21 thoughts on “FriendFeed: RNC chairman: Obama’s …”
David K.
So is it ok now to call the GOP fascists? I mean if the Democrats plans are all being labeled socialist it seems only fair.
gahrie
Regardless of whether it would be fair or not, it would be inaccurate to call the Republicans fascists. (Fascism is actually an ideology of the left anyways.) Calling President Obama’s economic policies socialist is simply an accurate descriptor. If someone wanted to be insulting they’d call them Marxist.
What else do you call it when the government begins taking over, owning major shares off, and making management decisions for major industrial companies? What do you call it when the government starts interferring in the capital markets? What do you call it when the government seeks to control more than 50% of the nation’s GDP?
President Obama’s economic policies are cetainly not free market capitalism….so just how would you describe them?
kcatnd
“The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else… almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist.'” – George Orwell, What is Fascism?
Wikipedia is always there for us.
David K.
My point exactly kcatnd, the GOP has made the term socialist completely meaningless by applying it to anything and everything that Obama wants to do. Instead they have turned it into a perjorative. Likewise facism has become a perjorative, which means among other things, oppressive, intolerant, racist, chauvanistic, dictatorial, and agressive, all terms that apply incredibly well to the current incarnation of the GOP and its leaders (every single one for example fits Rush Limbaugh to a T).
Everytime the GOP cries “socialist! socialist!” they sink deeper into a pit of irrelevancy.
To put it more simply:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you yhink it means.”
Frankly its BS, especially when those critical of Bush were called traitors, etc. for daring to point out many of the valid comparisons between the Bush administration and its policies, and other highly nationalistic groups of the earlier part of this century who will remain nameless. If the right wants to start crying socialism at every little thing, then lets take a broader look and have an honest conversation about which party is really deserving of the perjorative labels.
For example, socialism would mean the collective ownership (privatley or through the government) of buisness and industry. Do you happen to know how much (following the recent temporary buyouts of groups like GM) that the government now owns if buisness and corporate assets in the US? A staggering 0.21% It doesn’t take a genius to realize that is nowhere NEAR collective ownership, and the administration has shown no signs of being interested in expanding such holdings. They have in fact said that they would sell out their shares as soon as possible.
Now lets talk about health care. Obama and the Democrats want to add a national health care system as an option. They do not and have not proposed NATIONALIZING health care. These are two very seperate things. To see the difference, take a look at how you recieve your packages that you order today (seeing as how we haven’t figured out how to deliver them electronically). You can get them via UPS, FedEx, or the USPS. Quick quiz, how many of those are government run and operated? One. What happened to the other two? Did they dissapear? Did they go bankrupt? No, indeed they did not! In fact, contrary to what the right would predict, both private package delivery services developed well AFTER the USPS was allready in place. This is an absolutely perfect example of how government programs can exist and provide an option and yet not become the all encompassing government monopoly that GOP fear mongers would love you to believe the health care system will inevitably become.
What we COULD be seeing from the GOP is valid criticism and options. “We disagree with the Presidents plan because of X, Y, and Z, and offer this alternative plan which addresses those concerns” That would be wonderful, because it would mean there was a competition of ideas! Instead, because they have nothing to offer, the GOP is falling back on its standard practice of fear mongering. Instead all they have to say is “OMG! Socialism!!!11!!!1!1!”.
So if its suddenly ok for the GOP to resort to using perjoratives, that means its open season to describe them in ways they previously declared offlimits (until they wanted to do it too). Especially since the evidence supports the fascist perjorative applied to the GOP leadership these days far more than socialist applies to Obama.
(Fascism is actually an ideology of the left anyways.)
Huh? I think you are confused. Did you miss that the most prominence that Fascism ever gained was under right-wing fascist states in WWII? It’s relatively worthless to try to apply the label fascism to either side, since if we look at the political spectrum in only two dimensions it actually wraps around in on itself meeting at both authoritarianism and anarchy.
What else do you call it when the government begins taking over, owning major shares off, and making management decisions for major industrial companies? What do you call it when the government starts interferring in the capital markets? What do you call it when the government seeks to control more than 50% of the nation’s GDP?
While somewhat irrelevant, let’s not forget these are largely continuations of Bush era policies regarding fixing the economy. Republicans (at least Bush Republicans) own this just as much as Democrats.
Secondly, compare our system to a socialist country, take Sweden. We aren’t even close. So if Sweden is socialist, and we aren’t even close to Sweden, then ding! We aren’t socialist.
As far as whether Obama’s policies are free market capitalism, no they aren’t. But we haven’t had true free market capitalism since, gee, I dunno, at least some time before the great depression. Perhaps since before WWI.
