I received close to a dozen emails this morning linking to this article that breathlessly breaks the news that Obama was a member of “The New Party” – a “fusion” party made up of hard line Maoists, Communists, American socialists, and far left liberal Democrats in Chicago.
Readers of this site may recall that I wrote about this connection back in late May. The blogsite Yid With a Lid did all the legwork as far as I can determine. Eric Ericson and Warner Todd Houston then fleshed out the connection at RedState and added some great analysis.
I have written frequently about Obama’s connection with the New Party including here and here as well as several posts at The American Thinker. (See also Tom Lifson’s excellent post today.) The point being, there is absolutely nothing new here – even the archived links to The New Party website have been floating around the web for 6 months. David Freddoso included information in his book The Case Against Barack Obama and Stanley Kurtz at NRO has mentioned the fact that ACORN members staffed Obama’s campaign in his first run for state senate. ACORN was a prominent member of The New Party coalition.
Does this make Obama a Marxist? A socialist?
I may be going over old ground here for daily readers but this is such an important aspect of Obama’s political personae that it bears repeating. Barack Obama’s political beliefs are secondary to his using anyone and everyone – from corrupt Machine politicians to wild eyed radical Maoists – to further his political career. All of the radical associations in his past (and present) represent nothing more than stepping stones to aid him in his political advancement. As early as 1987 he told Jeremiah Wright that he had his eye on the Governor’s mansion in Illinois (no doubt his sights were set higher). The arc of his career has always been headed toward high political office. Of this, there is no doubt.
Besides using these radicals to get ahead and making common cause with groups like ACORN and The New Party, it is a legitimate question to ask if Obama shared their ideology. The answer is almost certainly no. I believe that there is something about these radicals that attracted Obama. Perhaps it was their utter certainty and belief that they are in the moral right. Or maybe it was that their personalities are so driven and single minded. Given Obama’s own doubts about his place in the world as a young man as well as his apparent aimlessness early on, it stands to reason that people who believed so strongly in something and seemed to know where they were going in life would be able to interest the young, ambitious politician.
Calling Obama a “socialist” simply isn’t logical. He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers as many American Marxists espouse. He may not be as wedded to the free market as a conservative but he doesn’t want to get rid of it. He wants to regulate it. He wants “capitalism with a human face.” He wants to mitigate some of the effects of the market when people lose. This is boilerplate Democratic party liberalism not radical socialism.
I detest conservatives throwing around the words “socialism” and “Marxism” when it comes to Obama as much as I get angry when idiot liberals toss around the word “fascist” when describing conservatives. I’m sorry but this is ignorant. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge of what socialism and communism represent as well as an ignorance of simple definitions. Obama will not set up a government agency to plan the economy. He will not as president, require businesses to meet targets for production. He will not outlaw profit. He will not put workers in charge of companies (unless it is negotiated between unions and management. It is not unheard of in this country and the practice may become more common in these perilous economic times.).
An Obama presidency will have more regulation, more “oversight,” more interference from government agencies, more paperwork for business, less business creation, fewer jobs, fewer opportunities. It will be friendlier to unions, more protectionist, and will require higher taxes from corporations (who then will simply pass the tax bill on to us, their customers). But government won’t run the economy. And calling Obama a “socialist” simply ignores all of the above and substitutes irrationalism (or ignorance) for the reality of what an Obama presidency actually represents; a lurch to the left that will be detrimental to the economy, bad for business, but basically allow market forces to continue to dominate our economy.
Obama’s friendship with Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Pfleger, Meeks, Khalidi, as well as his working with Richard Daley’s Chicago Machine was the result of his overweening ambition and not due to any ideological affinity or strain of corruption in his makeup. He may have taken a scholarly interest in some of the ideas put forth by Ayers and he might have seen working to approve some of Ayers’ radical ideas as good politics (Ayers was an ally of Daley in the School wars of the 1990’s).
But frankly, Obama is someone who impresses me as having no real ideology save that which can get him elected. His campaign has shown him to pander to whatever audience he is addressing at the moment. His contradictory positions on issues is simply dismissed as his words “being taken out of context” or the candidate himself “misstated” his position. The press gives him a pass and its off to the next audience where he tells them exactly what they want to hear.
This is not a man with a radical ideology. It is a man with no ideology at all, no set beliefs in anything save his own supreme abilities. It is this more than anything else that will cause him to fail if he is elected president. When the political winds are blowing the strongest, he will have no set of beliefs he can cling to in order to ride out the storm. His efforts to “reform” Washington will come a cropper because of this and in the end, his empty rhetoric will be all that is remembered of him.
10:20 am
I wonder if the white house is going to smell bad like his bus?
10:40 am
His overriding drive is himself; is THE ONE.
10:48 am
Hrm…nope not a socialist. Its just that his policies are so much in keeping with politicians in the world happy to be called socialists. Socialised medicine is very socialist, so is high taxes…
10:52 am
Obama has said in several of his speeches during the primaries that we need to make a fundamental change in our economic system. What do you think he means by this? Several influential Democrats in congress have recently advocated nationalizing our nation’s oil companies and Obama has concurred. He has also stated that we have to become like Europe. What is this if not socialism? I tell these fools if they think European life is so superior to ours, they should move there. Why do they think so many Europeans are moving here?
10:54 am
Wether you guys like Obama or not, the Republic can survive four years of his administration (which is looking likely. The betting stats are wildly in his favor). The heavy breathing segment of the right that has fantasies of a Maoist takeover has gone to the funny farm. I’m no huge fan of Obama; I’m just likely voting for him because I want to see what the other party can do for a term. If he doesn’t impress anyone, then he’s out, like Carter.
