Thomas Sowell says it’s absurd for people to claim that Obama is a socialist — because he’s really a fascist. The difference, he argues, is that socialists want the government to own the means of production, while fascists just want the government to be able to tell corporations what to do. He starts:
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a “socialist.” He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and he wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
Yes, I’ve said the same thing many times. The difference is that I don’t combine it with idiotic ideas like this:
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector…
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the “greed” of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
But by this “reasoning,” any government mandate on a corporation without taking over ownership of the company is fascist. When the government tells corporations that they can’t employ child labor, can’t dump toxic waste into rivers and streams and have to provide safe working conditions for employees, but doesn’t actually take ownership of the company, that’s “fascist.” And that’s moronic.
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Stevarious
June 14, 2012 at 1:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This also, of course, completely contradicts the events of the last 5 years – where corporations did their own thing thanks to reduced oversight, and when things went bad, it was the government that bailed them out. And there’s been nary an effort to increase oversight so it doesn’t happen again – instead, there has been a huge push to reduce oversight further.
harold
June 14, 2012 at 1:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For all the crazed hatred of Bill Clinton that came from the extreme right, all of this “he’s something radically different” stuff wasn’t part of it.
It’s obvious what’s going on. There is exactly one thing that’s “radically different” about Obama, despite his tepid, “centrist” policies (some of which are radically authoritarian by historical standards, but those were inherited from the previous administration).
He has a physical appearance that indicates recent sub-Saharan ancestry. He’s “black”. He isn’t culturally “African-American” (although his wife is). His east African immigrant father arrived here well after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He grew up in Hawaii. If I had seen him on the streets of New York before I knew who he was, I probably would have thought he might be Latino.
But still, he’s black.
Do these guys even consciously understand what they’re doing? Is it a conscious dog whistle game? “There’s something radically different, yuk, yuk”?
Or is it literally unconscious?
“There’s, uuhhh, something different, it makes me uncomfortable, it must be that he’s a socialist/fascist/atheist/Muslim/Alinsky follower/whatever”.
eric
June 14, 2012 at 1:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course that would be greed. The alternative explanation is that adding a large number of 1-25 year olds onto health or life insurance is going to increase the premiums. Which is absurd; they are more healthy than the rest of us, not less healthy. Is he seriously suggesting the opposite?
The current conservative/liberal argument over health insurance has little to do with the change in per capita cost; pretty much everyone agrees that adding a bunch of healthy people will decrease that. The argument is over self-determination; whether our government should be forcing people to do something that is statistically the right thing to do.
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sowell would probably agree with this statement.
harold:
Should probably point out here that Thomas Sowell is black, so I doubt that’s his reason for disliking Obama. Not that there isn’t a racial component for why many others hate Obama.
interrobang
June 14, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
At least he seems to make a distinction between socialism and fascism, unlike some people on the right, including Jonah Goldberg. I mean, Goldberg got smacked around by some of the most eminent historians and scholars of fascism in the profession, and all he did was whine and double down.
That Thomas Sowell is apparently smarter than Jonah Goldberg, allegedly a right-wing intellectual, says something really tragic about today’s American political discourse.
jeevmon
June 14, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Harold – minor nit, Obama was born in 1961.
Raging Bee
June 14, 2012 at 1:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…fascists just want the government to be able to tell corporations what to do.
Yeah, fascists NEVER try to tell individuals what to do. They only oppress and bully corporations. And Hitler killed six million CEOs in those death-camps…after destroying jobs with his commie — oops, I mean fascist — health-care plan, that is…
WTF?! Is Sowell really trying to make fascism look good? Or is he just so fucking stupid he can’t see how unintentionally ironic/humorous he is? (Or was that a clown question?)
Raging Bee
June 14, 2012 at 2:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Should probably point out here that Thomas Sowell is black, so I doubt that’s his reason for disliking Obama.
Yeah, he hates Obama because he’s a racist tool, not because he’s a racist. See the huge important difference?
Nah, me neither.
Area Man
June 14, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow. That’s such a precise inversion of the truth projected onto others that it’s almost beautiful. It’s as if he held up a magical mirror to himself that creates a perfect image of his rottenness, just reversed.