And man, look at a graph of our economic growth.
David K.
Basically, gahrie, you and others like you need to grasp the very simple concept that there is a BROAD spectrum between OMG SOCIALISM and WOOO FREE MARKET CAPITALISM!!! Going to far in EITHER direction is a bad idea, history is pretty clear on that. What we have learned recently is that we went too far towards free market capitalism. It just doesn’t work, anymore than pure communism would work. So if adding a few drops of socialism helps, oh i don’t know, prevent economic collapse that would affect millions of people in this country, I think you should learn to swallow your pride and realize that your side had its chance to prove we would be better off with less and less regulation and government involvement and you failed. Time to reign in that laissez faire philosophy and start looking for actual solutions not ideological talking points.
gahrie
I) Look, it is an objective fact that fascism is an ideology of the left. In both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s Fascism arose from Socialist parties and Hitler and Mussolini were most definitely leftists. Set aside what you have always been told about fascism, and go look at the actual history of it. It was quite established thought in the 1930’s that fascism was an ideology of the left. There are countless examples of leftist politicians and thinkers endorsing fascism throughout the 1930’s. It was only after the US entered WW II that fascism began to be considerd and a bad thing.The Left has succeeded in co-opting the term (much as they have the term liberal) in order to use it as an insult to hurl at the right.
Fascism is fundamentally a system that is based on nationalizing private industry, government control of the economy and identity politics. Really, the only arguably rightwing facet of fascism is nationalism, an extreme form of patriotism.
I suggest more research, starting with Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism and its extensive footnotes.
2) I never stated that the United States is a socialist country. I stated that President Obama’s economic policies are socialist. His goal is to transform (his word not mine) the U.S. economy. In fact I never stated that socialism was a bad thing, even going so far as to point out it is not the same thing as Marxism.
3) It was government meddling in the housing market that caused the housing bubble when the Democrats in Congress forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks to make dangerous loans, and then ignored Pres. Bush and Republicans when they warned of the bubble and tried to have Congress pass regulations to deal with the problem.
4) Let me know when those “few drops of socialism” (c’mon…how many trillions before it becomes more than a few drops?) began to improve our economy.
David K.
1) If you are incapable of reading what I wrote, why do you even bother to reply. I explained why I was using the term facism and what its meant for. Since you are using Socialism as a perjorative, I am using facism in the same way to accurately describe the right. When you have thrown out the racist, authoritarian, bigoted, misogynistic leaders of your party, then we can talk.
2) Yes, he did use the word transform, because *gasp* the economy was tanking when he took office thanks to eight years of Republican ineptitude and insistence on worshiping at the altar of the free market.
3) Remind me again who it was who controlled the white house and congress for the first six years of Bush’s term as the crisis grew due to a glaring lack of regulation that he helped get rid of? The Democrats didn’t force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make dangerous loans, the industry did it to themselves thanks to the protections that Bush and Co. got removed. You can ignore facts all you want, but it doesn’t help your position one bit.
4) I can conclude only one of two things from this statement gahrie, either you are willfully ignorant, or you are incapable of comprehending basic facts. It has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions that the stimulus money backed projects are just now getting underway. See, unlike George W. Bush who rushes into things without thinking ahead, these projects need to be planned and go through actual, honest to goodness, steps to get done. You continue to ignore this because it demonstrates a fatal flaw in your argument, which, yet again mind you, demonstrates that you are a hopeless right wing partisan who is not interested in reality or facts, but merely spouting whatever talking points you heard on Limbaughs latest show. It would be one thing if you were capable of coming up with NEW arguments that tried to address these realities, but you seem incapable of doing so.
Oh by the way, you may have noticed that the stock market continues to improve. But I’m sure thats not a positive sign is it?
gahrie
“Remind me again who it was who controlled the white house and congress for the first six years of Bush’s term as the crisis grew due to a glaring lack of regulation that he helped get rid of? The Democrats didn’t force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make dangerous loans, the industry did it to themselves thanks to the protections that Bush and Co. got removed. You can ignore facts all you want, but it doesn’t help your position one bit. ”
This is simply, glaringly, factually wrong. The Democrats threatened Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks into making loans to unqualified buyers. That is a fact. Rep. Frank (D) was a major source of these threats. Sen. Chris “friend of Angelo” Dodd (D) was instrumental in changing the regulations, not the Bush administration.
On at least three separate occasions Republicans, including the Bush administration, went before Congress to attempt to warn Congress and regulate the behavior of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks, only to be told by Rep. Frank that there was no danger, and that the Republicans were racist for bringing the subject up.
gahrie
“See, unlike George W. Bush who rushes into things without thinking ahead,”
This was a joke right? I mean come on, even Democrats are complaining that President Obama is rushing things too fast!
