A quick tour of the Web turns up hundreds of socialist-inspired images of Barack Obama– Obama as Che Guevara on “Che Obama Socialist” t-shirts; Obama as a radical Marxist at Obama4Socialism.net. Even the Investor’s Business Daily penned a series of editorials on the Obama agenda called, “The Audacity of Socialism.”
So if the United States has elected a socialist president, the socialists must be pretty excited, right? Claiming just a single U.S. Senator (Vermonter Bernie Sanders) and exactly zero members of the House of Representatives as their own, putting a socialist in the White House would represent the greatest achievement of any socialist alive today.
But there’s just one problem. The socialists won’t claim Obama as their own. They won’t even call him a socialist.
Frank Llewellyn, the National Director of the Democratic Socialists of America, the country’s largest socialist organization, said Obama is most definitely not one of them. “He’s not any kind of socialist at all,” Llewellyn told me this week. He called the president “a market guy,” which is hardly a compliment coming from a man with serious reservations about market capitalism. “He’s not challenging the power of the corporations,” Llewellyn added.
Bobbo
Technically, socialism proscribes that the WORKERS control the means of production, not the state or capitalists. Communism goes further and removes private ownership of property. Unfortunately, without a democratic component, both invite state control and totalitarianism, especially communism where all land and plant become state owned.
I would say the President hasn’t come out of the closet yet.
Based on those who surround him he is socialistic in his thinking.
…”In the main, German Industries, German WAR industries, were privately owned. That defines a Fascist State, not a Socialist one.”…
That’s a solid point, but how far do you want to take it? Should we say that the existence of the Ruble or Yuan proves that neither China nor Russia were ever communist countries? Or that taxes on wages and homes prove that the US is actually a slave colony?
Frank Llewellyn claiming that Obama is not a socialist is like G. Gordon Liddy claiming that Rush Limbaugh is not a conservative. From Liddy’s perspective, that is true. From the perspective of sane people, not so much.
“Why do you think they were socialists besides being controlled by the label they hung on themselves?”
National Socialism is Socialism.
Start with Socialism. Add a salutary dose of racism.
Add the leadership principle. Add a eugenics program that would warm the heart of any Rockefeller and Viol!
National Socialism.
Notice that nothing was taken away nor anything contrary to the spirit of Socialism was added.
Will you argue that a Ford plus a radio and air-conditioner is not a Ford?
The Third Reich was going to be a vast Aryan stud farm and Der Fuhrer was going to be the rancher.
Members of the master race were all going to be blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall and buff. They were to be healthy – free of defects moral, physical or congenital. Hence they were not to be in any way or proportion Jews. They were to be proud. Conquerors. Their faces unshadowed by doubt or fear. They were to be – in a word – happy. Though any serious German thinker would blush to phrase it so.
And who was to be responsible for all this happiness? It was to be willed by Der Fuhrer. The state was to be the instrument of his felicitous will.
That is pure Socialism.
QED
#65 Somebody
It’s funny how National Socialism wasn’t pure Socialism until it became a useful tool to convince the slack jawed public that the Democrats are Nazi’s. The argument is so off the mark and loaded with easy to digest misnomers its laughable.
The Nazi’s are the archetypical fascists. No one was calling them socialists until now.
#66 Hugh Ripper said
“It’s funny how National Socialism wasn’t pure Socialism until it became a useful tool to convince the slack jawed public that the Democrats are Nazi’s. The argument is so off the mark and loaded with easy to digest misnomers its laughable.”…
If you say so. No specific example came to mind?
“The Nazi’s are the archetypical fascists. No one was calling them socialists until now.”
No, the Fascists were the archetypical fascists.
The National Socialists called themselves Socialists. You are arguing against historical fact. Good luck.
I’m sure you could have easily refuted my argument. But then again, discretion is the better part of valor.
Tssk, tssk, Hugh. I don’t think all Democrats are socialists, at worst maybe fools for helping to elect a socialist.
