Dick Polman, a national political columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, reviews Barack Obama’s debate performance:
Just how bad was Barack Obama’s debate performance last night? Not as bad as Britney Spears’ song-and-dance routine at the MTV Awards. Not as bad as Bill Buckner’s legendary error during the ’86 World Series. Not as bad as Bob Dylan’s music during his God phase. Not as bad as John Travolta’s Scientology cinema experiment in Battlefield Earth. Not as bad as Mike Dukakis’ fateful ride in a military tank.
Polman then points out a number of mistakes Obama made during the debate, mostly in the first part. However, Polman overlooked an interesting aspect of his very first point:
1. He muffed his latest explanation of his recent remarks on small-town America. He said last night: “The point I was making (last week at a private San Francisco fundraiser) was that when people feel like Washington’s not listening to them, when they’re promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change, and it doesn’t, then politically they end up focusing on those things that are constant, like religion. They end up feeling ‘This is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something that I can count on.'” (italics mine)
I doubt that churchgoing small-towners will be satisified with that. They worship for affirmative spiritual reasons – “in good times and in bad times,” as Clinton quickly pointed out last night. They don’t think “politically” about the importance of worship. And, most importantly, they don’t merely “end up” worshipping.
Perhaps they do not. In contrast, it is clear that Obama has thought “politically” about the importance of worship.  He lacked a religious upbringing, but began shopping for a church to further his political organizing. He ended up joining the noxious Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago because its Black Liberation Theology promotes the notion of the church as the center of the community’s political, economic, and social as well as spiritual life.ÂÂ
Indeed, a core theme of this theology in general is the notion of reinterpreting Scripture as a tool to free the black community from the oppression of white capitalism. Thus, his suggestion that people turn to religion due to economic distress is entirely consistent with his own political and religious views. And this is why Obama, for all of his speaking skills, has great difficulty formulating an answer that does not irritate people with more traditional religious views.
I think you’re right. There’s a post over at Ace’s that brings up Kristol’s analysis, which Sully freaked over, of course, that Baracky’s views of religion are very Marxist. Going back to the liberation theology angle, that’s not surprising. And, of course, many leftist Christians see Jesus and the disciples as a model of communism, and Essene Judaism/Early Christianity as communist at root.
Which is interesting, because many of Jesus’ followers hoped that he would lead them as an earthly religio-political figure, to reestablish their independence from Rome. He held that his kingdom was “not of this world.” But the emphasis on orthopraxis brings this desire back to the fore. The Nazis adopted Jesus into their propaganda by emphasizing the righteous, muscular, ass-kicking Jesus who booted the “money lenders” out of His Father’s temple. Then, too, there is the race angle and the retrenchment against “Assyrian corruption,” which is merely given a different polarity in BLT.
Strangely, but predictably, the left isn’t concerned about the theocratic danger such a movement poses.
The point I was making (last week at a private San Francisco fundraiser) was that when people feel like Washington’s not listening to them, when they’re promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change,
If ‘year after year’ and ‘decade after decade’ you are waiting for someone else to change your economic system, the most likely scenario is that you are listening to the wrong people. People like Obama, as it turns out. The only one who can change your economic system is you, and it doesn’t take years to get it started.
hearing about a bacon, lettuce and tomato is making me very hungry.
Really can’t see the Obama-phobia is warranted though, any mature analysis of political economy is a mixture of Marxist, Libertarian, Capitalistic, Traditional viewpoints. To label every “leftist” idea as Marxist, gives Marx too much power and ignores the universality of ideas of justice and equality. Rousseau, and other French enlightenment idealists, Thomas Paine, and many, many others have similar views as Marx on causality of human misery but might not share his draconian (and proven wrong) prescriptions.
So what are we do about the Lost Boys of radical Mormonism? for example? Outlawing polygamy more that our Republican dominated govt? (on the news at the moment._)
I think the word “private” ought to be all-capped, italicized and bolded in that quote.
To label every “leftist†idea as Marxist, gives Marx too much power and ignores the universality of ideas of justice and equality.