How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t listen to Rush?
You are really beginning to act like a troll. You ignore the facts, ignore my statements and engage in endless ad hominen.
You accuse me of not being willing to engage in honest debate.
How many times have I called you crazy? How many times have I accused you of being a tool for Kos?
The closest thing I have even done to an ad hominen is question your reading skills, because you apparently fail to actually read my posts.
I am aware that the right wing tried to blame the CRA, i’m also aware that such criticism was thoroughly debunked. CRA related loans were not risky, they required more, not less, oversight, and the banks who participated in the program were doing better than the average banks because of it.
As for “ad hominems”, uh gahrie, you believe in vast left wing conspiracies, ignore facts and arguments put forth to you, willfully deny ideas you don’t like, and fail to understand that the world isn’t black and white, right and wrong, socialist or not. You have demonstrated an inability to be open to re-examing your position when faced with obvious contradictions to your points. How exactly am I supposed to even begin to take you seriously when you come across as a Limbaugh ditto-head (whether or not you listen to him specifically, you are basically voicing, verbatim, his and the far rights positions on, well everything).
You are absolutely, positively not willing to engage in honest debate and you have proven it. When you are willing to look at the facts presented to you, or drop ridiculous accusations like OMG SOCIALISM and “The stimulus has failed!!!” then we can talk, until then you can continue to convince no one to take you seriously.
Becky
gahrie, I’d like to point out that Jonah Goldberg’s book does not and has not magically redefined fascism as a leftist ideology. The vast majority of political scientists and historians dispute Goldberg’s radical thesis. He’s a statistical outlier and citing his work as gospel truth is akin to claiming that Michael Jackson’s choice of the name Blanket for his child is perfectly normal.
I think it does us all very little good to waste time bickering about who got us into this financial mess. Fact is, it was the lame, bull shit policies of BOTH parties that allowed things to get as bad as they did. I’m not a Barney Frank fan, but I’m not going to grant the man some kind of deific status in the government and financial realm and claim that he singlehandedly (or with the help of his superhero sidekick, Chris Dodd) brought the global economy to its knees in the largest financial breakdown since the Depression. That’s retarded.
What seems fairly clear to me is that in the absence of Bush’s TARP plan and the subsequent stimulus bill, there would have been an even steeper crash and much longer recovery. While you can argue (stupidly, IMO) that the government should have allowed the economy to tank and American to suffer and starve in the name of free market economics, I’m rather pleased that we didn’t. If providing and funding unemployment and food stamps to families makes us “socialist,” so be it. I would rather be socialist than blindly embrace the cruelties of the pure free market.
dcl
Wow… Just Wow… I’ve got nothing. Although Gahrie, if you want to do the conservative cause some good I’d suggest you simply stop talking.
gahrie
Becky:
1) I would simply ask if you have read Goldberg’s book. It is quite reliant on historical data and is fully footnoted. I am not aware of a single proven innaccuracy.
Note: Neither Goldberg or I assert than any modern person or party are themselves fascist.
As to your strawman (“suffer and starve” “cruelties of the pure free market”) please point out where I have attacked food stamps or unemployment? In fact I currently have an active unemployment claim, even though I have been able to find enough part time work to avoid actually collecting any.
I will repeat, I have not attacked socialism in this thread. What I have done is to defend the accurate description of President Obama’s economic policies as being socialist.
David K.
gahrie, if Obama’s policies qualify as “socialist” then Bush’s policies qualify easily as “totalitarian”.
Second, Becky’s comment about suffering and starving is not a strawman, its a very real picture of what happens if we let the market correct itself on its own. Since you aren’t familiar with it I suggest reading up on the Great Depression to get an idea of what happens when economies collapse.
gahrie
1) There is no one starving in America due to lack of access to food.
2) No one has attacked foodstamps or unemployment. What has been attacked is nationalizing banks, taking over auto companies, and attempting to effectively seize control of the energy and health sectors.
3) No more than 15% of the stimulus money will be spent by the end of the year, and most of that will be in the form of hand outs to the states.
I) Look, it is an objective fact that fascism is an ideology of the left. In both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s Fascism arose from Socialist parties and Hitler and Mussolini were most definitely leftists. Set aside what you have always been told about fascism, and go look at the actual history of it. It was quite established thought in the 1930’s that fascism was an ideology of the left. There are countless examples of leftist politicians and thinkers endorsing fascism throughout the 1930’s. It was only after the US entered WW II that fascism began to be considerd and a bad thing.The Left has succeeded in co-opting the term (much as they have the term liberal) in order to use it as an insult to hurl at the right.
