Congress, News, Ohio
The brain trusts on the McCain/Palin campaign, who decided that the same week Bush’s economic policies caused the government to nationalize the banking system was a good time to label Obama a socialist, should be kicking themselves. Instead, Sarah Palin and John McCain keep on kicking a McCarthy-era dead horse.
But even socialists scoff at the idea that Obama is one of them.
Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.
John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain’s campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven’t forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.
“Red baiting is really the last refuge of scoundrels,” Bachtell said.
Smart people agree.
“Obama is about as far from being a socialist as Joe The Plumber is from being a rocket scientist,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “I think it’s hard for McCain to call Obama a socialist when George Bush is nationalizing banks.”
And this from Bruce Carruthers, a sociology professor at Northwestern University: “Obama is like a center-liberal Democrat, and he is certainly not looking to overthrow capitalism. My goodness, he wouldn’t have the support of someone like The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffet, if he truly was going to overthrow capitalism.”
I doubt Sarah Palin knows who Warren Buffet is, let alone the definitions of the various systems of government. She just continues reading from her Campaigns for Dummies playbook, throwing out whatever phrases make her rally participants cheer. After all, most of them don’t know the difference either.
Personally I would welcome Socialism but I realize the chance of that happening in America any time soon is extremely remote. And Socialism is not a political or government form. It is an economic system plain and simple. But the powers-that-be in the U.S. decided long ago to politicize Socialism and Communism as evil forms of government. But that’s not what they are.
National Socialism, that sounds familiar… as the great John Belushi once said… “I hate Illinois Nazis”
Good point Garry. Though it is off-topic, another point I’d like to make is that bailing out the banks is NOT socialism, as many people are claiming.
It is actually MUCH worse than socialism and is properly called “Corporatism” or “Facism” which are defined as the government becoming one with big business.
Of course, we’ve already had this for years in the form of the Federal Reserve! Do yourselves a favor and do a web search and read up on the history of the Federal Reserve.
I think the term you’re looking for is “Democratic Socialism.” Check out Sen. Bernie Sanders of VT.
And here’s more – Sanders’ view of the bailout:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/20/191440/829/107/605018
National Socialism was Nazism and wasn’t socialism at all. When I speak of socialism I speak of government ownership of most large industries and a comprehensive social welfare safety net. No homelessness or poverty and free healthcare for all but few wealthy people either. And socialism can co-exist with democratic elections.
All these terms are used interchangeably but have very different meanings. In Europe, “democratic socialism” is the benign system in which government pays for social services like health care. What’s key is that it is “democratic” because the citizenry voted to cede control of services to the government. (We do it here with police and emergency services, schools, libraries and care of the poor and elderly — and now banks — but Americans are averse to the term, so we don’t refer to our system as “socialist,” even though, with the glaring exception of health care, it is.)
“Nazi” is actually shorthand in German for “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” But Garry, you are right that Nazi-ism was not socialism. It was fascism,” which is authoritarian corporatism and can be described as a system in which government and corporations merge. Sound familiar?