I’ve never quite gotten the cult of Che Guevara. Colleges across the country are crisscrossed with students wearing Che tee shirts and dorm rooms are decorated with Che posters. Sometimes if you ask the student wearing a Che shirt about him you’ll get a leftist screed worthy of Matt Damon’s bar scene in Good Will Hunting. They’ll talk about his “affinity for the poor”, that he was a doctor, and the fact that he fought against the American Imperialists and “Capitalist octopuses” who were abusing and exploiting the population of South America. Most of the time however they will simply say nonsensical things like “he fought for the oppressed” or he was a “man of the people”.
What you’ll rarely hear them tell you about, though, is Che the Communist, Che the murderer, Che the narcisist, or Che the sadist. You won’t hear them tell you about the thousands of innocent Cubans who were killed arbitrarily at Che’s direction, or by Che’s own hand. They won’t tell you about the economic morass his revolution brought to Cuba. They won’t tell you about the chaos he left in his wake.
Most people wearing Che shirts or sleeping under Che posters know nothing about Che Guevara but they know that he was larger than life and somehow being associated with him makes them cool.
Such is the nature of a cult. Cherry picking facts and ignoring those that damage the image of their idol. In the case of the cult of Che, it’s a pretty innocuous cult. Other than facilitating a hookup that one might regret in the morning or inciting a fisticuff on the student union, there’s not much of an impact on the wider world.
If only we could say the same about the cult of Barack Obama. His cult shares many of the characteristics of the Che cult: The posters. The tee shirts. The celebrity. Mostly though, the cult of Barack Obama shares the characteristic of its adherents knowing practically nothing about their deity. Ask Obama supporters why they like Obama and you’ll get things like “He is for the people” “He supports women’s rights”, “He fixed the healthcare system” or maybe “He got Bin Laden”. All of those points, like most about Obama, are either meaningless or simply wrong.
Being for the people or supporting women’s rights may make for a good sound bite, but they mean nothing in the debate over public policy. Does lowering taxes so that all citizens can take more of their money home count as being for the people? Does promoting a woman’s right to protect herself with a weapon count as supporting women’s rights? And as for Obama getting Bin Laden, a Facebook post recently summed that up nicely: Crediting Obama with killing Bin Laden is like crediting Nixon with landing on the moon.
And even those things they get right on the surface, they get wrong. They will say that unemployment is lower under Barack Obama, which it is, 6.2% today vs. 7.6%. That is true on the surface, but only because 11 million Americans have given up looking for work since Obama became president. Those people are not counted in the unemployment rate. Had they been counted the unemployment rate would be over 10% rather than 6.2%. They say he implemented Obamacare. This too is true on its face, but it’s a fundamental lie. Obamacare as it was signed into law has never been implemented. Obama has unlawfully given subsidies to tens of millions of people in conflict with the explicit language of the law. He has unconstitutionally given waivers and delays to tens of thousands of employers employing tens of millions of people so that the pain the law imposes won’t be felt until it’s politically expedient… for him. So, in reality, Obamacare as written has not been implemented, but Americans are nonetheless saddled with a dysfunctional system that has cost jobs and caused many people to lose their doctors, face higher costs and in some cases lose their insurance altogether.
And the list goes on… The disconnect between reality and the fantasyland members of the cult live in is stark. But how do you know if a friend or loved one is a member of the Cult of Barack Obama? Well, like a mirror used to uncover a vampire, here are eight questions that might help you find out. (And remember, all of this is after Obama borrowed $5 trillion and the FED pumped almost $4 trillion into the economy.)
1) Is American household income higher today than it was when Barack Obama took office? No. Lower, by $2,500.
2) Are more Americans working today than there were when Barack Obama took office? Nominally yes. 146 million vs. 142 million, but as the population has grown by 13 million, a lower percentage of the population is actually working, 45.6% vs. 46.3%
3) Are there fewer Americans living in poverty today than there were when Barack Obama took office? No. More are. 44 million in 2009 – 14.3% of the population vs. 48 million today, 15% of the population.
4) Are there more or fewer Americans on food stamps today than there were when Barack Obama took office? More. 47 million vs. 34 million.