Fascism is fundamentally a system that is based on nationalizing private industry, government control of the economy and identity politics. Really, the only arguably rightwing facet of fascism is nationalism, an extreme form of patriotism.
I suggest more research, starting with Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism and its extensive footnotes.
It doesn’t matter if he has extensive footnotes or not, and it doesn’t matter if everything he writes is 100% true. What matters is whether or not his argument is cohesive and complete. I haven’t read his book, and I won’t, simply because I know enough about the subject to know he’s wrong based on his thesis (that is to say, it is impossible he could provide any new information, or argue based on information I already know, to change my mind).
What I’ll guess is that he took the fact that the Fascist movements of the interwar period were born out of worker’s movements, and often did, in fact have a leftist bent to them. Unfortunately for your point of view, these leftist bents did not endure. Fascist movements of the interwar period had several key identifying factors inconsistent with left leaning ideologies:
1.) They were nationalist. Nationalism is a right wing ideology, while internationalism is a left-wing ideology. This is why conservatives are always complaining about how liberals are looking to Europe for answers, and why early socialism was a very international movement.
2.) They opposed liberalism in all forms. Leftists are socially liberal, and Nazis were not. Economically it’s a mixed bag. Government involvement in economics is actually not a traditional leftist viewpoint, but if we’re being honest about the view of the left in America, it clearly favors government intervention more than the right (or at least ideologically has more faith in said involvement).
3.) Fascism is miltiaristic. Leftists are more commonly pacifists.
4.) Fascism rejects classism. Leftists often see things through the lens of economic classes.
I’ll also reiterate that just because someone starts out a leftist doesn’t mean they stay it. The neo-conservative movement was started by leftists, but you’d have to be deranged to state that neo-conservatism as it exists today is an ideology of the left. It’d be insanity.
At any rate, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that fascism is an ideology of the right, but I will say that if a fascist put a gun to my head and made me chose, the clear choice would be the right. And that would be the choice of the vast majority of scholars on the subject.
2) I never stated that the United States is a socialist country. I stated that President Obama’s economic policies are socialist. His goal is to transform (his word not mine) the U.S. economy. In fact I never stated that socialism was a bad thing, even going so far as to point out it is not the same thing as Marxism.
If Obama’s economic policies were socialist he’d be suggesting single-payer healthcare. He’s not. I wish he would.
What you could say is that Obama’s policies are more socialists than Bush’s, that would be indisputably correct. But they are not socialist.
3) It was government meddling in the housing market that caused the housing bubble when the Democrats in Congress forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks to make dangerous loans, and then ignored Pres. Bush and Republicans when they warned of the bubble and tried to have Congress pass regulations to deal with the problem.
And who were these Democrats in congress? The housing crisis started shortly after the Republicans left Congress. I’m not going to act as if Democrats in congress were doing anything right, but you certainly can’t blame them for this.
4) Let me know when those “few drops of socialism” (c’mon…how many trillions before it becomes more than a few drops?) began to improve our economy.
And I’ll actually give credit where credit is due for what is a relatively short recession considering the problems we faced: Bush helped lead the way with the first stimulus. I think Obama’s was necessary and is successful, but I’ll give credit where credit is due, Bush acted in the right way.
And hell, I don’t even blame Bush for the economy going south! Go figure!
David K.
1) That is a lie
2) And exactly how would we pay for those things if dramatically more people are unemployed?
Nationalizing banks? Taking over auto companies? Seizing control of energy and health sectors? Talk about your strawmen. When you have a grasp on whats REALLY happening come back and talk. Offering a public health option is not taking over the health sector. As I pointed out above and you clearly ignored (or maybe you just can’t read) a government funded option does not preclude private options, this is true in other countries with national health care options, and is true in our very own country in a very specific example called the USPS.
I am going to try and explain to you using pictures what words can’t seem to convey:
reality =
gahrie’s arguments =
If you want to be taken seriously in discussions here (or anywhere thats not a right wing echo chamber) you have to stop making such exagerrated mischarecterizations of reality.
Its one thing to criticize Obama’s economic or health policies, its another to exaggerate them and distort them in order to try and make people afraid of as if it were some liberal boogie monster who is coming to take our children away in the middle of the night too. And if you actually, honestly believe that that is what he is trying to do, well, then you are too far gone, because nothing short of cutting all government programs and ending taxation forever will convince you differently.
So is it ok now to call the GOP fascists? I mean if the Democrats plans are all being labeled socialist it seems only fair.