I don’t. Only those ideas which seek to use government power to control market forces and freedom under the banner of “justice and equality.”
good reading Where does Karl place in the ideological spectrum I am wondering?
Should we return to a state of pre-1848 mercantile-ism? Eliminate unemployment insurance? Eliminate the state? (never will happen)
Should we label every political/economy idealization “Marxist” that is to the left of Pope Benedict’s or Generalissimo Franco’s?
“Should we return to a state of pre-1848 mercantile-ism? Eliminate unemployment insurance? Eliminate the state? (never will happen) Should we label every political/economy idealization “Marxist†that is to the left of Pope Benedict’s or Generalissimo Franco’s?”
How about, for starters, when people say that they believe in the dictates of a religion that their fathers and grandfathers believed in and practiced, for better or for worse, we don’t interpret this fact as an indication that they are in need of Obama and simply don’t know it?
“The only one who can change your economic system is you, and it doesn’t take years to get it started.”
yeah, sure. (translation:) Work shall make you Free!
where’d we hear that before?
money isn’t everything…even though some like Donald Trump etc. would like to say it is.
“Only those ideas which seek to use government power to control market forces and freedom….”
leaving out the justice and equality part…you’ve got politics of big donors to the current political scene… Their paying for something aren’t they?
Eliminate credit card restrictions of usury rates benefits whom?
Eliminating social security benefits whom?
Giving Govt. Contractor’s no-bid contracts benefits whom?
Tax codes benefiting mortgage “industries” benefits whom?
The idea of ‘fairness’ is universal whether in China or USA. Thus Govt. and ‘the state’ for all rather than govt. for the few (Monarchy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship)
whoa, Private could be taken several ways. Damn cell phones!! Private enterprise: Obama’s doing good in the second definition: 4+million last year. I don’t think he’ll ban cell phone rights to copy speeches by public figures.
Alec…. not likely Obama will get elected at this point…but I wouldn’t mind. I worry about McCain’s economic policies but like his sense of humor. Leaning towards Obama but seeing Hillary in a better light…but either Democrat is going to have a hard time getting elected unless McCain does something stupid. Having too many Bush advisors might help the Democrats if they are smart to keep on the economy as an issue…but the MSM is sure not asking many questions in that regard. The MSM is owned by the ‘elite’ and is very shy about economic issues as we saw in the last ABC debate.
k, off to work to pay for my communication costs!(a big item here thx to Verizon’s mega monopoly in my area)
– All the SecProggs are in full flight panic over at Yahoo, to the point that, based solely on his miserable performance the other night, the browser boys felt compelled to rush the following lede onto the mothership homepage this morning:
Obama makes major gains – In a dramatic reversal, Democrats now see Obama as the party’s best hope in November.
– No further comment is necessary, quick, everyone look really really surprised, sort of political shock and awe, with lots of Oooooohhhh’s, and Awwwwwww’s…
– If you look at what hes done the last 2 months, I’d say hes the perfect candidate for the bigoted, elitist, anti-religious, anti-America, brain-fucked Left….
“Eliminate credit card restrictions of usury rates benefits whom?”
Sen. Joseph Biden (D) Delaware
Sen. Thomas Carper (D) Delaware
Look it up.
off to work…but does “SecProg” mean Secular Progressive? What’s the opposite? Religious Reactionary? got it.
black lib theo sandwich?
Alec, I know, dude.
Democon’s, Republicrats,
and Jimmy Carter was the most Conservative Democrat running for Pres. in ’76. Conservative! (imagine that..although scoop jackson was perhaps equally conservative..)
yeah, sure. (translation:) Work shall make you Free!
where’d we hear that before?
You know, you’re right. Best to sit around stagnating waiting for others to change things for you. Aren’t you fortunate that Obama is finally going to be the one to give you all you desire. No charge. No fees. For free and for reals.
Plus he’s going to stick it to those rich dudes, so like, bonus.
