Barack Obama -- July 3, 2009

July 3, 2009

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"Islam has always been a part of America’s story"

Barack Hussein Obama

event	description
Obama's View
None Dare Call It Marxism	David Limbaugh writes: All right already. I won't call Obama a Marxist in this column. Instead, I'll point to some signs that indicate that Barack and Karl might well be soul mates. At least, they have similar attitudes about capital, labor and profits, er, surplus value. Liberals, even those of the Marxist variety, take umbrage when you point out their ideological kinship with Marxism. I suppose this dates back to the days when being a communist was tantamount to being an enemy of the United States, in that there was a global communist movement intent on -- and coming darn close to -- world domination. Though global communism has been defeated, there remains a strong contingent among us, whose nerve center is the Democratic Party leadership under Obama, committed to obliterating America's free market. Without getting into the intricacies of Marxist theory, suffice it to say that at the core of this political and economic philosophy is a belief in the historical class struggle. The capitalist (bourgeois) exploits the industrial worker (proletarian) by underpaying him and adding on unnecessary charges to the prices of goods and services, driving up costs to the consumer, and pocketing the profits. In "Basic Economics," Thomas Sowell puts it this way: "Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics. Socialists have long regarded profits as simply 'overcharge,' as Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw called it, or a 'surplus value' as Karl Marx called it." The theory is that under socialism or Marxism, these surplus charges would be eliminated and goods and services would become more affordable. But in reality, socialism doesn't make goods and services more affordable, but less so. As Dr. Sowell explains: "The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. ... Under socialism (there is) far less incentive to be as efficient ... much less to keep up with changing conditions and respond to them quickly." With less incentive for efficiencies and cost control, the prices of goods might well be higher. Profits are not arbitrary charges added on to the costs of producing goods and services; nor are they attributable to artificially high prices charged by those motivated by greed. Indeed, writes Sowell, most of the great fortunes in American history were amassed when entrepreneurs were able to reduce costs and charge lower prices and to increase their volume sales to mass markets. You get the point. Capitalists don't view profits as evil or the product of greed. Their opponents -- call them Marxists, fascists, socialists, radical liberals or whatever -- do. Which brings us back to Barack Obama. Continue reading here . . .
Obama Dismantles Free Press	NewsReal blog reminds us is that one of the lessons history teaches us is that the further a country moves to the left, the more restrictive its press becomes. In a true Marxist state, the press is an extension of the government and acts as the party’s official mouthpiece. Competition, freedom to report accurately, and dissent are not allowed. Punishments for transgressions are swift and severe. The most egregious example of this was the former Soviet Union. Today, all true socialist and communist countries lack a free press. North Korea, led by the the demented Kim Jung Il; Cuba, led by the Marxist Castro brothers, Venezuela, led by the the megalomaniac Hugo Chavez; and Communist China are the most familiar examples of the above axiom. Some of the countries mentioned lost their freedom of press almost immediately after a revolution -- China and Cuba, for example. Others lost it by degrees. Chavez dismantled Venezuela’s free press a little at a time, all the while consolidating his own power. As he became stronger, the press became weaker, until ultimately, it merely became a transcription service for his speeches. As our country lurches further to the left, we are starting to see the familiar pattern emerge. The administration of Barack Obama has chosen the Venezuelen model. Slowly and methodically, the government’s fingers are wrapping around the neck of the free press. The first assault was in the form of the "Fairness Doctrine," an effort to purge conservatives from the airwaves. Next came the phony "Town Hall Meetings" with the public, where cherry-picked Obama supporters were allowed to toss pre-screened softball questions designed not to embarrass Obama. Now, the same concept of pre-screening both the questions and the questioners has been applied to "White House Press Corps Meetings," the latest of which was such a fiasco that it prompted an angry exchange [video here] between liberal correspondent Helen Thomas and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbels. Said Thomas: "Nixon didn’t try to do that. They [the Nixon administration] couldn’t control [the media]. They didn’t try…. What the hell do they think we are, puppets?" The answer, Ms. Thomas, is "Yes."