Regardless of whether it would be fair or not, it would be inaccurate to call the Republicans fascists. (Fascism is actually an ideology of the left anyways.) Calling President Obama’s economic policies socialist is simply an accurate descriptor. If someone wanted to be insulting they’d call them Marxist.
What else do you call it when the government begins taking over, owning major shares off, and making management decisions for major industrial companies? What do you call it when the government starts interferring in the capital markets? What do you call it when the government seeks to control more than 50% of the nation’s GDP?
President Obama’s economic policies are cetainly not free market capitalism….so just how would you describe them?
“The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else… almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist.'” – George Orwell, What is Fascism?
Wikipedia is always there for us.
My point exactly kcatnd, the GOP has made the term socialist completely meaningless by applying it to anything and everything that Obama wants to do. Instead they have turned it into a perjorative. Likewise facism has become a perjorative, which means among other things, oppressive, intolerant, racist, chauvanistic, dictatorial, and agressive, all terms that apply incredibly well to the current incarnation of the GOP and its leaders (every single one for example fits Rush Limbaugh to a T).
Everytime the GOP cries “socialist! socialist!” they sink deeper into a pit of irrelevancy.
To put it more simply:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you yhink it means.”
Frankly its BS, especially when those critical of Bush were called traitors, etc. for daring to point out many of the valid comparisons between the Bush administration and its policies, and other highly nationalistic groups of the earlier part of this century who will remain nameless. If the right wants to start crying socialism at every little thing, then lets take a broader look and have an honest conversation about which party is really deserving of the perjorative labels.
For example, socialism would mean the collective ownership (privatley or through the government) of buisness and industry. Do you happen to know how much (following the recent temporary buyouts of groups like GM) that the government now owns if buisness and corporate assets in the US? A staggering 0.21% It doesn’t take a genius to realize that is nowhere NEAR collective ownership, and the administration has shown no signs of being interested in expanding such holdings. They have in fact said that they would sell out their shares as soon as possible.
Now lets talk about health care. Obama and the Democrats want to add a national health care system as an option. They do not and have not proposed NATIONALIZING health care. These are two very seperate things. To see the difference, take a look at how you recieve your packages that you order today (seeing as how we haven’t figured out how to deliver them electronically). You can get them via UPS, FedEx, or the USPS. Quick quiz, how many of those are government run and operated? One. What happened to the other two? Did they dissapear? Did they go bankrupt? No, indeed they did not! In fact, contrary to what the right would predict, both private package delivery services developed well AFTER the USPS was allready in place. This is an absolutely perfect example of how government programs can exist and provide an option and yet not become the all encompassing government monopoly that GOP fear mongers would love you to believe the health care system will inevitably become.
What we COULD be seeing from the GOP is valid criticism and options. “We disagree with the Presidents plan because of X, Y, and Z, and offer this alternative plan which addresses those concerns” That would be wonderful, because it would mean there was a competition of ideas! Instead, because they have nothing to offer, the GOP is falling back on its standard practice of fear mongering. Instead all they have to say is “OMG! Socialism!!!11!!!1!1!”.
So if its suddenly ok for the GOP to resort to using perjoratives, that means its open season to describe them in ways they previously declared offlimits (until they wanted to do it too). Especially since the evidence supports the fascist perjorative applied to the GOP leadership these days far more than socialist applies to Obama.
(Fascism is actually an ideology of the left anyways.)
Huh? I think you are confused. Did you miss that the most prominence that Fascism ever gained was under right-wing fascist states in WWII? It’s relatively worthless to try to apply the label fascism to either side, since if we look at the political spectrum in only two dimensions it actually wraps around in on itself meeting at both authoritarianism and anarchy.
What else do you call it when the government begins taking over, owning major shares off, and making management decisions for major industrial companies? What do you call it when the government starts interferring in the capital markets? What do you call it when the government seeks to control more than 50% of the nation’s GDP?
While somewhat irrelevant, let’s not forget these are largely continuations of Bush era policies regarding fixing the economy. Republicans (at least Bush Republicans) own this just as much as Democrats.
Secondly, compare our system to a socialist country, take Sweden. We aren’t even close. So if Sweden is socialist, and we aren’t even close to Sweden, then ding! We aren’t socialist.
As far as whether Obama’s policies are free market capitalism, no they aren’t. But we haven’t had true free market capitalism since, gee, I dunno, at least some time before the great depression. Perhaps since before WWI.
And man, look at a graph of our economic growth.