If Republicans had a clue and wanted to win in a landslide in 2012, they’d woo their biggest ace up their sleeve: Colin Powell. Sure, he’s not a modern neo-conservative in the Cheney-Rove-Kristol model. He’s from the older, centrist school, more like a British Tory. He’s a foreign policy and economic conservative, but he’s not a social conservative. And you know what? We’ve had a social conservative in power for eight years and I’ve had enough of him.
10:57 am
[...] problem. Thanks to reader “barney gumble” for reminding me of that. Exit quotation from Rick Moran: “This is not a man with a radical ideology. It is a man with no ideology at all, no set [...]
11:36 am
Rick, thanks for reminding people what real socialism is and not to throw the term around lightly. My mother’s family left then still socialist East Germany (before Stalin’s death in ‘53) and that really is a different animal. I do believe Obama would like more of a social democratic state as you pointed out (more or less like Germany today) but not ‘marxist’ or ‘communist’. I agree with the other tenants of the article.
11:39 am
I am leery of certainty in others as you claim Obama is drawn to it—and it’s your certainty of his idealogical bent, based solely upon your take on his psychological makeup, that weakens your argument of Obama as opportunist and non-socialist, at least in my view. That, and calling those who disagree with your position ignorant and alarmist. So you can look into his soul or read his mind or whatever it is you think you’re doing, but I’ll look at his actions. Insofar as I know, Obama has never repudiated the views he held when he associated with The New Party, nor has he addressed—much less disavowed—his close pupil-mentor relationship with Ayers. A once card-carrying member of a socialist poltical party who was tutored and groomed by a former member of the Weather Underground is a de facto socialist until he publicly claims otherwise. Think ‘duck test’. Obama is a duck.
12:00 pm
“Calling Obama a “socialist” simply isn’t logical. He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers as many American Marxists espouse. He may not be as wedded to the free market as a conservative but he doesn’t want to get rid of it. He wants to regulate it. He wants “capitalism with a human face.” He wants to mitigate some of the effects of the market when people lose.”
Rick,
How do you really know this, especially if the Dems get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and are able to ram through whatever they wish? Investor’s Business Daily has done a yeoman’s job of documenting Obama’s acts and associations over the years (they have a whole series on it), and they sure are of the opinion that not only does he have a radical ideology, he will have no qualms about implementing it. Sure, it is possible that the Republicans may take back the Congress in two years if Obama does go “nuts” with his policies, but how much damage will be done by then, and how hard will it be to undo? How many judges and Supreme Court Justices will he have nominated by then as well? I for one, don’t want to give him that chance, and neither should the American electorate…
12:09 pm
“Whether you guys like Obama or not, the Republic can survive four years of his administration (which is looking likely. The betting stats are wildly in his favor).”
Why is it looking “more likely”? Because a corrupt, biased media keeps trotting out bogus “polls” that say so? Because “conventional wisdom” – courtesy of the “usual suspects” – has it that way? What is it that causes people – who understand that what issues out of the mouths and word processors of the “chattering classes” simply cannot be trusted – still act as if there is “something” prophetic, in the swill “they” produce? If I’m not dumb enough to vote for Obama, why shouldn’t I assume that the majority of my fellow Americans aren’t at least as smart as I am? Why the assumption, that “everyone else” is being taken in by this clown?
12:14 pm
While I certainly disagree with some of things you say here, it is good to see that the rational Conservatives are keeping their hats on straight.
12:55 pm
Obama isn’t a socialist?
I agree that his desire for power is his north-star more than any socialist ideology but he is as socialist as anyone with his political clout. Sure, by the strict definition of socialist he doesn’t fit it to a tee but what other one-word way is there to describe his liberal views on governments relationship to the governed?
Whenever I’ve heard him called a socialist it’s usually been implied it’s the soft cuddly stifling socialism of modern Europe.
He does have socialistic tendencies that do worry me though – aside from the typical liberal Democratic desires to regulate everything for ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’. One being that he employs strong-arm legal tactics to try and shut up his critics.
The word is liberal. And you cheapen the word, perhaps even make it attractive by comparison when you put liberals like Obama in the socialist camp.
ed.
1:02 pm
mdgiles,
so whom do you trust? Anyone can publish what they want and if you don’t like the NYT, don’t read it. If I look around as objective as possible I would also say it is an uphill battle for McCain and the odds at this moment favor Obama. What evidence do you have that all the polls are ‘bogus’?
1:06 pm
[...] Rick Moran will join me to discuss the Obama-New Party story that’s arisen (again) in the last two [...]
1:30 pm
Rick, I wouldn’t squabble about how to label Obama. What I would suggest is to lay the facts out on the table and let the voters decide.
But how would you classify Obama and his wife openly campaigning in Kenya on behalf of Raila Odinga (his alleged cousin)?
Raila Odinga incited an insurrection in Kenya when he lost his election. Odinga is a Marxist but lists himself as a “social democrat”….sound familiar?
1:33 pm
The Prophet Barack has some explaining to do—Updated!...
I’ve been very wary of assertions that Barack Obama is a socialist, a crypto-commie, or some sort of radical Leftist. While he’s very comfortable associating with those kinds of people, it doesn’t necessarily mean he believes their garbage. He could…
2:03 pm
Barack Obama’s Stealth Socialism
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT
...The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded “r” word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that’s made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.
Who do I trust some useful idiot blogger or the editorial staff of IBD who have actually taken the time to do some true investigating?
You should trust your own intelligence – which in your case I shall give you a pass since it is obvious you have none.
ed.
2:09 pm
“mdgiles,
so whom do you trust? Anyone can publish what they want and if you don’t like the NYT, don’t read it. If I look around as objective as possible I would also say it is an uphill battle for McCain and the odds at this moment favor Obama. What evidence do you have that all the polls are ‘bogus’?”
