Fourteen months into his presidency, in March 2010, Obama succeeded in muscling through Congress a partial government takeover of the national health-care system. That legislative accomplishment followed Obama’s decision a year earlier, without congressional approval, to nationalize two of the country’s Big Three automobile companies. In the intervening months, he had also imposed specific wage ceilings on employees at banks that had taken federal bailout money—the first such federal wage controls since an ill-fated experiment by Richard Nixon in 1971. Obama also made the federal government the direct provider of student loans, and did so by putting that significant change in American policy inside the larger health-care bill. In a September 2009 press conference, Obama suggested that a publicly funded health-care system might help “avoid some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs”—thus mistaking the act of making money, the foundational cornerstone of capitalism itself, with the generation of unnecessary expenses.
Given his conduct and rhetoric as president, we have every reason to reopen the question from 2008 and ask, quite simply, What kind of socialist is Barack Obama?
To which protein wisdom responds, “the ‘I hope he fails’ kind.”
…
OUTLAW!
You’re being unhelpful again. Obama is a good man.
Why must you hate so much?
Stealth socialism. Or incremental socialism, if you prefer.
And yet we’re told that if we describe it correctly we’re “fringe” extremists who should be quiet, lest we be laughed at by the intellectual class and so scorned by the “moderates” and “independents” who take their cues from them.
That is an example of accepting the terms of debate the left insists upon — and that is so whether some pragmatists refuse to see it that way or not.
Why do we continue to listen to the people who once counseled our silence, and who secretly despise us for our presumptuousness and for the way we make them look by association?
Got a letter from my health insurer this weekend:
Our rate went up another $80 per month.
On top of the other rate increases we’ve already gotten.
blockquote fail
This progressive, Rabbi Michael Lerner, hopes to give Obama a boost [Save Obama – by running against him] by forthrightly proclaiming the program:
Open proclamations of tyranny, while not preferable in themselves, are at least preferable to hidden designs on establishing tyranny.
Yea. Thanks Jeff :)
To which protein wisdom responds, “the ‘I hope he fails’ kind.”
Alas. He’s been all too successful.
[“]Obama has, on numerous occasions, placed himself within the progressive intellectual and political tradition going back to Theodore Roosevelt….[“]
Ah. So he’s a Bismarkian socialist. Well. We all know were that leads, don’t we?
bumblefuckonomics
I cannot convince the liberal in my office Obama is a socialist. I think half his problem is he supports literally everything Obama has done, thinks Obama is doing a great job and but still refuses to look at himself as supporting socialist policies.
I keep replacing his American flag lapel pin with a Soviet flag pin.
Avert your eyes! Extremists doing their fringe labelings just ahead!
…by soaking the rich and yoking big business to the state.
That scheme proved quite a smashing success in Europe a couple decades later.
The good news is, he’s not a national socialist. The bad news is, he’s a trans-national socialist.
Jonah Goldberg is being unhelpful as well, I think. His book Liberal Fascism was bad enough. Imagine, accusing Democrats of being Nazis*! Anyway, this recent piece from him just confirms the suspicions that the right is completely unhinged.
* I know the book does no such thing.
Okay, enough comedy jokes.
Would that we could have convinced the masses that Obama was exactly who we thought he was. However, they had to see it for themselves. There is a slim chance that this experiment in liberal fascism will be reversed and won’t end in disaster, but five bucks says it does.
“To which protein wisdom responds, the ‘I hope he fails’ kind.”
– Two years into “teh great transformastion” and unemployment continues to rise. January, once all the Christmas temp jobs end, should be even bleaker.
– You don’t have to just hope. The wonderful Utopian Socialist experiment is falling apart before your very eyes.
OUTLAW JUSTICE!
What, I’m wondering, is the difference between trans-national socialism and international socialism.
#10 Matt: the problem is one of terminology.