Basically, gahrie, you and others like you need to grasp the very simple concept that there is a BROAD spectrum between OMG SOCIALISM and WOOO FREE MARKET CAPITALISM!!! Going to far in EITHER direction is a bad idea, history is pretty clear on that. What we have learned recently is that we went too far towards free market capitalism. It just doesn’t work, anymore than pure communism would work. So if adding a few drops of socialism helps, oh i don’t know, prevent economic collapse that would affect millions of people in this country, I think you should learn to swallow your pride and realize that your side had its chance to prove we would be better off with less and less regulation and government involvement and you failed. Time to reign in that laissez faire philosophy and start looking for actual solutions not ideological talking points.
I) Look, it is an objective fact that fascism is an ideology of the left. In both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s Fascism arose from Socialist parties and Hitler and Mussolini were most definitely leftists. Set aside what you have always been told about fascism, and go look at the actual history of it. It was quite established thought in the 1930’s that fascism was an ideology of the left. There are countless examples of leftist politicians and thinkers endorsing fascism throughout the 1930’s. It was only after the US entered WW II that fascism began to be considerd and a bad thing.The Left has succeeded in co-opting the term (much as they have the term liberal) in order to use it as an insult to hurl at the right.
Fascism is fundamentally a system that is based on nationalizing private industry, government control of the economy and identity politics. Really, the only arguably rightwing facet of fascism is nationalism, an extreme form of patriotism.
I suggest more research, starting with Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism and its extensive footnotes.
2) I never stated that the United States is a socialist country. I stated that President Obama’s economic policies are socialist. His goal is to transform (his word not mine) the U.S. economy. In fact I never stated that socialism was a bad thing, even going so far as to point out it is not the same thing as Marxism.
3) It was government meddling in the housing market that caused the housing bubble when the Democrats in Congress forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks to make dangerous loans, and then ignored Pres. Bush and Republicans when they warned of the bubble and tried to have Congress pass regulations to deal with the problem.
4) Let me know when those “few drops of socialism” (c’mon…how many trillions before it becomes more than a few drops?) began to improve our economy.
1) If you are incapable of reading what I wrote, why do you even bother to reply. I explained why I was using the term facism and what its meant for. Since you are using Socialism as a perjorative, I am using facism in the same way to accurately describe the right. When you have thrown out the racist, authoritarian, bigoted, misogynistic leaders of your party, then we can talk.
2) Yes, he did use the word transform, because *gasp* the economy was tanking when he took office thanks to eight years of Republican ineptitude and insistence on worshiping at the altar of the free market.
3) Remind me again who it was who controlled the white house and congress for the first six years of Bush’s term as the crisis grew due to a glaring lack of regulation that he helped get rid of? The Democrats didn’t force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make dangerous loans, the industry did it to themselves thanks to the protections that Bush and Co. got removed. You can ignore facts all you want, but it doesn’t help your position one bit.
4) I can conclude only one of two things from this statement gahrie, either you are willfully ignorant, or you are incapable of comprehending basic facts. It has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions that the stimulus money backed projects are just now getting underway. See, unlike George W. Bush who rushes into things without thinking ahead, these projects need to be planned and go through actual, honest to goodness, steps to get done. You continue to ignore this because it demonstrates a fatal flaw in your argument, which, yet again mind you, demonstrates that you are a hopeless right wing partisan who is not interested in reality or facts, but merely spouting whatever talking points you heard on Limbaughs latest show. It would be one thing if you were capable of coming up with NEW arguments that tried to address these realities, but you seem incapable of doing so.
Oh by the way, you may have noticed that the stock market continues to improve. But I’m sure thats not a positive sign is it?
“Remind me again who it was who controlled the white house and congress for the first six years of Bush’s term as the crisis grew due to a glaring lack of regulation that he helped get rid of? The Democrats didn’t force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make dangerous loans, the industry did it to themselves thanks to the protections that Bush and Co. got removed. You can ignore facts all you want, but it doesn’t help your position one bit. ”
This is simply, glaringly, factually wrong. The Democrats threatened Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks into making loans to unqualified buyers. That is a fact. Rep. Frank (D) was a major source of these threats. Sen. Chris “friend of Angelo” Dodd (D) was instrumental in changing the regulations, not the Bush administration.
On at least three separate occasions Republicans, including the Bush administration, went before Congress to attempt to warn Congress and regulate the behavior of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks, only to be told by Rep. Frank that there was no danger, and that the Republicans were racist for bringing the subject up.
“See, unlike George W. Bush who rushes into things without thinking ahead,”
This was a joke right? I mean come on, even Democrats are complaining that President Obama is rushing things too fast!
How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t listen to Rush?
You are really beginning to act like a troll. You ignore the facts, ignore my statements and engage in endless ad hominen.
