He’s getting accused of being one from left and right… well, no, pretty much just from the right really.
Now here’s the thing. I am by no means an expert on complex economic issues but I’m certainly wondering how the accusation of Obama being a big fat socialist can have any real weight if he’s got the richest man in the world, billionaire Warren Buffet endorsing his economic plan. Heck, even Google’s CEO endorsed it, and let’s not forget the backing billionaire George Soros has been providing too.
So, Obama… a socialist or just a “lesser” capitalist who wants to bring about “corrective” measures?
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, Obama is a socialist. What’s the big problem?
George Soros is a nutcase and certainly no asset to the world.
And Buffet needs people to have hope and Obama can give people hope (for some reason).
As for Obama’s economic expertise, didn’t he spend the 90s suing banks who wouldn’t give mortgages to poor people?
How can anybody who wishes to redistribute from producers to non-producers be anything except a socialist? (Unless maybe a communist????)
From my German-European point of view Barack Obama is a social democrat.
That is, in fact, a kind of socialism; but at least in European politics social democrats are mostly middle-left and certainly right from the “real” socialists.
Same as Andrew I think that’s nothing bad. In fact, many of the most wealthy countries of the world have a social democrat system, for instance Sweden.
In fact, social democracy aims at installing very American values. I think what I recently read in a youtube comment puts it best:
“you’re socialist if you want the rich to give to the poor and a good Christian patriot if you want the poor to give to the rich.”
Every tax system means redistribution. Obama wants the redistribution to benefit the “average” citizen. The sum of all citizens is the society. Socialism comes from the society. So yes, Obama is a (very moderate) socialist. And that’s good.
“you’re socialist if you want the rich to give to the poor and a good Christian patriot if you want the poor to give to the rich.”
That doesn’t make any sense to me.
Christians are very much into the rich giving to the poor, not vice versa. In fact, I believe in America Christians give far more to charities than non-Christians (I may be wrong).
The difference to socialism is that socialists want OTHER people to give to the poor. It’s a form of projected idealism (which also exists in Christianity).
“Every tax system means redistribution.”
That’s not true.
@Andrew:
“That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Ever heard of irony? The commentator clearly pokes at the contrast between Christian rules and the embarrassment after the “spread the wealth around” quote. In fact what Jesus preached was not far from socialism, but conservatives tend to see a stark contrast between them two.
(Maybe that’s because social conservatives are often quite liberal when it comes to the economy; and also because socialism is mixed up in their minds with anti-Christian communism).
And then I’d like you to explain to me how a tax system could not mean redistribution?
Obama isn’t a pure socialist, however his views and plans are nothing but socialist. The combination of socialism and extreme liberalism
make him nothing but scarry to me.
His unscripted answer to Joe the Plumber says it all.
@Toni Horn:
At which point do you think is Barack Obama “extremely liberal”?
“Ever heard of irony? The commentator clearly pokes at the contrast between Christian rules and the embarrassment after the “spread the wealth around” quote.”
Yes, I have “heard of irony”. The statement doesn’t make sense to me because there is no irony in it.
American Christians already do give to charity and do believe that the rich should give to the poor. And they are doing it.
I suppose there would be irony if American Christians were known to be stingy. But they are not. They are in fact among the biggest givers in the world.
I may be wrong, but I did hear that Obama is known to have given very little to charity before this year. You want irony? Think of a presidential candidate who speaks of sharing the wealth and doesn’t. (I don’t know how much McCain gave but he did adopt an orphan from Bangladesh.)
But making fun of Christians because they prefer giving their own money to the poor rather than others’ is very low. Where in the Bible does it say to take somebody else’s money and give it to the poor?
From a Canadian point of view, I wouldn’t call him a socialist, but I would call him an old school Keynesian. Some of his official positions on taxing and spending are actually to the right of those of our Conservative party. For example, he does not officially support universal healthcare, whereas our Conservative party has never put forward a bill to dimantle our single-tiered universal healthcare system (even though there has been some increase in privatisation since the Chaoulli Supreme Court decision), even though they have been the largest party in parliament since 2006. His health economics adviser David Cutler seems to support the current healthcare system in the United States. Of his other main economic advisers, Jeffrey Liebman supported welfare reform (reduction) under Clinton and Austan Goolsbee is fairly pro-free trade. This-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/business/20view.html?_r=1&oref=slogin-suggests that he also supports deficit reduction. On the other hand I’m not sure if Obama agrees 100% with his economic advisers, since during the primaries he was anti-NAFTA.
I’m not sure why Obama supporters would contrast his opinions with Christian positions. From my perspective, he is a religious Christian. He goes to church much more than I go to synagogue (I pretty much only go for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, even though I try to read the relevant Torah and Haftarah readings with the Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Abravanel commentaries on Shabbat.) I have huge disagreements with his church, the United Church of Christ, because it seems to have a very supersessionist view of Judaism (much more than Catholicism or Methodism) but I wouldn’t call him a non-Christian.
Taxation doesn’t mean “redistribution”. “Redistribution” is basically robbery - the poor are robbing the rich at the gunpoint of the police.
Taxation means everyone contributing to a pool that goes towards paying for stuff everyone needs but it’s too expensive (or difficult for various reasons) to do privately. Roads, for instance. Or protection from large entities (such as other states or tribes). Street lighting. Public spaces. Haggling with various large entities about trade (again, other states or tribes).
Taxation isn’t a means for the lazy to steal from the industrious. Not in its basis.