Your leftoid friend (no, he isn’t “liberal”) has no referent for the word “socialism” except “denigratory characterization[*]”. Denigratory characterizations of Teh Won are not permitted; it follows that Teh Won is not a “socialist”.
Regards,
Ric
[*]see what I did there *smirk*
Since socialism only seems to fail forward, is he really failing BBH?
What, I’m wondering, is the difference between trans-national socialism and international socialism.
Trans-national socialism omits the sickle, it’s pure hammer now. No need for a sickle when everyone knows there will be no productive harvests forthcoming.
– If Nov 2nd was any indication of the Proggs perverse definition of “failing forward”, I’ll be content with a repeat of same in the Senate and the WH in 2012.
– I’ll even applaud and toast the idiots as they congratulate themselves.
With transnational socialism, there is no nation to which one can escape.
And we love the hammering because it feels so good when the hammering stops, nicht wahr?
Well, BBH, if you listen to some of Nancy’s more ardent admirer’s, the reason the Proggs got shellacked was because they weren’t progressive enough.
The point being that socialism neither succeeds nor fails. It can only be accepted or rejected.
Better to reject it early. Less bloodshed that way.
–and in point of fact, Obama is not a socialist.
He is a Progressive, and the great achievement of 20th Century Progressivism was to preserve the language and tropes of socialism while totally inverting it.
Socialism received its founding impulse from the observation, true as far as it went, that the producing classes were not benefitting from their productive activity, or were benefitting much less, proportionately, than the people who were financing the early parts of the Industrial Revolution. They set out to redress what they saw as an imbalance — “Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
We have now Progressed to the point where the rallying point of soi-disant “socialists” is that the only way to be “smart”, to “work for economic self-interest”, is to be a parasite upon the productive classes; under the rubric of “social justice” they declare that production gives the producer no claim upon the product, which is the property of all, to be distributed according to the wise decisions of the elite, who are in fact “elite” because they control the distribution of wealth without contributing in any way to producing wealth. Actual producers are to be sneered at as fools, because they continue to strive knowing that their produce will be taken away for “social justice”.
Any of the founders of socialist thought would denounce them.
Regards,
Ric
I really think it will take at least one housecleaning after 2012 to show the Republicans we really mean it when we say we want government to shrink, not “grow more slowly.” It might take many more than that. We may have to replace all of them.
That’s an interesting take Ric.
Ric —
I beg to differ. The thinkers behind socialism always expected to rule as its leaders.
I disagree, Ric: socialism was always about the grasshoppers eating what the ants produced. That its advocates have been forced to re-label themselves is immaterial; the goals and effects have always been the same.
I take Ric’s point as being that the socialists planned to rule over a nation of workers, not a nation of layabouts and functionaries.
Here’s my answer to that. Terry Gilliam is still a hard leftist. And he made Brazil.
The romanticism of a worker’s paradise is a ruse that they quickly dispense with once they’ve sold people on its promises.
– The Progressives, with Bumbblefuck in the lead, will continue to fantasize that they can force investment by bully tactic’s, arm twisting, and governmental regulation shell games. They will fail. But they cannot stop or change because their entire social scam rests on that premise.
– Another two years of this economy, and no one is going to give a shit why.
Jerry Doyle calls that “creeping incrementalism”. I don’t know if he actually coined that phrase, but it’s a good one.
Early progressives had plans for the layabouts. That didn’t work out too well, here or elsewhere. So, no more talk about that problem. Suppressing inconvenient ideas is very progressive.
Either way you slice it socialism/progressivism is all about an elite commanding all else.
Also, I agree wholeheartedly with # 26. They still haven’t received the message.
