Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Obama On Class Warfare: 'I Wear that Charge as a Badge of Honor'




PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Now, you’re already hearing the Republicans in Congress dusting off the old talking points. You can write their press releases. “Class warfare,” they say. You know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor. I wear it as a badge of honor, because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against middle-class folks in this country for a decade now."

This guy is something else. It's no wonder he is losing points with Americans. How does class warfare help create jobs? It doesn't. He is just trying to rally his base and his base hates those that make money and have created jobs. Americans realize that taking money out of the private sector does nothing for them, no matter who they take the money from. Most Americans don't hate the rich like Obama does. In fact most Americans want to be rich. You would think that Obama would want to make more millionaires not fewer millionaires. But that is his failed ideology at work and that is why our economy has been failing ever since Obama and the Democratic Party took over. I'm getting sick and tired of Obama going after Americans as if they were somehow the enemy. While at the same time treating our enemies as our friends.

I'd like to know what you think about Obama's class warfare. Will it work to rally his base? Will it create any jobs? Will it make more millionaires or fewer? How will going after a class of Americans make anything in this country better? Will Ford,GM and Chrysler have more or less profit to profit share with the UAW laborers? This will take money out of our pockets, it will take money from charities that need every penny. It this a jobs bill you are willing to stand with? 

13 comments:

  1. Why hes wearing that badge is he eating one of those $16.00 Muffins they've been serving at the Department of Justice? It appears even buying a MUFFIN can get EXPENSIVE in this Regime!

    I bet ya BUSH bought the Muffin!

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  2. Chris, it's NOT class warfare. But if that's what you want to call it when the rich in this country refuse to pay their fair share, then so be it.

    Bring it on. The people are fed up with you teabaggers and corporations running the country.

    You only have to look to the occupation of Wall Street to see We the People have had enough of your bullshit.

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  3. Bruce The bullshit actually started in November and will yes continue into the Election cycle of 2012. You of coarse are thtypical Liberal Progressive that does not see the fortest for the trees or the Shellacking that took place in November and will raise its head in 2012. Those rascals,barbarians and terrorist Tea Party people are YOUR worse nightmare. Citizens that believe in their Nation and NOT what EWE want it to become. Tea Party will be around alot longer than your one termer who will have to go back to Community Orgainzer 101. I look for his Library to have written over the front door "Oh Shit WE woke the VOTERS up"! To really see the URGENT problem with this Nation Bruce EWE are looking down the wrong street. Look down Main Street where Citizens have been voicing their concerns since regime took power. Citizens Concerns over JOBS and Economy were IGNORED for Social Issues. EOUR DEFENDING FAILURE will be fun to watch but the most fun will be watching MAIN street Citizens UNDO a TERRIBLE Mistake!

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  4. The other day I linked to a rather silly post at Think Progress by Matthew Yglesias. His point was that Obama is not engaging in class warfare because if you want real class warfare look at the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1928. That was real class warfare. Never mind how similar some of what the CPGB wanted in 1928 is what Obama is calling for now.

    But we don’t have to look to the CPGB. We can look to the Communist Party of America 1928. Consider this, for example:

    A capitalist writer characterizes the present unemployment as a ‘technological unemployment, not cyclical — an unemployment developing gradually, almost unawares, like creeping paralysis, in the midst of unprecedented prosperity, the byproduct of improved technological efficiency.”

    Unemployment is indeed the ‘creeping paralysis’ of capitalist society. It represents the most vicious contradiction of the present economic order. The more machinery, the higher the productivity of labor, the more unemployed. . . .

    The present depression is not an ‘accident.’ It has been brought about by prosperity itself. Disproportion between production and consumption, which is a part of the general anarchy of capitalist production, is responsible for cyclical crises. Saturation of the automobile and building construction markets, over-production of oil, the world coal crisis, the migration of the textile industry to the South, the limits of installment buying, the restriction of the farmers’ market, the effects of American export of capital and of the stabilization of Europe, the increased competition with Europe — these are the basic features of the present economic depression. Neither the existence of huge monopolies and trusts nor the “interventions” of the Federal Reserve Bank are able to prevent the occurrence of economic crisis.