And I would counter with, given the media’s known biases, given the fact that any poll can’t be affected by what, whom and when you ask, and given that if you read – if it’s given to you – into the methodology used (the small print, all the way back at the end of the article – you know – the part where they admit Dems are weighted all out of proportion to their actual voting numbers); why would anyone accept them as accurate? You have the question backwards. It’s not up to me, to prove the figures are inaccurate; it’s up to anyone who swears by those figures to prove their honesty and accuracy. The idea that the should be accepted, simply on the say so, of any vested party is – in my opinion at least – just insane.
2:19 pm
Sorry, but for where I sit, Obama;s worldview seems much closer to Marx than to than to our Founding Father’s embrace of John Locke and individual liberty.
Calling Obama socialist is more accurate than it is not.
2:44 pm
[...] In my earlier post, I called the party socialist, not Obama. But many sites have. And some are upset about it. I, however, am worried about [...]
2:48 pm
Holy Cow. The market just crashed!! Down -650 and counting…
3:07 pm
Actually, I still call Obama a socialist. There is more than one stage in socialistm. Yes, there is the USSR, but that is the final stage.
It usually begins like in Europe. Anyone who tells me that Germany and Austria, as a good example, are not socialist nanny states really needs to live there for a while, pay their taxes and watch how the citizens are treated either like idiots, babies or criminals.
And Obama does have a socialist agenda that would fit perfectly into today’s Germany. And Germany, today, is definitely a socialist country. Not as bad as the USSR was, no, but it’s on the first step to turning into something like that.
Or how do you call a country where people like my father and me, people who work their asses off, pay 43% to 50% taxes on their salary just so that the state can give money to people who don’t want to work? What do you call a country that fires more than 30% of its annual budget into “social welfare”? If that’s not socialist, what else is it? Apart from “extremely stupid”.
With Obama the US will turn exactly into that.
Or shall we go into the EU? The EUSSR as some people call it by now? Where freedom of speech has disappeared? Also quite “socialist”.
Socialism doesn’t start with turning in all private property. It doesn’t start with the government taking control of all the companies. No, certainly not. That’s just the final step. It begins like in Europe. And Obama wants exactly that system. His health care plans, for example, are directly from today’s socialist Germany and Austria and, guess what, they don’t work in those countries (Austrian health insurances have a deficit of 500 million USD, with a population of 8.5 million).
Until Obama stops hugging his leftist ideas (health care for everyone, even for people who don’t want to work, is a socialist idea, face it) I’ll continue to call him a socialist.
3:13 pm
Of course Obama isn’t going to campaign as a “socialist” because the socialists understand full well that “change” comes from “pressure from above and below” that culminates into full blown revolution. Obama is part and parcel with Gramsci’s “slow march through culture” and as such, understands the value of incrementalism. His frequent notations to “social and economic justice” is right out of the Marxist, socialists, far-left resources and should give a clue to anyone about his political ideology. If Obama’s reliance on opportunistic metamorphosis is any indication, Obama is capable of presenting himself to be whatever is required at the moment and has shown himself to choose relationship over everything else. His insider cadre of elitist supporters are licking their chops at having such a loyal friend in the White House. They have high hopes Obama has the potential for bridging America’s capitalist past with its socialist future.
3:25 pm
OK, so you’ve explained effectively how, in practice, an Obama administration would not technically be a Socialist or Marxist government.
I propose that this is merely a matter of unfortunate reality, and that Obama’s inclinations have always been towards socialism. You say he doesn’t seek to nationalize industry, but this is demonstratably false based on repeated statements through his career in support of a single-payer health care system. Do you have evidence to the contrary suggesting Obama isn’t a socialist other than various platitudes he’s uttered since he reinvented his image circa 2004 and set his sights on higher office? His actions through life as indicated by the people he associated with and his chosen career path all indicate a lifelong devotion to all things Left.
I’ll grant you that his ambition for power outweighs his desire for socialism, and therefore President Obama will not preside over a Socialist States of America. But you’ll need to do more to explain why we should ignore Obama’s entire life prior to 2004 and accept that he’s not a socialist.
The burden of proof is on you to prove he is a socialist. As for health care, it is unfortunate but a large majority of Americans see health care as a constitutional right – a “human right” if you prefer. National health insurance will be a reality no matter who wins in November.
ed.
3:27 pm
To be successful in this election Barack Obama needs reluctant voters to ignore much of the substance of his past and instead believe that he is, at worst, a typical liberal. This does not mean that Obama has no ideology. It just means that he’s willing to conceal or perhaps suspend his ideology to get elected. He knows a majority of Americans would never vote for him otherwise. Look to Alinsky if you want a blueprint of Obama’s strategy.
“...start from where the world is, as it is, not as [you] would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be.” – Saul Alinsky 1972
3:28 pm
In fact, I resent your equation of labeling Obama a socialist with equating the American Right with fascism. In terms of questionable linkage, these aren’t even in the same league for myriad historical and philosophical reasons.
3:57 pm
Jim – Colin Powell will be 76 or 77 in 2012, which is WAY too old. Also, he probably won’t want to put up with Democrats calling him an Uncle Tom his entire campaign.
4:53 pm
Takekaze,
your comments about Germany are way off and insulting. Germany is a democratic country and their citizens decided they want to live that way. It is true that they wanted to find a ‘middle’ way between socialism and capitalism. However, if you call that system ‘socialist’ you are just dead wrong. Plenty of my family still live there and while I see many advantages of living in the United States your portrayal of Germany is nonsense. The socialist companies T-mobile, BMW and Mercedes Benz seem to be muddling along just fine. The vast majority of Germans do not want a socialist system as you can see in any election.