5) Has the percentage of Americans with health insurance increased since Obamacare passed? No. 83.4% vs. 84.0%.
6) How does Barack Obama’s progressive recovery compare to Ronald Reagan’s free market recovery? Not well: 5.8% total growth over his first 5 years vs. 17.7% for Reagan’s.
7) Is Iraq better off or worse off today than it was when Barack Obama took office? Far worse.
8) Is the world a more stable or friendly place today than it was when Barack Obama took office? Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Venezuela, Honduras… Not so much.
If, after going through these questions and answers your friend still supports Barack Obama, they are likely part of the cult. Just to be sure however, ask them why they still support him. If they give you logical, cogent reasons for doing so then maybe they’re just confused and there may be some hope for recovery after all. For the rest it might be time Google “intervention”.
Unfortunately, while today Che’s cult is largely harmless, Barack’s has wrought a disaster on the American people and the world beyond. Like the objects in the mirror that are larger than they appear, we can only hope that the cult of Obama fizzles soon after he leaves office as the magnitude of his ineptness and his failures becomes clear.
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One only has to look at the propaganda campaign that created the “Che” cult, to see that it is not much different than the propaganda campaign that was used to create the Cult of Obama.
Che was a revolutionary that was good looking, had falsely claimed to be a doctor (there are no records of him having ever graduated from any medical school), who was photographic, and well spoken. And while he was basically a second string player, he drew the attention of the American press and wholla!!! a cult was born. Fidel Castro used the fascination the American press held for Che as a way to draw attention to the “revolution” and away from Fidel’s own Russian (Communist) ties. But when push came to shove, and Che got too big for his britches, Fidel was more than happy to let someone else remove Che from the equation, only to go on an canonize Che to keep the myth alive. Humberto Fontova’s book, The Real Che Guevera is a must read.
The same propaganda machine was created around Barak Hussein Obama, Jr. A first term state senator, who came out of nowhere to give the 2004 Democrat Convention key note speech; a first term federal senator who claimed no presidential aspirations only to start running for POTUS almost immediately; someone with a miserable state senate record of having written no meaningful legislation and a habit of voting “Present”; again, no meaningful legislation written in the U.S. Senate; a past that was vague and could not be authenticated; and the least productive editor of the Harvard Law Review in history; a history of backing radicals, including the Green Party, which was ignored, and even erased, by the main stream media.
But David Axelrod, who I credit as being brilliant, created the myth and ran with it. And because progressives were starving for someone who would meet their criteria for a radical progressive candidate, Obama bounded on the national scene. No one asked “Why was a little known guy from the Illinois Senate picked to give such an important speech at the 2004 DNC convention? Where did this guy come from? Exactly who is he?” It was enough that he was, to quote Joe Biden, a “clean and articulate” [light skinned] black guy who could rally the troops.
Some saw through the smoke and mirrors and understood that Obama was the same stinking Marxist wannabe that Che was. But Obama………………….and he was going to bring racial comity to a nation that was already seeing a diminish in racial bias. He was going to lower our debt, get us out of wars, bring a new high level of respect for the United States from foreign nations. He could understand the mindset of radical Islam since he lived in Indonesia until he was ten; and the seas would begin to recede, the planet would begin to heal and
global warmingclimate change would cease to be a threat.Oooops.
Good job, Vince. Sharing this.
Thanks, Vince.
Note that almost all of these are economic failures.
Yet Obama keeps doubling down on doomed economic policies.
Recall his recent use of the term, “economic patriotism?”
Well, here’s the next logical (in libs minds) step:
Just today I was reading that Jonathan Alter (Dem pundit) wants liberal Americans to force every corporation sign something.
That ”something” amounts to a ”loyalty oath,” promising never to use legal means to maximize profits.
Yes, INVERSION is perfectly LEGAL, but it isn’t ”patriotic” if it robs Obama of scarce funds for his redistributionist dreams.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat announced that he backs legislation making inversion illegal.
Odd, that, since his own daughter is the CEO of Mylan, a Pittsburgh-based generic drugmaker, that is, on paper, becoming Dutch.