No. You are confusing what I summarize as “Leninism” and its close cousin, Fabianism, with the original ideas. Marx and others saw the producing classes — “the workers” — robbed of their produce by what they saw as parasites. The primary agents of that robbery were capitalists, who by virtue of their “ownership” of capital goods, the “means of production”, could siphon off the “excess value” produced by the working class for their own aggrandizement. Complicit in the robbery were the bourgeoisie, who took what remained of the “excess value” in exchange for the necessities of life — food, housing, etc. The point of robbing the Rich was that the Rich had already stolen their wealth; robbing them merely returned wealth to the producers. The whole “labor theory of value” is based upon the notion that it is work, labor, production that produces wealth. The fact that the notion resonated with the concepts of the Levellers added to its force, but was not, in the beginning, a primary goal or intent.
It was Leninism (reinforced by Vol IV) that introduced the idea of the “cadre” as the managers and rulers of (putatively) socialist society. My own cynical view of that is that Europeans were totally unwilling to accept anything basically egalitarian or Leveller-based; it was only by providing an analogue of nobility for the self-proclaimed Socialist to worship that Socialist ideals could even be promoted. The Fabians, of course, were of the opinion that the existing uppercrust was entirely adequate to the case, if control was taken away from the inheritors by primogeniture and given to the younger, more Progressive clique.
Don’t confuse the changes post-about 1880 with the original thoughts. Marxism-Leninism has done its best to obscure the issue, which of course is the problem.
Regards,
Ric
– “creeping incrementalism” is a term that was coined during the Reagan administration, describing, among other things, the tendency for auto companies and others to add an endless stream of buzzers and whistles to sell their cars, and for government to grow and expand, no matter who held the reins of power.
– The computer/internet/cell phone industry is a more modern example. It follows the “what can we do to the product incrementally over a period of time so we can justify price increases.”
– Or in the case of gov. “What can we do over time to increase the size, scope, and revenue of government in a expansion hostile environ”.
Terry Gilliam is still a hard leftist. And he made Brazil.
That’s one that still bothers me. But then, if anybody could survive chronic cognitive dissonance, it would be Terry. His brain was wired a bit funny to begin with.
Still, it seems that we have indeed progressed from an argument about workers keeping the fruits of their labor from being stolen by the factory owners, to an argument about the idle keeping the fruits of the workers’ labor. In the first formulation, at least there’s the pretense that some fruit will be harvested. In the latter, not so much.
But if that elite is taking command for the benefit of us all, doesn’t that make it okay?
Marx was living off Engels’ daddy.
His writing is an elaborate defense mechanism.
Of course it does! And if you don’t agree that the decisions being made are working to your benefit, you just need a little re-educating about what’s good for you. Easy peasy!
Could we dispense with the Labor Theory of Value bullshit? Or at least acknowledge that it was a false premise?
All of you should read Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward.
As you read it, keep asking yourselves, whose turn is it to clean out the public bathrooms…?
That effectively inoculates you against socialism.
Of course it does! And if you don’t agree that the decisions being made are working to your benefit, you just need a little re-educating about what’s good for you. Easy peasy!
Tell that to Julia.
– Whether pr not you can sell class warfare to any group always comes down to how much they do, or do not, value and embrace self determination, and the freedom to succeed or fail on ones own designs.
– Progressives, as a group think, state openly that they avoid any sort of competitive system, and of course all the idea’s of responsibility and self determination that goes with it.
– As Jeff has pointed on on numerous occasions, the Progressives desire “determination of outcomes”, never “a free competitive market of opportunities/ideas”.
– Put another way, the “geeks know they can’t compete”.
My progressive brother, employed for less than a year after a full two years on the dole, just bought a $40k car that he has to park on the street.
There’s a metaphor there… somewhere.
this sounds like obamacare
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/06/moncktons-mexican-missive/#more-28941
#40: Yep. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some useful things buried in the horses*t.
Regards,
Ric
– And that LMC is the other reason I don’t believe this current fad of Progressivism has any staying power.
– Aside from the economy, which in itself will be more than enough to sink Bumbblefucks Titanic, a large number of people who jumped on the Leftist bandwagon because it was the nearest one at hand, have zero convictions in anything, let alone some obscure ideology.
