustice to forcibly take money from those who have earned it and give it to others. Just once I’d like some reporter to ask, “Well then , Mr. Obama, why aren’t you one?”
April 18th, 2010 | 5:36 am
I don’t think there is any one kind of socialist. So, i don’t think even the Socialist Party has a monopoly in that regard.
April 18th, 2010 | 2:46 pm
To Ken:
Agreed that as Christians we should give a helping hand and care for the sick.
Disagreed: that these things are a State function according to Christian principles. I reject the idea that we are called to what I term “surrogate Christianity” or “surrogate charity” (i.e., the kind that involves getting the government to do it. Because it involves forcibly extracting property from the unwilling, to be skimmed off by the unworthy, and the remainder given to the ungrateful. No one’s soul is saved.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:23 pm
I guess FDR then was unambiguously a socialist. And so was Truman. And then that no good commie Eisenhower was even worse. When he was president the marginal tax rate was 91 percent and he refused to lower it. What a Bolshevik!
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