Republicans Point Fingers While Enacting Socialist Policies

Now that the ACORN drum beat has been muted by the arrest of Republican agents who were arrested in Ontario, California for allegedly engaging in voter fraud, the GOP attack machine has lept from the cliffs of its Joe the Plumber spin into the depths of calling Obama a Socialist.

Socialism, just for those born recently enough to have only heard of it in a history or political science classroom, is a political ideology that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned by the community as a whole.

An idea popularized by the only Marx not to appear in a movie, Karl, Socialism has come in many political styles, from Hugo Chavez' nationalization of key industries in Venezuela, to more extreme flavors of the Communist Party like Really Russian Red, Maoist Mint, Coconut Castro, and a North Korean fave, Kimchee Jung Il.

I have found, over time, that people will accuse others of the things that they themselves are guilty. A preacher who rails against sin and then is found in a hotel room doing crack with a male prostitute would seem to be in a pretty weak position to judge others.

This week, Senator McCain and his minions amped up their Joe the Plumber rhetoric to let loose a volley of accusations of "socialism" leveled at Barack Obama. They told their eagerly booing fans on the stump that Obama wants to "spread the wealth around," a gross distortion of his conversation with ol' Joe.

It may have just been me, but all of that rhetoric seemed to ring a bit hollow.

The Republican Bush Administration and the United States Congress have both engaged in the single biggest act of socialism in United States history, on an economic scale far bigger than the recovery plans of FDR between the Great Depression and World War II.

The bailout of Wall Street, which has now extended to include our government back-stopping money market funds, and buying stock in major banks to shore up their shattered credibility, is the very definition of socialist policy: The state owning the means of production and exchange.

Not that the bailout was not wholly necessary. The Republicans could have stuck to their free-market guns, and let banks fail, and let the chain reaction of calamity that followed that roll out, destroying decades of growth of American enterprises large and small. That would be to thine own capitalistic self, being true.

Bush could not apparently bring himself to let Joe the Plumber become Soup Line Joe or Hobo Joe. Both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, factored that economically holding the heads of hundreds of thousands of people under water in a vast Depression seemed to be a bad thing in general, let alone a hard sell in an election year.

Still, the Republicans hold the White House, and enough of the Congress to strangle-hold policy, making the Grand Old Party the biggest socialist movement since Mao Tse Tung packed off philosophy professors to pick parsinps.

Senator Obama has not called them on this yet, and probably will not. We will all have to work together after this is over, and the challenges of turning the other, very bloody cheek after weeks of having it bludgeoned with the McCain-Palin team's kitchen sink, will be daunting enough.

You have to love, though, the irony of seeing McCain's minions calling Barack Obama a Socialist in one news segment then viewing a story about the Treasury Department spending several hundred million of your tax dollars to back-stop the broken engines of Capitalism.

People living in damaged economic theories should not be casting stones, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin.

Follow Brian Ross on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mlnsports

Comments

[happyexpat08]

Don't know if anyone posted this, but here's a quote from Palin herself:
"We’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

From the New Yorker this summer (before her shotgun marriage with McCain)

[Lynn Voedisch - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi, Brian,
From writers for Obama!

My relatives are Swedish and I've been over there a few times. THAT is socialism. It's cradle to the grave government service with the high taxes to make that possible. They have the highest quality of life that you could imagine, but they all complain bitterly about the taxes. So, you can never have nirvana.
Knowing what socialism in practice really looks like makes me just laugh all the louder at McCain and his antics. All Obama is talking about is taxation, the kind we've had for hundreds of years. What is the matter with that old man? Well, I think I know. He's running out of options fast and the end game is coming soon. Wonder what he'll pull out of his hat next?

[yeswecancan]

Folks, don't forget, Alaska is the one TRULY socialist state in our nation. They take oil in the state, consider it public property, and distribute money each year to each person in the state. HELLOOOOO.... does anyone know the meaning of the term socialism???? Somebody should write on this ....

[lorath]

The thing is, we are seeing not just socialist policies from the Bush administration, fascist as well. It is important to remember the definition of these words and not the rhetoric that they conjure. It is in our best interests as americans to look these up in the dictionary and find out if what we are being told is the truth.

[Doofus]

Nationalizing banks protects wealth, thereby the Wealthy, to some extent
the Middle-class (the freakin' 'Bourgeosie'), not the 'Proletariat', therefore
not hardly Socialism. More like plutocracy.

[billw8017]

I lived in a Socialist city, Milwaukee under Mayors Daniel Hoan and Frank Zeidler, and what it amounted to was government that works and politicians who lived modestly. Generally speaking, state ownership of productive facilities is Syndicalism, a theory developed by French Socialists in the 19th century. Of course, the practice dates way back. Ancient societies kept commercial monopolies to raise money. Ancient Egypt, for example, had a state monopoly brewing beer, a monopoly for the import of Frankincense, etc.

Free enterprise should be more practical. It provides the chance to fail when somebody else can do it better. Big companies are not free enterprise except when they are very very poorly managed. They are more like quasi governments with prices and production by their command. Social Security is an example of how the government can administer a straight program with less overhead than private businesses. The projections of its failure are worst case scenarios and assume a GDP growth below 1.9%, something we don't have to expect except if the economy fails worse than in the great depression.

[billw8017]

Yeah. Plutocracy sounds about right. Plutocratic means much the same as Fascist except it's more about monied interests and less about commerce.

[changeorbust]

AND I helped friends and relitaves register and vote. I donated to as many camps as I could 10$ here and there while encouragoing others to do the same.

don't hold your breath... it may get more bizzaro (anybody who thinks that something as HUGE as what has been happening Since Black Tuesday ---SEPTEMBER 16, 08 would not have REALLY BIG FALLOUT in the months to come ----- is truly CRAZY) This is something reiterated by MR. SENATOR JOE BIDEN the other day -- The REALJoe ........is just being HONEST!!!