And in a really creepy conclusion, Alter decides to make these LOYALTY OATHS confidential so Americans don’t even know what Obama is forcing businesses to do!
Alter wants the old-fashioned non-disclosure agreement to become the new fangled non-desertion agreement signed by “every board member and CEO in the United States.”
Alter says, Obama “The president should issue an executive order that says any company that wants to keep its federal contracts must sign a new-fangled NDA.”
Alter’s scheme goes on to add that ”companies that sign non-desertion agreements would embed a tiny American flag or some other Good Housekeeping-type seal in their corporate insignia for all to see.”
Oh, my!
What’s next?
Little PINK TRIANGLES?
Little YELLOW STARS?
@Nanny G:
This would be interesting just to see how the administration would get out of holding GE’s feet to the fire. Most likely through executive order.
9) Do you display a photo of Obama in your residence and/or place of work?
Ah… forget the place of work question (most of you Obama lovers have never worked a day in your lives).
It’s Bush, Koch Brothers, Republicans, or the Tea Party Patriots fault. I could never be 0-blama’s fault!!
Remember when Che Guevara was in every paper and news report-the heroic revolutionary. Looking at the works of Bruce Hoffman and Martha Crenshaw-Che is a certified terrorist.
CIA files still classified but the agency dumped millions into his movement. The carnage was incredible, the picture are wonderous, the devastation and horror is unimaginable.
Another CIA masterpiece.
A cult, huh? Tell me, Vince, if you write for a purportedly political blog and 90% of the posts are about Obama, and 99% of those are not strictly addressing his politics or policy, but more likely how god like his personal horribleness is, what should we call the authors and adherents of that blog?
Your questions. How exactly do these arbitrarily designed questions prove anything, one might wonder? Let’s start with the first flaw. Those who voted for Obama voted for him over an actual candidate, not the economy of a chosen date or the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan. So a real questions might be is the economy of Obama doing better than what Mitt Romney would have wrought; or are we happier with our current foreign policy than what McCain might have gotten us up to; or would people have less food stamps if Paul Ryan controlled the budget? (I will hazard a guess of yes.) All unknowable, but at least honest questions.
If we want to nitpick more, does the President unilaterally control and dictate all economic policy? I didn’t think so. How many of Obama’s jobs bills have been passed in the Republican House? Pinning blame can be problematic when one takes a look under the surface of propaganda.
Unlike those on the extremist fringe, most Americans understand they are voting for a person, yes, but also a platform. Obama has been mainly predictable as a Democrat, outside perhaps of being further to the Right on some military issues, such as drones, and the fact he actually passed comprehensive health care reform, which has always been a long shot. Many on Flopping Aces might be surprised to find that Obama has been criticized on the Left for not spending more on the stimulus (see Paul Krugman or google balance sheet recession). Things are not as simple as some would have you believe. People decided to support Obama for a host of different reasons, including not believing that austerity is sound economic policy on the precipice of depression; wanting to end the wars; or being against Republican policy on social issues. All those reasons, whether or not you agree, have as much academic or personal traction as anything you can muster against them in a true debate. It sure doesn’t sound like a cult to me.
What I’m left with: On a website obsessed with Obama and Obama conspiracy theories of endless variety, an author posed ridiculously arbitrary questions and claimed if you couldn’t answer them a certain way, you’re a cultist (!). Not as gotcha as some had hoped for. If nothing else, it will make some people feel more vindicated in feeling the same way they did after the last FA post.
This Che tie-in reminded me of the 2008 elections when we found Obama for America headquarters looking like this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_etZFOK2xubc/SF8A68EKGLI/AAAAAAAAAmw/saAvzQ9pIYw/s400/che.jpg
and this:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_etZFOK2xubc/SF_HJpRhPmI/AAAAAAAAAnw/d42JQvuD5qw/s400/obama-che_judge.jpg
The sad thing is how easy it is to be distracted from real issues…..like those harsh economic issues that are direct results of Obama policies.
Right now Boko Haram has strapped bombs (remote detonations) on several of those girls they kidnapped then used them to kill other people.
Right now ISIS (who Obama REFUSES to fight) has trapped 40,000 men women and CHILDREN on a mountain with NO WATER. They are dying of thirst but Obama refuses to arm the Kurds or to even do water drops for those families.
