Barack Obama and Socialism

[Mistah Kurtz]

For the final time - THE CELEBRATION DOES NOT HONOR A PAGAN GOD. It honors the CHRISTIAN GOD! If it honored a pagan god it would be called PAGANMAS, NOT CHRISTMAS. Just because the DATE on the CALENDER coincides with a pagan holiday doesn't mean that LATER holidays held on the same day have anything to do with paganism.

First of all, amount of caps doesn't translate to amount of correctitude. Second, the reason it's on the same day and uses the same rituals as the earlier holiday is because early missionaries placed Christmas on that day but allowed the pagans to continue to worship their gods. So the rituals of Christmas are pagan. Completely meant to honor pagan ideas.

But I got to ask, lets say I took some Satanic holiday, kept all the rituals, sacrificed pigs and used their blood to draw pentagrams on the floor, but I called this day "Jesus Is Really Great Day". Would changing the name change anything about the rituals?

Yeah, it would. Just because the rituals are pagan in origin doesn't mean they carry pagan meaning. If Christianity adopted the pig blood pentagram and used it to celebrate Jesus, then the pentagram would cease to be a symbol of pagan meaning within the context of christianity, just like how christians use certain rituals of pagan origin (tree decorating, and that's about it) to celebrate their god without it being blasphemous or have any kind of pagan subtext.

 

[Mistah Kurtz]

If Obama already had the support of the majority of Americans he wouldn't have needed to campaign at all. Buying an election means giving a candidate so much media exposure that public opinion turns favorable towards him no matter what his politics - this is exactly what Barack Obama has done. Where the money comes from doesn't matter at all.

I feel as if I slipped down a rabbit hole.

Why is either candidate compaigning? McCain or Obama? I think it's because America is still (barely) a democracy and you have these things called "elections". And yes, campaign financing is a serious issue in America... but I don't think either Senator bears a greater burden of guilt than the other for blocking reform.

The Republicans aren't stinting on the campaign expenses either; certainly not on Palin's wardrobe, to be somewhat topical, though I agree that the clothing bill is small potatoes compared with the cost of TV time. You can't attack the Dems and defend the Reps simultaneously when they're both doing the same thing, unless you're a pathological case or just a die-hard supporter of one side only.

And it used to be that "buying an election" consisted of paying people to vote for you or stand around polls to scare away people who won't vote for you. (Or bribing the vote takers.) There's been careless talk on both sides of your busted political scene about the other deploying such tactics, and frankly I don't think it does anyone any good.

In conclusion, I like the real world and I think I'm going to spend more time there instead of the United States of Anxiety as portrayed in online forums and scare media. I'd welcome anyone willing to join me.

-- Steve

You misunderstand - I'm not criticizing Obama for buying the election. He IS buying the election, but we live in a capitalist society and he has the right to spend his money however he wants. My point is that the people who traditionally ***** about 'bought elections' in this country are democrats, and now that the democrats are buying the election they suddenly don't have a problem with it. My problem in this situation lies not with Obama himself but the hypocrisy of his supporters.

 

[Mistah Kurtz]

If Obama already had the support of the majority of Americans he wouldn't have needed to campaign at all. Buying an election means giving a candidate so much media exposure that public opinion turns favorable towards him no matter what his politics - this is exactly what Barack Obama has done. Where the money comes from doesn't matter at all.

Now, originally you said that Obama having a large war chest meant that the Democrats were the party of the rich. Now that you've had it proven that most of that war chest came from the poor, you're saying that he's buying the election. It's creative to change what you think of the guy when you're proven wrong, but I think it's a little dishonest too.

I think the fact is our founding fathers would find a candidate who has supported his campaign mostly though the small donations of the majority of the populous to be the ultimate expression of democracy. Do you not think so?

I didn't change what I said - he can still get most of his money from the poor (which has yet to be proven here) and still belong to the party of the rich. Read my above post - if he earned less than 66 percent of his funds from the poor, and assuming McCain get all his money from rich fat cats, this would mean that Obama has more fatcat democrat friends than McCain has fatcat republican friends.

