President Obama declares, "I am not a socialist":
American partisans often accuse the other party of being “socialists” (a Republican charge against Democrats) or “fascists” (the reverse), and Mr. Obama mocked the former at a meeting of top CEOs
hosted by the Wall Street Journal in Washington.
“People call me a socialist sometimes. But, no, you’ve got to meet real socialists. You’ll have a sense of what a socialist is,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m talking about lowering the corporate tax rate
. My health-care reform is based on the private marketplace. The stock market is looking pretty good last time I checked.”
[. . .]
“This, by the way, is a good example of something that’s been striking me about our politics for a while. When you go to other countries, the political divisions are so much more stark and wider. Here in America, the difference between Democrats and Republicans — we’re fighting inside the 40-yard lines,” he said.
[. . .]
For example, every European country has a major party that calls itself some variant of “socialist” or “social democrat” and which advocates, to at least some degree, public ownership of the means of production. France’s Francois Hollande, Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder are among the recent socialist-party leaders to have governed major powers.
Well, yeah. His health care reform is only "based on the private marketplace" if you think attempting to destroy the private marketplace can somehow be defined business friendly. And what's the difference between a real socialist who openly calls for public ownership of the means of production and the American variety who just keeps pushing the government further and further into the private sector?
Alas, I fear he is right about that "fighting inside the 40-yard lines," and I have no illusions about which end zone we're edging ever closer to.
Comments
I still don't understand why right wingers are called fascists, when the fascists of the German Nazi Party were of the National Socialist Party. At various levels of definitions the progressives, liberals, socialists, fascists, and communists have one thing in common. They do not believe in respecting private property. What is mine rightfully belongs to someone else. They are not traders, they are looters.