– datavoid…… Shouldn’t you be out scaring neighborhood children in preparation for your upcoming stint as wet nurse?
– Obama’s going to need all the wet nursing he can get. If he conducts the rest of his campaign this way, by july he will name Chevez as his running mate,
My shotgun, and my antipathy toward people who don’t look like me. These things give me solace, for I am a typical white hick person.
Real Clear Politics : Shaked Rattled and Rolled. Luciferians haven fun with Obama. They t; the Pope is here and they worship it.
Just how bad was Barack Obama’s debate performance last night?
This bad?
datadave, yes, I think you could get a broad consensus about “fair”, though not a definition. The only definition that doesn’t squirm when you prod it is “a grade on a performance evaluation between ‘good’ and ‘poor’, meaning ‘we don’t have an excuse to fire you. yet.'”
The question is what to do about it. The thing that distinguishes a conservative on a fundamental level is the recognition that there isn’t much we can do, and that most of the measures within our reach make things worse rather than better. It isn’t “fair” that some people go hungry while others do not — but a “right to have food” enslaves the food-producer, who can no longer dispose of the fruits of his labor as he will, and that isn’t “fair” either.
It isn’t “fair” to take things from people by force. But if your worldview is dominated by the notion that it isn’t “fair” that some have and some have not, you’re going to be seeking ways to make things more “fair”, and that inevitably means taking from the “have”s. The time-honored way of handling that is to define those who have as badguys. It isn’t nice to take, but it is always virtuous to punish bad people. Taking from badguys is righteous punishment for their evil, and gives you what you wanted as a byproduct. Robbing from the Rich and giving to the Poor is virtuous because The Rich are evil by virtue of being rich.
The problem with that is that it is a static analysis — it assumes that nothing else changes, in particular the behavior of the people involved. The closest thing there is to a universally applicable generalization is “static analysis is always wrong”. People do change their behavior.
First, a “right to have food” or a “right to medical care” (e.g.) inevitably ends up defining food producers or health-care providers as evil, and therefore eligible to be punished by taking their food or labor away. People don’t like to consider themselves badguys, and will, by and large, avoid behavior that society defines as evil. The result is less food and/or less health care for everybody. The only alternative is then to force people to produce food or health care, which is to say, to compel people to do evil; and that’s a spiral that goes down and down.
Second, despite mythology modern capitalism does not depend on what Marx would call “capitalists”. The modern capitalist possesses relatively little; his job is to aggregate small bits of “surplus value” from a large number of people in order to accumulate the wherewithal to build factories or hospitals, or to equip farmers with the equipment needed to produce food in large quantities. If you demonize “the rich” in order to define yourself as virtuous for taking their money away, what you end up doing is restricting the “surplus value” to very small amounts; this makes the process vastly less efficient, and the result is fewer factories and hospitals and less farm equipment, and society as a whole is worse off.
Third is the de Soto principle, after the Peruvian economist of that name, which I consider the single most important discovery in economics. It is this: the total assets of “the rich” are only a tiny fraction of the wealth of a society. Your object is to gather funds — that is, to extract wealth from the society to further your own ends, whatever those may be. Define “the rich” as evil; take everything they have; you then will not have enough, so you must define people with less and less as “rich”, another spiral with no endpoint short of disaster.
Fourth, there is no bean-counter anywhere who will not fail to inform you earnestly that control by a single central authority is highly efficient; it eliminates duplication and waste (this is the difference between a “bean counter” and an “accountant”). History is filled to bursting with examples of attempted implementations of that principle, not one of which has ever fulfilled its promise, and the overwhelming majority have resulted in disaster. I have an acquaintance who is a population geneticist. She says that the ways 30 animals might be related to one another exceeds the number of protons in the Universe. What, then, can we say about millions or billions of people exchanging millions and billions of goods and services? The Center does not have enough information to control the process because it cannot, and it does not have enough computational power to process the information it does have because “enough” cannot exist even in principle. The result is bad decisions, loss of wealth, and eventual disaster.
