As I showed in the previous blog, deliberate conflation serves a multitude of nefarious purposes, mainly for disinformation, misinformation and propaganda in the right wing blogosphere and media. Thus, they conflate Obama's policies with "socialism" - despite the fact the two have nothing in common as I will show. They also conflate German National Socialism (which was really Fascism) with Soviet or Chinese Socialism - Communism, despite the fact that Hitler not only dispossessed and brutalized leftists: Marxists, Socialists and commies, but dispatched them for "final solution" in concentration camps as well.
I showed, when one accesses serious resources, as opposed to comics and Faux News, one can see Hitler couldn't have been a real socialist by his very actions and policies most of which were totally antithetical to Socialist values. Thus, he didn't use trade unions to parlay them into any "workers' paradise" - he squashed them like bugs! This was needed to ensure total conformity under the Reich laws, as former members of the German Wehrmacht relayed.
Why did Hitler hate Socialists so much, with such intensity? Robert Payne in his biography of Hitler (The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler)) acknowledges it was because the originator of Marxism, Karl Marx, was a Jew. Hitler thereby erroneously inferred that Socialism was an inherently Jewish economic philosophy and its practitioners were also Jews. Hitler, like so many Americans today, committed the logical error of imputing guilt by virtue of mere association - compounded by reckless generalization.
It never occurred to Hitler or his officers to question that sort of 'cartoon' logic, even when at other times they were railing against "Jewish ownership" of the media, banks and so on. I mean, this is contradictory, since socialists don't own banks...and their media tend to be tiny with small circulations! But no one exercised an ounce of critical thought to question the contradictions of narrative!
Now, what about the conflation of Obama with a Socialist, or Socialism? This is idiotic on its face and only employed because the bloggers who do so rely on the ignorance of their audience not to be able to discriminate. But as ‘Democratic LEFT- the main organ of the Democratic Socialists of America observes, Obama is about as far from being a Socialist as I am from being a Martian. Readers can see an extensive article on this here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/22/opinion/main5180886.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesAreaMain;cbsnewsLeadStoriesHeadlines
Socialism and the Politics of Fear
And a YouTube interview with a Temple University Professor (and REAL Socialist) here, on why Obama is not one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A_ZOWI1aLU
Why isn’t Obama a Socialist in terms of his 'Affordable Health Care Act'?
FIRST, because the bill actually isn’t new, nor is it truly universal health care (nearly 23 million stand to be left out for whatever reasons)! It was actually a recycling of the Republican alternative to what they called 'Hillary Care' proposed back in 1993. But the Goopers are too damned dumb, or ignorant of recent history, to know it! As usual, Goopers have short memories when it suits them.
In that original Republican health alternative- market exchanges would be set up to allow limited bargaining between health consumers and insurance companies. That is also a central aspect of this plan, which retains a major role for insurance companies.
In a real Socialist system, all insurance companies (as profit leeches for capitalism and market shares on Wall Street) would be eliminated! Thus, what Obama has on offer is the furthest thing from a genuine Socialist health care plan, which more normally would be based on a single payer plan such as in Canada. In this plan, the government is the SINGLE payer for insurance of the population, as opposed to over 400 insurance companies with differing rules, standards.
In this way, the single payer plan SAVES more money than any plan based on hundreds of private insurers. Since the Reeps and their toadies are always screaming about the debt, I'd have thought this would be a no-brainer for them, but evidently not. I guess they like their higher cost private insurance system which eats up more of the national income each year.
In truth and fact, it is our privately controlled health system which is hyper-charging the national debt to ever higher levels. Until that health delivery system is under control, the debt will never be managed or lowered, no matter how many spending cuts the Repukes demand. The annual inflation from health care alone is 14% a year, including drugs and isn't getting cheaper. Rationing care can only do so much, so the whole structure and pay system needs to be seriously addressed.
Oh, one more thing! When these Reep bloggers holler long and loud over "Socialism" to do with health care (including telling those of us who endorse it to "leave the country"- despite the fact the U.S. signed a UN Declaration making health care a RIGHT in 1994), I do hope they bear in mind that the biggest true element of Socialism in the American theater is Social Security! In fact, it exceeds even Medicare in this sense, because one still has to pay some large monthly fees with Medicare. So, if these bloggers are going to yap and howl over "socialism" then I expect them to forego their Social Security! If not, they're hypocrites plain and simple! You cannot reap the benefits of what little token socialism there is in this country, then howl about it and have the absolute, confounding chutzpah to tell real citizen socialists to "leave"!
Second, in doing his banking bailout back in 2009, Obama acted nothing like a real Socialist! A real, red blooded Socialist would have TAKEN over the banks! Removed all their board members and replaced them with government officials! This never occurred! The same exact thing applies to the auto company bailout (of GM, Chrysler) whose board also would have been taken over in a true socialist system and no shares issued via Wall Street - all sold and distributed to workers!
Again, this never occurred!
Third, in terms of the Bush tax cuts, a REAL Socialist never would have extended them as Obama agreed to do back in December. They would have ended one time!
Fourth, in these current debt talks, a REAL Socialist wouldn't be talking about "entitlements" being in for spending cuts as part of the mix. Oh no! IN fact, the term "entitlements" is a right wing (Reich wing) buzzword and Obama plays right into their terminology landscape when he employs it while raising the hackles of his liberal base.
Further a REAL Socialist wouldn't have ANY spending cuts period, but demand ALL tax increases!
The amusing thing to me is that there is already rampant socialism in the US of A. It’s just that it’s corporate socialism – not socialism for the masses (whose only token socialism is Social Security - which doesn't even cover all their retirement needs). In every way – using every kind of dodge, hollow law and loophole, corporations are protected from the “free market” they so readily espouse. As when the Savings and Loans were bailed out in 1989, then Long Term Capital Management was bailed out by taxpayers, in 1997. And the airlines were bailed out with billions from the public purse in 2001-02. Plus the banks in 2008 without also making their aid contingent on conditions (like no more dabbling in credit default swaps).
It is clear to the most dense denizen of these United States that all the uproar showing Obama as "Hitler", a "Stalin", etc. - all amount to camouflaged racism when all is said and done. The tea baggers know how unbecoming it would appear to have signs of Obama with the N-word emblazoned on them - so they use Hitler and Stalin, etc. depictions instead. Nice try, but we can see through it! And don't even try to BS us using a whole bunch of revisionist history pud about what Hitler allegedly did and Obama allegedly did. You just make yourselves look even more pathetic and ignorant than you are!
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