As far as Health Care is concerned, you seem to have it figured out: just walk into an emergency room without insurance and you’ll be served. So please don’t think the monopoly on stupidity is not evenly distributed among different countries.
Lastly, to even compare Germany and Austria is joke. Austria hasn’t done sxxx economically for decades but Germany certainly has!
5:02 pm
ed,
So despite being involved with SDS off-shoots in college, despite being an Alinskyite community organizer, despite practicing law in the pursuit of socialist aims, despite launching his political career in the home of Bill Ayers, despite his long time work with foundations and organizations seeking to further socialist aims (CAC, Woods Foundation, Joyce Foundation, the New Party), despite his consistent far left positions as an Illinois State Senator never missing an opportunity to propose or vote for any bill that involved the redistribution of wealth…. none of that qualifies as evidence he’s a socialist?
No, I think the onus is actually on you to tell us why we should ignore all that and believe that his seemingly-moderate platitudes this election season prove he’s no socialist.
I already fully concede to you that he will not be a socialist president – his support would evaporate amongst the American populace. Again, I further concede his ambition outweighs his political inclination. But c’mon, offer some more evidence that his inclination is not, in fact, a highly centralized social welfare state.
5:25 pm
The organization “cannot be trusted with another dollar of the taxpayers’ money,” says Boehner.
ACORN receives federal money through the affordable housing trust fund after that money has been sent to states and local governments. So Congress, to keep the group from getting money, would need to specifically forbid ACORN from being eligible to get federal funds.
“Contracting for services between candidates for federal office and ACORN, as Sen. Obama has done, must end,” says Boehner. “Now that the taxpayers own Fannie Mae, any funding from Fannie Mae’s nonprofit foundation to ACORN must stop.”
Can You say “Hatch Act” ?
Wasn’t there a sheriff in Georgia(?) being investigated over a McCain campaign appearance .. meanwhile ACORN takes federal funds .. like the sheriff .. and then gets paid to do work for the Obama campaign .. unlike the sheriff, who does it for free.
5:43 pm
Obama declared that healthcare is a right. That puts the state in charge of that industry, which fits even your definition of socialism.
It also makes health care providers slaves.
5:56 pm
“The word is liberal. And you cheapen the word, perhaps even make it attractive by comparison when you put liberals like Obama in the socialist camp.”
Do you consider European nations like Britain, France or Germany to be socialist? Or only the USSR of yore? If you define socialist as what the USSR was then, yes, my definition of socialism is a dilution of the classic socialism.
Since the Democratic party would love to turn America into Europe I would argue that ‘liberal’ and ‘socialism’ are synonymous.
6:13 pm
Barack Obama is running to gain the Democratic ballot line for Illinois Senate 13th District. The 13th District is Alice Palmer’s old district, encompassing parts of Hyde Park and South Shore.
Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and promptly went into community organizing for the Developing Communities Project in Roseland and Altgeld Gardens on the far south side of Chicago. He went on to Harvard University, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated with a law degree. In 1992, he was Director of Illinois Project Vote, a voter registration campaign that made Carol Moseley Braun’s election to the U.S. Senate much easier than it would have been. At present, he practices law in Judson Miner’s law firm and is President of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant which is distributing some $50 million in grants to public school reform efforts.
What best characterizes Barack Obama is a quote from an article in Illinois Issues, a retrospective look at his experience as a community organizer while he was completing his degree at Harvard:
“... community organizations and organizers are hampered by their own dogmas about the style and substance of organizing. Most practice … a ‘consumer advocacy’ approach, with a focus on wrestling services and resources from outside powers that be. Few are thinking of harnessing the internal productive capacities, both in terms of money and people, that already exist in communities.” (Illinois issues, September, 1988)
Luckily, Mr. Obama does not have any opposition in the primary. His opponents have all dropped out or were ruled off the ballot.
6:20 pm
I would not call Obama a “classic” socialist. I would call him a “communalist”. Someone who believes that the community [society] is better off if someone like him has the power to direct them. As a community ‘agitator’ he did not really do any work himself, but instead “organized” others to do the work. He was, in fact, the poliburo to the prolitariate.
But his view is farther to the left than even most liberals. At least the view he presents to the populace. Perhaps Rick is right, and he is just an empty suit with no firm policy beliefs of his own, and simply uses groups as stepping stones to his own meteoric rise to power. But in order to do that, he has to lend a certain amount of acceptance to the doctrines of those groups.
For those who say that we can wade through four years (and possible eight) of an Obama administration need to remember that we are still paying the tab for the policies put into place by LBJ’s Great Society.
Obama seems to believe in income redistribution and the extreme taxation of the wealthy. Why does no one remind us that progressive taxes are the brain child of the Communist Manifesto? Obama also seems to be of the opinion that you punish the successful and give benefits to the losers (he calls them victims).
Jeb Hensarling (Tx-R) said he voted against the bail out bill because it put us on the slippery slope toward socialism. Can anyone look at the recent powers given to the Treasury Department belie that opinion?
I believe that under an Obama administration we will see a resurgence of the Fairness Doctrine and that will affect even bloggers who chose to present their own personal opinions on their blogs without a desenting voice. I think Obama will entertain the idea of nationalizing the oil industry, the banking industry through regulations and industry as a whole through the requirement of workers to sign card accepting, or denying, a union. That bill will give the unions more clout than in all of our history. It is my understanding that Obama supports the bill.
6:46 pm
The point being missed is that all of those radicals, the terrorist Ayers, the black liberation hate-monger Wright, the Marxist-Socialist New Party, saw something in Obi Wanna that they liked. People like that do not support free market capitalists, they support people who believe free market capitalism is the problem. They supported Obi Wanna.