But the sheaf of proposed bases for policy decisions we call “socialist” all share a thorough grounding in the contradiction of those four principles. Everyone should have enough; otherwise it isn’t “fair”. No one should have more; that isn’t “fair”. Anyone who violates those strictures must be punished to preserve “fairness”. And there must be a controlling Authority to adjudicate competing claims to being “fair”. The result of a system built on those principles is that nothing is “fair” to anybody, and the system is so creaky and inefficient that it falls down from its own weakness.
The objection of conservatives to socialist-based notions is not that poor people get money or that hungry people get fed. It is that policies based on socialist principles will not enrich the poor or feed the hungry despite initial advances when they are first put into place. The Universe is not “fair” and cannot be made so. It is arbitrary, and policies based on that assumption give better results — even results that are more nearly “fair” — than any others.
Regards,
Ric
– “The thing that distinguishes a conservative on a fundamental level is the recognition that there isn’t much we can do, and that most of the measures within our reach make things worse rather than better.
= (e.g. – see “biofuels”)
Man, that is a beautiful post. Your stuff is a pleasure to read. Why morons like Kos get national exposure for writing dumb ass shit and gold like your stuff is ignored by the powers that be is just a travesty: like Kos’ latest “see, the Republicans aren’t attacking Hillary, so that means they phear Obamamama!” Gee, I wonder why McCain is holding fire on Clinton? Kos can’t figure it out.
Rick Locke is really pretty fucking bright.
– Lockes first rule of sociodynamics:
“If the Universe was fair, humanity would not exist.”
Ric: There is a top of the page fold in that comment.
Most excellent!
Just how bad was Barack Obama’s debate performance last night? Not as bad as Britney Spears’ song-and-dance routine at the MTV Awards. Not as bad as Bill Buckner’s legendary error during the ‘86 World Series. Not as bad as Bob Dylan’s music during his God phase. Not as bad as John Travolta’s Scientology cinema experiment in Battlefield Earth. Not as bad as Mike Dukakis’ fateful ride in a military tank.
Ouchy! This is known as damning with faint praise.
Look, Sen. Obama didn’t collapse into a blackhole of suckitude but only because Hillary Clinton still has plans to pay him back for ruining her coronation march. Now that he’s losing speed and his shields are failing she will make him regret that he had the temerity to thwart her. Excitable Andy is going to see what real non-physical torture looks like. He had his first dose already. Hope his nerves can take it, November is a long way off still.
Magic 8-Ball says: Outlook Doubtful
No, BBH. Locke’s Laws of Sociodynamics:
1) It ain’t that simple.
This is true regardless of the intricacy of the proposed explanation.
2) The boss is always wrong.
Occasionally obscured by the discovery of a boss who is a little less wrong than average.
3) Ants find the sugar.
Also stated as the “Field of Dreams Principle” If you build it, they will come.
Those with an ironic turn of mind may enjoy turning them back on themselves.
Regards,
Ric
If I had a time machine and a semi-automatic hand gun, the only person I would go back and assassinate is J.J. Rousseau.
“Comment by datadave on 4/18 @ 6:12 am #
“The only one who can change your economic system is you, and it doesn’t take years to get it started.â€Â
yeah, sure. (translation:) Work shall make you Free!
where’d we hear that before? ”
At the front gate of a leftist death camp.
–“At the front gate of a leftist death camp.”
– Hey. The good news is you’ll get lots of fresh air, sun, and excersize as they work you to death. *emancipated bony arm and fist in the air* “Powery people powered power to the peopoly workers Utopia Konrads!!!”
Another Ric Locke classic!
As I recall it, Marx’s basic premise – really only a definiton of words presuming and audaciously hoping and wishing to control reality – is to the effect that “History is class warfare.”
But Marx apparently thought he had instead discoved something like a principle of physics which then necessitated that things such as “history” always operate in a certain way in the real world.
However, the problem then becomes: just how in theory can Communism itself escape the workings of its own law?
And how can Communism possibly escape it in practice when Communists then end up trying so assiduously to bring the paradigmatic example of this “law” into fruition – imo, an example of what happens when people ignore the fact that they are only actualizing their very own projections.