@Tom: jobs bills ,that’s funny
#9
Is the USA a more Christian country, or a more muslim country since obama took office?
That is misleading at best, as it does not differentiate between part time v. full time, nor on a comparison of take-home-pay amounts and the number of man-hours worked.
@Tom: Obama only appears to maintain any semblance of competence by blaming every problem, failure or crisis on someone, something else or, the old fall-back, Bush. The eight points are eight glaring failures, eight broken promises, eight campaign issues which were either not addressed or mismanaged.
A collusion between Reid and Obama, Reid keeping legislation from the House from coming to a vote and Obama making law out of thin air because “Congress won’t act” is the source of legislative inactivity, not the House. Of course liberals thought the “stimulus” ($865 billion) was too small; there were still about 3 liberal campaign supporters that didn’t get their kick-backs. As it is, after spending a trillion dollars on “shovel ready” projects, the left is still using “aging infrastructure” as a campaign talking point. Fact is, if it had been another $7 trillion in addition to the 7 Obama has squandered, it would have vanished into thin air just as the $865 billion did.
Of COURSE we would be in a better position with McCain or Romney. My God, how could it possibly have been worse?
Excellent post, Vince.
@Bill:
If you’re basing your analysis upon the assumption that this is as bad as it could get, you may not have adequately familiarized yourself with the Great Recession. Obviously, it could have been much worse. And, yes, the recovery could have been better. Let me guess whom you’d like to blame for that. But where does the Republican Congress fit into this, the one that expressly put the defeat of Obama in 2012 as their top priority with the economy on a precipice, and did absolutely nothing so as not to grant Obama a perceived policy victory? No, this is not conspiracy theory. This strategy was openly discussed by GOP leadership. Are you starting to get the feeling perhaps this is a little more complicated than you want to believe?
10) Do you spend time trolling certain politically oriented forums that you disagree with in an effort to make something out of your aimless life?
11) Can you actually make it through life without clinging to the skirts of the “vote for a living/something for nothing” DemRino party of one?
12) Will the likes of you ever realize that you’re only fooling yourself with the dimwitted DemRino Brown Shirt propaganda you post?
13) When are you going to understand that your beloved DemRinos care absolutely nothing about people like you?
14) What are you going to do when you finally realize that your beloved DemRino party has replaced you, and your needs, with millions of chronically dependent 3rd world disease ridden illegal immigrants?
@Tom: And you have nothing to say beyond admitting you’re part of the Obama cult, a complete Obama tool. Noted.
Moving on . . .
@Tom: So . . . kid . . . I think you need to learn a little bit about how our government works. When a Che-style communist demogogue is voted in using Billions of dollars and propaganda to buy the votes of the young and poor, it’s the job of the mature and responsible citizens to oppose bad laws, bad ideas, and government takeover.
Winning the Presidency never gave a fringe group the power to remake the USA over in any image they wanted. The People of the this country — Represented in Congress — have curtailed the takeover by opposing this farce, one law at a time.
Congress was steamrolled back in 2008 with Obamacare. In every case past — whether the Dems or Reps did it — passing a law without buy in from the other party always starts a war.
Obama and crew started an internal war in this country by thinking they have the right to do want many Americans do not. That is not their place.
Obama has been a lame-duck President for the majority of his tenure, which is how I expect my government to run. Demagogues and tyrants are not to be tolerated.
You should blame Congress for preventing Obama’s absurd takeover.
I thank them.
@FMB42:
That didn’t take long. Stoking race-based fear: the constant in the American Conservative toolbox. Should we revisit the arguments against Emancipation, or Irish and Italian immigration, or Desegregation, or the VRA? They’re all the same: don’t let them take what you have. Not everyone needs to be part of a collective aligned against the Boogeyman du jour to feel secure.
@Tom:
Could the recession have been much worse? Do we now base public policy on hypotheticals? Or perhaps we should compare recessions; FDR vs. Coolidge, Carter vs. Reagan. The length of time we were in the Great Depressive vs. Presidential actions. Economists warned that FDR was doing the wrong things to pull us out of the Great Depression, historians have proven them to have been correct.
