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.
This guy says it better: http://mises.org/story/1937
#81 Somebody
“This guy says it better: http://mises.org/story/1937”
Haha! What a source! The bloke who runs the http://www.capitalism.net website, and has such classic articles as “For Society To Thrive, The Rich Must Be Left Alone”. Rekon he might have an axe to grind with socialism? There’s nothing more pathetic that the rich whining about needing liberty to exploit the poor.
Well at least you rose to the challenge and found someone who agrees with you. Not having the time to read much of his stuff, I’m unable to critique it. Fascinating, no doubt.
Just a few notes:
1) Say what you will, believe what you will, Franklin Roosevelt saved American capitalism. Ask a history professor, if you can bring yourself to trust anyone with more than a seventh grade education. Read the book or even watch the movie “The Grapes of Wrath” to see how close the good ol’ US of A was to a populist rebellion before FDR got busy.
2) Anyone who says Obama is a socialist has never met a real one. I mean a real “ALL PROPERTY IS THEFT!”-screaming, Marx and Lenin-quoting, “Internationale”-singing, gun-toting, revolution-fomenting, Little Red Book-revering all-out SOCIALIST.
I have. More than one.
(Yes, it was a little scary.)
President Obama doesn’t even come close.
3) I love hearing the Viol when it’s played well…
#83 Uncle Patso
I know what you mean. I’ve met many of those upper-middle class red devils outside the union building at Uni, waving copies of ‘Socialist Worker’ in my face. Most of them seem to have had humour bypasses, but the women were rather hot.
I passed myself off as a anarchist in those days (hooray for Feyerabend). Ahh the idealism of youth.
#83 Uncle Patso said,
“3) I love hearing the Viol when it’s played well…”
Ok, so the “a” with the grave accent didn’t show.
But you just _KNEW_ I meant the the musical instrument.
Its because you are so superior.
#82 Hugh Ripper said,
“Haha! What a source! The bloke who runs the … website…”
Actually, I think you’ll find that Ludwig von Mises never ran a web site.
“Not having the time to read much of his stuff, I’m unable to critique it.”
Don’t bother, I’m sure your intellect is vastly superior to that of von Mises in your own estimate.
Hugh Ripper and Uncle Patso,
I notice you are silently passing over a lot of solid argument to find the occasional typo or misspelling.
I must say, I really admire your ability to economize on thought.
#73 Hugh Ripper said
“… I think you’ll find that Marx saw it as the transition between capitalism and communism,….”
That’s right. He did say capitalism rather than liberal democracy. I grant you your nit.
Kudos to you for being such a solid student of Marx.
And kudos to me for saying “solid” and not “avid” or “admiring”.
And kudos to Uncle Patso! I’m sure he would have pointed out that with “avid” or “admiring” one would also have to use “an” rather than “a”.
However, That does not alter my point.
Socialism is still either a transition to or a transitional phase of Communism.
And Communism is still that system which can claim credit for the deaths of tens of millions of its subjects.
So again, I express my exasperation at certain people who focus on distinctions with barely a difference while any sane or decent person would identify the mass murder as the most concering if not the defining feature of Communism.
The NAZIs had some definition of the Jews that somehow excluded Jesus.
Likewise, the Communists have a definition of Socialism that excludes Hitler by just the breadth of a split hair. This is a case of the victors writing history.
If Hitler is somehow to be excluded from the august company of Stalin and Mao, maybe it should be because he didn’t quite rack up the score they did and not over whether of not you can — purely in theory — own something in name only.
The more urgent question is whether Obama is a Fascist or a Socialist.
The answer could very well be “Yes”.
Though I suspect he’s really an Obamanist.
#86 Somebody
The article you linked (http://mises.org/story/1937)is by George Reisman, you foolish man, on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website, not Ludwig von Mises himself.
I take this as evidence that you don’t even really read your own links. Your’re not related to Paddy-O by any chance? This was his modus operandi until he mysteriously disappeared.
#88 Somebody
“Socialism is still either a transition to or a transitional phase of Communism.”
If you believe Marx. Personally I dont. I prefer Kropotkin when it comes to Russian idealists.
