ATTENTION CONSERVATIVES! President Obama is NOT a Socialist!

"Not even close," say Milos Forman, who actually, y'know, lived under socialism and communism.

I know this will dissapoint the know-nothings who repeat the stupidity that FAUX NOOZ, Gasbag Limbaugh, and various other right-wing pundits, bloggers. and pols continue to promote.


Let's hear it from someone who personally knows what it is like to live under real socialism:


Milos Forman:

"...I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism."

[skip]

"Whatever his faults, I don’t see much of a socialist in Mr. Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation.


Mr. Obama is accused of trying to expand the reach of government — into health care, financial regulation, the auto industry and so on. It’s fair to question whether the federal government should have expanded powers: America, to its credit, has debated this since its birth. But let’s be clear about how frightening socialism actually could be.
      

Marx believed that we could wipe out social inequities and Lenin tested those ideas on the Soviet Union. It was his dream to create a classless society. But reality set in, as it always does. And the results were devastating. Blood flowed through Russia’s streets. The Soviet elite usurped all privileges; sycophants were allowed some and the plebes none. The entire Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, followed miserably.

      

I’m not sure Americans today appreciate quite how predatory socialism was. It was not — as Mr. Obama’s detractors suggest — merely a government so centralized and bloated that it hobbled private enterprise: it was a spoils system that killed off everything, all in the name of 'social justice.'

      

What we need is not to strive for a perfect social justice — which never existed and never will — but for social harmony. Harmony in music is, by its nature, exhilarating and soothing. In an orchestra, the different players and instruments perform together, in support of an overall melody.

       

Today, our democracy, a miraculous gathering of diverse players, desperately needs such unity. If all participants play fair and strive for the common good, we can achieve a harmony that eluded the doctrinaire socialist projects. But if just one section, or even one player, is out of tune, the music will disintegrate into cacophony.

      

I am not asking Mr. Obama and the Republican leaders to stop playing instruments of their choosing. All I am asking is that every player keep in mind the noble melody of our country. Otherwise the noisy dissonance might become loud enough to wake another Marx, or even worse."

Comments on the NYTimes site:

• New in Town
• San Jose, CA:

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Obviously it is nonsense to call Obama a Socialist.
First of all, in most European countries the views of the Democratic Party and their leader would be considered ultra conservative. Second, the appropriate label for Western European governments would be Social Democratic, not Socialist. And third, basic healthcare for everybody should be guaranteed by a constitutional amendment and not subject for political debate.

• Kevin Rothstein
• New York:
 

Social democracy is the only sane way to live. We are still struggling to get there. There will always be citizens who cling to their fantasy world of free market capitalism. They will complain about socialism while cashing their Social Security checks and using Medicare. On Rachel Maddow last night, James Carville stated that since the enactment of Medicare, the poverty rate among the elderly has dropped from 30% to under 10%. The rate should be closer to 0%, but we are on the right track. The scare tactics of the far right will work only if we let them.

• pju
• NY:

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Thank you, Mr. Forman. Finally, a commentary that challenges the false equivalencies; the demonizing; the deliberate distortions -- ultimately the unmitigated ignorance -- about what constitutes socialism. Totalitarian Communism has absolutely nothing to do with the Social Democracies of Western Europe, and the humanitarian safety nets they provide, which are the philosophical basis for modern, enlightened civilization.

Here in the United States, our current Supreme Court, with its "Citizens United" capitulation to corporate power, and our Congress' corrupted relationships with the oligarchs of finance and industry, actively undermine and erode our once-great Democracy. But too many Americans, in their low- information, consumerist stupors, just don't get it.