You accuse me of not being willing to engage in honest debate.
How many times have I called you crazy? How many times have I accused you of being a tool for Kos?
The closest thing I have even done to an ad hominen is question your reading skills, because you apparently fail to actually read my posts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080924145932.aspx
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
I am aware that the right wing tried to blame the CRA, i’m also aware that such criticism was thoroughly debunked. CRA related loans were not risky, they required more, not less, oversight, and the banks who participated in the program were doing better than the average banks because of it.
As for “ad hominems”, uh gahrie, you believe in vast left wing conspiracies, ignore facts and arguments put forth to you, willfully deny ideas you don’t like, and fail to understand that the world isn’t black and white, right and wrong, socialist or not. You have demonstrated an inability to be open to re-examing your position when faced with obvious contradictions to your points. How exactly am I supposed to even begin to take you seriously when you come across as a Limbaugh ditto-head (whether or not you listen to him specifically, you are basically voicing, verbatim, his and the far rights positions on, well everything).
You are absolutely, positively not willing to engage in honest debate and you have proven it. When you are willing to look at the facts presented to you, or drop ridiculous accusations like OMG SOCIALISM and “The stimulus has failed!!!” then we can talk, until then you can continue to convince no one to take you seriously.
gahrie, I’d like to point out that Jonah Goldberg’s book does not and has not magically redefined fascism as a leftist ideology. The vast majority of political scientists and historians dispute Goldberg’s radical thesis. He’s a statistical outlier and citing his work as gospel truth is akin to claiming that Michael Jackson’s choice of the name Blanket for his child is perfectly normal.
I think it does us all very little good to waste time bickering about who got us into this financial mess. Fact is, it was the lame, bull shit policies of BOTH parties that allowed things to get as bad as they did. I’m not a Barney Frank fan, but I’m not going to grant the man some kind of deific status in the government and financial realm and claim that he singlehandedly (or with the help of his superhero sidekick, Chris Dodd) brought the global economy to its knees in the largest financial breakdown since the Depression. That’s retarded.
What seems fairly clear to me is that in the absence of Bush’s TARP plan and the subsequent stimulus bill, there would have been an even steeper crash and much longer recovery. While you can argue (stupidly, IMO) that the government should have allowed the economy to tank and American to suffer and starve in the name of free market economics, I’m rather pleased that we didn’t. If providing and funding unemployment and food stamps to families makes us “socialist,” so be it. I would rather be socialist than blindly embrace the cruelties of the pure free market.
Wow… Just Wow… I’ve got nothing. Although Gahrie, if you want to do the conservative cause some good I’d suggest you simply stop talking.
Becky:
1) I would simply ask if you have read Goldberg’s book. It is quite reliant on historical data and is fully footnoted. I am not aware of a single proven innaccuracy.
Note: Neither Goldberg or I assert than any modern person or party are themselves fascist.
As to your strawman (“suffer and starve” “cruelties of the pure free market”) please point out where I have attacked food stamps or unemployment? In fact I currently have an active unemployment claim, even though I have been able to find enough part time work to avoid actually collecting any.
I will repeat, I have not attacked socialism in this thread. What I have done is to defend the accurate description of President Obama’s economic policies as being socialist.
gahrie, if Obama’s policies qualify as “socialist” then Bush’s policies qualify easily as “totalitarian”.
Second, Becky’s comment about suffering and starving is not a strawman, its a very real picture of what happens if we let the market correct itself on its own. Since you aren’t familiar with it I suggest reading up on the Great Depression to get an idea of what happens when economies collapse.
1) There is no one starving in America due to lack of access to food.
2) No one has attacked foodstamps or unemployment. What has been attacked is nationalizing banks, taking over auto companies, and attempting to effectively seize control of the energy and health sectors.
3) No more than 15% of the stimulus money will be spent by the end of the year, and most of that will be in the form of hand outs to the states.
I) Look, it is an objective fact that fascism is an ideology of the left. In both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s Fascism arose from Socialist parties and Hitler and Mussolini were most definitely leftists. Set aside what you have always been told about fascism, and go look at the actual history of it. It was quite established thought in the 1930’s that fascism was an ideology of the left. There are countless examples of leftist politicians and thinkers endorsing fascism throughout the 1930’s. It was only after the US entered WW II that fascism began to be considerd and a bad thing.The Left has succeeded in co-opting the term (much as they have the term liberal) in order to use it as an insult to hurl at the right.
Fascism is fundamentally a system that is based on nationalizing private industry, government control of the economy and identity politics. Really, the only arguably rightwing facet of fascism is nationalism, an extreme form of patriotism.
