NationStates Jolt Archive

I just saw this video on YT today claiming that Obama is a communist for wanting to roll back the tax cuts on the top 1% of income earners. Frankly it made me laugh

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tISe-zEWN9M

Here is my reply

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UowuAHw24K8

Thoughts? I personally think this is a sign of Obama being left wing on this particular issue, but that is far far away from being a communist.

Lewismadmax is hilarious. Every video he makes is a textbook demonstration of the base psychological motivations of conservative Americans.

There is a uk.youtube?!?!

This is colonialism and imperialism at work people. Come to your senses before the sun never sets on the British Empire..again!

I'm not going to bother clicking the links - no one worth considering has called Obama a communist. He's certainly farther left than makes any sense at all, but he's not a communist. :p

Nope, not communist. That simple.

A pity actually.

Socialist, but not communist. Socialist is bad enough, so no votes for him. I wanted Alan Keyes to be first black president, but I wasn't old enough to vote in 2000.

Zahrebska, I think you have disrupted the sheltered world-view of that American.

Socialist, but not communist. Socialist is bad enough, so no votes for him. I wanted Alan Keyes to be first black president, but I wasn't old enough to vote in 2000.

Obama's a centrist; at the very most, he's a tiny notch left of center. He's basically a pragmatist and a realist.

You can't be a socialist without being a communist, if someone claims to be a socialist but not a communist then they are using the social-democratic reformist definition of 'socialism', not the real idea. I'd say the 'socialist' people are referring to are 'bourgeois socialism' as Marx defined it. See below:

2. Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism

A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.

To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems.

We may cite Proudhon’s Philosophis de la Misère as an example of this form.

The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.

A second, and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economical relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be affected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government.

Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech.

Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois socialism.

It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois — for the benefit of the working class.
Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm#b

In other news:
Down is not up.
Right is not left.
Fire is not cold.
A poke in the eye does hurt.

hope this clears a few things up for you people out there.

Well the real point is that every President takes more from the rich than from the poor and redistributes it - that seemed to be his sole problem with Senator Obama but the question between any president is simply how much.

What that has to do with the wider context of communism, as you pointed out, I'm not sure.

Your reply was a little rambling with too many negative asides on the American political system itself - it allows him to dismiss your overall argument.

In other news:
Down is not up.
Right is not left.
Fire is not cold.
A poke in the eye does hurt.

hope this clears a few things up for you people out there.

I was always confused when people would say "It's better then a poke in the eye." I could never figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Thanks for clearing that up for us. Now I can move on with my life. ;)

There is a uk.youtube?!?!
There are youtubes for pretty much every major country out there. It's just the same youtube clip, but with that country's prefix instead of www.
eg.
hk.youtube
nz.youtube
tw.youtube
au.youtube

etc etc

I like them because the tech guy here in my school has blocked www.youtube.com but obviously is unaware of all the others out there. So I can still watch youtube when I should be working. Like now.

I just saw this video on YT today claiming that Obama is a communist for wanting to roll back the tax cuts on the top 1% of income earners. Frankly it made me laugh

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tISe-zEWN9M

Here is my reply

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UowuAHw24K8

Thoughts? I personally think this is a sign of Obama being left wing on this particular issue, but that is far far away from being a communist.

Great reply man. Good job on skewering his horrible argument.

Socialism, fascism, and communism are variations on totalitarianism and take differing levels of control over social, political, religious, and economic areas of life. Obama tends toward socialism, McPain leans toward fascism. Pick your poison.

Idealistic Marxist Communism is nothing like communism as practiced by Soviet Russia, the PRC, or North Korea. I get that. The term 'Communist' has come to mean total state control over every aspect of life. I don't think that's Obama's stance. A heavy progressive income tax is among the tenets of communism, though, and Obama meets that standard.

Regarding "The Rich" - I've never been hired by a poor guy. Economic disparity is a fact of life. The only way to get economic uniformity is if everyone is driven into poverty. Socialistic policies reduce the ability of the wealthy to control their capital and purchase goods or hire workers. This depresses the entire economy. A tax increase for the rich guy means that the rich guy can't remodel his house or buy a new Cadillac or expand his business. This means that there isn't a job for Mr. Middle Class or the Poor Dude.

Regarding "The Rich" - I've never been hired by a poor guy. Economic disparity is a fact of life. The only way to get economic uniformity is if everyone is driven into poverty. Socialistic policies reduce the ability of the wealthy to control their capital and purchase goods or hire workers. This depresses the entire economy. A tax increase for the rich guy means that the rich guy can't remodel his house or buy a new Cadillac or expand his business. This means that there isn't a job for Mr. Middle Class or the Poor Dude.

The government does not just take the money it collects in taxes and burn it. That money is spent as well, often in the kinds of public goods that make economic growth possible, and also in goods that increase the general welfare of all.

I just saw this video on YT today claiming that Obama is a communist for wanting to roll back the tax cuts on the top 1% of income earners. Frankly it made me laugh

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tISe-zEWN9M

Thoughts?

Well, I don't have audio here at work, but based on his hat, I'll guess that Lewismadmax is an Angry White Man (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=550527)!

:p

A tax increase for the rich guy means that the rich guy can't remodel his house or buy a new Cadillac or expand his business. This means that there isn't a job for Mr. Middle Class or the Poor Dude.

That's the kind of spooky talk that's been used to promote and justify Trickle Down Economics. And history has shown that when you give the rich more money, they don't pass it down along the chain. They hoard it for themselves.

Well, according to Political Compass, part US Primaries 2008, Obama is in Right-Authoritarian square. That means moderate conservative, not left-wing politics.

You can't be a socialist without being a communist, if someone claims to be a socialist but not a communist then they are using the social-democratic reformist definition of 'socialism', not the real idea. I'd say the 'socialist' people are referring to are 'bourgeois socialism' as Marx defined it. See below:

That's not really true. Communists see socialism as a transitonary stage between capitalism and communism, and socialists see it as their ends. If you meant you can't be a true or effective socialist without being a communist then that's different.

He's in the Democratic Party of the United States of America. There is no chance in hell he's communist.

I'm not going to bother clicking the links - no one worth considering has called Obama a communist. He's certainly farther left than makes any sense at all, but he's not a communist. :p

Obama is a communist.

There I said it, so I'm not worth considering even though it's clearly a less-than-accurate statement? :p

Sorry, I read your post and had to be a jerk, lol.

Not communist thats for sure, he is sooooooooo left.

Obama is a communist.

There I said it, so I'm not worth considering even though it's clearly a less-than-accurate statement? :p

Sorry, I read your post and had to be a jerk, lol.

Well, not worth considering on *that* point, at least. :p Honestly, I've heard some outlandish and false rumor about Obama, but never once have I heard anyone call him a communist - not even on talk radio.