CNN is running a story currently in which the Socialist Party Co-Chair shares his thoughts about the Obama administration thus far. The resounding answer from the card-carrying Socialist Party members is, he isn’t one of them.
But Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, sees no reason to celebrate. He’s seen people with bumper stickers and placards that call Obama a socialist, and he has a message for them: Obama isn’t a socialist. He’s not even a liberal.
“We didn’t see a great victory with the election of Barack Obama,” Wharton says, ” and we certainly didn’t see our agenda move from the streets to the White House.”
A registered member of the Tea Party (The political party, not the event/pressure group) disagrees:
He says that Obama’s voting record as a senator was more to the left than the U.S. Senate’s sole socialist, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
He says Obama’s association with radicals and his pledge to “spread the wealth” seal his socialistic credentials.
“The role of government is to provide a safe environment to conduct business, not to take from one and give to the other,” says Quagliaroli, a financial planner who lives in Woodstock, Georgia.
Quagliaroli was not persuaded by the arguments of other socialist leaders who reject the idea that Obama is a socialist.
“He’s just not socialist enough for them.”
You can read the entire article here.
ludicrous conclusion that Obama is “center-right”.
I don’t think that is ludicrous at all.
The questions focus deeply on the culture war, and simply ignore vast swaths of public policy. On a regular diamond-chart quiz, Obama’s stated positions earn him a rating of Leftist
A) Your version of the diamond quiz isn’t “regular” — certainly, I think more people have taken or are familiar with the “political compass” TPR links. I don’t know how the compass compares with the better-known version of the diamond chart from the Advocates. In any case, neither the diamond chart (in any version) n0r the political compass is how most people view the political universe.
B) Your questions, likewise, also simply ignore vast swaths of public policy. Starting with, *but in no way limited to*, military spending and foreign policy.
C) The numbers you assign to Obama on your own set of questions may or may not be accurate. For example, you give Obama a “0” on the question “To own a gun if you’re an adult.” While it may well be true that this is the position Obama holds, thus far he has not pushed any such legislation — or anything that comes close — as president. Maybe he did as Senator, although I’m not aware of any, and maybe he will in the future. Maybe not.
Likewise, you give him a “5” on the question, “To use drugs if you are an adult.” I likewise am not sure if that is an accurate score. Has Obama done anything significant to change prohibitionist drug policy? Or does that score mean that he has not yet advocated bringing back alcohol prohibition or outlawing tobacco?
Also, if I understand it correctly, a high score on the gun question could make him more leftist — that is, if his score was 100 on the blue set of questions on the left and 0 on the red set, he’d be on the very far left point of the diamond?
Yet, a pro-individual gun rights position is typically held in America to be a rightist view. I suspect that may be why that question is not on the Advocates’ chart, as it does not fit the chart’s generalized model of what is left and what is right?
Their site doesn’t say how they reached the ludicrous conclusion that Obama is “center-right”. It’s got loopy questions like:
* It’s natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents.
* When you are troubled, it’s better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
The questions focus deeply on the culture war, and simply ignore vast swaths of public policy. On a regular diamond-chart quiz, Obama’s stated positions earn him a rating of Leftist:
According to the Political Compass, Obama’s views are listed as center-right: http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008
I am as skeptical about comparing senators or reps. votes with one another as I am about the left/right scale in general. Most of the time they vote together…like to rename a post-office. To me it is better to view their public statements, bold actions, what bills they introduce.
For example…Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist openly. To say that Obama is a super-mega socialist has no ground no matter which way you look at it. But to say that Obama who calls himself a pragmatic moderate (I’m paraphrasing) is further to a ‘left’ than an open socialist is absurd.
Many folks on the right always say that the Democratic nominee (whomever he/she is) is the most liberal member of the House/Senate/Whatever. See above the silly claim that Obama was more liberal in the Senate than Bernie Sanders.
You can always cherry-pick data to prove whatever you want, but for people who are genuinely interested in these kinds of issues I recommend http://www.voteview.org – it tracks ALL votes. With regard to the Obama/Sanders quote above, go to the site and click in the left menu on the Who’s more liberal – Clinton or Obama tab and you’ll get a thorough analysis. FWIW the gist is that Obama was slightly more liberal than Clinton, but 8 Senators and 80 Representatives were more liberal than Obama.