– They’re were just looking for some stuff.
There is if a) the car is uninsured, or b) your brother is only carrying liability insurance because he couldn’t afford comprehensive coverage.
My own cynical view of that is that Europeans were totally unwilling to accept anything basically egalitarian or Leveller-based
You ever tried keeping a guillotine sharp? That takes some effort and really eats up your cafe time.
democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy democracy
Occasionally, just for fun, will a progressive mention the form of government vouched safe in that Constitution thinger? I doubt it. Wouldn’t be prudent.
More seriously I think what the Europeans (and others) realized is that operating and maintaining a dedicated apparatus for eliminating the undesirables is an expensive, time consuming, and down right tedious activity.
Better to adapt the entire state apparatus into one big soul and will crushing bureaucracy. Then the only thing left to do is pick the winners, an infinitely more enjoyable pastime for the chosen.
Further off topic… You know, I wouldn’t give that guy a loan and he’s my brother. But someone will lend him a forty grand on his signature. Against something that lost a good third of its resale the minute he drove it off of the lot (and probably into a parked car, if I know him).
If there’s any more talk of bailouts, I’m going to go absolutely batshit insane(er).
LMC – Maybe that represents the pent-up demand that the talking heads always yammer about.
LMC, was it by chance a GM or Chrysler product?
– In other words, I see a good many of the young turks, aka “momentary Leftists”, as just Progging for dollars.
– I think Mr. Bumbblefuck is going to learn the true meaning of the word “fickle”.
In fact, he was chatting with the birds and contentedly singing songs from Vacation Bible School while slitting the throats.*
Modern “progressives” haven’t abandoned all those ideas. Look at cynn’s hatred of the ‘idle rich’ and the visceral hatred many on the left have for Palin’s decision to deliver Trig.
I read the linked article. I found it interesting, in a good way. Some people know how to survive. I’m not one of them, but I’m a quick learner.
Thanks Feets, I just bookmarked that website.
Man those chickens looked good. I’ll bet Carin’s wouldn’t go so peacefully. The family of a high school friend of mine used to raise chickens and I was visiting a couple times when they were dressing them. The operation was nothing quite so fancy – grab one by the head, flip it around, slit the throat then drop it onto the hay and watch the dancing commence. After you had a half dozen you started the defeathering. They used a still drum over a fire for scalding then plucked by hand.
Thanks Feets, I just bookmarked that website.
I’ll bet Carin’s wouldn’t go so peacefully.
Would you if you were about to have your head bitten off by a circus geek? I sure wouldn’t!
I was just trying to learn how to defeather a chicken and stumbled into the Americana
What prompts someone to want to learn how to defeather a chicken?
The easiest way to defeather anything is to skin it. If the recipe does not require skin-on this is by far the way to go.
sometimes when I’m alone in the office I think about a different life altogether and then I realize I’m a bit lacking in the how-to department
If you want a really smooth chicken, you gotta go with hot wax. Plucking is slow and painful, shaving leaves behind too much stubble, and electrolysis is unpleasant and expensive.
Just head down to your local spa and ask the technicians there how much they’d charge to wax your chicken.
You humble servant,
The Pheasant Plucker
the hoochie from ak could’ve helped you
#63
Big pot of boiling water. Dip feathered beast in boiling water. Strip feathers from beast.
Wear rubber gloves. Do it outside.
And wear clothes that you will remove prior to going inside, unless you like all down and pin feathers clinging to everything in the house.
I’ve never boiled water outside before I don’t think
The principle is the same. ;-)
‘Unified Quest 2011’: Pentagon ‘War Games’ U.S. Economic Meltdown
“I’ve never boiled water outside before I don’t think”
– Just move your stove out on the front or back lawn. Remember, boil times will be a little slower with more air.
Does Obama win or lose?
– He fails forward.
Ok, y’all need a real farmer to tell the truth. First, Thomas D has the right of it. Grab it by the head, 1 or 2 quick whips, then a slice. Throw it in the sawdust, have a beer. Do this multiple times.