After 5 years and 7 months of the Obama administration, the “Blame Bush” excuse has expired its shelf life. But the left has no other excuse, so they revert back to what has been a tried and true blame game that uninformed voters will accept.
There are two representative branches, Tom, and you conveniently left out the Democrat Senate. When bi-partisan bills are passed in the House of Representatives to try to help the economy, but they are tabled/shelved by Harry Reid, the “do-nothing” term used against the House of Representatives takes on a whole new meaning. You want to ignore Reid’s special little trick of either shelving passed legislation on his desk, or bringing them up for a cloture vote which allows for no amendment process. This tactic is simply to cut down on any debate about any legislation passed by the Congress and not allow any input on the part of the other side of the aisle.
So while you feign shock that the Republicans would try to defeat Obama in both 2008 and 2012, you turn a blind eye to the fact that Democrats worked diligently to defeat Republicans in every election since they became a party. That is what the parties do; they work to defeat the opposite party, but now, since it was Obama the Republicans wanted to defeat, you find that abhorrent.
Why should Republicans want to give Obama a “perceived” victory when they dispute Obama’s policies? The job of the Congress is to represent those that sent them to D.C. as elected representatives, not salve Obama’s ego. And while I understand that Barack Obama is the most egotistical, narcissistic president this nation has ever known, that is his problem, and should not be ours.
And you, of course, feign shock over this tactic, all the while ignoring that the Democrats worked diligently to defeat George Bush, and ever other Republican this nation has ever elected. You hold Republicans to a standard that you do not apply to Democrats. No surprise. Democrats base their entire argument on division, labeling, in true Lenin fashion, those who are opposed to their philosophy as something to be hated.
Bravo, retire05!!!!
@Tom:
I guess, Tom, being primarily exposed only to the open-arms policies of the left and their gracious acceptance of opposition proposals, you are not aware of the concept of the two party system. The object of one party is to put the other party out of office. You might jot this down somewhere for future reference.
That being said, Obama was one of the most liberal members (or, perhaps, place-keepers, since he did practically nothing) of Congress and had proposed a far left agenda. Of COURSE the Republicans were going to try to defeat him come the next election. The “stimulus” was nothing but a trillion dollar boondoggle designed to reward political supporters; of COURSE Republicans were going to oppose it. Cap and Trade posed a dire threat to, not only a struggling economy, but even a healthy, vibrant economy; of COURSE the Republicans would oppose it. Obamacare was aptly predicted as an economic assassin; it has proven to be far more devastating than most even imagined; of COURSE Republicans opposed it and want it repealed.
The left have presented no budgets, consider no fiscally responsible legislation and have no desire whatsoever to address our mounting and threatening debt; of COURSE anyone with any intelligence would fight tooth and nail against the policies of spending without remorse or concern.
Obama came into office offering nothing more than platitudes and slogans. He never, up until gaining the Presidency, achieved anything on his own and since become President has only achieved failure, conflict, and debt. Of all his promises, the one and only promise he has made good on is ending DADT, and the jury is still out on that one.
Beyond any possible argument to the contrary, it takes a true, committed cultist to still support this lying failure.
@Tom:
Where do you find a reference to race? You have obviously just realized you lost the argument (you never really had a shot anyway) and, as every committed liberal cultist always does, dropped the race-bomb to clear out the contrary ideas. Epic fail.
@FMB42: #5
That is hilarious.
At Gulfstream (A corporate jet manufacturer here in Savannah, GA) what appeared to be about half of the cars in the employee parking lot wore Obama bumper stickers.
Soon after he made his famous remarks about CEOs flying around in corporate jets, there weren’t so many.
Fewer bumper stickers on employee cars, and fewer employee cars in general.
I heard from a security guard that before they announced the layoffs, several executives walked through the parking lot looking at bumpers…
Maybe just a legend…y’ think?
Karma can be such a Hillary!
@retire05: Great points.
The American voting public showed Obama that they wanted his policies stopped when they ”shellacked” him and Dems in 2010.
Since then voters are showing they continue to want Obama’s policies held back…..to the extent the elected part of the Gov’t can do that.
