I’m not going to bother linking to any sites or people who make the comparison they get too much traffic as it is. If only the educational system in this country had bothered to teach people what Socialism is this charge never would have been brought against the President. Of course the education system doesn’t have to bear the blame completely, Americans themselves are also culpable. It isn’t that hard to do some basic research and learn what Socialism is; and, that there exists in this country an actual Socialist Party, I know! How un-American!
The nice thing about the Socialist Party – USA is that they have their platform right there on their website and we can compare what they’d do if they were in charge of the Federal government with what President Obama has done and/or says he will do. The results aren’t impressive (if you’re a Socialist.)
From Socialist Party USA’s economics platform:
1. We demand the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and oppose the creation of a widened Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). – While candidate Obama did mention renegotiating NAFTA during the primary elections since his election the point has never been raised. In fact, the Obama administration has worked closely with the Mexican government to ensure the provisions of NAFTA are upheld and implemented
2. We call for worker and community ownership and control of corporations within the framework of a decentralized and democratically determined economic plan. – Except for some nonvoting stock in a few troubled banks and automakers, which the Federal government is keen to sell as soon as possible, The Obama administration is not contemplating the integration of corporations into the civic body.
3. We call for a minimum wage of $15 per hour, indexed to the cost of living. – The current federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour. Many states have their own minimum wage rates, some as low as $5.15 an hour (congratulations Georgia and Wyoming, you suck!) The latest I can find from the Obama administration is a call for the rate to increase to $9.50 per hour by 2011.
4. We call for a full employment policy. We support the provision of a livable guaranteed annual income. – I can’t find President or candidate Obama supporting this anywhere. I can find a much more enlightened figure doing so though, Martin Luther King.
5. We call for all financial and insurance institutions to be socially owned and operated by a democratically-controlled national banking authority, which should include credit unions, mutual insurance cooperatives, and cooperative state banks. In the meantime, we call for re-regulation of the banking and insurance industries. – See number 2 above.
There are 10 more tenets and President Obama doesn’t do any better on them either, let’s see how he does in International Policy
1. We call for the closing of all U.S. military facilities at home and abroad that train foreign military and paramilitary personnel. – The only base closure Obama has talked extensively about is Guantanamo Bay and, let me check, it is still open, as of July 2010 176 detainees still remained at the base… In fact, the United States is expanding its international military presence.
2. We call for the United States to immediately and unconditionally withdraw its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. – While the United States has withdrawn from Iraq (some 50,000 troops remain.) Our countries footprint in Afghanistan has grown to near 80,000.
3. We call for an end to the U.S. occupation of the province of Guantanamo, Cuba. – The President hasn’t even managed to close the base there and the official policy of the United States towards Cuba requires regime change before talking with the country
4. We call for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank-East Jerusalem and Gaza, and an end to all U.S. aid to Israel, as a precondition for peace. – The current administration is now overseeing yet another round of peace talks between Israel and Palestine. No mention of halting of aid has been mentioned, or as punishment for either side walking away from the table.
5. We support an immediate cutoff of all U.S. military aid to Colombia, and all other recipients. – In September the U.S. government approved $30 million in military aid to the country.
6. We call for the abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and all other institutions of covert warfare. – The Obama administration has continued the policies of its predecessor by defending illegal practices in court. No mention of ending these agencies has even been floated.
7. We stand for unconditional disarmament by the United States. – President Obama has moved forward with a new round in the START program which will lower the US’s and Russia’s nuclear stockpile. The amount of money the US government has spent on the military has been steadily rising since 1998 and reached $494.3 billion in 2009, not including spending for the Afghan and Iraq wars.
8. We call for an international treaty outlawing all weapons of mass destruction, including the use of depleted uranium in conventional weapons. – Once again, the Obama administration is only concerned with preventing other nations from joining the nuclear club not eliminating the club itself.
9. We call for an immediate 50% cut in the military budget, followed by additional cuts, with the aim of rapidly reducing the military budget to less than 10% of its current level, with the “peace dividend” directed to essential social services and to the cost of cleaning up contaminated military sites. – See comments on number seven above.
10. We call for the disbanding of NATO and all other aggressive military alliances, and the closing of all overseas bases. – NATO continues to grow. Its newest members are Albania and Croatia which joined in 2009. The Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, and Ukraine were promised invitations to join at the 2008 NATO summit.
There are four more statements under International Policy and President Obama fails to live up to the Socialist charge with each of them as well. There are eight other planks of the US Socialist Party platform and President Obama’s policies fail to meet the Socialist agenda over and over again.
What can we take from this? A number of things I think: President Obama is not a socialist; those that accuse him of such have little to no understanding of what socialism is; this country’s most ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ Democrats fail to live up to socialist standards; politically the United States is a right of center nation; instead of investigating the claim that the President was a socialist the Media in this country merely repeated it, giving the claim credence it never deserved; and, finally, that the public at large seems to much more open to blind acceptance than skepticism of any claim.
P.S. While reading the Socialist Party’s platform I found my head nodding in agreement more often than shaking in disagreement. I wonder where I can sign up… ?
Depleted Uranium is nothing more than Uranium-238. It is common naturally occuring radioactive element and isotope found in all life on Earth for all time. Those that call for banning it know nothing about the science and do everything possible to make others ignorant as well. Go learn about uranium from real experts – go visit the Geology professor and ask him or her how much uranium is in your own backyard; go visit the Physics professor and ask him or her to explain what radiation is, what an Alpha article is and about shielding from radiation. When you find that U-238 really is everywhere and that you only stop inhaling, ingesting and drinking in teeny tiny amounts of U-238, you are dead and that a sheet of paper or the human skin stops and Alpha particle, then you will begin to realize that DU is not a weapon of mass destruction, just a bullet, a bullet no more or less harmful than the lead bullets used for centuries.
Not really the point of the post but thanks for the information…