Here in the real world, of course, conservatives have fought tirelessly to socialize the costs of business while privatizing the gains — they call the shots and make the money, we pay for their pollution, dangerous products, and bailouts. And when the private sector ran right off a cliff, when the financial industry imploded due to their greed and stupidity, what did conservatives do? They blamed the government. And minorities of course. And then they set about blocking any attempt to keep it from happening again, and stated explicitly that their only goal is to do the bidding of the banks.
What a shameless piece of shit.
Michael Heath
June 14, 2012 at 2:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Harold writes:
Mr. Sowell’s demonstrated racism towards a black president is no different than a gay homophobe’s bigotry towards other gays.
harold
June 14, 2012 at 2:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
d cwilson said –
I guess the point I’m trying to make is a little subtle. Let me clarify further.
I tried to illustrate with a contrast to Bill Clinton. I did not say that right wingers all hate Obama more than they hated Clinton. In fact, heterosexual white men such as Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy have at times received so much hate that it is hard to say that wingnuts hate Obama “more”.
My point was that right wingers find Obama “more radical” than Bill Clinton. In fact, they described Ted Kennedy as “liberal” (accurate), but describe Obama, who is far more conservative than Ted Kennedy was, as “radical”, “socialist”, “Marxist”, “fascist”, etc.
Sowell probably doesn’t hate Obama because Obama is black; in fact, most wingnuts tend to be tolerant of figures like Alan West, Alan Keyes, and Clarence Thomas. Some, many, may secretly scorn them for being black, but outside of Aryan Nation circles, you don’t see many right wingers who are dumb enough not to at least grunt mild approval of black male wingnuts.
My point is that the reason Sowell thinks that Obama is “more radical” than Bill Clinton is because Obama is black.
Sowell also being black does not change that. Sowell may be repeating what is approved of on the right (“Obama is the most radical president ever!” – which is technically true, in the sense that a black president is a radical change, but otherwise extremely untrue), or, and I think this likely, despite being black himself, he may be uncomfortable with the “radical” situation of a black president, but, not able to admit that to himself, find solace in claiming that Obama is “radical” in other ways.
camelspotter
June 14, 2012 at 2:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sowell sounds like a deep-cover commie to me.
His plan is to prevent government intervention in the US economy so China can keep outcompeting you until one day China is powerful enough to give the US president only a crappy working lunch when he comes to visit as pay back for 2006.
Akira MacKenzie
June 14, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Should probably point out here that Thomas Sowell is black, so I doubt that’s his reason for disliking Obama.
I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard or read Thomas Sowell views on the topic of race and civil rights? Let’s just say that it would be more honest if he had the word “Uncle” legally added to his first name.
gshevlin
June 14, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anybody foolish enough to write articles on WND should really be disqualified from ever being taken seriously again…I just suffered the misfortune of wading through the comments section of that posting, and to say that the majority of commenters are bloviating conspiracy theorists with a paranoid imagination may be an understatement..when I read one commenter saying “he’s not Stalin or Hitler yet, but give him time”, I know that I am in the presence of a reality-challenged idiot and his echo chamber.
Gregory in Seattle
June 14, 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, in a facsist system, corporations ARE the government.
Kind like they are here in the United States and have been since the Industrial Revolution.
briandavis
June 14, 2012 at 3:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, those regulations aren’t fascist. They’re old news — the status quo — part of what makes America great. It’s only new regulations (especially when proposed by your political rival) that are fascist.
pacal
June 14, 2012 at 3:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It is amazing that anyone would take Thomas Sowell seriously given that he come out with such bilge.
In fact Thomas Sowell is obviously lying and engaging in agit-prop. But then Thomas Sowell has always been a great believer in “economic freedom”, which is why he looks with disfavour on child labour laws in the past and regulation in general, esspecially regulation for safety reasons. Unions are according Sowell also bad for “economic freedom”. So it is nice to know that he considers “regulation” to be Facistic. But of course when it comes to stuff like The Bell Curve, he saw nothing Fascistic in it at all and in fact he had much positive things to say about it at the time.