@Bill:
B
Look around you. Look at the only topic of conversation. The anti-cult of Obama is self-evident. You can try to explain it, or legitimize it, but you cannot minimize its overwhelming existence. For most of America, Obama is a Democratic politician, center-Left, in a conservative country. His policies are the policies of his party and are, in fact, precisely the policies he ran on and was elected on twice. If it had been another Democrat elected, the policies would not be very different. But apparently, to the Obama anti-Cultists, Obama himself is different, and that’s the crucial point. The Far Right has inflated tired stereotypes with conservative paranoia and come up with “the Won”. And how sad it all is, picking through the retreaded talking points and, frankly, awkward behavioral observations. Obama is “not really American”. He’s “lazy”. This was all “handed to him”. Hmmm… But at the same time we’re informed that this is an evil, power-hungry despot; oh who is also a giant mom jeans wearing wimp. Okay. Internal logic and contradiction are apparently not important in the mindset of the fevered zealot. The important thing isn’t the boring facts, it’s threading that needle: l fear him to fuel the hatred necessary for the exhilaration of holding him and his abilities in utter contempt. That’s a tough one to pull off without looking completely and ridiculously biased. The interesting question is why? What do people get out of forming effigies to burn over and over?
Not true, Tom.
Obama promised to protect people in Afghanistan, but he is letting the Kurds fight a two-front war without ammo.
He is letting Christians in Afghanistan who fled to a mountain die of thirst (all 40,000 of them).
He is letting the Iranians and that means Muqtada al Sadr take control in Iraq.
Obama promised this ObamaCare would allow you to keep your doctor and plan if you liked.
Obama promised his ”stimulus” would recover the economy.
Obama promised real help to people underwater on their homes.
Obama promised to end income tax for seniors making less than $50,000.
Don’t forget Obama was for TRADITIONAL marriage until well after being in office.
Obama promised to allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices.
Obama promised to reduce the Veterans Benefits Administration claims backlog.
Obama promised to require companies to disclose personal information data breaches.
Obama promised to allow five days of public comment before signing bills.
Obama promised to re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council…NASA.
Obama promised to reduce the number of middle managers in the federal workforce.
Obama promised to reduce earmarks to 1994 levels.
Obama promised to recognize the Armenian genocide.
Obama promised that no family making less than $250,000 will see “any form of tax increase.”
Oh, and Obama promised to give a Budget to Congress by a certain date every year.
Which of these promises has Obama kept?
Not one.
So, the policies he ran on and people elected him on are NOT the policies we are getting from him!
@Tom:
Still drinking the campaign Koolaid are you? Obama has never been center-left. He is as far left as they go as is clearly exposed in his words and actions. You are so blinded by worshipful adoration of your anointed “I won” that you have lost all grounding in reality. If progressive-Leninist weened and raised Obama is “center-left” as you claim, surely you can elucidate for us what it is you consider to be politically left of Leninism? Go ahead, we’re waiting.
@Ditto:
He’s a Leninist? I thought he was a Maoist. It’s tough to keep up with all the nonsense. Let’s see, Barack Obama’s foreign policy is certainly well to the right of, say, Rand Paul. So I guess Rand Paul is to the left of Leninism, per your formulation? That wasn’t difficult. Is this how debates work when one side spouts random extreme labels as if they contain actual identifiable meaning? Is this cultist rhetoric perhaps?
Just so you understand, about 20% of the GOP House members are Tea Party weened, Far Right ideologues . There are a fair share in the Senate too. As the continued humiliations of GOP leadership in their recent failed drive to pass immigration reform attest to, these extremists have an outsized influence on their own party, and thus upon the nation, that far outstrips the general populations’ tolerance for their extreme views. There is no Democratic analogue to this. This would be like Bernie Sanders having the power of Ted Cruz. So yes, extremism is alive and well in American politics. On that we can agree.
@Tom: Well, Tom, Nanny G delivered a pretty comprehensive response. However, it being practically impossible for any person, off the cuff, to submit a full list of all the lies Obama used (or, if you prefer, a list of failures to comply with his promises), there are a few that can be added.
