The scary reality is that Obama's quasi-socialist economic policies are rooted in the fringe left economic beliefs of his first political party affiliation - The New Party. To understand these economic beliefs, perhaps we should look at the policies of this party; policies that mirror Senator Obama's proposals; policies that referred to President Clinton as a "Barbarian" and were built upon a belief that we should "Forget the Soccer Moms".
From New Party Founder and potential Obama Cabinet Member 'Joel Rogers'.
"After Liberalism" Originally Printed In The Boston Review
"They [Republicans] intend to permanently disable the affirmative state by mandating supermajorities on tax increases, to repeal or render toothless virtually all important environmental, consumer, and worker protections, to remove through "tort deform" the possibility of direct citizen action against corporate power, to recommodify vast reaches of the educational system, to ensure worsening inequality and squalor among the poor by appointing business-dominated local and state governments as their reluctant (and often bankrupt) guardians. Promises of heavenly redemption are largely a sideshow. This is a particularly naked version of what Bush advisor James Pinkerton describes as an "essentially a pro-business agenda.""
Of course it's important to recognize that none of Roger's doomsday predictions ever came to fruition.
"As Clinton ponders further regressive tax reform and deregulation, he draws the line on assault weapons, low wage national service, and Mexican bailouts. Even in the palmy, pre-Contract days of one-party government, the proudest achievements of this administration were deficit reduction and reduced domestic investment, two trade bills without international rights standards, a punitive crime bill, and the promise of truly punitive welfare reform. Now, things are getting much worse"
Now you begin to understand why President Clinton has never thrown his full support towards Obama. It's also important to recognize that the very types of attacks these "New Party" Socialists were waging against Clinton, they are today waging against Bush.
More on the Clinton Democrats...
"The Democrats can beat up on welfare mothers all they want, build more prisons than Stalin, privatize garbage collection in Little Rock, and moan about the responsibilities of the poor. Given a choice between a real Republican and an imitation one, voters will go for the real thing....
The mess is declining living standards and an economy out of control, coupled with the failure of government to respond...Why don't the Democrats articulate that alternative? Why don't they seize the time?
One popular answer looks to Bill Clinton. Having devoted so much of his life to pleasing his many friends, political supporters, and companions on his way to being first in the class, the story goes, Clinton is by nature incapable of making the hard decisions needed to confront the Republicans and move the country forward. An alternative, more serious view traces the Democratic failure to their allegiance to a liberalism of racial preferences, even as they seek to win back the white working class."
PUMA's should feel vindicated, after all, these views expressed in November 1996 are the same attacks made by the Obama campaign against Clinton Supporters in 2008.
"No one, anywhere, is winning elections by promising to beat back the market with an affirmative state committed to full employment, a fair distribution of income, and an efficient provision of essential public goods. And they are not because the world in which such promises were believable - the world of European social democracy and the American New Deal, the Golden Age of postwar American capitalism, when expanded opportunity and the redistribution of its benefits was the order of the day - has largely collapsed. To understand, much less find a way out of, the present disasters of Democratic politics,"
A call for the return of European Socialism & Redistribution. Sound Familiar?
"How To Get Out Of This Mess -
...doing this will require a break with conventional liberalism. Liberals believe more in the kinder and gentler administration of people, usually through the state, than their organization. The reason is that they don't think people of ordinary means and intelligence can really run the society themselves - hence its natural descent to cultural elitism. And liberals are deeply accommodating of corporate power - preferring to mop up at its margins after the damage is done - for much the same reason. They really don't see any other way the society could be organized, and since they don't have an organized people on their side they couldn't make the effort anyway. With all this we need to break...
...It follows that any new democratic politics needs not only to articulate a social alternative to the "business as usual" (and now looping totally out of control) domination of public and everyday life... This double move, indeed, would be the signature of new democratic politics - that it paved the road as it moved along it, that it stood for social control of the economy...
...Carved that way, we are confident, most of the people would be on its side. And on the other one would be everyone else - unaccountable corporate interests, elitists reserving excellence for their children, those who'd rather be defeated than discomfited, racist swine - who reject democratic order. A good fight. One that can be won against the barbarians now running the country, and new barbarians in the wings."
Who was this "Barbarian" in charge in 1996???
"The white-dominated labor movement, for example, has now declined to the point in city membership that it cannot protect itself against low-wage privatization and the destruction of regional labor market standards, let alone assure the public investments needed for the advanced physical and social (education, etc.) infrastructure needed to support high wage production and services, without the voting support of central city Black and Hispanic populations...
...A new democratic politics, emerging at the local level, and operating in a world of high political and social heterogeneity, would first dedicate itself to efforts to get these people together on a high-wage, low-waste, metropolitan development strategy.
... Instead of using public monies to subsidize low-wage firms - as is now generally the case in movements to privatize government services - we would have "living wage (and benefits)" standards that guided all government purchases and contracting out. Instead of only encouraging the young and dislocated workers to "get smart" with additional education and training, we would establish regional labor market boards, sectoral training and employment consortia, regional "hiring halls" and job location assistance to match the human capital system to actual employment opportunities, and regional skills-credentialling systems to get some transparency and access back into a labor market where "leaving it to the company" no longer assures career paths or equal access. ..
... radical labor law reform could facilitate worker formation of "unions" - by which we mean independent worker organizations rooted in the economy, not necessarily only the sorts of organizations that go by that name now. And those unions could be assigned a role in economic reconstruction -"
This article by New Party Founder Joel Rogers was published in November 1996, the same month that Senator Obama won his first election running as Democrat and as a bona-fide member of the 'New Party'.
The same rhetoric that New Party Members used to describe the "Barbarian", President Clinton, in 1996 during a time of economic growth and strength, is the same rhetoric that Senator Obama is using 12 years later. The same policies of massive government expansion, government control of industry and income redistribution that they called for in 1996, are the same policies called for by Senator Obama today.
Our nation has the highest percentage of Middle Class citizens of any nation in the world; our nation's middle class have the strongest economic strength and highest standard of living of any middle class in the world. If European Socialism has been such a successful system, then why is it that our nation account for over 1/4 of the global GDP? Why is that our nation has the highest standard of living of any nation? Why is it that our economy can sustain growth during periods of Asian and long-lasting Russian recessions in the 90's, yet there economies crumble when our nation enters into recession?
Those nations that practice socialism have seen their middle class crumble and the disparity between the wealthy and poor increase. Economic strength is built upon competition and opportunity, both of which suffer under socialist policies. High progressive income taxes, Obama's Bottom-Up Economic Policies, will halt upward movement of the middle class by unfairly taxing their income at ever-higher rates as they strive to grow their wealth. Under this tax system, the wealthy, who have already accumulated their wealth, will see that accumulated wealth remain intact, they will reinvest this wealth in tax-free and capital gains based investments to watch their economic power grow. Meanwhile, the middle class will remain stagnant under policies which tax success at increasingly higher rates. The lower middle class and working poor will become more dependent upon government entitlements and as dependence grows so will the strength of the ruling, elite party. This is why socialism has failed time and time again; this is why our past leaders fought so hard to oppose socialism; this is why Obama's "spread the wealth" policies are dangerous.
Socialism cannot thrive without overt populism and fear. Socialism rose under crumbling European economies in the 20's and crumbling global economies in 30's. We experienced, at great sacrifice, the pain and dangers of that rise in Socialism. For 232 years our nation's system of check and balances have functioned to uphold the 'American Dream' and today I fear that if Pelosi, Obama, and Reid take total control then we shall all be POoR.
J Brown
October 15th, 2008
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