Internal contradictions seem to characterize Progressive thought, so it’s not surprising that Progressive thought seems to nearly always turn out to be exactly 180 degrees wrong in practice. Not that it matters at all to Progressives, given their virtually total unattatchment to and denial of reality in the first place.
They attempted to escape the immutable laws of history that Marx discovered by creating a ‘New Soviet Man’ that would be amenable to socialism in all of its forms and wouldn’t have the flaws of the old capitalist model.
Chernobyl and the Soviet submarine force tells all how well that little experiment worked out.
Work shall make you Free!…where’d we hear that before?
That quip is only one reason, data, why I don’t believe that you have a real job. But if you do, what is it?
d2d,
I label Black Liberation Theology as crypto-Marxist because that is what it is. Had you ever bothered to read the essay on BLT linked in the post, you would see that James Cone is very open about his reliance on Marxism. It is crypto-Marxism because Marx was not down with religion, whereas liberation theologies attempt to use it in a Gramscian fashion. Cone was also influenced by German theologian Karl Barth, which brings with it a whole ‘nother bit of dangerous baggage. Again, you would know this if you bothered to read what I wrote.
J., you need to watch out. A lot — perhaps most — of Marx’s observations are precisely correct. It’s his interpretations that are flawed, and as a result his prescriptions are worse than the disease when they cure anything at all. In fact, I like to compare him to his contemporaries who were physicians. Their diagnoses tended to be spot on, within the limits of their knowledge, but the cures they proposed — leeches? bleeding? arsenic? Gimme a break.
It’s telling, I think, that Marx himself realized that at some level. A perfect society as he described it has no “surplus” — everyone receives precisely what they need; everyone produces at the limit of their ability; and the two balance perfectly. It is possible, just, to imagine a repairman operating under this system, but suppose the car factory gets flattened by a tornado. The society then needs another one, but there are no available resources to build it; the iron, steel, and concrete, not to mention the labor, must be withdrawn from society and used to rebuild, and by definition nobody has any to spare. His “solution” is “the greatest good for the greatest number” — that is, take away things people need (by definition of the structure of the society) in order to satisfy the needs of the society as a whole. It is the only comprehensive philosophy I know of with an explicit escape clause not merely authorizing but requiring the society to revert to (the worst possible version of) what he himself was attempting to supplant when the going got tough.
Regards,
Ric
– Ric. I think P.T.Barnum predated Marx by a fair amount, and stated the same postulate much more succinctly:
– “….Theres a sucker born every minute.”
BBH,
P.T. Barnum: 1810 – 1891, published his autobiography 1854.
Karl Marx: 1818 – 1883; The Communist Manifesto 1848.
Personally, I blame the Dalton Minimum. Since that’s also when thermometers were invented and accurate temperature records began to be made, it serves as the baseline for modern interpretations, so (as usual) it’s all because of Global Warming.
Regards,
Ric
– Hmmmm. 8 years. Not as big a difference as I thought. Still my money would be on P.T. at the poker table.
Well Karl did have a reputation for Marxing cards.
[….]
Uh, hello? Is this thing on?
Uh, hello? Is this thing on?
I think something happened to the cord.
::hiding axe::
I always thought there was an underlying hypocrisy in Marxist Economic Theories, for them to function properly in the real world they are ultimately dependant upon capitalistic societies elsewhere to supply them with materials and services when circumstances calls for it. Essentially meaning that Marxism cannot exist as a viable economic system without capitalism providing a safety net.
Sooner or later they look for someone in the world that is interested in trading a surplus for profit.
That was very well written and thought out, Ric, and I applaud you also.
