I have a long article at Quadrant Online dealing with the two hidden aspects of the American election I think are not given their due: the corrupt role of the media and Obama’s far left mentors. These are the opening paras:
The American election will be one for the ages. At the very centre is the question, does Barack Obama truly represent the mainstream of the American ethos and its core beliefs as they now are, here at the start of the twenty-first century? The election will not just be about Obama’s policies themselves, bad as they certainly would be, nor will it be about the almost impossibility of reversing the course that will have been taken if Obama is re-elected, which will indeed be nigh on irreversible.
No, the election will be about whether the United States is any longer the country it once was, a country of free markets and a free people. A United States that can elect Barack Obama once is on the edge of a precipice. To elect him for the second time knowing everything we now know from his first four years as president means the US has gone over the edge.
The march through the institutions that began in the 1960s will have been finally completed. The ethos of an America that will not only be free itself but ensure whatever is necessary to maintain freedom in as much of the world as can be retrieved will have gone. We, in our till now free societies, will be largely on our own with no major power to shield us from totalitarian winds of every kind and gusting from all directions.
Barack Obama is a socialist of the most radical leftist kind. His mentors, just to name the three most prominent, were Frank Marshall, Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers. That the vast majority of the population has no idea who these people are, or the role they played in Obama’s life, is in turn a consequence of the deep leftward turn of the American media forging ahead in step with the social sciences division of the major educational institutions of the United States. The commanding heights of the intellectual world have been taken over by the left and they have created an environment all but impossible to break through. It is only common sense in combination with the disastrous outcomes that leftist policies inevitably lead to that creates the hope that trends now in place can be turned round and reversed. The institutional structure of the United States permits change driven from below if it becomes widely understood that change is necessary. That is the story of this election. Will the American people see the danger in time or will they continue in the direction of the likely ruin that a second Obama administration would bring?
You can read the whole thing here.
the next generation will wake up and the wonderful retirement the Baby Boomers are planning on will evaporate.
You can see it already on shows like ‘Grumpy Old Women’ – Germaine Greer and the other feminazis complaining that they don’t get no respect What a hoot.
“Barack Obama is a socialist of the most radical leftist kind.”
How do you know? Obviously neither his actions nor his words suggest any such thing, so I’m wondering how you figured this out.
And so is Julia Gillard (her actions speak for themselves, for the sake of power she has sold out to the socialist Greens and is kindred to them in origins). If we re-elect Gillard or other representatives of the same ideology not once, but twice, we are also in the same boat. Our national institutions are currently equally as compromised.
As always in troubled times, the swing is to the poles, the extreme left or the extreme right; viz the current trend in European polities.
One can only hope for a ‘cyclical’ generational rebellion, back to a sort of individualised puritanism about a work ethic with strong moral values about personal life (and hope like hell it is not a shift to Islam on the move); the generations following Y may actually not buy the tale of eternal utopias being pedalled at them by socialism. They may start to look at the history of socialism’s delivery.
LOL.
Good one Jarrah, great satire. Stating the opposite to the truth on purpose for comedic impact.
LOL
Corrupt media there and here prefer to ignore books containing inconvenient truths about the media itself, incomvenient truths about the alinskyite foundations for the GFC, not to mention the media’s abject failure and often complicity on climate matters and the voodoo economics arising therefrom.
And let’s not forget the entertainment industry as well. Primetime Propaganda – The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.
“People almost always arrive at their beliefs, not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
(Blaise Pascal)
The economic truth is not very attractive to the U.S. people right now.
Thank you Steve, I’ve read article is a great summary of the candidates and challenges facing America.
The only facet that is missing is Obama’s formative experiences addressed in 2016 Obama’s America. From the information Dinesh D’Souza has carefully researched, Obama has strong views on colonialism and poverty based upon his 3rd world experiences in Indonesia and Kenya which (combined with his families values) shaped his mind in a way to be ameniable to Frank Marshall’s theories.
Considering all this, only a person without scruples who is trying to deliberate mislead would ever make a statement that Obama is not a socialist.
There is, thus, a co-ordination between the President and the media in which both see Obama’s re-election as an end deeply to be desired. They are in cahoots, amplifying the good and hiding the bad for the Democrats while for the Republicans it is the reverse.
There does not seem to be any evidence offered for this statement/accusation/sweeping generalisation.