By the way - It doesn't matter where you get your money..you can still buy an election.

 

[Mistah Kurtz]

It's irrelevant where the money came from. I've yet to see any proof that most of his money came from small donations.

No, where the money came from would seem to be relevant to this conversation.

But I got to give you a hand man, that's a valid return question, "Where's the proof?" Axia777, you got something on that? You got the proof?

And if it is true, what's the percentage?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/barack-obamas-s.html
Obama is spending 3 times more than mccain on advertisements.
Obama's spent 66 million on ads, while mccain's spent 22 million - a three fold difference. If Obama received 50% of his income from private small donations of 20$ or less, that would mean that he earned 33 million from private donations, and 33 million from big donations. Unless you can prove that Obama has earned more than 66% of his donation fund through small donations, you're wrong - because if not, that means that he received more than 22 million in funds from big spenders, which pretty much kills your argument that the republicans are the party of the rich and that we buy our elections.

Ok. See, this great. This is what you should have come out with right off the bat. None of the other BS, just substance. Because what you just dropped there was a powerful bomb your opponents actually got to deal with. You stay away from the pointless empty rhetoric, you stick with fact and, who knows, maybe in the end you'll be right. I doubt it, but you could be.

Sometimes it's too hard not to fight fire with fire.

 

[Walden]

Wow this thread has gotten off topic. What does Christmas have to do with socialism?

Anyway, to reiterate my earlier point, this latest stock market crash is a further vindication of Marxist economic analysis: if you put a bunch of capitalists in charge of a market, they will screw over everyone apart from themselves. This has happened before: in the stock market crash of 1929, the recessions of the 1980s, the dot-com collapse of the 1990s (i.e. WorldCom), the Enron scandal, and now the current financial crisis. The American response is to give the capitalist financial leaders more money to do whatever they please with very few restrictions given the severity of their screw-up.

This is not socialism! This is capitalism! A socialist response to the crisis would be to nationalize the banks, reorganizing them to meet the needs of the people rather than the greed of their millionaire CEOs. The bailout money and the money gained from the reorganization would be used to support the working classes, those people who have been swindled by realtors into spending their money on houses and mortgages which they can't afford.

I'm voting for Obama in the November elections, because a Socialist candidate for president doesn't have a chance in hell of being elected in America right now. Americans have been conditioned to hate anything which can be labeled socialism, thanks the ideological heirs of Joseph McCarthy. At least Obama won't screw the economy as much as McCain will, and Obama isn't given to resorting to fascist remarks in order to promote his chances at winning the election.

EDIT: Sources for my statements: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/pers-o23.shtml and http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/elec-s13.shtml

 

[Joethenotlicensedplumber.]

Since this board is mostly populated by Obama supporters, I'm curious as to what you have to say on this matter. Barack Obama's policies have, as far as I see them, some strong socialist influences, most notably his positions on free health care and taxation. Obama himself has used the words "Spread the wealth around" many times to justify his incredible tax hike on the upper class. Spreading the wealth around, basically, means taking from the rich and giving to the poor. People who work hard to be successful (like Joe the Plumber) shouldn't be penalized for succeeding. Critics will point out the fact that wealth is extremely concentrated into the far upper tiers of society, but they also fail to point out that the top 50% of wage earners in this country pay 97% of all federal taxes - the bottom 50% pays only 3%, so I'd say they're at least doing their share. Spreading the wealth is not what America does - that's what the USSR did - right up until their collapse.

Obama's ties to the far left are numerous, including his membership in the New Party (an american socialist political party) and in fact was one of their sponsored candidates. He was also a member of a radical far left racist church for 2 decades. He launched his political career in the living room of an admitted far left terrorist bomber. He describes in his OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY that he picked his friends carefully, and that he picked Marxists and Socialists as his friends.

