How mind-numbingly desperate has the McCain campaign become? They’ve found an interview from 7 years ago, in which Obama wades into some technical points of the Supreme Courts’ civil rights rulings, pulled out the term “redistribution of wealth,” completely out of context, and held up it, screaming “SOCIALIST!”
From what I can tell, and it is a very technical and academic discussion, Obama is saying that the Supreme Court didn’t want to get into the redistribution of wealth, but that other social forces, including community organizing, could bring about “redistributive change.”
Here’s the quote (taken from a conservative newsletter, but I believe it’s fairly accurate):
“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of the wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break us free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution … And the Warren Court interpreted, in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties … I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”
In other words, African Americans, traditionally among the poorest and least powerful in our society, could grab a bigger piece of the pie by organizing themselves and gaining more political power.
WHAT A RADICAL STATEMENT! OH MY GOD, IT”S LIKE HE’S JOSEPH STALIN OR GROUCHO MARX OR SOMETHING!!
How stupid do you have to be to fall for this stuff? What is wrong with people that they are so quick to jump to totally unjustified conclusions based on such thin evidence?
Let’s put it another way: Yes, Obama wants to “redistribute wealth.” He wants to change our tax policies that have been favoring the extremely wealthy and make them more favorable to the middle class.
That's socialist?
Lots of presidents have changed tax policy; raising taxes for some, lowering them for others. These include Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. This was also redistribution of wealth. None of these folks were called socialists by anybody with a brain.
McCain supporters have said a lot of less-than-honest things. But this descent into caveman-like stupidity is really hard to watch.
Sorry to rant; I guess the long election season is finally getting to me.
Here’s a WP fact-checker comment on this.
Here’s a very good analysis of the "Obama is a socialist" claim,by Politifact.com.
2 comments:
Well I lived in Sweden for two years where the socialists are in power and have been for a long time. They have universal health care, among the longest life expectancy of any nation, great functional furniture and excellent child care. Ooooohhh scaaaryy.
I don't think there's going to be much nuance at this point.
I know, I know. And it's really not that surprising, considering where things are and the mud that's been flung in general. But it was making me a little crazy yesterday.
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