I suggest more research, starting with Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism and its extensive footnotes.
It doesn’t matter if he has extensive footnotes or not, and it doesn’t matter if everything he writes is 100% true. What matters is whether or not his argument is cohesive and complete. I haven’t read his book, and I won’t, simply because I know enough about the subject to know he’s wrong based on his thesis (that is to say, it is impossible he could provide any new information, or argue based on information I already know, to change my mind).
What I’ll guess is that he took the fact that the Fascist movements of the interwar period were born out of worker’s movements, and often did, in fact have a leftist bent to them. Unfortunately for your point of view, these leftist bents did not endure. Fascist movements of the interwar period had several key identifying factors inconsistent with left leaning ideologies:
1.) They were nationalist. Nationalism is a right wing ideology, while internationalism is a left-wing ideology. This is why conservatives are always complaining about how liberals are looking to Europe for answers, and why early socialism was a very international movement.
2.) They opposed liberalism in all forms. Leftists are socially liberal, and Nazis were not. Economically it’s a mixed bag. Government involvement in economics is actually not a traditional leftist viewpoint, but if we’re being honest about the view of the left in America, it clearly favors government intervention more than the right (or at least ideologically has more faith in said involvement).
3.) Fascism is miltiaristic. Leftists are more commonly pacifists.
4.) Fascism rejects classism. Leftists often see things through the lens of economic classes.
I’ll also reiterate that just because someone starts out a leftist doesn’t mean they stay it. The neo-conservative movement was started by leftists, but you’d have to be deranged to state that neo-conservatism as it exists today is an ideology of the left. It’d be insanity.
At any rate, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that fascism is an ideology of the right, but I will say that if a fascist put a gun to my head and made me chose, the clear choice would be the right. And that would be the choice of the vast majority of scholars on the subject.
2) I never stated that the United States is a socialist country. I stated that President Obama’s economic policies are socialist. His goal is to transform (his word not mine) the U.S. economy. In fact I never stated that socialism was a bad thing, even going so far as to point out it is not the same thing as Marxism.
If Obama’s economic policies were socialist he’d be suggesting single-payer healthcare. He’s not. I wish he would.
What you could say is that Obama’s policies are more socialists than Bush’s, that would be indisputably correct. But they are not socialist.
3) It was government meddling in the housing market that caused the housing bubble when the Democrats in Congress forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the banks to make dangerous loans, and then ignored Pres. Bush and Republicans when they warned of the bubble and tried to have Congress pass regulations to deal with the problem.
Sorry, that’s incorrect:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
And who were these Democrats in congress? The housing crisis started shortly after the Republicans left Congress. I’m not going to act as if Democrats in congress were doing anything right, but you certainly can’t blame them for this.
4) Let me know when those “few drops of socialism” (c’mon…how many trillions before it becomes more than a few drops?) began to improve our economy.
Okay.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/07/the-recession-is-over.html
And I’ll actually give credit where credit is due for what is a relatively short recession considering the problems we faced: Bush helped lead the way with the first stimulus. I think Obama’s was necessary and is successful, but I’ll give credit where credit is due, Bush acted in the right way.
And hell, I don’t even blame Bush for the economy going south! Go figure!
1) That is a lie
2) And exactly how would we pay for those things if dramatically more people are unemployed?
Nationalizing banks? Taking over auto companies? Seizing control of energy and health sectors? Talk about your strawmen. When you have a grasp on whats REALLY happening come back and talk. Offering a public health option is not taking over the health sector. As I pointed out above and you clearly ignored (or maybe you just can’t read) a government funded option does not preclude private options, this is true in other countries with national health care options, and is true in our very own country in a very specific example called the USPS.
I am going to try and explain to you using pictures what words can’t seem to convey:
reality =
gahrie’s arguments =
If you want to be taken seriously in discussions here (or anywhere thats not a right wing echo chamber) you have to stop making such exagerrated mischarecterizations of reality.
Its one thing to criticize Obama’s economic or health policies, its another to exaggerate them and distort them in order to try and make people afraid of as if it were some liberal boogie monster who is coming to take our children away in the middle of the night too. And if you actually, honestly believe that that is what he is trying to do, well, then you are too far gone, because nothing short of cutting all government programs and ending taxation forever will convince you differently.
darn, img tag doesn’t work
ok, links below
reality = http://digitalart.org/images/artwork/0057500-57929/portraits/will-smith-caricature.jpg
gahries arguments = http://www.celebrity-gossip.net/images/thumbnails/will-tom-im-legend-1211-8.jpg
damnit, mixed up the links, lol Brendan, can you fix my comments for me, i’m tired, its been a long day 🙂