The lesson here is that the National Socialist Party promised the worker a paradise and what they got was hell on Earth.
obligatorische Gesundheitswesen macht frei
#67 Somebody
The conservatives in Australia call themselves the Liberal Party, but they aren’t liberals. I can see how hard to digest this is to the simple minded. Your argument is entirely based on the name and not on the ideology.
From Dictionary.com
fascism [(fash-iz-uhm)]
“A system of government that flourished in Europe from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco were all fascist states.”
You could argue the Mussolini’s brown shirts were the archetypical fascists, but the Nazi’s are a much more successful and mature example of the same ideology.
I challenge you to find a reference on socialism that uses the Nazi’s as an example. You, sir, are talking bollocks.
#61 Hugh Ripper said
“Bobbo
Technically, socialism proscribes that the WORKERS control the means of production, not the state or capitalists. Communism goes further and removes private ownership of property.”….
I just love these academic niceties.
Socialism is a transition phase between liberal democracy and Communism. (Marx said it. I trust you’ll defer to your peeps: http://www.fifthinternational.org/content/socialism-transition-communism.)
Communism is where they kill tens of millions of their own citizens. (For that we only have the record of history to go on. But I’m sure you’ll have an answer for that too.)
“I challenge you to find a reference on socialism that uses the Nazi’s as an example.”
It would be tricky. Obviously, it would have to be something published before 1945.
I agree, Obama is not a socialist! But, his teleprompter is…
#70 Somebody
I think you’ll find that Marx saw it as the transition between capitalism and communism, but nice a try to crowbar the Democrats (your liberal democracy)into Marxism.
Would you like a shovel?
I’m still looking but in the mean time you can read up about this little jewel:
“Taken in full historical context, with full consideration of philosophic principle, socialism and fascism are essentially the same.”
He gives a pretty good argument.
#71 Somebody
“It would be tricky. Obviously, it would have to be something published before 1945.”
??
Find me one reference, just one wee widdle reference, that uses the Nazi’s as an example of a socialist state. Limbaugh and Beck don’t count as references in case you were wondering.
#75 Somebody
hehe. Your onto the Ayn Rand now! Who are you, Adam Currie?
He says, and I quote,
“It is obvious that there are numerous differences between socialism and fascism, the most obvious of which concerns their view of private property. Socialism abolishes the institution entirely; fascism does not.”
I think he may have communism and socialism mixed up. An easy mistake to make. Strange how he doesn’t mention communism except when quoting.
Hmmm….
and then there’s this.
You know Hugh, you really ought to learn to use google.
#73 Hugh Ripper said
“#70 Somebody
I think you’ll find that Marx saw it as the transition between capitalism and communism, but nice a try to crowbar the Democrats (your liberal democracy)into Marxism.”….
Where do you get the idea I am trying to equate liberal democracy with Marxism? Or for that matter with the Democrat party?
Then there is this:
“The character of the danger is, if possible, even less understood here than it was in Germany. The supreme tragedy is still not seen that in Germany it was largely people of good will, who, by their socialist policies, prepared the way for the forces which stand for everything they detest. Few recognize that the rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. Yet it is significant that many of the leaders of these movements, from Mussolini down (and including Laval and Quisling) began as socialists and ended as fascists or Nazis. In the democracies at present, many who sincerely hate all of Nazism’s manifestations are working for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny. Most of the people whose views influence developments are in some measure socialists. They believe that our economic life should be “consciously directed,” that we should substitute “economic planning” for the competitive system. Yet is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavor consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?”
Here: http://jim.com/hayek.htm
Oh, Oh! Rand! Currie! Smear! Smear!
No, I think the argument at the crux of the issue is sound.
Suppose I give you a car. It’s all yours. You make the insurance payments, buy the gas and do the maintenance. However, there are a few strings attached. The stipulation is that you only drive it when and where I say, You go the speed I say and take as passengers only who I tell you. Furthermore, You will park the car at my house and take a taxi to and from that location until I want you to drive somewhere and get something for me.
Now if you agree that it is indeed your car, that is Fascism, on the other hand if you think the car is really mine, then its clearly Socialism.