Of course the telling indication that Thomas Sowell is engaged in agit-prop bullshitting is his statement that Obama is a man of the left. Only a mind mired in a fanatical vision of the world would fail to understand that that statement is just nuts.
Area Man
June 14, 2012 at 4:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Anybody foolish enough to write articles on WND should really be disqualified from ever being taken seriously again…”
I think Sowell crossed that bridge a long time ago. His basic job is to regurgitate conservative propaganda under the guise of an educated black man so as to give the Right some cover and make it look as if their philosophy isn’t just for rich white dudes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him express an original thought.
frankboyd
June 14, 2012 at 5:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
First dealing with this:
Well, yes, I imagine despising a rapist, race-baiting, lynch-murdering war criminal is something exclusive to the “extreme right” in the mental universe you inhabit.
But to the post…
How’s that strawman holding up for you? You know, it took me a while to remember what this sort of thing reminded me of. And then it hit me. It’s like reading the freepers who say “Climate change? Don’t they know that climate always changes? Hyuk, hyuk.” It’s what you get when people who don’t know enough even to know they don’t know enough start commenting on an issue.
Yes, Sowell is not making the case he might, largely because he is drawing on that irritating book “Liberal Fascism”. The problem, well, the main problem, with that book is that Goldberg steals all his good arguments from people far more intelligent than he and marries it with his own whackjob opinions. However, the arguments, plagiarized and diluted though they may be, are valid ones. What Sowell omits is that this analysis can, quite rightly, be applied to Bush as well. The general trend of the US is towards a variant of fascist economics.
The reason people do not get this is that they think Fascism = Nazism. That’s not even slightly true. In fact, if it weren’t for Nazism, chances are that fascism would still be considered a worthwhile ideal, compared with the other great totalitarianism, communism. And incidentally, both Mussolini’s fascist party and the German National Socialist Workers Party did, in fact, advocate the end of child labor.
Back to the point of Obama and Bush, the differences between them are purely cosmetic. Both are willing to pander to demagogic religious drivel, both engage in cronyism with various favored corporations, both were in favor of the grotesque bailout nonsense, one of the most wicked economic stunts I have ever seen, both do nothing about the asinine war on drugs, both do not do much about their military industrial complex, both have supporters who like their hairbrained – and so on. Oh, and both are much, MUCH better than that contemptible sack of shit Clinton whose evil effects those of us who aren’t yanks are still having to live with. The main difference is that Obama can pronounce these things with charm and grace.
For all that, I do think we need a new word for people who advocate fascist economics, without going for the whole fascist menu.
Oh, imagine that this article – even if it is written for the crackpots at WND – had been written on another website about Bush. Complaints? I doubt it.
I post this in the comforting delusion that it is possible to have a rational debate on these fora.
frankboyd
June 14, 2012 at 5:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, to hell with you. Why don’t you just come right out and call him a “house *****” for disagreeing with you? Christ, I need a drink.
ArtK
June 14, 2012 at 5:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And those are?
Am I reading you right and you think that this is a positive for fascism? That it’s better than communism? That’s sorta like saying that having one leg amputated is better than having both amputated: It may be true in one sense, but in the broader sense it’s a meaningless difference. Your statement assumes that totalitarianism is somehow a worthwhile ideal.
A stopped analog clock is right twice a day; that doesn’t make it a good clock. The Nazi Party certainly didn’t have a problem with making Jewish children work until they died. By the way, why use the less common though “official” name? Trying to make your argument smell better?
Pretty tough to do when you fluff out your posting with approving statements about Mussolini and the Nazis.
Please reconcile the above hyperbolic statement with your desire for a “rational debate.” Your comment seems to be a mix of assertion, approving statements about fascists and hyperbole. Rational debate requires things like evidence to back up your assertions.
vmanis1
June 14, 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I am reminded of an incident that occurred when I was taking a Philosophy of Education course many years ago. The instructor was very skillful about showing differences between teaching and indoctrination, provided a good introduction to epistemology, and in general provided a very good foundational overview of philosophy as it applies to education. I’d read more deeply in philosophy than the course content, but I still found it very useful in sorting out my views on the goals and methodology of teaching.