Obama's Statist Ambitions	Gene Healy, writing at the Cato Institute, quotes Barack Obama, who said, "I am a firm believer in the power of the free market." The "irony" surrounding his public image as a collectivist, Obama insisted, was that "I actually would like to see a relatively light touch when it comes to the government." Either Obama is as confused about the definition of irony as pop singer Alanis "rain on your wedding day" Morrisette, or he was being disingenuous. Given Obama's ambitious, state-bloating agenda and longtime disdain for free enterprise, the latter is more likely the case. Back in 2008, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared "we need a president who is ready on day one to be commander in chief of our economy." You can't find that role in the Constitution, but Barack Obama has embraced it nonetheless. He is hell-bent on further extending government control over Americans' health care, and the administration-backed cap and trade bill that passed the House Friday, would, among other things, create a national building code. A "light touch," indeed. Despite what the president told the Journal, there's little in his biography to suggest he's ever been a defender of markets. To recognize that, you don't need conspiracy theories about connections to leftist radicals; you need only look at what Obama himself has said in his franker moments. Fresh out of college, before becoming a community organizer, Obama took a job with a consulting firm that helped American companies operating abroad. The horror of editing business manuals for a year gave Obama a lesson in the "coldness of capitalism," he told biographer David Mendell. "I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself that I wanted to be." As his career progressed, Obama tempered his critique of capitalism, and developed an uncanny ability to make free-marketeers believe he's simpatico. Meanwhile, he amassed one of the least business-friendly records in the Senate (the "most liberal senator" in 2007, according to the nonpartisan National Journal.) But in a 2005 commencement address at Illinois' Knox College, Obama let his guard down, and let loose a leftist stemwinder that would have done Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, proud. "There is no individual salvation without collective salvation," Obama proclaimed, making clear that government would stand in for God as our savior. Continue reading here . . .
A Miserable Failure	John Hinderaker says that Obama's "stimulus" plan mainly stimulated Democratic constituencies with great gobs of pork. The web site, Innocent Bystanders, has done a service by plotting the actual unemployment rate against the Obama's prediction of what would happen with and without the "stimulus." Here is the latest, updated through June: click to enlarge Obama's forecast provides a benchmark against which we can judge the success or failure of the $700 billion porkapalooza. The result is obvious: it was a colossal failure. The best thing Congress could do is to cancel the rest of the program -- the large majority that remains unspent -- and let the economy recover without being hampered by government-imposed inefficiencies.
A Sombrero for Uncle Sam	Paul Williams says Barack Obama's rigged census will determine which states gain seats in Congress and which ones lose them. It will divert billions in federal funds to states and cities with the greatest number of illegal aliens. It will support the conviction that America has become a bi-lingual country. It will allocate of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to special interest groups, such as NAACP, Fundacion Azteca, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition, and Acorn. The dice have been loaded. The results of the 2010 Census will be snake-eyes for the conservatives, Christians, and Caucasians who now inhabit the once fabled land of the free and the home of the brave. Last February, Obama assumed complete control of the 2010 Census in sharp violation of Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution. This Article, which concerns the legislative rather than executive branch of government, stipulates that the "enumeration" be conducted by a commerce official under the supervision of the Senate and the House of Representations. It reads: Representation and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers … . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they (the House of Representatives and the Senate) shall by Law direct. When the Oval Office side-stepped this stipulation, Senator Judd Greg, who was then Obama’s choice as Secretary of Commerce, announced his withdrawal from consideration. "This was simply a bridge too far for me," Greg said. You gotta check this out . . .
Obama's Solar Panels	Here's something you won't hear about from the Obamedia -- the solar panels that Barack Obama and Joe Biden inspected before signing the Generational Theft Act in Denver, Colorado, will take 110 years to pay for themselves. Barack Obama and Joe Biden feign interest as they look at solar panels during a tour of the solar array at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, Colorado, where Obama bragged about the efficiencies of these solar panels -- what he didn't tell you about was that it will take until 2118 for them to pay for themselves. That's 110 years. Oh! Here's a little detail that Obama neglected to mention --these panels have an expected life-span of 20-25 years. There's more details here . . .