What makes Obama a "Socialist"?

What's the point of the name calling?

The OP asks "What makes Obama a Socialist?" and I think he answered that question himself when he stated on camera that he sought out Marxist professors and other students with those views. Or would you like to define Marxism as a form of capitalism?

 

for the likes of you, socialist is one of the nastiest things you can call someone, no?

since in the case of president barry it is so patently false, it must be intended as a slur, yes?

just returning the favor . . .

 

I don't think you will find that I have made such a claim. I think socialism could be a workable system of government, but only when exercised at a very small scale. There have been experiments in socialism, although I'm unaware of any that have proven successful with the exception of more primitive lifestyles. In the U.S. Robert Owen made such an attempt at New Harmony, Indiana which ended in failure about two years later. I think socialism can only work if all participants agree to give up every thing but the most necessary requirements of life. Only then would it be possible to produce and provide the basic necessities of life, and I mean only the MOST basic needs. When you start adding the products technology has brought forth, many things begin to require the labor of many persons which begins to make persons think twice about the effort they are putting forth in relation to the rewards they produce in trying to provide the wants of the entire population. This is where the free market and capitalism had to emerge, along with currency to take the place of bartering. Try taking 40,000 chickens to the car dealership to purchase a new SUV, or Chevy Volt, if you're green minded.

So socialism and socialist are not derogatory words, but simply irrational forms of national government in the modern and overly populated world, not to mention the fact that any form of government requires the consent and acceptance of the people it governs or at least a place to escape to if it is unacceptable. Without the escape, the governed, who feel most imposed upon will eventually grow in number and rebel as a necessity.

Have you not listened to the words he has spoken, read the books he has written, and the changes he proposes? What, if not a follower of Marxist socialism would you claim him to be in the type of government he would like to produce? And no, it was not intended as a slur, but only as an observation.

I was speaking about Obama, not you, therefore you make me the subject?

Actually most politicians, democrat and republican of the 20th century, and some even earlier, have leaned toward socialism. It is a vote getter as you can easily see by the over $14,000,000,000,000 debt, and additional trillions of dollars of other unfunded liabilities yet to come due.

 

i've said it before and i'll say it again

if obama were a socialist i would have voted for him

but i am not in the habit of voting for pro-business centrists, so i did not

 

It sounds like you didn't have a horse in the race, but I would hardly call Obama pro-business or centrist, with the exception of being the means by which the goals are produced.

I'll accept your admission to being a socialist, with nothing derogatory intended, as well as your denial of Obama having a Marxist socialist agenda to be relative to our differing views from the Left and the Right.

 

hard to have a horse in the race when the field is limited to two, no?

 

Well, there was over a dozen candidates in total, but not all appearing on ballots in every state. The Socialist Workers Party did have a candidate on the ballot in 10 states, as did the Party for Socialism and Liberation in 12 states, and the Socialist Party in 8 states. Only Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New Jersey, and Vermont appear to have had each of the 3 Socialists on their ballots. Time to move?

But I agree with you that we basically have a two party system, and the parties produce and provide the choices to select from, while those with big pocketbooks control the parties. The grass root citizens have little to say, and when they try the parties and the media try to overrule them, most often successfully.

Just curious, but is Robert Owen and his New Harmony experiment no longer studied or mentioned in school? It's been a long time ago for me, so I have no idea what is being taught today. It was a part of American History when I was schooled.

 

it would be near impossible for me to move anywhere; even moving next door would be a challenge

the "if you don't like x move" argument i keep hearing from libertarians and other rightists has become wearisome . . .

it's been a while for me too; i left school in 1978

that said, i don't remember reading about it in anything casebound, that is to say, in a textbook

probably yet another tidbit of american history i was turned onto by kurt vonnegut . . .

 

That leaves the option of not moving. The longest I was able to remain in one place was about 6 years until I retired. You sometimes have to find work where it exists so I went where I could have a job that paid the bills. And I worked for the same company for 30 years, but still had to keep moving.

I don't remember all the details, and it was just a couple of pages in the text book, but still left a long lasting impression.
I don't believe Vonnegut had published anything before I finished school, but I don't know that I would classify him as a historian. A good writer none the less.

 

i live here [eastern montana] because it is really cheap - nobody in their right mind would want to live here - and hopefully i will not have to move again

i'm not in my right mind, but you already knew that

i didn't mean to say that vonnegut was a historian, rather that he [and other novelists] occasionally hit on topics that make you want to learn some history outside of the textbooks

 

I have/had a friend who owned a hunt lodge in Montana years ago, and he really liked living there. Haven't heard from him in more than 20 years now though.

I guess that depends on how we define "right mind".

That's true, Michael Crighton had a similar effect on me, but more related to science.

 

eastern montana is different, think "western north dakota"

i think the high temperature yesterday was 20 below - and it was windy to boot

and no mountains for our montagnards . . .

 

It's a somewhat frigid 67 here this evening. Usually we have low to mid 70's around this time of the year in the evening.

I'm surrounded by mountains, and various hill tribes.

 

The only thing socialist about Obama and all the shit heads in congress is that they themselves get to enjoy what amounts to socialized medicine and a guaranteed pension while depriving the rest of us.

 

Socialism doesn't necessarily mean that ALL will be equals, just the ruled class, who will become more equalized. The ruling class always tends to become a class of its' own, separate and superior to those it rules.

 

As a Socialist, I can honestly say, that Obama is definitely NOT a Socialist. Americans don't know Socialism in the way that Europeans (and Canadians) do. In Denmark, Obama would almost be on the right wing. He is a Liberal, not a Socialist.

 

Obama is a social capitalist, not a socialist...his policies are geared towards benefits for corporations too much for him to realistically be called a socialist. He has a greater amount of social policy than did Bush, but his main agenda is still making his rich mates richer.

 

sila : I agree with you its really unfortunate that fact.. maybe one day people wont be so greedy (ie. big corporations)

 

The African Bushmen, and may still a few Amazon tribes, if that is what you would call a Utopian dream, do/did live pretty much as equals, as well as some other very small societies.

You might come close to achieving the Utopian dream of equality if you were to just eliminate ALL the productive members of ALL societies. Human creativity will always produce inequality as there will always be those who are unable, incapable or unwilling to contribute sufficiently to acquire their needs, much less their wants and some things just don't exist or can not be created in adequate quantity to meet the demands. Many of the creations of today require the labor of many persons, perhaps even hundreds or thousands to produce the final product, and few would likely be willing to contribute the labor to produce and provide the needs and wants of others without receiving what they feel acceptable in the form of remuneration. Free market capitalism, with minimal regulations inhibiting competition, while may not immediately satisfy the wants and/or needs of all members of society does result in making much more available to the society than any other system. The poorest in the U.S. can often be found to have as much, if not more than the middle, or upper middle classes in many less developed countries.
Most seem to equate wealth with having a lot of money, which once was true, but since government took our money away and replaced it with a paper fiat currency that can no longer be converted into money, wealth results from what is done with the paper we call money.

 

That's an oxy-moron. Socialism is about worker ownership of the means of production. Corporations are made up of large concentrations of capital. The term "corporate welfare" may have more validity to it. The political language is so bastardized today that you can't have an intelligible conversation. Its actually quite Orwellian (who wasn't opposed to socialism btw, just the phony socialism of the SU) Using some of the logic I've heard lately, one could argue that monarchies are socialistic or democratic.

I don't think true socialism or capitalism ever really existed on any large scale. What the USSR and US had/have are advanced forms of feudalism with self contradictory ideologies. A small class of apparchiks controlling all economic and political activities no more facilitates a classless society than the IMF facilitates free markets.