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A primary goal of socialism is social equality and a distribution of wealth based on one's contribution to society, and an economic arrangement that would serve the interests of society as a whole.[1][2] As a form of social organization, socialism is based on relatively equal-power relations, self-management and a reduction or elimination of hierarchical forms of management in the economic structure of society.[3][4]
Obama said, "My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."
Wow. Who would have thunk it. Obama is not a Socialist, he just has Socialistic tendencies.
DO NOT use obama's own words in an argument against lefties.
Obama holds a variety of conflicting political views that make up no coherent philosophy. He has no problem with cognitive dissonance, so being internally consistent doesn't matter to him.
He loves Big Government and believes it should micromanage and control business as well as individuals, and will tax (and borrow) whatever it takes to accomplish that (e.g., Obamacare). Like all politicians nowadays, the long-term viability of the economy, and the nation, is not important--shell games to keep the system from collapsing while he is in office is the only thing that matters.
If you have read his (ghost-written) book and other books about his past and personality, you'll also have noted a strong anti-colonial and anti-America bias that rails against the role America has traditionally played on the world stage. This was the viewpoint of his primarily South African father, who identified himself as a socialist.
Yet Obama thinks he fully deserves ultimate power and privilege and celebrity--despite having virtually no experience in business, government or even academia (note that the Harvard Law Review position was a popularity contest, not an academic award, and 40% of all graduates at the time received his *** laude honors). He is politically savvy enough (or his handlers are) to know he must "pay off" the Big Business and Big Money interests that finance campaigns--thus we have the trillion-dollar corporate bailouts of Big Banking and others; huge tax giveaways (on top of total exemption from taxes) to companies like G.E.; and continuation of the Free Trade fiasco that profits a handful of ultra-rich at the expense of the entire American Middle Class. Of course the multiple foreign wars must be continued and expanded without goals or definition of what "winning" might entail, to feed the insatiable appetite of the military-industrial complex.
Labels are not always useful when dealing with things like politicians, who are not intellectual enough to have internally consistent, thought-out philosophies on anything other than maximizing their own power. For instance, a true intellectual would have trouble resenting America's heavy-handed world power-projection while at the same time starting yet another senseless war in a primarily Muslim country like those in which he was raised.
Regurgitation a la Newt. Around since last fall...
Purely racist assumptions, speculation, accusations, opinions. Love the conservatives use of sanctimonious appeals to the worst fears that folks have in them! It's just what so many want to hear to confirm what they already believe...
If he was any other president we'd look at his congressional voting record, not trying to divine hidden meanings in Dreams from my Father.
"Starting yet another senseless war?" Huh?
Do some people just live entirely in a wilderness of paranoia of Imagination Land?
Neo-conservative? Are you just trying to provoke the lefties around here?
Obama is a moderate democrat.
Not a leftist, not a socialist, not a Marxist.
It's so unfathomably dumb to hear all the harping from people who don't understand what much of it even means... and the media has a field day with these rubes.
He's a little too centrist for most democrats... way too far to the right for progressives... on some points he's willing to step to the right.
The only thing he leans left on, predictably, is social policies (pro-choice, gay marriage... the stuff the gummint has no bidness messing in anyways).
He's too far to the right on environment. Even Hillary is working on this Tar sands pipeline gig. It's horrific for progressives who don't want to see the nation keep beating the dinosaur.
Obama has not delivered much of what democrats wanted when they voted for him. He's done far more to appease Republicans.
I wish we had a choice in 2012, but still, he's certain to be the lesser of two evils no matter who the cons prop up there!
I don't know how people can say this stuff. He just pushed for and got through Congress a huge health care bill.
In today's world, more socialism is pretty much the default option...Even not adding any new pograms results in more government spending as a share of GDP.
Examples:
People are living longer, which means most will collect way more Social Security than they every put in (even when you include interest).
Medical costs keep going up...so even if health care programs weren't expended, it still eats up more and more of our tax dollars, etc.
Heck....George W. Bush was basically a socialist who increased government spending not just on wars, but across the board (think Medicare drug plan, amongst other things). And Obama is even more of a spendaholic than Bush was.
The healthcare bill ended up being "subsidies" to insurance industry. It's more socialism for the big business... There are many examples of corporate welfare.
Meanwhile, it's conservatism for the masses, i.e., no gay marriage, Privatized social security, privatized medicare, chip away women's sovereignty over their bodies, privatized options for k-12 schools.
OBAMA is a Corporate Wall / Wall Street Shill sucking their woodies.
He talks a socialist talk but walks a corporate wall street talk.
Nimrods attacks him on his rhetoric, but say nothing about his actions.
His redistribution is far from giving to the poor but all about giving to the cockroaches around him, and those on Wall Street and tbtf corps, which you will never here the "anti-socialist crowd" bring up.
The agenda of the current government is to break up many of the institutions and programs that have been around for a long time that benefit the people of the country. Not the politicians, not congress members, not wall street, not the too big too fail, and not the banksters.
There is a reverse psychology going on where all those old programs are being called "socialist" so that the powers that be have a reason to get rid of them because of the weakening of the country from many different and intentional policies. These are not new programs popping up, from a "socialist" ,but old programs being attacked from all sides in the government. They had to have a "socialist" figurehead in rhetoric that would "eventually give in and" tow the "republican" line to the changes, just as many of the other policies they have implemented at the expense of our country in the past 30 years.
Then, they can say, 2 3 or 5 years down the road, the American people asked for these changes, when we really have no say in these policies, nor in the "elected" that are bought and paid for. Some day people will wake up.
Earmarks and socialism are totally unrelated items. Nice try though.
On the contrary, nice try at deflection. The issue wasn't Socialism. The question that was put to you was (see post #144): "Name a politician who doesn't believe in, and has engaged in wealth redistribution." Your answer was Ron Paul. In post #144 I illustrated that Ron Paul loads bills with earmarks, which, by definition is wealth redistribution. The fact that Paul then votes against the bill (which pass anyway) so that he can say he votes against earmarks but benefit from their passage just makes him a common hypocrite.
fascists BELIEVED in centralized education paid by the taxpayer
fascist were pro-union...they were against private unions wanted everybody to be part of the public union
fascists were FOR abortion (eugentics programing of the liberals)
and yes symbolism...like "hope and change" and "yes we can"
and unions are corporations
liberals = progressives = fascists
JFK "...someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
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