    [Emphasis in original]

    Compare that to this from Ron Suskind’s new book Confidence Men:

    “Both [Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers and chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer] were, in fact, were concerned by something the president had said in a morning briefing: that he thought the high unemployment was due to productivity gains in the economy. Summers and Romer were startled. “What was driving unemployment was clearly deficient aggregate demand,” Romer said, “We wondered where this could have been coming from. We both tried to convince him otherwise. He wouldn’t budge.”

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  5. The excerpt is here and found by Ben Domenech in his most excellent Transom.

    But, and back to the original point, what about the class warfare? No one does class warfare better than the communists. So consider the American communists’ platform in 1928 instead of the British communists.

    What did they want?

    Unemployment Insurance
    Immediate emergency help for all workers who have been unemployed two months or more, consisting of eight weeks wages for each worker.
    Public works. The federal, state, and city governments should devise schemes for improving the roads and bridges of the country, improving the rivers, canals, docks, and harbors, setting up electric power stations, reforestation, land drainage and land reclamation, extension and electrification of railways. On all public works trade union wages and conditions must be guaranteed by law.
    Immediate abolition of vagrancy laws. Protection of employed workers from arrest on charges of vagrancy.
    Oh, but wait, there’s more.

    Here’s some more from their platform.

    The working class of this country is facing a great crisis. A general offensive of the bosses is being conducted against the workers, an offensive to smash the whole trade-union movement, to lower the standard of living of all workers.

    Among other things, the communists called for a “fight for high wages. Strike against wage cuts” and “trade-union methods alone cannot wage a successful fight. Trade-union struggle must be supplemented by political struggle.”

    But wait, some lefties will say. The Communist Party also wanted to “destroy company unions.” That’s true. But why? It was not to end unionization, but rather to supplant unionism into the political culture and leadership, something the communists believed would not be possible with corporate unions pre-existing the struggle.

    The communist party went on, in 1928, to demand “free medical treatment, medicine, and hospital care for all wage-earners” and “tax-exemption[s] for all working and exploited farmers: as well as a “graduated income tax” that, like the British communists, would seize all income above $25,000 per year in 1928. They also favored a “graduated inheritance and gift taxes on great fortunes.”

    Back in 1928, the communists were even calling for the government to end home foreclosures on farms and “a five year moratorium on farm mortgage debts, including debts on chattels” And yes, they also wanted amnesty for illegal aliens through “immediate repeal of all immigration laws. Abolition of all restrictions on immigration.”

    For kicks, consider also this bit of the Communist Party of America’s platform:

    All tax exemptions on bonds, stocks and securities must be abolished.

    stacked up against this

    In his speech before Congress last week, he proposed approximately $200 billion in new inter-governmental aid to state and local governments so they could hire teachers, build roads, and so forth. That is roughly the same size as the 2009 stimulus package, which spread approximately $400 billion over two years.

    Unlike his 2009 stimulus package, the president this time added a tax plan to cover the costs. It includes placing a limit on one of the biggest tax loopholes: the ability to deduct from one’s income the interest received from investments in state and local bonds. The president wants to limit the deduction to the 28 percent tax rate, instead of the approximately 40 percent marginal rate that well-heeled investors (the folks who generally buy these things) would otherwise pay.

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  6. Elsewhere, I discuss the unfortunate impact of Obama’s “tax and spend” plans on the U. S. federal system.
    My point here is simpler: state and local governments, not investors, are the primary beneficiaries of the tax deduction loophole. When bonds are fully tax-deductible on federal income tax returns, as most state and municipal bonds now are, investors will accept a lower interest rate on their investment.

    So, that was class warfare in 1928. Sounds to me like it is pretty similar to today. Now, this all begs the question — do I think Barack Obama is a communist? No, actually I do not, though I may have fun calling him the “Marxist in Chief.” I don’t think Barack Obama is a communist — just an ivy league socialist. Of course, as Lenin said, socialism is just a phase on the path toward communism.