He wants to tax the rich and redistribute the spoils among the proletariat. He wants to implement big government programs by taxing 80% of small business entrepreneurs at over 60 % of their income. He wants to increase taxes on capital gains. He wants to create a government market for medical services similar to the government market for mortgage securities (that really worked out well, no?).
He’s a radical socialist and Ayers, Wright, the New Party, and all of his other left wing supporters know that he is, too. He hired the radical voting fraud machine ACORN to register new voters for him, living or dead. He is running on anti-capitalist rhetoric (the capitalists are invariably the bad guys in his speeches), to be controlled and punished by big government avengers of the downtrodden masses. The guy is a radical left wing-nut, and that’s why all those other radical left wing-nuts can’t get enough of him.
Stop examining the occasional tree and check out the forest right before your eyes.
6:58 pm
I think Obama doesn’t think deeply enough about economics to have a really coherent economic philosophy, so I don’t consider him a socialist in economic terms.
Obama is at heart a community organizer, and for those of you who dismiss that, look up Saul Alinsky and his ‘Rules for Radicals’ and ‘Reveille for Radicals’, then imagine not just organizing people in a neighborhood to go fight City Hall over a job placement center or getting the garbage picked up, but setting a whole nation at war with itself in furtherance of an agenda. THAT is what’s in store, but no one seems to understand it.
He is an Obama-ist. An Obama-ist is someone who was born into an ambiguous situation and chose to make a persona of radical, racialized anti-colonialism (look at his first book). I suspect he has mellowed some since then, but the recent evidence is still that the little history he knows is of the Howard Zinn variety, and his economic instincts are somewhere slightly to the left of the EU. If it is critical of the US, his instinct is to agree.
What is scary is he seems like a bright person but shows absolutely no tendency toward honestly considering the views of others—-he listens closely, as some have said, but only to figure out how to refute. He says he will be a unifier, but in one rather extraordinary paragraph in a speech last Spring, he called Hillary a sellout for working with Republicans on some bill, and then in the next breath said he was the one to unify the country. And no one noticed the contradiction.
I totally cannot understand the editor’s response to David Johnson, that the burden is on him (Johnson) to prove Obama is a socialist. NO! This isn’t a court of law that is going to punish Obama if he is convicted and where there is a presumption of innocence. Obama wants to be President and the mere fact of this debate means that for anyone who cares, there is doubt, and the burden is on Obama to win their vote. The editor’s post obviously did not satisfy Johnson, who laid out his objections. That throws it back to the editor to counter Johnson’s points, not just do a “’Shut UP!’ he explained.” The free pass given to the author and Obama by wrongly assigning the burden of proof is a cheap trick.
7:03 pm
Nice analysis, hope you don’t want any salt when you have to eat it. I see nothing but socialism/communism in Hussein O’s associates and his actions.
7:31 pm
I agree…Obama is probably more of an opportunist than a socialist. It was convenient to him back then to associate with these far left characters, and now it is convenient to him to be more mainstream. My question is, what will be convenient to him in January if he is elected? Which Obama is America going to get?
7:57 pm
For better or worse, the term “socialist” is not too meaningful, anymore than the the “Christian” is. I’ve known too many people who called themselves Christian and insisted that others who also called themselves Christian were not “real”—so it has long been with “socialists” – but I am inclined to think that an unaccomplished elitist who seems to think he should be giving involuntary guidance to the rest of us in entitled to the term.
8:59 pm
I am posting what has been rated the best comment by Ann Althouse readers at her blog (http://althouse.blogspot.com/)
“Why not call a socialist a socialist? Don’t tell me not to call a spade a spade or a club a club, I’ll call them as I see them.
Everything about this post speaks to socialism, jealousy, income redistribution, class war. Joel Roberts [sic], whether or not he likes to hear it, is a socialist. There’s nothing else to make of peeling off the most left of the left.
I didn’t bother with the word clouds presented here earlier, but I recall hearing the word “fairness” a lot by both Obama and Biden. Now there’s a word that grates. There. is. no. such. thing ? < —- emphatic period. What is an attempt to achieve fairness through social engineering if not a yearning for socialism? Bah. This was all so very interesting the first time we read about it in Animal Farm. Yes, Obama is socialist. In his bones. As socialist as allowed in American politics with himself at the control levers. Joel Rogers is attempting to stretch that allowance. I’m in poor spirit this morning. I fumbled boiling water and burned my leg. So I’m really not in any mood to be instructed how to redefine my native language. I spent too much time learning these words [than] to have somebody I don’t know tell me they actually mean something else so that it becomes easier to slip proven-to-fail economic policies into American politics under another name.”
There is some thing that is striking about this post, especially the words “he is a socialist in his bones”. See, this is what scares me too – i wont blame Obama as such – the entire Democrat party pretty much sings the same song – you know, that magic word – “fairness” ! it has become code for re-distributionist policies.
Health care, it now seems is a “right” – HUH?
9:47 pm
You’ve got your definitions wrong, Rick. Although the Marxists tried to own the title as the real ‘socialists,’ it’s simply a variant of the latter phenomenom. Socialism is redistribution, almost always forced. It predates Leninist-Marxism’s focus on a command economy (which is itself not Marxist either, because Marx himself laid down no clear economic plans or vision of what a Marxist society would look like, since these developments were to naturally assert themselves during the predetermined eventual evolution/revolution). It’s semantics, but deserves to be said since you’re making such a point of playing them yourself (in my opinion wrongly).
Obama, like American liberals, is definitely a socialist. That he isn’t a Leninist-Marxist may be reassuring, but not too much so. Obama’s view of capitalism distorts it to the point where it no longer resembles itself and deserves to be called another name.
