Comments on: President Obama – A Teleprompter We Can Believe In

By: barndoor cowlegs

barndoor cowlegs — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:07:28 +0000

It is important to distinguish between state run planned economies and socialism. Socialism implicitly includes democratic participation by the workers and citizenry. Simply having the government control and run business isn’t socialism, it is fascism.

“we socialize the wrong things and privatize the wrong things” is completely true, we socialize risk while privatizing profit, this is what I mean by reverse socialism, it is not socialism at all in that it benefits the small wealthy elite rather than the majority of citizens.

Noticing the huge income gaps and wealth concentrations in our society is not necessarily socialist, it is realist. A socialist would want to take radical steps to eliminate this gap.

LVT fan I invite you check out http://www.socialistparty-usa.org perhaps you might be interested in join our movement, perhaps not, but it will explain what democratic socialism means to true socialists.
Peace

By: autone

autone — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:11:54 +0000

Note: The above individual who blames the “wealthy” for earning “22.9% of the income”, forgets that it is the “wealthy” who create the industries and small companies that employ the rest of americans. With Obama the largest employer will be the Federal and State governments.
“LVTfan” who will you blame then? All of his links are socialist wonks.

By: LVTfan

LVTfan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:45:47 +0000

Is is “socialist” to observe that our income is increasingly concentrated in the checkbooks of 1% of us.

Does it seem to you to be consistent with our ideals as a nation that we have managed to set things up so that 1% of us get 22.9% of the income; 9% of us get 26.8% of the income, and the other 90% of us share 50.3% of the income? Source: P&S 2006 data, at http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/income/income_distribution.html

Does it seem to you to be consistent with our ideals as a nation that 1% of us hold 33.4% of America’s wealth, 9% of us hold 36.1% of it, and the other 90% share 30.5%? (2004 SCF data at http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/wealth/90-9-1_Tables.html; 2007 data isn’t available yet, AFAIK).

And even if you find it to be consistent with our ideals, do you think it wise or sustainable, especially in light of the economic crisis we’re experiencing?

Notice that “paying 39.1% of federal income taxes” doesn’t take into account Social Security withholding … and most of us pay more in SS than we do in Federal Income Taxes. Convenient omission.

Some things ought to be socialized. Other things ought to be privatized. I think we socialize the wrong things and privatize the wrong things. You might take a look at an essay entitled “Henry George and the Reconstruction of Capitalism,” linked from http://www.wealthandwant.com/ for a clear-eyed view of which should be which. I think we would be much better off if we followed Henry George’s prescription.

By: barndoor cowlegs

barndoor cowlegs — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:27:59 +0000

oooh, bad typo paragraph three, should read “we socialists…” not “we soldiers…”
ouch.

By: barndoor cowlegs

barndoor cowlegs — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:25:57 +0000

Obama is not a socialist, but some of your criticisms are rational. Obama’s tax plans are much more lenient on the rich than were Reagan or Nixon, I know you love those guys, but are they socialists? Obama’s spending is more like reverse socialism, with government money going towards big business and big banking, actual wealth is being redistributed, but not to the people, to the capitalists. You might call reverse socialism, fascism, or national socialism.
Obama’s concern for working middle class families is only a liberal attempt at making things more fair. His rhetoric, to you and many others, may sound like class warfare, but are merely empty platitudes designed to gain him popularity. Much like his claims that the U$ no longer tortures, just saying it doesn’t make it so.
It is appalling that our country will send thousands of young(and not so young) people to do battle for a neo-liberal agenda that incurrs profits for a few wealthy people, and then cut well deserved benefits to those soldiers. This is why we soldiers say no war but class war, the ruling class will never fully compensate it’s armies for doing capitalism’s dirty work. At least they could pay the medical bills!

Obama’s foriegn policy is so similair to Bush’s, or any other administration in the last 70 years or so that I don’t know why so called conservatives are so upset. The Iraq war continues, again, saying the troops are coming home doesn’t make it so. We are increasing our presence in Afghanistan, and beginning an illegal civilian bombing campaign in Pakistan (illegal as in no authorization from congress, or declared war for that matter.) In fact, the media’s refusal to comment on Pakistan makes the Pakistan tragedies almost secret (think Nixon in Cambodia).

Sure, Guatanamo is being closed, but the same system for dealing with these detainees is still in place. The Bagrham detention center remains open upon the insistence of the Obama administration. Torture techniques, along with indefinite detention with no charges or trials remain U$ policy. Again the administration insists on keeping rendition as a tool of foreign policy and intelligence gathering, and again, saying something is so don’t make it so.

Which leads me to your last critique, of course criticism from the right isn’t going to be tolerated, they are politicians, that’s their game, your guys did it too. What’s frightening to a real socialist is that actual dissent regarding war, the economy, gay rights and a whole host of other things is essentially crushed, the folks previously so adamantly opposed to war, now take Obama’s side at every turn, “sure let’s send more young people to Afghanistan, sure let’s bomb innocents in Pakistan, no problem leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq along with 53 bases and all of our corporate war profiteering adventurers. On health care, such a better idea not to have single payer healthcare (even though 80% of the population thinks it the best option). Sure, we gotta give banks money, better they prosper while workers take a pay cut, something’s gotta be done.”

Of course, these people are wrong, and not all of Obama’s supporters are still so supportive, but the media and the administration’s lackeys are fine with all of this. You think it’s bad as a right-winger, try it as a left-winger! At least on the right you are mistaken and so obviously rascist and elitist about it that dismissing your criticisms is warranted.