I find it hard to refer to Obama as “President”, when he is still a “Community Organizer”.
According to Wikipedia:
community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for the powerless.
So you’d think the PRESIDENT of the United States could use his bully pulpit, and its power of persuasion to help tackle state and local government financial problems. After all, if nothing is done, we face a possible collapse of our nation (more on that in a another post..)
But no, if you travel over to BarackObama.com, our President’s web site, you will find our President cheering on the masses. He criticizes the Governor:
Republican Governor Walker Scott Walker has proposed a radical plan to take away the collective bargaining rights of public workers. Those who teach and those who plow the snow-filled Wisconsin streets would no longer be able to organize for better working conditions and rights in the workplace.
Since Tuesday, the streets of Madison and the halls of the Capitol building have been filled with thousands of ordinary folks who are sending the strongest message possible to their state legislators—their rights are not up for negotiation.
Organizing for America–Wisconsin, who has been among the most vocal advocates for state employees’ rights, is tweeting live from the rallies and pulling together the voices, videos, and photos of this movement.
Since when have we seen a sitting President back teachers illegally “striking”. Where is the leadership, the help in dealing with crushing fiscal problems? Where is the leadership in addressing runaway public pension costs?
Perhaps what we see is what we can expect from a President who received hundreds of millions of dollars from these “public servants”. Past SEIU President Andy Stern said in 2009:
We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we’re proud of it.
If Obama wants to be a community organizer, he should resign and carry on the fight. If he wants to be President, he should act like one.
Watch:
Barack Obama’s policies are becoming crystal clear. Those policies are shutting down the American Dream, shutting them down in favor of a country that looks less like Capitalism, and more like Marxism.
Obama made his point of view very clear on CNBC”s Town Hall program on Monday 9/20. In response to a question about raising taxes (termed “extending the Bush tax cuts” to deride them), Obama clearly outlined his rationale for raising taxes on “the rich”, those families making over $250,000, and keeping cuts to an already lower-tax group:
- “You probably didn’t get a raise” (i.e. you deserve it, I’m on your side in this class struggle).
- “You’re more likely to spend it”. (Keynesian economics — we want spenders, not investors).
So this is a clear class-warfare stance: Those who invest must have their money confiscated; we’ll give tax breaks to some only if they spend it. (The government will make the investment decisions.) The proletariat will live from pay-check to pay-check and spend all they have. And that is “good”, according to Obama.
This is a doctrine straight out of the words of Karl Marx:
Marx argues that in capitalist society, an economic minority (the bourgeoisie) dominate and exploit an economic majority (the proletariat). Marx argues that capitalism is exploitative, specifically the way in which unpaid labor (surplus value) is extracted from the working class (the labor theory of value), extending and critiquing the work of earlier political economists on value. Such commodification of human labor according to Marx, creates an arrangement of transitory serfdom. He argued that while the production process is socialized, ownership remains in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This forms the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society. Without the elimination of the fetter of the private ownership of the means of production, human society is unable to achieve further development.
In order to overcome the fetters of private property the working class must seize political power internationally through a social revolution and expropriate the capitalist classes around the world and place the productive capacities of society into collective ownership. Upon this, material foundation classes would be abolished and the material basis for all forms of inequality between humankind would dissolve.
Obama, through his words, clearly sees the world as a struggle of classes, between rich and poor in the United States. He views himself as someone who has been chosen to lead the revolution, as intelligent and benevolent enough to make the tough decisions to fundamentally change America.
Thomas Sowell commented last week on this class warfare and how the Left has twisted words to advance their argument:
Among the many other catchwords that shut down thinking are “the rich” and “the poor.” When is somebody rich? When they have a lot of wealth. But, when politicians talk about taxing “the rich,” they are not even talking about people’s wealth, and what they are planning to tax are people’s incomes, not their wealth.
If we stop and think, instead of going with the flow of catchwords, it is clear than income and wealth are different things. A billionaire can have zero income. Bill Gates lost $18 billion dollars in 2008 and Warren Buffett lost $25 billion. Their income might have been negative, for all I know. But, no matter how low their income was, they were not poor.
By the same token, people who have worked their way up, to the point where they have a substantial income in their later years, are not rich. In most cases, they never earned high incomes in their younger years, and they will not be earning high incomes when they retire.
A middle-aged or elderly couple making $125,000 each are not rich, even though politicians will tax away what they have earned at the end of decades of working their way up. Similarly, most of the people who are called “the poor” are not poor. Their low incomes are as transient as the higher incomes of “the rich.”
Most of the people in the bottom 20% in income end up in the top half of the income distribution in later years. Far more of them reach the top 20% than remain in the bottom 20% over the years.
The grand fallacy in most discussions of income statistics is the assumption that the various income brackets represent enduring classes of people, rather than transients who start at the bottom in entry-level jobs and move up as they acquire more experience and skills.
But if we are going to base major government policies on confusions between medical care and health care, or on calling people “rich” and “poor” who are neither, then we have truly accepted words as the money of fools.
The American Dream, as Dr. Sowell states, is the ability to start poor, work hard, save and invest to build up a nest egg that allows you, perhaps someday, to invest in a business and employ others … in the process becoming financially well off. It’s an ebb and flow … a process, that relies on your skills and determination.
If the government policy is to ensure that if you have excess income, you spend it, and that investing is bad … how can anyone climb the ladder of success when Big Government is removing the rungs?
The dream has its foundation in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
So why would President Obama “slip” and leave out the “their Creator” in a speech last week?