    Barack Obama may not be a communist, but his embrace of communist rhetoric and though from the 1920s on technology causing unemployment and his class warfare rhetoric truly make him the most far left President we have had in this country. It also complicates his re-election.

    The model Obama intends to use is the Truman model of running against Congressional Republicans. But Truman gambled that the country was far more a Democrat country than a Republican country and he won. Obama has been gambling throughout his Presidency that the country is a left-leaning country and he has consistently lost as a result. Continuing the gamble will continue his losing streak. The fact is, however much Congress may be hated right now and however much congressional Republicans may be hated, the country is more ideologically on the right than with Barack Obama.

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  7. Bruce the polls say otherwise. They voted you guys out and voted the "teabagger" in. Thye American people can't stand liberals. You liberals controled both houses of congress since 2006 and then got the WH with a super majority in 2008. Your side passed everything they wanted without the Republicans and this is what we are left with. Did you think that Americans wouldn't blame your side for what they did to this country? Did you think that Americans wouldn't notice how things have gotten worse, not better under your Party? Did you think Americans wouldn't notice that the Dermocrats didn't pass a budget and now that Republicans control 1/2 of 1/3 of the federal government you blame them? Keep drinking the Kool Aid and saying that people don't like the "teabaggers". The facts are clear on that. The people can't stomach you liberals and that is why you are losing everything you had.

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  8. PS I just did a post on Bill Clinton bailing on the Obama jobs bill as useless. Thats got to hurt.LOL

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  9. Chris, there is a huge dose of buyer's remorse going on in the country. Congress' popularity is at an all time low due to the Teabaggers that were elected not wanting to do what is best for the majority of Americans.

    You have your head up your ass if you think Americans like the Teabaggers.

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  10. Chris, since your so big on polls. what do you have to say for the Fox news poll that shows the Democrats are more favorable than either the GOP or the Tea party? 41% to 35% and 31% for the lowly Tea Party.

    Cue the Price is right loser sound effect

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  11. Just look at the facts. People have been getting rid of Democrats at every election. Obama and the Democrats have been replaced at every turn by conservatives not liberals. The Republicans only control 1/2 of the House. When they hate Congress it's both Parties and both houses of congress. The Democrats still control the Senate.

    The fact is since 2006 the Democrats have controled both houses of congress. Since 2008 they controled all three branches. Maybe Americans realize who has been in control for all these years. Not everyone is as simple minded as liberals.

    Everyone, including Democrats are baling on liberalism/Progressive. It isn't working here or in Europe. The way you liberals talk about throwing piss and poop it's no wonder everyone thinks your gross.

    Keep quizing yourselves on one poll. Keep telling yourself people like what your selling. Keep standing up for cop killers and lawlessness and turning the places you protest into third world garbage heeps when your done. America is watching you more and listening to you less. And that is your down fall.

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  12. Okay, so polls don't matter. Thanks for the long winded, extremely circular explanation. You could have just said, "Polls don't matter"

    But i have some questions.

    1. You say people are getting rid of democrats at every election and then go on to list an election where they didn't 2008.

    2. In the 15 House special elections since 2009 Democrats won 9 compared to 6 for Republicans. Since 2010 it s 6 to 4 republicans. 2011 its 2 to 2.

    3. In the 5 senate special elections since 2009 democrats are up 3-2, but lost two seats.

    4. In Wisconsin Democrats won two of the six Republican incumbent seats in the special election.

    Perhaps instead of being a used car salesman to your readers you could say things that were actually true. They haven't been replaced at every turn.

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  13. Polls do matter. One poll doesn't matter. Get it? 1. one lose doesn't mean that Republicans didn't make major headway Joe. You know that don't you? The Democrats did keep the Senate but that is changing. People are very unhappy with the liberal agenda being placed on them. They hate the spending and the double talk coming from Democrats. It must suck to know that people now hate unionist more then used car salepeople and lawyers? Americans are pulling to the right, not left. Liberals are losing ground and they know it. That is why the left wingers are becoming lawless in their actions and rhetoric.

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Please keep it clean and nice. Thank you for taking the time to post you thought. It means a lot to me that you do this.