Altogether though, I respect your writings greatly.
9:52 pm
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1780
For an above poster:
There you’ll find the majority of ‘Social-Democratic’ European Parties.
All self-proclaimed and accurately described socialists, who would all love to use the state to enforce economic equality.
10:02 pm
“He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers as many American Marxists espouse.”
Of course he does, there isn’t even an argument about it. How can you argue against something so obvious?
10:08 pm
I also think you underestimate the amount of radicals that his Administration’s coattails is going to bring into the government, with its history and grassroots connections. That’s true even if he himself isn’t a radical (and I do find this unlikely itself considering the extent of his associations, though I also believe he himself doesn’t realize just how radical he actually is – he isn’t exactly the most self-aware person).
11:20 pm
You may be right.
You may know quite a bit more about the inner workings of Barack Obama’s brain than I do.
But… aside from your insight into Barack Obama’s psyche… is there anything in his record—things he’s actually done—that supports this?
Is there a history of him refusing to associate with someone because they were too anti-American or too leftist or communist or Marxist or socialist or whatever?
Is there a history of him voting against a bill or speaking against a proposal because it’s too anti-American or too leftist or communist or Marxist or socialist or whatever?
Or is your assessment of his beliefs based purely on your deep insight into his psyche?
I’d love to believe your assessment—give me a straw to grasp.
11:23 pm
You guys are worried about electing a socialist to the White House? Hah! Guess what, he’s already in there. Bush has nationalised the mortgage industry, the world’s largest insurance company (AIG), is directly buying commercial paper (short term company debt), and is now looking at taking part ownership, effectively nationalizing banks.
Larry Kudlow, a Reagan conservative, publicly called for this on his show today. Bush and Paulson are heading there, following Great Britain’s lead.
And you’re worried about Obama being a socialist? Is there anything LEFT to socialize??
12:39 am
Hussein O won his first election in Il as a member of the American Socialist Party. Goggle can be your friend.
1:24 am
As much as I respect your firm conviction that Obama is someone without a ideological foundation, I firmly disagree for one reason i think you didn’t consider.
Frank Marshall Davis.
Obama’s formative years were spent with this solid communist, and Obama speaks of him fondly, as a mentor.
While I hope and pray that Obama is actually as you describe, I do think that Obama will do anything to get elected BECAUSE he has a deep seated ideology, one that would repulse us if he came clean.
All the things you listed that you believe he would not do, I actually believe he would.
I hope I am wrong, (... and I hope we do not need to find out by him winning this November)
Now that you think I am a conspiracy nut, go back to what you were doing….
4:32 am
August, in your comments section I wrote:
Biden’s the right choice. And you’re still off-base trying to picture Obama as naive. This was not a naive choice. Obama is closer to being ruthless than naive.
I’ll tell you what: I’ll bet you a bottle of your favorite whatever ($70 max. value, so that leaves out the Macallan 55 year,) that a year from now, if Obama wins, you’ll agree with me on that characterization.
To which you replied:
Did you read his comments on China? Holy Christ what a naive idiot! China evicts 10,000 people to make way for a new runway, not paying them for their farmland and threatening them with violence unless they left – no recourse to a court nor appeal to a higher authority. And Obama thinks we should be more like China because they improved their airport so efficiently?
Either naive or a commie. Which is it?
ed.
Technically of course you didn’t accept my bet. Still and all, I think that when I am next in Chicago you probably owe me a drink if not an entire bottle. I’m partial to the bar at the Four Seasons (so a drink costs what a bottle would) because they let you smoke a cigar. (Or at least they did. Your idiot city council didn’t get to them, did it?)
6:00 am
As I described in my writing, I was brought up in a family that was socialist. Not Democratic Socialist, Communist, Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, National Socialist, Social Democrats, or any of those monikers. These were Scientific Socialists and had a hard falling out with their UK comrades in the 1930’s which was never reconciled. These are the folks who apply reason to the works of Marx and absolutely, positively require that you have a good and firm basis of capitalism before you understand socialism. These folks were the ones who dissented from much if not all of the ‘progressive’ agenda in the early 20th century, who decried the USSR in 1917, who loathed Fascism and Nazism in the early 1930’s, who denounced Stalin as a tyrant… these are the folks who also insisted that to get socialism, that capitalism must do its good works, for all its flaws, to pave the way to socialism.
So my views after having been exposed to that environment from an early child to voting age adult and somewhat beyond is different than what others see as more common ‘socialism’ of the Democratic Socialists. And I gave a quick run down on these two Senators for as much of the town hall as I could stand reading, knowing I couldn’t stand watching the thing.
I do come to the conclusion that both candidates are political opportunists. I can’t even grant the word ‘populist’ as a ‘populist’ would be seeking to bust the system up to please the population. That is pretty nasty and virulent on its own.
Looking at the two I can clearly state that neither candidate has the slightest understanding of socialism.
Worse, still, is that neither has the slightest understanding of capitalism.
Neither has the mental integrity to examine history, economics and politics and then see how past political moves in the economic realm have fared. Thus they operate in a self-serving vacuum of facts and hangers-on that support those views, even if they have no rational backing at all. When these two fine bozos speak about what they understand the basis of capitalism to be, as it works, they are dismal failures. When they apply socialist nostrums and claim that those nostrums are capitalism, I do take them at their words. Thus, to me, they are Clueless and Clueless 2 – The Sequel.
I’ve done both the good grace to examine their ‘plans’ and point out that managers have ‘plans’ and that executives have ‘policy’ which forms the basis for reasonable understanding of events and how they will be responded to. Neither of these men is an executive in any reasonable definition of the term. No, directing a squadron does not entail 5-year out forecasts, budgeting, capital use and expansion, depreciation, marginal cost expansion, inflation… things an executive must identify and apply their policy against to get a plan of any sort and most of that is then left up to the managers to define and carry out with executive approval.