I had become very friendly with another student in the class. One day I mentioned how much I liked this course, at which point, she remarked that the instructor was a fascist. Since we knew he was born in Greece, and that he was in trouble with the Greek government for criticizing their educational system as authoritarian (this was at the time of the colonels, and the government wanted to put him on trial), this word didn’t sit right with me. So I responded that he seemed focused on giving us a framework for analyzing education, not on trying to impose his notions on us. `That’s exactly what I mean:’ she said, `one day he tells you one thing, the next day he tells you the exact opposite. He’s a fascist because he never tells you what to think’.
There are aliens among us.
d cwilson
June 14, 2012 at 6:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t recall defending Sowell’s views on civil rights. Yes, he’s a rightwing tool who gets paid to regurgitate their talking points.
My only point was to say that Sowell doesn’t hate Obama for being black. I’m sure he still thinks Obama is a radical Kenyan anti-colonialist (although why that’s supposed to be a bad thing. . .) who hates freedom in every form, it’s just that race is not the reason why he thinks that. Sowell thinks every democrat hates freedom in every form.
ArtK
June 14, 2012 at 6:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sowell thinks every democrat hates freedom in every form.
I agree. This is more tribal than racial. I think that the “ZOMG Obama is the most radical evah” is just a symptom of the upward spiral in political hyperbole. The commentators have to keep on one-upping each other in describing how awful the opposition is. They throw in words like Muslim, fascist or socialist not because the words actually apply but because the represent “bad things” to the target audience. We’ve gone from “he’s a doo-doo-head” to “he’s an extra special, super-duper doo-doo-head” to “he’s a socialist.”
frankboyd
June 14, 2012 at 7:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I rest my case. Someone can actually write drivel like this and pretend it’s intellectually valid. That is what passes for debate on these fora.
No, I said it would been seen as positive. By people like you. After all, it was possible for the current cretinous denizen of the white house to appoint someone singing the hymns of Mao, responsible for the deaths of seventy million people. I cannot see how on earth people like that – and you – would be objecting to Mussolini in comparison.
I would. I merely doubt that people like you would.
Michael Heath
June 14, 2012 at 7:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Area Man writes:
My regional daily newspaper regularly features Thomas Sowell’s columns. I’ve been reading him for decades now. Mr. Sowell’s columns validates Area Man’s description of him in every single column I remember. Sowell’s a foil attempting to create plausible deniability Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are not racists, but only dittoheads and their equivalents are stupid enough to concede this is plausible.
Area Man
June 14, 2012 at 9:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, you sure put in a good effort at rationality by starting off by calling president Clinton a rapist (without evidence), calling the two major American political parties fans of fascist economics (without defining what that means, much less presenting evidence), and then declaring that Jonah Goldberg’s ludicrously false history in which declared he fascists to be liberals (i.e. the same people they murdered, the antipodes of their belief system), is actually a valid understanding of history.
Gosh, how could any of us resist the temptation to debate with your superior rationality! I myself wait with bated breath to discuss all the zero people that Clinton raped, and after that, maybe we can get around to Mussolini’s naive pacifism.
Just go the fuck away. You’re a pathetic waste of oxygen.
dan4
June 14, 2012 at 9:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@19: Wait, did you just accuse Bill Clinton of LYNCHING someone?
dingojack
June 14, 2012 at 10:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cranky – “…Well, yes, I imagine despising a rapist, race-baiting, lynch-murdering war criminal is something exclusive to the ‘extreme right’…”
citations required.
Dingo
democommie
June 14, 2012 at 10:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fucktoyboy sez:
“I post this in the comforting delusion that it is possible to have a rational debate on these fora.”
Franky, Franky, Franky; your delusion is, I’m sure, quite comforting–delusions generally are. It is NOT possible for you to have a rational debate on these fora. That is not the problem of other commenters; it is entirely due to your being an irrational fuckwit.
timgueguen
June 15, 2012 at 1:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, who exactly did Obama appoint that has been “singing the hymns of Mao?”
dan4
June 15, 2012 at 1:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@31: I think that’s a reference to Anita Dunn.
frankboyd
June 15, 2012 at 2:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Go figure. As to my comments on Clinton, I will refer you to the late great Hitch’s excellent hard-left attack on the man, “No One Left To Lie To”. You can probably some of find his discussions on Ricky Ray Rector and the wag-the-dog bombing of Sudan’s only medical factory online.