“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Here Obama is trivializing the work and effort of entrepreneurs in making the sacrifices and taking the risks in setting up and managing their own businesses.
Really, or is he just stating facts. You seem to be saying Mr Kates that all business is built entirely on individual effort and merit. On the face of it that would seem to be a very naive statement. Perhaps in somwe way it even trivialises the efforts and contributions of, well employees or even other investors.
Even with the nomination finally secure, it has been close to impossible to find a kind word about the Republican nominee anywhere in the media. Instead, every effort is made to portray him as stumbling, unlikeable and mistake-prone when he is anything but. Romney’s overseas venture to the UK, Israel and Poland were portrayed as one mis-statement following another when they were in fact evidence of someone who really can show international leadership and may assist in diminishing the world’s hostility to American interests and our own.
Why is that do you think? Is it possible, even remotley that the majority view is the correct one? You know how people stand and fall on their record and performance.
Sorry Mr Kates but I have just run out of time, I have not finished reading through all of your misive for the Quadrant, but I would have to say that just on a quick skim it does not appear to be particularly even handed.
“only a person without scruples who is trying to deliberate mislead would ever make a statement that Obama is
nota socialist.”FTFY
Or it could be that only someone deeply ignorant of the English language, the political spectrum, and of course Obama’s policies and statements, could ever think he was a socialist.
SteveK
I think it’s always worth linking to the Kenyan’s association with the New Party during the 90′s as reasonable evidence that the Affirmative action kid is a socialist.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/07/Obama-Caught-Lying-Again-He-WAS-Member-of-New-Party-Says-Kurtz
However I’m guessing though that he could have been a Hayekian classic liberal despite having member to that socialist party Chicago chapter.
Here’s more Steve.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302031/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz#
Just follw the links especially Kurtz’s rebuttal seen here
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226147/life-new-party/stanley-kurtz
and more
http://ridgeliner7.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/newspapers-shows-obama-lied-he-did-belong-to-socialist-party/
Hmmm Jarrah. Details, pesky details.
So A) why did he join the socialist New Party (he actually had a ticket with a membership #) and
B) why did he deny he was a member of the New Party?
and of course the New Party ACORN connection.
I think the Kenyan was right in deep with ACORN, no? Lol.
Explain to us, Jarrah-the-clown how Obumma policywise is different from any democratic socialist in the European tradition?
He has increased federal government as a % of GDP from 20% to 25% in less than 4 years (total US governemnt to approx 36% of GDP – similar to Australia.
Europe and Britain are ~ 50% of GDP.
Obumma is a disciple of Alinsky and his mentors were socialists or communists.
His Alinskyite techniques are whatever i9s necessary to win which means using ‘their’ (your opponents) rules against them whilst using ‘whatever it takes’ as your own only rule.
Specifically Alinsky advocated never telling voters what your real agenda is so as not to frighten the natives and using the politics of personal destruction on your opponent.
We don’t know the limits of Obumma’s leftism.
No one does.
Except Obumma himself and perhaps a couple of close associates.
I have no doubt he’s a socialist but I don’t think it’s particularly smart or even necessary to accuse Obumma of it.
He’s the most leftwing president in the modern era is all that is necessary to say.
Or that he’s a European style democratic socialist.
Either way his policies are disastrous, his administration is incompetent.
Moreover Obumma is the most divisive and hyperpartisan president in living memory which is damaging national unity and spirit.
Obumma is not a nice human being.
He’s a jerk.
Jarrah, I treat your statements with the same suspicion as I do Steve from Brisbane because you repeatly prove you are a duplicitious person.
You have no integrity.
I don’t treat M0nty with equal disdain as I do your statements as he actually states the truth as he understands it and will withdraw if he makes a mistake.
I must say reading about Romney’s personal generosity, his very considerable charitable giving each and every year has really raised my opinion of him. A very stark contrast to the (God-hating baby killing Moslem embracing) Obama left indeed.
obama is a bog standard liberal democrat
What Jim Rose said. Obviously.
Equally obviously, there is a simple reason Romney is doing badly. It’s because Romney’s campaign is incompetent, as I’ve said before. Ask that well known lefty liberal media conspirator Peggy Noonan if you don’t believe me. He may still win, lord knows, but it will be more by accident than design.
