Posted on 01/24/2011 5:36:53 AM PST by Michael van der Galien
I recently finished Stanley Kurtz’s fascinating book, Radical-In-Chief: Barack Obama And The Untold Story Of American Socialism. If you’re a regular reader of NewsReal Blog, no doubt you’ve heard quite a bit about this book over the last several weeks. It truly is an eye opening read.
Radical-In-Chief is a glimpse into how socialism has informed President Obama’s political development, associations, career choices, and policy decisions over the years. It’s also a handy primer into the history of post-sixties socialism in America. The main point of Radical-In-Chief is that all evidence points to the fact that Obama is a socialist with a radical vision for restructuring and transforming American society.
It’s understandable for anyone to think that calling Barack Obama a socialist is inflammatory or sensationalist, or at the very least flippant (because let’s face it, we’ve all joked about it at one time or another). But Radical-In-Chief is no sensationalist tell-all, nor is it an alarmist, conspiracy-theorist rag. Rather, Stanley Kurtz has thoroughly done his homework, looking at reams of archived documents, press coverage of contemporaneous events, and Obama’s own writings and quotes to prove what many of us on the Right have suspected all along.
Much effort has been made by Obama and his circle, as well by the mainstream media, to paint his socialism as either nonexistent or as a youthful fling that is long gone. The truth is, as Kurtz expertly shows, Obama has aligned himself with socialism from his college days through his presidency. It’s also tempting to think of socialism in American as a quaint relic of a bygone era, but Radical-In-Chief also shows us that socialism is alive and well in this country today, though in a markedly different way. It is firmly entrenched in the current administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
When he threw his hat in the ring for President, I looked into his public record.
First stop was when he ran for State Senate in Illinois. On the “New Party” ticket. Had to research them - socialists. That’s all I needed to know.
Actually Kurtz’s book is so detailed and well documented it “almost” gets dull. It’s very good though - a great Amazon kindle value !
Makes you wonder (and become highly frustrated) at the left’s denials that he IS a socialist (and that they are).
Yeah, I have this animal. It has feathers, webbed feet, a bill, likes to swim, waddles when it walks and quacks when it talks,
but don’t you DARE call it a “duck”.
I believe the word ‘socialist’ is banned under the ‘new tone’ rules. The good news is the word ‘racist’ is still allowed, as long as it isnt used against a liberal.
Obama is playing the Moderate now for 2012. He’s not stupid.
If anyone believes him, THEY are stupid.
Stupid voters? How did we get McCain and Obama as the candidates in 2008?
Kurtz didn’t go far enough. He’s a commie usurper bent on destroying the nation as we’ve known it.
We got McCain because the MSM foisted him on us - that and open primaries.
We got BO because there are stupid voters. A whole bunch of them. Either they were stupid to not look into the guy or stupid because they agree with him.
And he is within a few months of succeeding. If the US Dollar looses its status as a the world reserve currency the chaos that results world wide will make the Mayans look prophetic.
“Stupid voters? How did we get McCain and Obama as the candidates in 2008?”
Cross party voting, acorn established voter fraud and a
corrupt media. Mr. campaign finance reform out spent his opponent. Good news. It’s getting harder to find anyone
who will admit they voted for Obama.
After the immigration reform amnesty disaster 2007 most here (and conservatives I know in MD) were claiming McCain's candidacy was dead. Then in Fall 2008 we ended up with the nightmare of being told we had to vote for RINO McCain or Die. Given that I am not very optimistic. Alternatively a Ross Perot type crackpot candidate for Democrats to destroy would not be helpful either.
RE “Good news. It’s getting harder to find anyone who will admit they voted for Obama.”
That was more like 2009 ‘Old News’ when crazy-evil Pelosi was House Speaker and visible. Yep, it was fun to dream that 2012 would be a cake-walk last year, at least for those with a 2 month vision. Playing to the liberal base in 2009 then playing to independents in 2011 and 2012 (after losing the House) was part of Obama’s game plan since mid 2010 when press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted that dem’s could lose the House and Pelosi had a cow. By then Obama already knew 2010 was over.
Republicans will actually have to have a real plan to beat Obama now, a scary thought.