How about transparency, Tom? While the motives are pretty transparent, the means of operation, direction, motive, goals and results are anything but transparent. This is, in fact, the most closed administration in history, even as described by many liberals. He also promised to be the MOST ethical administration in history, though the scandals of Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Obamacare, the VA, the NSA, the IRS and foreign policy make a completely different argument. Obama criticized Bush for the overuse of the executive order but, while Obama’s total number of EO’s may be less, he has misused and abused the EO to a far greater extent; actually passing, by edict, the Dream Act, which Congress twice would not pass and changing his own pet law when the adverse affects of its implementation would harm him personally and politically. Obama complained about the NSA and Patriot Act, then ramped them both up far beyond their original intent.
Obama promised to make his a “post-racial” administration, yet had done everything he possibly could, along with every one of his lackeys, to gin-up racial tensions and keep them peaked. It is only a matter of time, as you see your argument fall apart before you, as well, drop the race bomb… oh, my apologies. You already have.
Even currently, Obama is cheering on his plan to punish companies that move their profits overseas to avoid taxes while he has given high administration position to his campaign buddy Jeffery Immelt, CEO of GE, a gigantic company that kept ALL its profits overseas and paid not one penny in taxes.
This article is about Obama’s failure and the astonishing phenomenon of seemingly intelligent people still making excuses and supporting him. Since the subject has such a rich supply of supporting evidence, please don’t be so surprised when there are many weighing in on the topic.
@Tom:
Marxism is the foundation of collective Communism. Marxism does not require a ruling party, being founded on the principals of a pure democracy.
Leninism and Maoism are somewhat similar variations on Marxism, and are more correctly referred to as Socialism which discards pure Democracy in favor of “party” rule. Lenin and Mao both realized that Marxism would not have worked in then Russia and China because Marxism requires a developed industrial base to succeed, and Russia and China were both predominately agricultural economies.
Leninism was based on a belief that the working class was incapable of producing agency in history (a belief shared with the Reformists), but, that gradual parliamentary reform was impossible. At the core of Leninism is the “Party.”
Those who describe Obama as a Marxist are too general in their use of the concept, and ignore the real difference between a Communist-Democracy and Nationalist-Socialist Party rule. Base Marxism does not call for or support rule by an oligarchy of party leadership.
You assume far too much and as a result display your complete ignorance of political science. I made no “formulation” regarding Libertarianism and Leninism, however it is very simple to do so: Libertarianism is the complete political opposite of Socialism. Libertarianism is to the left of complete Anarchy.
We are quite aware that the GOP leadership has been taken over by a progressive opportunist Washington DC establishment oligarchy that represents not the people but their crony-capitalist elitist friends, under the false guise of “moderate”. Democrats such as you strive to keep it that way because the establishment tends to support many of the same goals as the far left, which is rule by a complete oligarchy of a privileged class. The GOP establishment end goal is closest to what I refer to as a form of Capitalist-Feudalism, which would have much more in common with the oligarchical rule by privileged socialist party elite. Even Socialism requires a certain amount of capitalism to be able to operate. What both sides of the Washington political elite desire is a dual class system with a working class, and the privileged elite running the show.
The TEA Party is a political protest movement and is neither GOP nor “Far Right”. The TEA Party is in favor of fiscal conservatism and smaller government that follows it’s Constitutional Limits. Conservatism and Liberalism are not mutually contradictory terms, as one can be Constitutionally Liberal in regards to the personal freedom of the governed, while at the same time Constitutionally Conservative towards the limitations of the power and reach allowed to the government. Such a political conviction is not “Far Right” but is instead precisely in line with the exact beliefs of the founding fathers, and thus is as “Center” in regard to our Constitution as you can get.
More evidence of gross incompetence and a government run amok. This is what one would expect in a communist country or a Third World country. There was a time in this country where this would have caused outrage. FOX has reported this. It’ll be interesting to see who else does. Notice which departments were the two biggest offenders, the top one being way above all the others (pg. 15).
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/664536.pdf
@obamarhhea: He still believes 0-blama never said you can keep your health insurance and/or doctor “period”!! Lost cause just like Greggie!!
@Common Sense: kind a like the shovel ready jobs the one and the media yucked it up about