As for why I persist in asking questions is that I am trying to figure the ideas of political/economy out myself. The question of fairness and force is pivotal to the discussion. As you probably know many govt. regulations have been insisted upon by business, not socialists, in attempting to attain fairness between competing interests. And Otto Von Bismarck might really be the founder of the modern ‘social welfare’ state, not Marx. Note, Bismarck did social welfare reforms to “preempt’ social democrats advocating them (inc. Marx and Engles) but it was just good sense on Bismarck’s behalf to attain social tranquility and to unite modern Germany. (perhaps Otto von should be called a ‘fascist’ too?) Intellectuals give Marx credit for some things he shouldn’t be given as Marx was Verbose and had proper grammar. ala Jeff and Karl (kidding)!
One problem that I originally had with Karl’s post is that many people persist in labeling all socialists as Marxists. Or Communists. In fact, a recent reading of Young Stalin by a popular author (name?) said that prior to the Revolution, Lenin (and Stalin as an money making bank robber for the Party) had planned all along to make the future state into an Oligarchy, not a Social Democracy. Which might have attracted Capitalists like Armand Hammer to support the Communist state when it finally achieved some viability. Now that American Capital (Walmart as prime example) is so infatuated with cheap Chinese labor, one sees a thread of common Oligarchy rather than Communism. And Oligarchy requires ‘force’ to maintain it’s power. To me, governmental force is not different than the force of fear of economic desolation. Orwell’s govt. thug is no different than a Pinkerton thug in the results of their actions.
“A lot  perhaps most  of Marx’s observations are precisely correct. It’s his interpretations that are flawed, and as a result his prescriptions are worse than the disease when they cure anything at all. ”
i agree and many people high up in wall street would agree with that. I just wish others would at least read Marx, and other economic theorists before passing judgment. They should at least read wikipedia’s summaries. Halek is all the rage in China now. Unfortunately they think freedom is ‘free markets’ and nothing else. The Chinese students of Hayek think one party rule is ok as is useful in the suppression of ‘dangerous’ minorities and they are quite unaware of secret police all about them (as they are already children of the Oligarchy that the police is protecting). I heard a professor on tom ashbrook’s show on NPR talking about his students in amazement that they even knew the theories of Hayek. And yet none of them were interested in radical changes from the status quo. Excellent
as for questions about if I work or not. I did put in 9 hours of semi hard labor at the usual freelance carpentry thing on the rich people’s camps in prep. for the summer ‘season’. But being that my ‘boss’ refuses to pay employment taxes as I can pretty much say when I work as long as it gets done. Who said I hate rich people? they are my primary paying ‘clients’ but I have a problem with their ‘go-between’ who refuses to pay employment taxes nor give a cost of living increase…and thus I am looking. The advantage of doing menial labor alone is having time to listen to NPR with those clever Peltor radio headset/hearing protectors) while solving the problems of remodeling.
Karl, I got it. But the obsession with Marx?
“It is crypto-Marxism because Marx was not down with religion, whereas liberation theologies attempt to use it in a Gramscian fashion. Cone was also influenced by German theologian Karl Barth, which brings with it a whole ‘nother bit of dangerous baggage. Again, you would know this if you bothered to read what I wrote.”
I was annoyed with the Marxist epitaph being thrown constantly. Maybe it’s the boy who called wolf syndrome? besides I heard some of the fearmongering from der Spengler awhiles back.
in regards to your’s, Ric’s and other’s concerns about ‘force’ being used by Obama, seems even if elected his only ‘force’ would be through the use of the bully pulpit as he’s been demur about even going to war (unlike Hillary and McCain).
Ric, reread part of your excellent screed..but I have problems with ‘rights’ to food or health care but it seems to work in Europe for example. Both farmers and healh professionals are guaranteed a good income if they produce. As in the excellent Frontline series about international health care systems, no other country (if well-off) wants our health care system. Even though German doctors and esp. Japanese doctors are crying poor.
You’re saying if something is ‘free’ it will thus be undervalued and unappreciated. However, we already have public servants in the military who are at least appreciated here at PW and yet we feel we have a right to protection via our public servants in the military?
A ‘right’ to legal representation doesn’t necessarily make lawyers poor does it?
Unfortunately they think freedom is ‘free markets’ and nothing else.
They should read Ayn Rand then.