But I doubt it’ll make much difference. I know it’s an article of immutable faith amongst American “lefties” that it’s only ever the other guy’s party that does something bad.
Area Man,
Correct. The definition of fascist economics, as Sowell laid it out, is entirely correct. You can see it very much more active in places like Putin’s Russia, naturally, but it’s still been the dominant trend under successive American administrations.
But that requires learning a little history. And I doubt that’ll be forthcoming from someone who seriously thinks that my calling Goldberg’s own opinions whackjob is an endorsement. It isn’t; but the history of leftwing admiration for fascism, of the role of red-brown transitions (something you can still observe today), was written and discussed by far better people than he.
It really is like trying to explain APGW to people on FreeRepublic.
dingojack
June 15, 2012 at 2:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So wait – We know that Hitler was a nice Catholic boy and that Stalin was a wannabe Orthodox monk – now you’re claiming that Mao secretly wrote tunes praising god?
Say it ain’t so Cranky, say it ain’t so!
;) Dingo
dingojack
June 15, 2012 at 2:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cranky – relavent citations still required.
BTW – David Lynch is (as far as I’m aware) still alive so clearly Clinton didn’t murder him, unless you have creditable evidence to the contrary of course.
Dingo
StevoR
June 15, 2012 at 6:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[Inigo Montoya / Andre the Giant voice.]
Those words I don’t think they mean what you say they mean, Thomas Sowell!
[/Inigo Montoya /Andre the Giant voice.]
(Yeah, I know one of them said it but cannot recall precisely which, sorry. Also couldn’t resist.)
harold
June 15, 2012 at 8:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Frank Boyd –
The reason you can’t have rational discussions is because you are the one who is irrational.
Assuming that your irrationality is caused by emotional biases rather than neurological damage, it may be possible for you to get a grip on yourself and then begin having rational discussions.
Until such time, you’ll be producing irrational drivel like this…
First of all, even if we assume that your description of Bill Clinton is accurate, this reply represents a gross and obvious logical error.
I didn’t say that Clinton was hated only by the extreme right. I didn’t say that hating Clinton was the defining characteristic of the extreme right. I simply noted that Clinton was hated by the extreme right. That’s obviously true.
Second of all, “race-baiting” is a subjective term (and I have a strong subjective opinion of total contempt for you, for using it), but “rapist”, “lynch murderer” and “war criminal” are objective claims. Do you have any objective evidence that any of these apply to Bill Clinton?
Lastly, you are a major example of a major thing that is wrong with this country. In your narcissism, you want to deny any accurate labeling of your views, because you find the labeling uncomfortable.
When George Wallace was a segregationist, he called himself a “segregationist”, but if George Wallace had been like you he would have said “Wahhh, how dare you use the nasty word ‘segregationist’ to describe me, just because I want black people to pay taxes for public facilities they can’t use, and to be denied access to basic amenities, wahhhh, unfair!”
How ironic. You think it perfectly fair to describe Bill Clinton as a “lynch-murderer”. Yet the mere hint that someone else, actually someone writing a comment that had nothing to do with you, may have hinted that you are a member of the “extreme right” sent you into a whining fit of aggrieved self-pity.
If you don’t like being called a member of the extreme right wing, stop being a member of the extreme right. Otherwise, a festering skunk carcass by any other name will still smell like a festering skunk carcass.
eric
June 15, 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When you read Ed’s post about Obama and the current democratic administration, do you just skip over the sentences that don’t agree with you or something? I can’t imagine anyone could read Ed’s posts for content and come away with this impression.
kermit.
June 15, 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
frankboyd – you mention Clinton’s bombing of a medical factory in Sudan. As I remember it, (it was said that) he was told it was a terrorist bomb-making facility. When he found out wheat he had, in fact, ordered destroyed, he never did that again. He had learned that such intelligence was not as trustworthy as it was represented to be. I welcome any evidence that corrects this memory, if you think it is wrong. Is this your basis for calling him a war criminal?