However this simple fact somehow eludes the latest Kates Klassic political analysis, and he instead reaches for vast and tortuous conspirac-ifying to rationalise his hero’s haplessness. Every para is a gem, so one example will have to suffice: Kates portrays the “media” as literally a kind of all-powerful hive mind, capable of magically detecting Romney’s inherent superiority to Obama, then as one moving to deliberately promote Gingrich/Santorum/Paul et al during the primaries “as a means of slowing the Romney momentum and to drain his finances”. Clearly, then, the supporters of Romney’s competitors, such as the Paulites, are mere hypnotised puppets in “the media”‘s invisible hands! And the evidence Kates offers for this remarkable assertion? Of course there is none; for this is really just a wannabe-highbrow version of black helicopter/One World Government type blogwash.
Idiot.
Why? Jim Rose was opining via his rear end.
What’s a liberal democrat?
Is that a Democrat who’s a liberal?
How’s a ‘liberal democrat’ different from an European democratic socialist?
And Obumma has no regard for separation of power does that make less of a ‘liberal democrat’ or more of a ‘liberal democrat’?
Peggy Noonan is a moderate Republican aka RINO.
Whether she’s more ‘conservative” than her fellow Obumma-loving fellow ‘conservative’ David Brooks a matter of opinion.
Michelle Malkin doesn’t think so:
Michelle Malkin calls out the “Beltway and Manhattan chin pullers” RINOs
Are you a lefty like Jim, Daniel Barnes?
Or are you a pseudo centre-right crapologist like Noonan, Brooks, Frum and Scarborough who fumction to aid and abet the most leftwing president in US history in his re-election bid?
Don’t bother answering.
I think we know.
You’re a crapologist.
“why did he join the socialist New Party”
Looking at their principles, they’re clearly left-wing social democrats, not socialists.
Socialism is the abolishment of private property, complete or dominant control over investment, production and distribution by the state, etc. Saying Obama is socialist exposes ignorance of the term, or of his positions, or both.
“Jarrah, I treat your statements with the same suspicion as I do Steve from Brisbane because you repeatly prove you are a duplicitious person.”
Name one time I’ve been duplicitous. I’m pretty sure if you bother, it will just show you don’t know what that word means either.
Barnes you dickhead, explain in your words (not those lifted from a leftwing website) why you think Romney has run an incompetent campaign.
Go!
Four more years of Obama & Co. will wreck the USA and achieve exactly what the 911 crazies wanted.
Walter Russell Mead: Americans Turn on MSM: What Does It Mean?
James says
But James, you need to reconsider this thing about the Kenyan being a socialist dickhead. Of course he isn’t.
It would be like suggesting the French Socialist Party ( correct name: Parti socialiste) is in fact socialist. Of course it isn’t. The name is very misleading as they haven’t got around to changing it.
So because the Federal government doesn’t own the entire means of production of the USA, Obumma isn’t a socialist?
Or is that because he didn’t run on that platform in 2008?
Jarrah, you’re a nincompoop.
^ You say that as if you’re not sure that is actually his intention.
Democratic socialism is difficult to define, and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that follow an electoral, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one.Often, this definition is invoked to distinguish democratic socialism from Stalinist socialism, as in Donald Busky’s Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey, Jim Tomlinson’s Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945-1951, Norman Thomas Democratic Socialism: a new appraisal or Roy Hattersley’s Choose Freedom: The Future of Democratic Socialism.
But for those who use the term in this way, the scope of the term “socialism” itself can be very vague, and include proposals compatible with capitalism. For example, Robert M. Page, a Reader in Democratic Socialism and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, writes about “transformative democratic socialism” to refer to the politics of the Clement Attlee government (a strong welfare state, fiscal redistribution, some nationalisation) and “revisionist democratic socialism,” as developed by Anthony Crosland and Harold Wilson
“So because the Federal government doesn’t own the entire means of production of the USA, Obumma isn’t a socialist?”
No, because Obama doesn’t advocate the total government takeover of the means of production, by definition he isn’t a socialist.
JamesK, you’re a moron.