99% of black politicians are socialists. 100% of the members at Rev. Wright’s church are socialists. Those two facts are all I ever needed to know.
If someone tells me Obama is not a socialist, I ask them the same question I advised Kurtz to ask his critics before his book came out: “Please tell me one tenant of socialism with which Obama disagrees.”
The McCain comments gave legitimacy to Obama.
Obama is an idiot. I think a growing segment of the populace has had their eyes opened. So along comes McCain to muddy the waters, confuse the issue, and crate chaos.
This guy is right out of Propaganda 101. What could give Obama a bigger boost when he needs it, than the guy who ran against him to heap praise on him just prior to the 2012 primary season. I know that’s going to sound strange since it’s just January, but Obama has to ward off contenders this year from his own side. McCain’s timing couldn’t have been better for Obama, or worse for us.
I’d like to think McCain is just senile in this instance, but if that were the case he’s been senile for most of his life.
Then McCain was told he had to play conservative to beat Obama, changing most his positions around the time Hillary gave up. But the TARP vote did him in on that, voting and supporting TARP and two weeks later acting as if he opposed it even beat Obama in obvious phoniness. I would respect a RINO who is honest about his positions more than someone so disingenuous. Imagine if he won with the economy so bad and Republicans getting the blame, Pelosi would have had a third electoral landslide in 2010.
I agree. As I say that, I have to admit I was for TARP. I have since seen the error of my ways. It was sold to shore up the banks ‘right now’ or else our whole banking system would collapse. As the debate continued on for several weeks, I began to have misgivings. The real kicker, even after it was passed, they didn’t spend most of it for months.
We were fed a cock and bull story, and I fell for it. Things may have been a lot worse if we hadn’t passed it, but it led to follow-on spending that was inexcusable. Today I think it would have been best if we hadn’t passed TARP or any of the nonsensical spending that followed. We’d be trillions ahead of the game and have a much healthier financial situation all the way around.
Of course McCain should own up to it. That he doesn’t is another facet of John’s character. He doesn’t have any. This guy is unfit to hold public office, pure and simple.
As for recent gains and if they would have taken place under McCain, absolutely not. No way! Pelosi would have gained seats and the Conservative brand would have been destroyed even further. The media would have spent four years labeling McCain a Conservative every time they mentioned his name. THANK GOD we didn’t have to watch that reality play out over four years.
It’s bad enough watching Boehner led around by the ring in his nose by the Democrats. This seating fiasco at the State of the Union is devastating, in that it telegraphs who is really in control. Nice job Boehner, less than a month in and you’re a grade a number one pussy.
“Hello, is this the head of the DNC? Okay. What do I do next?”
Heaven help us...
The party of capital gains tax cuts cannot be the party of bailing out bad investments with taxpayer money (and yet say no for any social spending) without making them look like total prostitutes for Republican interests. My tagline at the time was something like : “TARP = RIP Republican Party” This would be the political equivalent of Obama demanding an emergency bailout of California just before a presidential election.
You were correct in your first assumptions about TARP.
Without it, banks were reeling and about to go over the edge. Without TARP, Moragan Stanley was about to go down immediately. Goldman would have followed. Along with TARP, MS was saved by doing a lie-saving deal with Mitsubishi Bank in Japan which would never have happened if TARP hadn't happened to restore overseas' investor confidence.
It wasn't so much that every dollar had to be spent; instead it was instilling the idea that Gov't was going to be there at that time. This didn't happen in '29 and it was what caused things to go out of control there. Bush was right about TARP and the fact that a large majority of it has been paid back makes the nay-sayers wrong about their screams that the money would never be seen again.
Now, those who used TARP as justification to go into MORE debt...that's another story...
I’m willing to listen to your version. I’m not totally convinced you’re wrong, so don’t take my response that way.
Where you lose me is when you claim it was almost all paid back. It doesn’t seem that the accumulate national debt figures reflect this.
To the contrary, Bush is faulted for massive spending his last two years in part on TARP, and he even arranged another $300 million for Obama so he could hit the ground running. Obama promptly spent that and moved on to a stimulus bill for another $1 trillion dollars.
These three measures are a large portion of how we moved from around $9 trillion in debt to 13 now 14 trillion.
These account for 40% of our recent debt increased from late 2008 until now.
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