Monday, October 13, 2008

Add It to the List: Calling Obama Socialist is Racist

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Cool, another thing that makes me a racist. Thus far I can't question him about Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers, or probably even Richard Daley without being tainted as a Bull Connor. I'm a bigot if I say anything about Michelle Obama, ACORN, voter fraud or his penchant for garbling words when not speaking from a teleprompter.

Now we have a new cause to be called racists:


The hysterical accusations of socialism from conservatives echo similar accusations leveled at black leaders in the past, as though the quest for racial parity were simply a left-wing plot. Obama may not actually be a socialist or communist, but his election would strike another powerful blow to the informal racial hierarchy that has existed in America since the 1960s, when it ceased being enforced by law. This hierarchy, which holds that whiteness is synonymous with American-ness, is one conservatives are now instinctively trying to preserve. Like black civil-rights activists of the 1960s, Obama symbolizes the destruction of a social order they see as fundamentally American, which is why terms like "socialism" are used to describe the threat.
Perhaps we've labeled Obama as "socialist" because he meets the classic definition of a socialist. Merriam-Webster defines "socialism" this way: "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods". Obama favors big government over big business. He has introduced one the most overt programs for the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor that is done through the government. Nothing racist at all except to a paranoid socialist who sees racism everywhere.

Obama is not a socialist purely in the historic sense, he's more of a neo-socialist whereby he is ideologically a socialist but mixes in capitalistic tendencies because hey, what fun is socialism if you're poor? Call it socialism full of greed.

This drivel continues:

This phenomenon extends beyond Obama's candidacy. The conservative explanation for the mortgage crisis falls neatly into this narrative, too; the country is at risk because Democrats allowed minorities to disrupt the natural social order by becoming homeowners. Never mind that this defies all data, logic, and history, the narrative resonates because it allows Obama, a living symbol of black folks rising above "their station," to become a focus for conservative economic anxieties.
You see, us conservatives believe that "black folks" have their place and owning a house is not considered them staying in their place. I guess the fact that it was a republican who elevated a two "black folks" far above "their station" to the jobs of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor while every Democrat administration installed them in token positions like Secretary of Commerce is lost on the author. Note also the highly biased nuanced piece they linked to which I debunked yesterday.

I can't seem to recall or find a single conservative writer who said it was "black folks" or even Hispanics who were responsible for the mortgage meltdown. As I've written, it was any person--black, white or purple--who was given a loan they could not afford--in concert with governmental (socialist) policy that lead us to where we are now. Add in some Wall Street greed and you have a toxic stew of bad loans.

Finally:


Conservatives, now and in the past, have turned to "socialism" and "communism" as shorthand to criticize black activists and political figures since the civil-rights era...
Of course, according to Karl Marx, a socialist could be a communist if they applied themselves a bit more. I don't recall anyone calling Obama a "communist" although he may have some communist tendencies. But it's funny, when I think communist, I think Russia. There ain't too many "black folks" in Russia.

So, today ends our lesson on what is and what is not racism. It's pretty simple really: anything a Conservative says is racist even though it may hard to detect the actual racism. We use code words that are given to us at the Ronald Reagan School during the David Duke course. Anything a liberal says can't be racist even if includes actual slurs (made by a former Kleagle in the KKK who is the senior Democratic Senator)and not code words because they, being liberals, are incapable of being racist.

Come back again next time when we discuss how calling Sarah Palin a c*nt is acceptable political discourse but asking Obama about an unrepentant terrorist who bombed a police station and the Pentagon is not.

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