Toni - I am with you on this. As an Israeli, seeing this unknown person with:
VERY dubious friends and idols (as in terrorists and black supremacists);
The most expensive presidential campaign in history (by a large margin) - funded mostly by anonymous contributors;
A history of pushing for disastrous economic policies (which are the cause of today’s financial woes);
The support of every genocidal terrorist organization (hell, Hamas are producing pro-Obama propaganda!) on Earth;
A presidential campaign that makes a mockery of democracy and decency - with faux-Greek temples, almost Soviet cult of personality, coverage in almost all the mainstream media akin to Pravda covering J. V. Stalin (effectively hiding him from sight in a cloud of adulation for his divine wisdom, immaculate benevolence and Olympic beauty of soul, mind and body), advertisement geared for children under 12 (!!!)… and that’s just half of it…
Well, it just doesn’t make me feel at ease with Mr. B. H. Obama and his hordes of adoring worshipers. Frankly, I am very much afraid he’ll win. I just hope the Government Machine is strong enough to weather and mitigate the effects even of someone like this.
If not… Gods help us all. US of A will go down much, much faster. And a whole lot of people will go down with it.
“From my perspective, he is a religious Christian. He goes to church much more than I go to synagogue”
I do hope that your synagogue is not as Jewish supremacist as Obama’s church is black supremacist!
I agree that the association with Wright is very disturbing. Of all the things Obama has done I find that to be the most disturbing. That sermon from the week of 9/11 is more disturbing than anything I have seen that relates to McCain. Also, I had problems with the United Church of Christ before I even heard of Wright. Isn’t that the church where the leadership met with Nasrallah (I may be confusing it with a similar Presbyterian organisation.) I find the church resolutions of the United Church of Christ to be very disturbing.
However, I don’t think the problems with his church mean that Obama is non-religious. I consider Torquemada and the people who organise the Oberammergau passion play to be religious Christians despite the fact that I consider them anti-semitic.
I prefer Obama to Kerry, but I still think McCain has made better decisions in his career, aside from the fact that his current campaign has been run in a very stupid manner. Economically, I don’t agree with Obama’s old style Keynesianism, because I’m a more of a monetarist (Even though Greenspan’s monetarism is being blamed for the economic crisis, the way he handled the interest rates during the bubble was the exact opposite of what was advocated by Milton Friedman.) Since I don’t think that Obama’s economic policy will differ that much from someone like LBJ, I don’t think his policies will prevent the recovery of the economy. I think the economy will recover regardless so my views on the subject are fairly close to those expressed in this-http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=478918-article.
ar,
Well said.
I hope I’m not hijacking the post, but I wanted to point out that I don’t think Obama is anti-semitic (he has never personally said or done anything anti-semitic.) I just think that his long association with the United Church of Christ and Wright could lead him to have a law and order Kerry-type position on terrorism, a policy which seems to have failed very badly in Europe (I’m less worried about the speeches Wright made on topics other than foreign policy, because I highly doubt that Obama thinks the government, which he will probably soon be leading, caused AIDS. I also doubt that someone who is biracial would believe the nuttier aspects of Wright’s racial theories.) The one good thing is that he seems more willing to deal with terrorism in Pakistan than the rest of the Democrats.
Friedman was very approving of Greenspan’s policies as recently as 2006. I know it may surprise some people, it’s only yesterday that I found one of his articles dating by 2006 in which he says that the fed had never performed so well as under Greenspan. In fact, he said that Greenspan’s achievements had convinced him that he was wrong in their life long debate regarding the need for having strict rules to control the amount of new money printed. A few days ago I started getting a bit puzzled by the absence of any mention of Friedman in all those years preceding the crisis. My thinking was that for sure he should have had something to say about Greenspan’s negative real interest rates and such stuff, he could not be quiet. So I started googling about it and to my surprise I found that article.
“The support of every genocidal terrorist organization (hell, Hamas are producing pro-Obama propaganda!) on Earth”
its easy to manipulate the minds of the readers into believing such groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists group. Why?
Simple answer. All the TV news stations are indeed owned by zionist jews who contribute more than millions a year to the exploitation of the Palestinians and their country whom is now, inexistent!
Be careful with these accusations and statements you make. They support him because they feel he is their ticket out of the prisons and walls you built around their cities. and yes I said the ones YOU built.
In my case it was because Hizbullah fired rockets at my university and Hamas keep telling me that I am a son of dogs and pigs.
The Zionists contribute millions to the exploitation of the “Palestinians”? Isn’t exploitation supposed to _make_ rather than _cost_ money? Weird…
Would a fellow Zionist please call the chief dwarf in Jerusalem and tell him that we are making a mistake. “Lars” has revealed that we spend millions rather than profit from the exploitation. Do be more careful, people!
I don’t know which “Zionist media” Lars is following, but I would be glad to learn about them.
The normal media rarely report anything Hamas do, and I only learn about their crimes against both Jews and Arabs from, wait for it, local Jews and Arabs. I think it’s not politically correct to blame Arabs for anything, not for the slavery in Sudan and Mauritania, not for the genocide against Darfurians or Kurds, and not for attacking Israel.
If those “Zionist media” exist, I’d be really interested in learning more about Hamas from them. I didn’t think the normal media even used the word “terrorist” to describe terrorists any more.
Now that Lieberman is a “ultra-nationalist” for being more moderate than moderate Arab politicians, all bets are off, I thought.
Thanks to Lars for informing me that some few people are still opposed to Arab imperialism and are willing to call terrorists “terrorists”. I had nearly given up hope, really.
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