With all of the real serious FRUAD which has so obviously been GOP and real ILLEAGAL VOTE SUPPRESSION (not bradly effect like they try to float) but skewed polls for the purpose of missleading people, and downright Macarthyisim --- Intimidation and Police STATE type actions against the ALL AMERICAN voters, the press, and or potential voters, on the part of GOP influanced LAW enforcement----I will be waiting with baited breath on NOV 4th--- I truly expect all H*LL to break loose, AND we will all be watching it LIVE.

Hope everybody can just see that.

[fan4truth]

We've never been a true democracy in the first place. Democracy is a battle cry of those who seek to subvert the economic and social gains of others for their own personal interest (republicans). They need to own up to what every bleeding heart liberal knows: We are a democratic republic (hence the electoral college, rather than the popular vote determining the president), and we have become socialists under the regime of George W. Bush. We stopped being a democratic republic when the patriot act was signed. Republicans talk about limited government, but their administration created a gluttonous government, and since 9/11 certain people (whether merited or not) cannot travel freely across this country, the majority of americans must wait to be body searched, and our phone lines have been tapped by a government more focused on finding the bad guy than protecting the citizenry.

We are not a society that can point fingers at the likes of Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, or Hugo Chavez. We need to review who we are, and where we came from and the hijacking of our values and beliefs by a bunch of neocon warmongers hell-bent on destroying the very fabric of our constitution, while screaming that they are pro-american patriots.

[wilsontennis]

As you know we are at war. For the protection of our state, we must concede some rights (especially with the nature of our current enemy, although I agree we must be cautious with how our govt acts once the war is over). Just a reminder, protecting the people from foreign enemies is a constitutional responsibility of the govt.

As far as socialism goes, the more power a govt has the more it will screw up, and money is power. I can decide what is in my best interest.

[amaycatbaker]

Bravo! It is about time someone wrote this!

[omahkohkiaayo]

I love it when anyone presumes to define and characterize the core beliefs of any faithor ideology without reference to the original sacred texts of that belief system. In my 13 years of university, I had many courses and read many texts that talked "about" Marx without any reference to what Marx actually wrote nor any encouragement from professors to read the original works; not until I did graduate training in Canada where you did not simply read "about" Marx or Keynes or whomever, you were assigned read their original works.

What if someone trashes and characterizes Christianity on the basis of alleged or proved behaviors of some Christians but had never bothered to read the New Testament to arrive at his/her understanding of what Christianity is all about and intends or advocates; the same with Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc without havingread the sacred texts of those faiths.

So if you want to know what socialism is (nothing near state capitalism or welfare state capitalism often called "socialism" by those who have never read Marx) then whether you agree or not, at least go to the original sources to arrive at a definition of what socialism is suposed to be about rather than take the caricatures of those too lazy and/or smug and/or intellectually challenged to go to the original sources and understand them.

[proudem]

I agree. I have a copy of Karl Marx "Communist Manifesto" next to my copy of the U S Constitution in my nightstand. OMG what a geek I am...

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Knowing what it is, and how it is practiced, are different creatures. Just FYI, I have read the English version of Das Kapital. Like all ideological works, it suffers badly in its practical translation because social and cultural dynamics, along with simple problems like literacy and societal violence, tend to warp and bend such ideologies. The definition above is as simple and fair a summary as one will find. What is hypocritical though, is that Republicans go around deregulating and espousing free market capitalism until excess, also spoken about in Marx' work, reaches a level that it brings the system of financial growth and exchange down around their ears. Then they go heading for the safety nets of a socialist dogma. You can't have your dogma and scratch your fiscal fleas too, it would seem. :D

[omahkohkiaayo]

If you take Marx et al as a starting point for defining socialism (I am not suggesting agreement or disagreement, only what Marx et al actually wrote and meant) then it is not the degree of government involvement or even ownership in the economy or extent of planning versus non-planning that defines socialism (fascist systems can accomodate extensive corporate-­government unity and are fundamentally anti-socialist even if they use the term "socialism" to build a mass social base as the nazis did), but rather it is the class nature of the state (which class holds state power--really) that defines socialism.

Capitalism throughout its history has always been about "socializing" costs and risks for returns that are privatized and increasingly centralized and concentrated. But that is not socialism but simply socialization of costs and risks paid by regressive taxes on the many in the interest of low taxes and risks for the rich.

[Doofus]

'Not that the bailout was not wholly necessary. The Republicans could have stuck to their free-market guns, and let banks fail, and let the chain reaction of calamity that followed that roll out, destroying decades of growth of American enterprises large and small. That would be to thine own capitalistic self, being true.'

The last eight years has been all about enhancing Republican wealth. To a great extent, the
current economic unpleasantness is about Repos pulling their accumulated wealth out of the
system in anticipation of measures expected from the Obama presidency. 'Free-market
capitalism' is all well and good when it enriches the wealthy. At other times, nationalizing
banks is the way to go.

[lejman]

hard to imagine karl marx and karl rove aligned in the same essay. the red kryptonite has fallen. we are in bizzarro world.

[ed238yth]

When Democrats do it they call it socialism, so when Republicans do it, it must be fascism.

[changeorbust]

Corporate Facisim. My father has been on a permanent rant for the last 31 years regarding this issue, since I was six or seven years old I can remember seeing News headlines on tv. Ronald Regan, the iran contra, I mean my parents are serious news aholics. Trickle down economics is a JOKE. It makes the rich, really rich, and the middle class is becoming obselete? Without the middle class, the world of wall street cannot function. The party has been going on for too long. It is time to send the neo CONS packing.

OBAMA08 ---- GET OUT AND VOTE. I DID.