Yes Sen. Obama isn’t a socialist.
He isn’t a capitalist, either.
If you are a ‘reformer’ you must have a good grasp of what it is you are trying to ‘reform’ how it works and do the heavy lifting of seeing how past ‘reform’ has impacted the system. Both candidates fail and miserably in that area. One may have joined the more popular form of Democratic Socialism, but that has degenerated down to simple ‘activism’ without understanding of economics, culture or society. The other has sat so removed from the population that trying to restrict fundamental freedoms, remove the rule of law as part of the Law of Nations, and then demean Americans time and again that he can’t even figure out that he is part of the problem.
Self-serving? Yes for both.
Ignorant of history and economics? Yes for both.
So removed from the majority of America that they don’t know what it looks like or how to address it? Yes for both.
That is not just ‘bad’: it is horrifying.
6:49 am
“Calling Obama a “socialist” simply isn’t logical. He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government.”
Painting Obama further to the right than George Bush is not logical either.
Houston…we have a problem.
9:21 am
Obama ran for senator in Illinois as a Socialist and won. Politico is so Liberal I got kicked off after repeating Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton. They dont want conservatives unless they are milk toast. So here I am hoping you guys can take it as I warm up!
9:23 am
Question: Why did Ayers pick Obama to distribute 100 million? I don’t know too many “just neighbors” I would trust with that money. It was distrubted instead of schools to radical groups, on being ACORN.
9:26 am
I’ve heard this point of view before. Basically that Obama is similar to Clinton and just a politician, so he’ll be bad, but not catastrophic. Frankly, I’m not so sure. Twenty years is a lot of pandering and calling Ayers “fairly mainstream”? The guy received accolades from Hugo Chavez for his revolutionary work on education! Does Obama agree with Chavez? He’s not going to turn the U.S. into Cuba the first week he’s in office, but I do think that he will work with education towards producing new Americans with the leftist ideas he espouses.
8:02 pm
To believe The One is not a socialist is pretty naive. Anyone that has seen Nazi propaganda will have flashbacks when they see Obama’s propaganda and the acts of his mindless supporters.
Many wondered how an otherwise intelligent people accepted Hitler in the manner they did. Just was the Dems and you will see a repeat.
9:34 pm
Obama: The Stealth Candidate?...
Ask your self this: if the republican candidate for president attracted such nefarious creatures as skin heads, white supremacists, the Tim McVey fan club, neo-nazis and other pimples on the bvtt of this species, wouldn’t you want to know why that is?...
10:49 pm
Obama is a socialist. The Democrats will nationalize healthcare, energy, and finance, if Comrade Bush doesn’t beat him there first.
11:01 pm
So, if I understand your argument correctly, the fact that Obama wants to nationalize healthcare doesn’t make him a socialist. The fact that he agreed with and voted for the recent bailout bill, which at least partially nationalizes our financial systems (what would you call the government owning banks and investment houses?) doesn’t make him a socialist. The fact that he wants to educate children to the racist and imperialist nature of America doesn’t make him a socialist.
Wwweeellll…..You’ve convinced me…....
4:08 pm
Obama is not a socialist because he does not believe that “industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers?”
Encyclopedia Britannica defines socialism as “collective or public ownership or control of property and natural resources.” Dictionary.com says it is “the vesting of ownership and control of the means of production and distribution of capital, land etc. in the community as a whole.”
Socialism is not narrowly defined as nationalization of industries. Nationalization is a tactic, not an economic system. Socialists in the West learned in the 60s that outright revolution would not work in modern capitalist democracies. But they have not ceased being socialists, they have simply changed their tactics.
What precisely is your evidence that Obama does not strongly favor the “public…control of capital and national resources,” or “the control of the means of production and (in particular) distribution of capital, land etc.?”
The only difference between what you see as the real socialists in France and the pseudo-socialists in Germany is how far down the path their respective socialist elites have been able to drag them. Take a look some time at how the EU is being dragged kicking and screaming to centralized control in Brussels…if they can ever find a way to get around those pesky voters in Ireland, England, Germany….
4:29 pm
Excellent post, Rick. I looked at Obama’s positions in some detail last night and was surprised to find that he has staked out fairly moderate territory on many of them. He would certainly nudge the country toward the left, but the idea that he is a wild-eyed radical waiting to spark a Cultural Revolution is delusional.
Among other things, Obama wants to exempt the first $3.5 million from the estate tax, and tax the rest at 45%. This is where the estate tax will be in 2009 under existing legislation. He also wants to index the exemption to inflation.
His income tax hikes would affect couples earning more than $227,000 annually, but would not be significant until the annual taxable income is above $603,000. He would also remove the cap on the Social Security (or payroll) tax, which would add a 15% burden to people netting more than about $80,000 a year.
He’s talked about raising cap gains taxes to their old rate of 28%.
He claims he’ll consider trimming the corporate income tax if the system can be simplified.
He opposes the Fairness Doctrine.
His policy on illegal immigration is almost identical to McCain’s. Illegals pay a fine, get a work visa, and have to go to the back of the line for citizenship.
He says he’ll increase ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 35,000 Marines to ease the strain of longterm deployments.
He wants at least two more brigades committed to Afghanistan.
Most of these policies are a bit left of where I would be, but anyone who says this is a program of socialism, let alone communism, is simply not aware of what those terms mean.
11:45 pm
Obama is a chamelion: he has worn so many leftist cloaks, and now, in sight of the presidency, leftist-moderate cloaks, that even people like you, Moran, are effectively apologists for him, to the extent, at least, of attempting to ward off his true label.
