Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Socialism Out of the Closet in Obama's America

Paul Kengor at American Thinker points out something very significant about the "One Nation" rally (see photos here) recently held on the mall in Washington, DC as a response to the Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" rally in a post entitled, "Progressives and Communists: Out of the Closet Together."
A close look at the Saturday "One Nation" rally in Washington reveals something quite telling. It was a major gathering of the "progressive" left, highly billed, vigorously promoted. And it happened to include -- in fact, it warmly accepted -- the endorsement of Communist Party USA.

Expectedly, a bunch of the rally's endorsers carried the word "progress" or "progressive" in their title, from People’s Organization for Progress to Progressive Democrats of America. More still unhesitatingly describe themselves as progressive, from racial eugenicist Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood to Norman Lear's heirs at People for the American Way, plus the usual suspects from the "social justice" Religious Left.

And then, too, there was CPUSA.

Why is this so remarkable? It's remarkable because historically, communist involvement at these rallies has been meticulously concealed, hidden from progressives, with the communists using the progressives as props -- as dupes. That the two sides here, on Saturday, happily accepted one another, proudly uniting, shows how far to the left progressives have moved, not to mention their unflagging confidence under the ascendancy of Obama-Pelosi-Reid.
Once Obama's presidency is over, history will come to portray him as a front man or, at best, a useful idiot, for the socialists. The socialists have taken over control of the Democratic Party and we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party's electability for a generation due to its being too far out of the mainstream to win enough independent votes. Evidence for Obama's usefulness to the hard core left comes from former hardcore communist 60s radicals who have more idea what is going on than most people. Kengor again:
Consider the group Progressives for Obama, formed during Obama's presidential bid. It was loaded with and even founded by some hardcore communists from the 1960s. Consider merely two of them: Tom Hayden, one of the group's four founders, and Mark Rudd, one of the 94 original signers. Hayden and Rudd had been leaders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which subverted the policies and plans of Democratic presidents ranging from Vietnam to the 1968 convention. In 2008, both Hayden and Rudd suddenly reemerged as "Progressives for Obama."

Rudd’s take on how Obama won the 2008 election is shrewd -- and dead on. Understanding that moderates and independents made the difference, Rudd noted the crucial importance of Obama not openly conceding his far-left views. Rudd wrote,

Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn’t blow it. But he also knew that what he said had to basically play to the center to not ... scare centrist and cross-over voters away. He made it. ... And I agree with this strategy. ... Any other strategy invites sure defeat. It would be stupid to do otherwise in this environment.

Basically, what Rudd said is that Obama hoodwinked "centrist" and "cross-over" voters. As Rudd rightly put it, Obama couldn't be candid about his true intentions in "this environment." That's an environment where Americans, in poll after poll, have described themselves as "conservative" over "liberal" by a margin of 2:1, by approximately 40% to 20%, for decades now. Incredibly, those numbers were unchanged even on November 4, 2008, when Obama easily won the election.
Read it all here.

There is no use debating how many points of socialist orthodoxy Obama ticks off as far as his public pronouncements are concerned.
America is a center-right country devoted to classical liberalism, limited government, individual freedom and the rule of law, so you can't get elected running as a socialist in America. But if you can fool people into thinking you are a moderate Democrat in the Clinton mold and take advantage of the strong desire of the average American to elect an African-American to the country's highest office, you can maybe squeeze into power for one term and this is what Obama has done.

If Obama was ever going to shift to the center he would have done so after the Republicans won the election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. In actual fact, he is quite prepared to lose the Democratic majorities in congress rather than back off his socialist agenda. He is campaigning now in such as way as to try to motivate the left wing base of the Democratic Party to come out to vote and stave off as much electoral damage as possible. He has basically lost the independents (the 35% of the American voting population that is neither Republican nor Democrat, who are now 2:1 against his agenda). So he cannot win in 2010 and once this election is over, it will be obvious that he cannot possibly win in 2012, which is why I have been predicting for about a year now that it may well end up being Hillary on the ballot in 2012.

I predict that he will try hard to utilize the lame duck session of Congress to enact tax increases and other unpopular legislation such as cap and trade, card check and amnesty for illegals. He will double down on his socialist agenda in the next two years, knowing that this will be his last kick at the can. He won't be able to pass tax and spend type legislation through Congress after January 2011, but he can veto Republican bills designed to get the economy moving again, prevent outright repeal of Obamacare, and hope to get to appoint another young leftist to the Supreme Court. In other words, he will do all the damage he can and then walk out the door singing "I did it my way."

Perhaps his proudest achievement will be to have brought socialism out of the closet and onto the mall.

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