Back to Marx’s view on religion:
Although Marx was intensely critical of institutionalized religion including Christianity, some Christians have “accepted the basic premises of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian faith from this perspective.” Some of the resulting examples are some forms of liberation theology and black liberation theology. [Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 17+ years] Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposed radical liberation theology while he was still a cardinal, with the Vatican condemning acceptance of Marxism.
Obama and the people that he surrounds himself with all lean to Marxism, and if allowed to carry on extending their consistent polices, will end the American Dream … perhaps for our lifetime.
The Obama administration is accumulating power at an amazing rate, aided and abetted by its complicit Congress, who seems hell-bent on handing over its responsibilities to the Executive branch.
This accumulation of power is un-constitutional, and is quickly reducing our liberties and free speech.
Transfer of Legislative and Judicial powers to the Executive
If you read the bills that are pouring out of this Congress, you will note the way that Progressives bypass the Constitution and public discussion of the contents (See article by Thomas Sowell). These laws (health care, financial reform, etc.) strengthen the power of the Executive by instructing the Government to do 3 things:
- Set up a Board, Office or Department to make rules (“Legislative”).
- Execute against those rules (“Executive”).
- Prosecute, try and punish people who break the rules (“Judiciary”).
So in a single bill, power from the Legislative and Judicial branches passes to the Executive. You might argue that this is how government has worked forever. Wrong! The health care bill created over 150 “Boards, Offices or Departments”, and that had never been done since … you guessed it .. FDR.
This whole process turns the entire political system that created this country upside down!
Take a look at one example:
FCC Fines Firm for Astroturfing
PR firm Reverb Communications was hired to write favorable reviews of iPhone games on Apple’s App Store. I don’t know about you, but I know that in the anonymous world of the Internet, that anyone can do a review of a product, and I have to take that with a grain of salt – caveat emptor. In fact, it is why “trust” systems, like that encouraged by eBay and Amazon, add value to reviews. They help you recognize legitimate reviewers, and trusted people, so you can separate them from the author’s brother, mother, or PR firm.
The FCC decided (in 2009 – the Age of Obama) to pass a rule that any “Consumer-generated media” would have to disclose whether or not a reviewer had a commercial link to the product/service being reviewed. The FTC can fine you $11,000 (plus injunctions against your future reviewing!) (Read the FTC PR announcement here.)
So in a flash (and I don’t recall any public debate, and mention in Congress), the FTC lays down its “guidelines” for free speech for Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements. Yikes! Did they mention Bloggers!?!
So, if a Blogger who works for, say the Democratic National Committee, promotes its product anonymously on a web site, they could be in violation of FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255. If you read your brother’s new book and thought it was great, a nice review could land you an $11,000 fine, if you and your brother have a “material connection”.
Would your opinion/review on ePinions.com be a violation? (as ePinions.com pays you and collects money from the advertisers).
What is a product review? Why does the FCC decide that my speech (in this blog, for example) is acceptable , or not?
And how do they suddenly decide they can pass down a fine? Well, to be fair, they state:
The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.
However, in the Reverb case, Reverb looked for an easier (cheaper) way out, as I am sure you and I would do, when faced with a huge bureaucracy with “unlimited resources” coming at you …
Reverb agreed to the settlement terms, though the company maintains that it disagrees completely with the FTC’s allegations and admits to no wrongdoing. [my emphasis]. “During discussions with the FTC, it became apparent that we would never agree on the facts of the situation,” Reverb said in a statement released to MTV Multiplayer. “Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion.”
The journalist in ars technica also went on the say:
Still, Reverb’s potentially unfair influence on App Store buyers may not be that great. As MTV Multiplayer pointed out, only those that have downloaded a game from the App Store can review it, so it would take serious effort and a lot of paid reviewers to influence its overall rating. If a game is truly awful or truly amazing, the ratings will reflect that fact.
The Harvard Law Review published an opinion on this regulation, calling it unconstitutional.
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised their Endorsement and Testimonial Guides (Guides) to cover “consumer generated media” such as blogs and other internet media forms. In the interest of providing consumers with full disclosure, the Guides require bloggers to disclose any “material connection[s]” they have with producers of any products that they “endorse” on their blogs. A “material connection” includes not only monetary compensation, but also any free good received by the blogger — even if that good was provided unsolicited, with no conditions attached, for the purpose of allowing the blogger to review the product. Yet a constitutional analysis of unpaid blogger endorsements shows that such endorsements are not commercial speech — which receives reduced constitutional protection — but rather noncommercial speech entitled to full First Amendment protection. Not only do the Guides burden bloggers’ protected speech, they also create an unfair double standard by exempting legacy media from the Guides’ disclosure requirements. Therefore, the Guides should be ruled unconstitutional as applied to bloggers.
Yet, the first test case that the FCC has using this results in a target rolling over. It seems like part of a plan to regulate the Internet.
We should be very concerned about this enormous accumulation of power in an uncontrolled bureaucracy. It threatens our freedoms, and the very foundation of the country.
(Cross posted to http://www.redstate.com/libertyyes/2010/08/29/increasing-executive-power-by-passes-due-process-threatens-blogger-free-speech)
The President’s budget for 2010 totals $3.55 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2009. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:
Mandatory spending: $2.184 trillion (+15.6%)
$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$0 billion (−100%) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%) – Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%) – Potential disaster costs
$571 billion (−15.2%) – Other mandatory programs
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt
US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other