Underneath all of those cloaks, we do not know the man we find there. He may even not be American born, and has lied about it, as your boss has published today.
I will label him a leftist/socialist, whether he actually is by strict definition or not. I do hope that label sticks on him, since I believe he will put on a leftist/socialist cloak post election, to our great sorrow.
I do not care whether he can evade the label by subterfuge and high-level change promises that are given in a calculated campaign to win more votes. It is my belief that he would not follow a moderate course if elected, and will change his rhetoric to suit himself and his leftist friends if he wins.
He thus deserves the moniker he has so far lived and earned, by his jobs, by his associations and by his voting record:
Leftist/Socialist.
2:03 am
Came upon this blog surfing for JUST ONE intelligent rightwing site that stays connected to reality, is not tinged with paranoia, and bases there reasoning on facts rather than some creepy intuition. NOPE, this ain’t it…....
8:39 am
Obama plans on raising taxes on all but the lowest percentile of wage earners, and he’ll give money back to the non-income-tax payers, classic Marxist redistributionist stuff.
Here’s a statement from the hundreds of economists opposing Obama’s plans to tax and spend us to hell (not exactly how they put it, that’s my take). The signatories to this included Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith):
“We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.
After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.”
Call this what you will, socialism, liberalism, stupidity. It will screw up our country, steal from the productive class to give to the non-productive class. No wonder the non-productive class wants to get out the vote for Obama.
Who was it that said about democracy, that “It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury.” With more than 40% of the public not paying income taxes, we’re already pretty well on the way there.
1:21 pm
I can’t believe that when the Democratic Socialists of America and ACORN’s front group the NEW PARTY lists Obama as a member, Rick can say with a straight face Obama isn’t a socialist. Is this just, Obama today isn’t a socialist, though he was a Socialist in the past?
Perform a thought experiment. Assume the John Birch Society listed and endorsed Sen. McCain as a member a mere ten years ago and with their votes won high office? Would you say that McCain was never a Bircher? That he has a clean political bill of health? Would the Obama campaign give McCain such a clean bill of health? Would the mainstream media? We are looking for a single standard that would apply to both candidates if they engaged in similar conduct. Rick is being too hypertechnical, even Clintonian in explicating what ‘is’ is.
When Obama says to a major ACORN conference in December 2007, that they would have major influence on his policies, that these people in ACORN and their affiliates would be part of Obama’s, God Forbid, transition team, and that their socialist policies included in legislation enacted in first 100 days. If it quacks like a duck it must be, to everyone, but Rick Moran, a duck.
8:53 am
[...] RACIST GOP MOBS” REZKO SINGING: OBAMA SWEATING? ARE CONSERVATIVES ANGRIER THAN LIBERALS? OBAMA IS NOT A SOCIALIST THE NINE PERCENTERS THE RICK MORAN SHOW: MCCAIN’S GETTYSBURG AYERS-OBAMA: THE VOTERS [...]
9:09 am
Well, if you accept the premise that hard core American Leftists aren’t socialists because they do no espouse state ownership of the means of production, and yet seem to be willing to engage in almost any degree of regulation that falls short of that, what does it make them?
In your view, do you accept Jonah Goldberg’s argument that the correct historical label for what they do espouse, governmental regulation of private business for social purposes is properly termed fasism?
America’s foundational notions are rooted in property rights and individual liberty.
What the American Left espouses (by whatever label you hang your hat on) is largely incompatible with that in many ways.
Being technically-not-a-socialist-or-Marxist, and yet proceeding from that premise is insufficient to let them off the hook.
3:51 am
We do not have much of a choice to vote on and we do need a change; But we need the correct change. As Americans we can not vote for Obama their are to many things that are wrong his confusion of Catholic/Muslim up bring not becoming a christian tell his wife said so. Then it is a Black militant christian church. Then Obama Has sympathy to his foreign muslims father that’s why our founding fathers want our president American Born which should mean both parents too. A lot of his political goals line up with the “Socialist party USA” that it’s ideas have taking over the Democratic party. We see his community work that he draws his experience from responsable the socialization of our housing market causing the fall of our capital banking system and nationalizing of it. Now the same group is responsible for voter fraud. I ask you my fellow Democrats Americans. If we were going to have a black president; I think I could trust OJ Simpson more. We have a lot of good black all Americans I would eave vote fore Tiger Woods. But Now were in a fix we have to vote for middle of the road John McCain to save our country from slipping towards more socialism; thus to a point we will not be able balance it back in the next election.
3:22 pm
“... [Obama] may not be as wedded to the free market as a conservative but he doesn’t want to get rid of it. He wants to regulate it. He wants “capitalism with a human face.” He wants to mitigate some of the effects of the market when people lose. This is boilerplate Democratic party liberalism not radical socialism.”
Though I object to being called ignorant (I have used “socialist” to describe Obama), I will take it under advisement and change that to something more along the lines of “radical leftist liberal.”
I insist on a stronger phrasing than just “liberal” because of his past, what he’s saying now, and what he promises for the future. e.g., A liberal believes in an unfettered right to an abortion, Obama believes in allowing a baby to die after being accidentally born alive during an abortion.
I know some have parsed his vote on that subject to avoid coming to that conclusion, but politicians often compromise on a vote for various reasons. Obama did not do so on this one. It was clearly intended to prevent allowing babies to die, and he could not find it in himself to support it despite other objections.
That’s not liberal to me, that’s radical.
12:19 pm
I disagree with much of your characterization of Obama, but overall this is the most reasonable argument against him that I have yet read. Thank you for this smart, well thought out breath of fresh air.