Also, you conflate liberals with left-wing authoritarians, who are are indeed often comfortable with becoming right-wing authoritarians. Despots are more focused on controlling the people than they are on the details of wealth distribution – the same people end up in charge, with the money, either way. Liberals, who are typically anti-authoritarian, are not comfortable with tyranny. Freedom, prosperity, rainbows and unicorns are what it’s all about. How to get there is what should be the subject of political discussion, not the epistemological validity of empiricism, or imagined multi-generational and international conspiracies.
frankboyd
June 15, 2012 at 5:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yes, exactly like arguing with freepers about global warming. They can’t even be bothered to look at the wikipedia discussion of APGW, you can’t even be bothered to look at the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
And
Uh-huh. That foreign trade thing hits particularly hard. I don’t care, really, one way or another about the internal pissing contests of US politics. I do care that the disgraceful racket of protectionism beggars and immiserates the part of the world that could do just fine, without the pittance of foreign aid, if these immoral barriers were removed.
kermit,
Please, don’t try to sugar coat things.
Actually, the claim was that Sudan’s factory was owned by Osama bin Laden who was using it to make chemical weapons for…
Can you guess?
Saddam Hussein. So this makes the antics of him and his wife even more contemptible than they would otherwise be.
Now, as to the rest of this: Clinton personally picked that target, he overrode the joint chiefs to do it, he even refused a demand by Sudan that there be an inspection (does anyone really believe that a chemical weapons factory can just be magicked away in 24 hours?), and the timing of it is – surprise, surprise – on the day Monica Lewinsky returned to the grand jury.
Please read the Hitch on this. I think you will find him enlightening. Try this:
http://images.salon.com/news/1998/09/23news.html
As I said, despite the weird way that harold seems to think that it’s “far-right” to be opposed to someone launching punitive raids against the poor and downtrodden, is up to his neck in the worst sort of cronyism, and employs a government staff for the defamation and intimidation of used-up women, – the fact is that this is all arguments from the old, hard left.
Oh please. Classical liberals are. The weird quasi-ideology Americans call ‘liberalism’ seems never happier than when fawning over some loathsome despot. Whether it’s the Chinese autocracy, the rat-bag state Castro runs in Cuba, Saddam Husseins hellish regime, Slobodan Milisovic’s national socialist state… Don’t think the rest of the world has forgotten.
Back to harold
Yes, I’ll bet you do. ‘Cause it’s only ever guys you don’t support that are racists and race-baiters, right? As to the rest of it, I suggest you read the rather damning account that the Hitch gives of Clinton (for the rapist thing – and what’s a little rape and intimidation of women, eh, if it’s one of the club you belong to? – bother to google Hitchens Clinton Broaddrick. And not a word of that has ever been challenged by Clinton, by the way).
Oh, and if you object to the Hitch’s work because it can’t, y’know, be refuted or anything, I’ll point you to Francis Wheen, who is such a screaming right winger that he’s a Guardian columnist, author of a celebrated biography of Marx, and used to own a complete first edition of the old bearded one.
But, hey. Keep breathing into that paper bag and droning “Only.. the far-right… hates Clinton” It may even work for you.
frankboyd
June 15, 2012 at 6:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I should, in fairness, say to you kermit, that you are to be looking for an honest debat. Wonders never cease. So I’m sorry about my short tone; it’s just something of a trying experience to be told that you’re “far right” for having a beef about blowing up a poor countries only medical factory. Clinton actually managed to make Sudan a worse place to live; not an easy thing to do.
The basic problem with Sowell’s analysis is that, not only can it be applied with equal measure to the Bush administration, it should be applied with equal measure to the Bush administration. And it should also be stressed that neither Obama nor Bush built the system, they just rode on it.
frankboyd
June 15, 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would to note that there is also a persistent creepy obsession with Sowell’s skin color. Not very pleasant.
slc1
June 15, 2012 at 6:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re dingojack @ #34
Actually, Mao Zedong told writer Edgar Snow that he would soon be meeting god in an interview not too long before the former’s death.
slc1
June 15, 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re frankboyd
Uncle Tom Sowell is a self-hating African American, like his hero Clarence Thomas.
dan4
June 15, 2012 at 9:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@40″…bother to google Hitchens Clinton Broaddrick. And not a word of that has ever been challenged by Clinton,…”
Maybe, “not a word” of Hitchens’ book relating to Broaddrick has been challenged by Clinton because the latter individual has not read it or is not even aware of its existence, genius.
dingojack
June 16, 2012 at 2:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Or perhaps ‘not a word of it was denied’ because it’s a laughable crock that’s not worth giving ‘the oxygen of publicity’.