Go see if the kids are done feeding the pigs, ducks, cows, horses and remaining chickens. Have a beer.
SCALD water ( don’t want the little ones gettin’ hurt!!) It takes a bit, but the kids have done it before. Have a beer.
While the kids are plucking the birds, go slaughter ‘Amy’ the piglet. Have a beer.
Hilarity ensues.
Yeah, I lived on a farm as a kid….
Socialists always do.
“Progging for dollars”
We have a winner. Might make a good game show too. In the “Karl Marx on a game show Monty Python sketch” manner, that is.
Oh, and I vote for “lazy, inept socialist that I hope fails”.
Happy? You don’t even WANT to know how to make Turtle Steaks….Good eating though.
The Catfish Place in St. Cloud (Florida) is an awesome place to get fried turtle.
that’s not right
– Wouldn’t know TD. By the time I get fried I always forget the turtles.
look who got a new recipe
Iran self-sufficient in yellow cake
“Iran self-sufficient in yellow cake”
– A whole new opportunity for the Plames.
– The MFM continues its schizoid dilemma over Wikileaks.
– When the NY trash was doing it all those years against Booooosh, it was patriotic whistleblowing, but when you’re exposing the Won, and his clown car administration, well then it’s something else.
– The media’s hypocrisy really knows no limits.
My social contract don’t say squat about “being helpful”, pal. So I suggest you try that line on somebody who’s less likely to kick you ass into next week just on GP. Clear?
I have never been fried while eating turtle. I was pretty baked one time in Mexico (and that was the ‘no no’ kind of turtle), but never fried.
“…with a cock almost as big as mine…”
Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon
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You can thank me later
I have no freaking idea where all of that came from. None. Sorry.
Marx and others saw the producing classes — “the workers” — robbed of their produce by what they saw as parasites.
Marx was living off Engels’ daddy.
How about those parasitic kids Marx had? I guess it sucked to be responsible for them.
I dunno about Gummo, but Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo seemed to do ok for themselves.
Trying the spot the difference between transnational socialism and international socialism is as difficult as it is between international socialism and national socialism. Often they amounted to the same damn thing.
But both are at least westphalian.
The transnationalists take it a step farther (or a step farther back, circa the medieval catholic church) and are essentially NOT westphalian. It’s basically what you get when you take an international socialist and put it in his head that he rejects the concept of Westphalian sovereignity. He does not see a state entity as being the highest sovereign on earth within it’s territory.
A national socialist would see 1 single socialist state spanning the globe (or else at least, he would see 1 single socialist state and not give a rats ass for what lies beyond it).
An international socialists would see a plurality of socialist states spanning the globe but agreeing on everything and working together to seek global egality (with or without hierarchical order amongst them as you please, potentially leaving very subtle to no difference from a nationalist entity with regional provinces or counties).
The transnational socialist sees a plurality of socialist states spanning the globe and a higher power over them. A non-state or non-states controlling all the states. Another level of bureaucracy (and a PRE-Westphalian one at that). Organizations (which are NOT nation-states) such as the UN, or the ICC, and such (but probably NOT the EU, as it seems more an attempt to merge the european states into one state and control it directly, in a more nationalist or internationalist westphalian fashion) will control nation-states, but each state still has the administration of it’s own territory and the organizations that dictate global policy control no territory directly and have no territory of their own.
Not strictly socialists are transnationalists, you’ve got your bonafied neo-con sorts too.
For a glimpse at what such a thing might look like, again see the medieval Catholic Church and it’s relationship with European Christian states, from the dark ages and the fall of the Western Roman Empire up until the Protestant Reformation and the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century.
Contrast that with the western concept of a ‘nation-state’ that has been prevalent ever since the mid 17th century, or the Roman Empire of Late and Classical Antiquity which had a distinctly more Westphalian flavor.