Obama’s ‘Change’: Marxism for America

The more Obama opens his mouth, the more I like John McCain. It wasn’t too long ago when all I could think about was my deep rooted opposition to McCain and Feingold’s attack on the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s willingness to uphold a frontal assault on the freedom most cherished by our founding fathers–the right to political speech–all to prevent the great evil of the “appearance of impropriety.” Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. v. Federal Election Commission , No. 04-1581. I still get chills reading that opinion.

But, that assault is relatively minor compared to the ideological war machine being assembled by Barack Obama. Listening to the junior Senator’s policy plans for current problems, it is clear Obama has turned to Karl Marx for the true inspiration behind ‘Change’ and in so doing wishes to unravel the very fabric of this nation.

On every major policy front, Obama has declared two things: 1) the exploitation and alienation of labor is the true evil in this country and 2) that increasing the size and scope of Government is the answer.

If this sounds at all familiar, you may remember the central themes of ‘Das Kapital,’ Marx’s famous treatise on the purported realities of capitalism, and ‘The Communist Manifesto,’ Marx’s plan for proletariat payback.

Consider what we know of Obama’s plans on the following issues:

For health care, Obama says, “The time has come for universal health care in America.” His plan retains the private insurance system but injects additional money to pay for expanding coverage. Those who can’t afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers. A memo written by three outside experts and distributed by his own campaign estimate the cost at $50 billion to $65 billion a year once fully implemented. He expects to acquire this money by raising taxes. He will not renew President Bush’s tax cuts on dividends and capital gains and on those making more than about $250,000 a year and he will hike taxes on inheritances worth more than $7 million.

His package would prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It would also create a National Health Insurance Exchange to monitor insurance companies and limit their profits. Obama says the typical consumer would save $2,500 a year on premiums.

On energy, Obama recently said, “For the past years, our energy policy in this country has been simply to let the special interests have their way — opening up loopholes for the oil companies and speculators so that they could reap record profits while the rest of us pay $4 a gallon.” 

Obama thinks the government needs to step in on two fronts – first to collect a windfall oil profits tax from oil companies and second to increase energy commodity regulation.  “One of the reasons our energy market is particularly vulnerable to excessive speculation is the so-called “Enron Loophole” … [which means] Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is unable to fully oversee the oil futures market and investigate cases where excessive speculation may be driving up oil prices. This regulatory gap is dangerous because: 1) the absence of government oversight has the potential to facilitate abusive trading or price manipulation. And 2) the failure of a large derivatives dealer could trigger disruptions of supplies and prices in energy markets.”

Obama plans to go beyond the changes included in the recently-passed Farm Bill and fully close the Enron loophole by requiring that U.S. energy futures trade on regulated exchanges. He will call for new, disaggregated data on index fund and other passive investments to increase transparency and oversight of the growing number of institutional investors participating in commodities futures markets. And he will support legislation directing the CFTC to investigate whether additional regulation is necessary to eliminate excessive speculation in U.S. commodities markets, including higher margin requirements and position limits for institutional investors.  McCain also supports this position.

In the meantime, and as Riley pointed out, Obama’s House Democrats have proposed to nationalize the oil industry.

On foreign policy, Obama until recently consistently argued that Iran poses no more of a threat than countries such as Venezuela or Cuba, and that the controversy over Tehran’s uranium enrichment program could easily be resolved by the simple expedient of sitting down and talking to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Obama also wants the US to meet with Iran in 2008 and called for ending the Cuban embargo.  For the last four years, the EU3 – Britain, France and Germany – has done nothing else but talk to Ahmadinejad’s regime in an attempt to negotiate a solution to the nuclear crisis.  Alas, these negotiations have been to no avail.

In Iraq, Obama wants to withdraw the 200,000 American troops currently deployed at the earliest opportunity at precisely the moment the country is starting to recover from the trauma of the past five years. 

These three issues give considerable weight to my Marxist diagnosis: 1) corporations are the true evil and must be taxed, regulated or nationalized for the greater good, 2) government is the mechanism through which the labor class can enact its revenge, 3) economic freedom is less important than equality of outcome for all, 4) a steady move to the abolition of all inheritance in this country, 5) a hefty and progressive income tax and finally 6) support for other like-minded Marxists.

But the evidence doesn’t end there…

Obama’s campaign proudly displays support from fellow Marxists. 

Even the wife who would be first lady says, “We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another — that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation. “

- Michelle Obama

“We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.  From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

- Karl Marx

The government isn’t what made this country what it is today.  Freedom is.  Let’s start reminding folks of that.