“The more urgent question is whether Obama is a Fascist or a Socialist.”
He’s a corporate capitalist lackey. A policy salesman for the banks and corporations. Like most of the presidents before him.
#89 Hugh Ripper said
“The article you linked (http://mises.org/story/1937)is by George Reisman, you foolish man, on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website, not Ludwig von Mises himself.”
And you have nothing to say about von Mises’s ideas as reported by the von Mises Institute web site? Nothing to say about the substance of the issue? But again raise a pointless quibble?
How unexpected.
The link for Mises’s text is here:
http://mises.org/www.mises.org/books/og.pdf
I presume that you will be mystified to discover that, George Reisman’s account of von Mises’s ideas has some weird, undefinable correlation with the text.
But again, don’t bother to read it yourself, I’m sure a genius of your magnitude will positively dwarf von Mises’s in your mind.
You should particularly avoid page 178.
It’s not that anyone is afraid that Obama himself is a socialist, it’s a fight against the socialist ideas. I think care must be taken to ensure that we’re not caught up in defending the person and miss the really bad ideas.
It might be interesting to look at what the socialists are saying and see if you want to support that or not. Here’s an excerpt from “The Theory of Social Economy” by Gustav Cassel.
“We first assumed, as we said, that the sum of money which every consumer spends for the satisfaction of his wants in the unit period is fixed in advance. On this assumption, a knowledge of the prices of the finished goods is obviously adequate to determine the demand of each individual consumer for those goods. The aggregate demand for various goods can then be calculated by means of our series of equations (4). If, finally, prices are calculated by means of equations, they are fixed relatively to the aggregate money expenditure of consumers, which we assumed as given. We can therefor conclude that prices, by means of the series of equations, are fixed absolutely and not merely relatively to one another.”
So, if the government creates an insurance plan, will it be free market or fixed price? The idea that “if it’s implemented in the right way” (see #30) that you can fix prices is an idea worth fighting.
# 85 Somebody said,
#83 Uncle Patso said,
“3) I love hearing the Viol when it’s played well…”
Ok, so the “a” with the grave accent didn’t show.
But you just _KNEW_ I meant the the musical instrument.
Its because you are so superior.
– - – - -
No, it’s because you spelled it Viol (which is a musical instrument) instead of Voil (which is obviously a typo for “Voila!” I knew what you meant, I just can’t seem to stop myself from an occasional spelling or even grammar troll. Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you, just a friendly tease… I must admit I wasn’t aware it was spelled with the grave accent. If I can manage to remember it for a week, I have learned something.
àá
= = = = =
# 87 Somebody:
“I must say, I really admire your ability to economize on thought.”
Thank you. I’ve said my piece; I hoped it would be illustrative or even illuminating; not much to add. More conserving energy than thought.
I admit to the fault of not being entirely able to stop myself from the occasional spelling and/or grammar troll. Mea culpa. About one in ten slips through the internal monitor and onto the keyboard.
= = = = =
Just to keep on topic: I was taught as a child that many of the early Christians lived in very communistic communities, as though this was evidence of their holiness. President Obama is surely less socialist than they were…
# 95 Uncle Patso said, on September 12th, 2009 at 5:07 am
“Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you”
GAAAA! Yes, that did sting. I usually spell-check my longer posts because the troll ratio is so high here.
And on top of that, I specifically looked up “voilà” to make sure I had the right word and pasted it into the post. But I often suffer from hyper-correction and I guess that’s what happened here. Some piece of spell-checking logic didn’t like the word I meant to use and gave me a better one. I didn’t realize how badly it got mangled.
The greater pity is that even though the intended word was totally obvious from the context, it allowed those who wished to avoid the point I was making to latch on to that trivial error rather than to admit that the force of my logic was all-conquering. Of course, I say that with all due modesty.
So, the loss of what could have been an all-too-rare learning moment here is lamented. And that was what really frustrated me. I’ll just have to content myself that you might remember the deal about the grave accent.
But I admit, that was one giant troll-food cake so I guess I should have just said: BON APPÉTIT!