LOL
Social democracy is a political ideology that considers itself to be a form of reformist democratic socialism. Social democracy rejects the “either/or” polarization interpretation of capitalism versus socialism. It claims that fostering a progressive evolution of capitalism will gradually result in the evolution of capitalist economy into socialist economy. Social democracy argues that all citizens should be legally entitled to certain social rights. These are made up of universal access to public services such as: education, health care, workers’ compensation, and other services including child care and care for the elderly. Social democracy is connected with the trade union labour movement and supports collective bargaining rights for workers.[5] Contemporary social democracy advocates freedom from discrimination based on differences of: ability/disability, age, ethnicity, gender, language, race, religion, sexual orientation, and social class.[6] Most social democratic parties are affiliated with the Socialist International.
Most social democratic parties are affiliated with the Socialist International.
But not the Dems……yet
LOL
Obama is not a socialist, he’s just a naughty boy. And Jarrah is here to help!
At an October 19, 1998 conference at Loyola University, Barack Obama spoke against “propaganda” that said government doesn’t work and the need to “pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution.”
During Obama’s teen years, one of the men who influenced him was Frank Marshall Davis, a committed man of the left with years of experience in the Soviet Union’s various communist front groups and political parties.
Saul Alinsky and Franz Fanon are some more of Barack Obama’s hero’s and influences
Here’s a picture of Barack Obama in Chicago teaching the principles of Saul Alinsky. Notice the flow chart indicating the flow of money and power out of productive businesses (“CORP”) and into the political class (“MAYOR”)..
The heading at the top reads “POWER ANALYSIS”. The sub-heading reads “RELATIONSHIPS BUILD ON SELF INTEREST”. The symbol on the arrow between “CORP” and “MAYOR” is the “$” sign
Saul Alinsky came up with the idea of ‘power analysis’, which looks at relationships built on self-interest between corporations, banks and utilities.
Barack Obama is so familiar with the concept of the Alinsky rules that he taught a course at the University of Chicago on the Alinsky Power Analysis.
Obama served as a paid director with the Woods Fund from 1999 to December, 2002 alongside unrepentant terrorist and self-proclaimed Communist, Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization. In his work, The Communist Manifesto, Ayers calls for a revolution and overthrow of the U.S. system of government.
Together, Obama and Ayers believed in the work of Marxist Alinsky so profoundly that they donated money to the Midwest Academy. Midwest describes itself as “one of the nation’s oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change,” the same kind of change that Obama is seeking.
Alinsky’s tactics were based not on Stalin’s revolutionary violence, but instead on the neo-Marxist strategies of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the, “dialectic process” rather than bloody revolution. Gramsci’s transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.
Thomas Sowell wrote about whether Obama is a socialist:
Socialist or Fascist – Thomas Sowell
“We, in our till now free societies, will be largely on our own with no major power to shield us from totalitarian winds of every kind and gusting from all directions.”
And so? We pretend nothing has changed and pursue the same flawed foreign policies. The USA is forever our fairy god mother, be she as haggard and rotten as a two dollar tart in a gin shop. And all because we have some rhetorical notion of a coalition of ‘free societies’. No matter that none of these is free; and the word ‘society’ hardly pertains to the emerging multi-culti, anarcho-tyrannical dystopias.
“Social democracy is a political ideology that considers itself to be a form of reformist democratic socialism.”
Non-sequitur of the week.
We were discussing Obama, and how no-one can say he’s “a socialist of the most radical leftist kind” without laughing at the absurdity.
It’s not an “absurdity” Jarrah.
No one knows.
He is very left-wing.
He’s an alinskyite – no one knows how far left he is.
His mentors are extreme leftists all.
It can be safely said that he’s a European style social democrat/democratic socialist.
It’s all quite irrelevant really.
Whenever Obumma thinks he can get away with it he pushes the most leftwing agenda that’s possible to achieve and then pulls back as minimally as possible if the blowback is too strong.
It’s not difficult.
It’s just that you are not cerebrally well endowed
The question of the hour is not “Is Obama a Marxist?”
It is “When did Obama stop being a Marxist?”
His mother and father were both committed Marxists, he’s on the record as being so in his twenties, then there’s a pixellated decade or two…and suddenly he’s the President of the USA.
Jarrah,
Didn’t you try to tell me that the Economist didn’t endorse Obama?
You’ve fallen for his “I’m a fiscal conservative” routine. Why you challenge the assertion he is a hard left nut who hates prosperity for the common man is beyond my ken.