If you want to see something that's either sad or funny, depending, you should google "obama marxist." It's pretty revealing. I'd been reading comments on various mainstream press articles about how Obama was some sort of liberal or even worse radical Marxist, and I kept thinking to myself that I didn't know a single Democrat in the House or Senate who could come close to being a Marxist. In fact, my main criticism of Obama is that he is simply more of the same neo-liberal pro-corporate fluff served up by the Democrats for decades.
Yet there seems to be a widespread belief among conservatives that Barack Obama is a Marxist. I would show examples, but I don't link to right-wing blogs as a general rule. Just do the google search, you'll see them. The fact that most of these sites also make a point of emphasizing Obama's middle name (I don't even know John McCain's middle name...) shows their hands a bit too clearly, though...and illogically of course, because there aren't too many Muslim states that are Marxist. In fact, one of the first things that generally happens to Marxists in a Muslim state is that they get thrown into prison. So I'm not sure of the connection.
Then I saw in a funny piece Dana Milbank did at the McCain/Palin rally at Lehigh University a few of the McCain/Palin supporters wearing these identical shirts that took Obama's campaign symbol (you know, that blue circle above the red and white stripes...the thing that looks an awful lot like Bank of America's corporate logo) and in the circle they had a hammer and sickle. Now where the hell does all this "Obama-as-Communist" thinking come from (I've yet to see a similar McCain logo redo with a swastika in place of the star, but maybe that's coming)? It certainly can't come from an examination of his policies or voting record in the Senate.
Unless of course you count the recent bailout bill that both he and McCain supported, since it strongly suggests that the U.S. Government will at least partially nationalize several financial institutions...but that plan was presented by the Republican administration and can hardly be said to belong to Comrade Obama.
The tax plan that Obama has been touting is hardly a new thing...it's simply a continuation of the progressive tax system that's been in effect in the United States for basically the entire 20th century and in weakened form in the 21st.
Where are Obama's plans to seize the means of production? I have yet to see his plans to nationalize private property...maybe he's being coy.
If Obama is the poster-boy of Marxism, then we Marxists are in serious trouble.
3 comments:
Yesterday, The Missus did a "Reply All" to one of those mass-forwarded emails from the right, even though she didn't know some of the people in the sender's address list. In her reply, she cited a couple of Snopes articles refuting the "facts" put forth in the original email. She got one reply from a stranger:
Ties to scandal are not needed to understand that Obama['s] fundamental basis for all decisions is socialism and communism. In those two ideologies there is no freedom. All of the accusations are not relevant, simply understanding the underpinnings of socialism and communism, and their effect on freedom sends a clear message that Obama is not acceptable, nor will he ever be. America is the "land of the free, and the home of the brave". Obama’s plans eradicate freedom as if it were a cancerous disease. That is something to consider!
I think basically these people use Marxist, Communist, and socialist as synonyms for "anti-American," with no real reason for doing so. That this person could even use the word "consider" in such a reply seems wildly incongruous with what the word means.
Jes: Wow what a response. It basically says, "The truthiness of what we're saying isn't important...it's that you understand Obama is unfit [for undescribed reasons]."
Well, I'm sure they know their audience.
I'm really afraid of what will happen at the end of this election cycle. I think that McCain is now courting the scariest people in this country and he's opening a pandora's box that he will not be able to close.
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