Attention Doctor Donald J. Grundmann, attention Doctor ………..
From my previous comment:
….However, I, the third blind man in this analogy, think the elephant in question is best described from touching the center of his cognitive activity, which is located in his ass…..
p2: Readers may check my description by fisting the elephant’s cognitive center themselves, much as they can the donkey’s — but I must caution them ahead of time that it is a shitty experience, and the stench lingers a long time and is quite difficult to wash off…..
VAUGHN: I clicked on the Tea Party link and saw the article on the side about black conservatives, and found the Frederick Douglass Foundation: http://www.frederickdouglassfoundation.com/
Which I found to be ironic, as Douglass was a socialist. To connect today’s Republican party to the party at its founding is horribly misguided. I really don’t think that Douglass would agree with today’s GOP’s anti-immigrant, anti-equality, anti-feminist platform.
STEVE: Actually today’s Republican Party looks a lot like its founding. They have a religious base with an agenda that is largely ignored by their leaders who pursue their goals of aggressive war and loose monetary policy.
PAULIE: You are both correct.
Imagine that you are two blind men, trying to describe an elephant — one of you from feeling around his trunk, and one of you from feeling around his genetalia.
However, I, the third blind man in this analogy, think the elephant in question is best described from touching the center of his cognitive activity, which is located in his ass:
It’s not that I’m more or less correct than either of you, nor that either of you is more or less correct than the other — it’s just that we are three blind men trying to describe our perspectives of the same elephant.
Vaughn,
I agree.
Some of us thought, during Dubai-ya Bush’s court-appointed reign of error, that there was a high chance he would call off the pretense of elections entirely, and use some (possibly engineered) tragic event to stay in office under “emergency” martial law — the better to avoid war crimes prosecution.
But, I think he stumbled on something even more clever: he went to Mexico, got a tan and some plastic surgery, dropped the fake hillbilly accent and phony dumb cowboy act, and made his way around the pesky problem of the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution by being elected under a fake name: Barack Obama.
Not only does this explain why his policies are so seamlessly continuous from one term to the next, but it solves the mystery of the “missing” birth certificate that is constantly brought up by the birther nuts – even though he was obviously in fact born in the US. It’s just that he was not born as Barack Obama, but as George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush.
Sure, I know how absurd and far-fetched this may sound to some, but can anyone provide a better hypothesis to fit all the observed facts?
A registered member of the Tea Party (The political party, not the event/pressure group) disagrees:
I looked at the provided link (teaparty.org), and as best I could determine, they are an event/pressure group, not a political party. Was there something I missed, or was it the wrong link?
Actually today’s Republican Party looks a lot like its founding. They have a religious base with an agenda that is largely ignored by their leaders who pursue their goals of aggressive war and loose monetary policy.
I’m got my card around here somewhere…
Obama was never even a liberal, in my opinion. Socialist is a good term for scaring people, though.
I clicked on the Tea Party link and saw the article on the side about black conservatives, and found the Frederick Douglass Foundation: http://www.frederickdouglassfoundation.com/
Which I found to be ironic, as Douglass was a socialist. To connect today’s Republican party to the party at its founding is horribly misguided. I really don’t think that Douglass would agree with today’s GOP’s anti-immigrant, anti-equality, anti-feminist platform.
Code: Socialists = liberals & left =demons.
In order to get an endorsement & great support initially from liberal democrat Kennedy, be assured Obama was carefully vetted & certainly is a liberal democrat. He was manged to deliberately confuse his liberalness with left progressive in order to get their significant support. Very clever. & to rightists anyone to the left of a Clinton/Reagan blue dog is a socialist. The word socialist has taken on code meaning. Worse than liberal.
I think a lot of Republicans are upset over the fact that Obama is a better fascist than they are, so they have to call him something that won’t make them look bad, too.
Strictly speaking, Wharton is right: Obama’s economic gameplan doesn’t come from Marx; it comes from Mussolini. He’s a fascist.