Ever thought of that Cranky?
Dingo
frankboyd
June 16, 2012 at 6:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
See what I mean? “Rape and war crimes – don’t bother me! Clinton would never do that because he’s One Of Us. If that’s true about One Of Us, then what does that make Me?” I could tell you what that makes you. Oh, and once the question was put to Al Gore – who described himself as a close friend of the President and knew him well. Gore didn’t deny it. Got that? The VP and close friend could not bring himself to deny that Clinton was a rapist. Now I don’t know about you people but I don’t have a single friend who, if they were accused of rape, my response would not be “that’s insane. There must be some mistake.”
But keep huffing into that bag will you?
As regards Sowell: “self-hating”, huh? Yes, that’s an innuendo I’ve heard before. I remember it was part of the very nasty smear of Israel Shahak. Seems like you are determined to prove Sowell righter than he knows, not just about economic fascism, but the racism and tribalism that traditionally goes with it.
dingojack
June 16, 2012 at 6:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What Mr Gore chooses to confirm or deny is irrelavant Cranky.
So far you’ve provided not a shred of evidence to back up your intial hypoblic screed*, none whatsoever.
If you’ve got evidence of actual crimes then go to the police, if not, stop peddling mere allegations as facts.
Dingo
—–
* just in case Cranky tries to move the goalpsts (again) here is the birth of the Cranky strawman verbatim:
(#19) “First dealing with this:
Well, yes, I imagine despising a rapist, race-baiting, lynch-murdering war criminal is something exclusive to the “extreme right” in the mental universe you inhabit.” [take italics as Comic Sans].
Note firstly the comments in square brackets are mine, and secondly, how Cranky fails reading comprehension (as noted by harold himself in #37) and hypobolically inflates the statment to create a nice little strawman for himself.
Makes his accusations of his critics creating strawmen a particularly delicious example of projection and self-delusion.
frankboyd
June 16, 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dingo, yeah, sure. There’s a court who will try the US president for war crimes against the poor of Sudan. Get real.
I know this is part of what you have to keep repeating to yourself to live within your own skin, but it’s still dirty.
slc1
June 16, 2012 at 9:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re frankboyd @ #47
Mr. boyd shows his true colors by citing Jewish antisemite Israel Shahak. Birds of a feather flock together.
dingojack
June 16, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cranky – still no evidence I notice, merely regurgitated allegations. *
SLC – Yes, but you’d probably call the ‘Zionist Defence League’ (if such an organisation exists/existed) ‘anti-Semitic’. ;) **
Dingo
—–
*I notice too that Cranky isn’t denying creating a hyperbolic strawman, therefore by Crankylogic …
** seriously, I hate to tar someone by association, but this case I’ll make an exception, and concur with your assessment
frankboyd
June 16, 2012 at 5:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To no one’s surprise, no one dares touch the minor fact that the definition of fascist economics turns out to be just right. And that they didn’t even do the most elementary bit of research about it.
To the rest of this… Yes, that’s right. Go ahead ahead and call a survivor of Bergen Belsen and antisemite. Makes you feel big, doesn’t it? Of course, in the same way that people like you have no idea what fascism is, or what the far right is, and so feel free to promiscuously devalue those terms, you have no idea what anti-semitism is either.
FTB and WND: mirror images of each other. Exactly the same, just with left and right switched.
bobgiovannettone
August 7, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t hate Obama because he’s black, Socialiat, Fascist or communist. I hate Obama because he hates America and wants to destroy it. Why has he not reveiled his college records. I suggest that there is something in his college writtings that proves he is an America Hater.
If given four more years, he will bring America down. It will never look the same. Freedom will be gone, free speach will not exist. We will be a third rate country and Obama will be happy.
God Help us if he is elected again.