While listening to the radio, I heard an Obama supporter call a right wing talk show and explain that the reason he supported Obama was because of his socialist platform. After the host immediately asked if he was secretly a McCain supporter, he vehemently denied it and explained that he was serious. After answering 'yes' and 'no' respectively to the host's questions "You wouldn't happen to be a college student, would you?" and "Do you have a job?", and was soon hung up on after attempting to explain why socialism is the right way to go.

My question to Obama supporters is this: Do you agree that his policies are socialist in nature, if not why not, and if so, why don't you care?

I like how some people don't really realize the state of most middle class families. Ok sure, the people who are rich, make more then 250k a year and own their own business, worked hard for that money, and we all get that. I understand they can spend it on all sorts of fun things like expensive cars, multiple houses, vacations, etc. I met a guy at work yesterday who was a hardcore Mccain supporter, he owns his own business makes more then 250k a year, I get his point, he worked hard. All I have to say is so #%^&ing what. My dad works 70-80 hours a week, for the government, bringing home barely enough money to keep up with all the bills, and hes been doing this for as long as I can remember (I'm talking 30-40 years). This other guy is on vacation doing "work" on his really expensive laptop, the kind of work that a monkey could do with the right resources, the kind of work that if my dad was doing it, he would get 500X the work done that this schmuck does.

There are A LOT of families like this in the US, people that work their asses off and barely scrape by month to month, week to week, while these "Fat Cats" who profited from these people working so hard, profited from either getting lucky or working just hard enough to get to a very comfortable position in life, are living it up. Sure some people work hard, some people make huge sacrifices to get to the position that they are at, that does not mean that they shouldn't be giving more back to the rest of the US.

Look at all these Sports Players who play the games we love to watch on TV so much, they make so much money its retarded, why is it a bad thing that they get taxed a little more so everyone else can feel a little less stressed, a tiny bit more secure. So what if Obama has socialistic Ideals (So every mccain supporter says), get real, do you REALLY think 4 more years of Bush's Economic policies are going to help our country? If this "spreading the wealth" around sentence is all you guys have to show for fighting back against Obama, then good luck, because you've got a large wave of new voters just waiting to give Obama the push he needs.

 

[Mistah Kurtz]

Sounds like your dad should have gone to college.
About athletes: They shouldn't make as much as they do? WHO PAYS THEM?! WE DO! The reason athletes make so much money is because we'll pay 100 dollars to see them play. If people stopped paying insane ticket prices and buying expensive merchandise that they don't need these people wouldn't make such obscene amounts of money.

 

[Mistah Kurtz]

Yeah, it would. Just because the rituals are pagan in origin doesn't mean they carry pagan meaning. If Christianity adopted the pig blood pentagram and used it to celebrate Jesus, then the pentagram would cease to be a symbol of pagan meaning within the context of christianity, just like how christians use certain rituals of pagan origin (tree decorating, and that's about it) to celebrate their god without it being blasphemous or have any kind of pagan subtext.

See, there in lies the rub, because nothing of the meaning of the rituals got changed. You kissed under the mistletoe? Does doing that somehow honor god? Not the Christan god. The berries of the mistletoe are meant to resemble the testicles of a bull. It's a ritual that honors a pagan fertility god. There's absolutly nothing honoring the Christan god in that ritual, and instead, by kissing your sweety, you're calling on the testicles of a pagan god to increase her chances of her getting pregnant. Meaning did not change.

No one claimed it did. It's just tradition - hanging bulbs on a tree doesn't specifically have anything to do with Jesus - it's just something we do during the celebration. Unless someone kisses someone under mistletoe thinking to themselves "I'm honoring the pagan god of fertility" then they aren't honoring the pagan god of fertility, they're merely practicing tradition.

 

[Joethenotlicensedplumber.]

Sounds like your dad should have gone to college.
About athletes: They shouldn't make as much as they do? WHO PAYS THEM?! WE DO! The reason athletes make so much money is because we'll pay 100 dollars to see them play. If people stopped paying insane ticket prices and buying expensive merchandise that they don't need these people wouldn't make such obscene amounts of money.

