Will Obama's Strategy of Divide and Conquer be the Death Knell of Socialism in America?

The Barack Obama who campaigned for the presidency in 2008 promoted himself as the great uniter and healer. Since taking office, however, he has done nothing but divide Americans and rub salt in old wounds. His way of doing this is classic Marxist and Fabian socialist tactic of inventing or reinventing the meaning of words. Obama has divided Americans into hyphenated tribes. We are now Women-Amercans and Gay-Americans and Black-Americans and Hispanic-Americans and his favorite class are the rich and poor-Americans. But that is just the tip of the iceberg of how Obama has changed our language. Thomas Sowell tells us more in his Real Clear Politics article, The Invincible Lie. Let’s take a look at some excerpts:

Anyone who wants to study the tricks of propaganda rhetoric has a rich source of examples in the statements of President Barack Obama. On Monday, July 9th, for example, he said that Republicans “believe that prosperity comes from the top down, so that if we spend trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that will somehow unleash jobs and economic growth.”

Like Sowell, I want to focus on the word “spend” in the above quote. Most people when they hear a politician talk about government spending they assume the politician is talking about monies spent from government’s revenue;i.e., the revenue it receives from taxing its citizens. But, in Obama-speak he is referring to money that the government doesn’t tax on a given income class; the rich. So, if government doesn’t tax somebody, that is by Obama’s definition wasteful government spending. Obama, also, has an interesting definition of the word “investment”, as Sowell points out:

Ironically, actual spending by the Obama administration for the benefit of its political allies, such as the teachers’ unions, is not called spending but “investment.” You can say anything if you have your own private language.

Sowell goes on to talk about how Obama uses the word “spending” and how it relates to the “wealthiest Americans” as if he wants to tax that wealth. But, except for inheritance tax, we don’t tax wealth in this country. We  tax income. And, Sowell correctly points out that the two are not the same:

People over 65 years of age have far more wealth than people in their thirties and forties — but lower incomes. If Obama wants to talk about raising income taxes, let him talk about it, but claiming that he wants to tax “the wealthiest Americans” is a lie and an emotional distraction for propaganda purposes.

It doesn’t matter to Barack Obama if he is able to raise one more dime in taxes or not. He is only interested in getting four more years to continue his socialist transformation of America. It helps that he has his own language.

So, will Barack Obama be successful in transforming America into a European style socialist state? I have to tell you that I am not sure that we are not already there. But, I read an article by the  Sultan Knish that that was reblogged at the John Malcom blog. Sultan Knish poses the question “Will Obama Destroy Socialism?”.  This article, dear readers, is an impressive bit of writing. I highly recommend your reading it whether you agree with the inference that Obama will destroy socialism or not. The Sultan starts out his article with this:

You can make corncob pipes, eighteen wheel trucks or microprocessors– but you can’t make jobs. Jobs are not a commodity or a service. They cannot be created independently through a job creating program. Rather they are the side-effect of a working economy. Trying to short circuit the economy with job creation programs is like trying to run a fruit orchard by neglecting the trees and instead buying fruit at inflated prices to resell to your customers at a lower price. It’s feasible, but not sustainable.

Latter in his dismantling of Obama’s policies, he has this to say:

The spoils system has a long history in American politics, but it was never as spoiled as all this. There is no parallel in American history for the spoils system being used not just to rotate out supporters of the old administration and replace them with your lackeys, but to hijack the economy as your own spoils system to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Obama responded to an economic crisis by working to create two kinds of jobs. Government and union jobs. This was not about anything as simple as rewarding his supporters. The Black community got very little in exchange for supporting him. The Hispanic community similarly ended up with some token appointments, but not much to show for it. This was about shifting jobs from the private sector into the public sector and its feeders. To manufacture the types of jobs that feed money back into the Democratic party and expand the scope of the government bureaucracy.

How many times have we heard Obama taught that the private sector has added jobs for X consecutive months? He doesn’t brag, however, about the growth of the federal bureaucracy though, does  he? No, in fact he always says that under “me” government jobs have declined. But, it was none of his doing. Government jobs have declined only because of the efforts of states and municipalities to get their houses in order. And, what about the federal bureaucracy?I snagged this graph from th Inform the Pundits blog.

Annual Federal Government Employment (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

So, while America has been suffering from the greatest economic down turn since the Great Depression, Obama has significantly added to the already bloated  federal government workforce.

Sultan Knish continues masterfully building his case and ends with this:

The left mistook the economic disaster they had orchestrated as the end of capitalism. It was however a premature celebration. While the media rebukes the public for its glumness, its unwillingness to see that the time of hope and change means that the economy no longer matters, that a bad economy becomes a good one if we say so– the recovery that comes may be an ideological one. A recovery from the ideology which first brought on the disaster. While the left had hoped to use the economy to destroy the free market as a vital force, it may be that their own attempt to do so will instead destroy socialism.

As much as I would like to agree with the Sultan, I  don’t believe socialism will ever be destroyed. Even if the Republicans when by a landslide in November and take control of the Senate as well as the presidency, the socialist will at best slink off into the weeds to lick their wounds but they will be back. They always come back.

Well, that’s what I’m thinking. What are your thoughts?

Tagged: Destroying Socialism, Divide and Conquer, Inventing Word Meanings, Obama, Thomas Sowell

Posted in: Socialism