Thursday, November 3, 2011

Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge With Peter Robinson- Stanley Kurtz: 'Radical In-Chief'

Source:Hoover Institution- Peter Robinson is the host of Uncommon Knowledge, from the Hoover Institution.
"An author, journalist, and social anthropologist (PhD Harvard), Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a contributing editor to National Review Online.  His latest book is Radical-in-Chief:  Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

"President Obama is a socialist!"  The explosive charge has been made, rebutted, and laughed off since the 2008 campaign.  In Radical-in-Chief, Kurtz asserts that the charge is not off base and backs up his assertion with a detailed examination of President Obama's past from his college days to his Chicago associations with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.  He details the gradualist, socialist strategy of Obama's mentors and answers the key questions at the heart of this issue.  "What difference does it make what Barack Obama believes?  All that need concern us is what he does.  Isn't that right?"


In today's politics when people on the Right and especially Far-Right when they are worried about a Democrat, especially a Progressive Democrat (take Barack Obama, to use as an example) they call that person a Socialist. 

The hyper-right-wing in America knows that Barack Obama is a likable man, with an excellent political skills and are terrified of him winning reelection next year, because they don't know if the Republican Party can beat him, even if they can beat Congressional Democrats in the House and Senate. So what they do instead of trying to beat President Obama in an election, they try to make him seem as unpopular and unelectable at the polls with Independent voters and perhaps blue-collar Democrats, so by the time the President is actually up for reelection, they think he'll be easier to beat. Which is what Stanley Kurtz is up too in his book Radical In Chief, which could've been written about a lot of members of the Tea Party.

I talk to Conservatives and Libertarians on a regular basis. Doesn't mean I'm one of them, I think for myself just like Barack Obama. The main reason why the Far-Left flank in the Democratic Party and social-democratic Independents, don't like President Obama right now and have threatened to run a so-called Progressive (Socialist, in reality ) candidate like Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich against President Obama in the Democratic primaries, is because President Obama is not a Socialist. He's not even a Democratic Socialist. 

Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is and that exactly how he describes his politics and is or has been was a member of the Democratic Socialist Party. To know that Barack Obama is not a Socialist, just look at his presidency and the legislation he's passed and proposed and the reversals he's made on major issues.

To know that President Obama is not a socialist again just look at his presidency and how he's not done what Socialists wanted him to do. During the stimulus debate in 2009, Democratic Socialists were calling for a a stimulus of around 2T$, an FDR style New Deal stimulus. With all these new Federal agency's that would do all these works projects putting unemployed workers back to work. Which is what left-wing economist Paul Krugman was calling for. The President and Congress put together a bill called the American Recovery Act of around 800B$, about 25% of that tax cuts.

Another thing Socialists don't tend to like and the so-called House Progressive Caucus ( Democratic Socialist Caucus, in reality ) proposed exactly what Socialists were calling for back in April. The health care reform debate again another perfect example of that,. Socialists obviously we're calling for a single payer health insurance system. And settled for a public option in health insurance as their compromise, but President Obama who supports the idea of a public option, settled for the Affordable Care Act which instead has a tax credit for individuals to buy their own private health insurance. As well as a Patients Bill of Rights to regulate private health insurers.

If you're going to throw out the term socialist especially in America and you use that term to put people down, you should at least have some idea of what the hell you're talking about. Who the person that you are labeling socialist is and exactly what socialism is. Otherwise you're just throwing terms because you're ignorant or you're a political attack dog. Which is exactly what Americans hate about American politics right now.

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