On that note, the man I talked to at work didn't go to college. Not going to college was a choice my father took (which I thought was dumb on his part, but hey), Most people can't even afford to go, or even afford to give up the small amount of time they have extra to sleep to take classes.

 

[swift tongued]

Kurtz... You've responded to every other comment, what the hell is your day job?

In any case it's kinda funny me not knowing shit about the USSR seing as how I kind of am from there and all.

Since when did hippies support the USSR? If they lived there they'd just have gotten killed, it all would have gone a whole lot faster, none of this sitting outside capital buildings. I mean if authors wrote stuff that sort of sounded like it was against the government they'd get blacklisted and starve to death on the street. If you don't beleive me look up the backstory of a russian movel called Master and Megerita

 

[Smokescreen]

Sounds like your dad should have gone to college.

You don't know the first thing about that poster's dad, nor the work he does, nor the life he has. He works and provides for his family, and barely makes it; something isn't right about that, college or no.

Not only do you sound unsympathetic and arrogant, you detract from the position you wish to support.

About athletes: They shouldn't make as much as they do? WHO PAYS THEM?! WE DO! The reason athletes make so much money is because we'll pay 100 dollars to see them play. If people stopped paying insane ticket prices and buying expensive merchandise that they don't need these people wouldn't make such obscene amounts of money.

Actually, athletes make a lot of money because they're part of a business that makes a lot of money, frequently from advertisers, but if you want to say that 'we pay them' then that's pretty much true for every person in America, so...what's your point?

It doesn't take away from the idea that people should be paid a living wage, given access to systems that keep them healthy (so they can keep working) but don't force them to go broke (previous to the housing collapse, 70% of bankruptcy cases were due to people being unable to pay hospital bills), and that there is an unfair distribution of wealth/power in this country that ought to be addressed by the people who can most effectively do so: those with the wealth and power.

If you want to live in a stable society, you gotta pay for it.

 

[kappa koin]

socialism:
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

read it and learn. besides do you make 250,000 a year huh do ya??? well I thought so. anyway no. his ideas are not socialism, I really see this a mud tactic by McCain's camp. I would like it he would stop being a jerk and be a leader but he just wants to call names with out facts. I dont see how he would change after months of saying he's the deregulator then when his Idea's fail he is the super regulator. he's not a good man and he has lost

 

[swift tongued]

woah dude calm down. Dont's accuse Mc'Cain of being immoral, elections are like auchohol, when presented to the unprepared they affect judgement and personality. Hell I don't think Obama walked out of this election unscathed either. You have to keep in mind a lot of people did repect McCain before the election, politics aside.

 

[TheShrike]

... and Obama isn't given to resorting to fascist remarks in order to promote his chances at winning the election.

EDIT: Sources for my statements: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/pers-o23.shtml and http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/elec-s13.shtml

Please cease your misuse od the word fascism.
Fascism is a rejection of the individual as an entity seperate from the state. Social intervention (for example welfare,) protectionism (abolishing NAFTA,) collectivism (the welfare of the poor is as/more important than your own) are all aspects of fascism.
The only big difference between fascism and the middle stages of communism is that communism's goal is a classless society, whereas fascism prefers a society with well-defined classes which cooperate for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

From Obama's comments, he does not seem fascist so much as communist, since spreading the wealth around implies elimination of classes. Socialism, however, is an integral component of both fascism and communism.

If you're going to throw insults at the republican party, call them theocrats or.. I don't know, what do you call a participant in a military dictatorship? Whatever that is. Fascism and communism is the domain of the democratic party.

Obama's tax cuts would benefit me, but I don't want them subsidized by the wealthy, I'd prefer by not turning our health care system into the UK's or Canada's (you don't have to worry about paying, you do have to be worry about being treated, or fed.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1039562/Number-elderly-patients-starving-NHS-wards-doubles-30-000-years.html