Obama wants a European social democracyin the us but won't admit it

[billydan225]

What's your opinion on this

[l'Enfermé]

Why would he want that when European social-democracy is falling apart even in Europe?

[Le Socialiste]

What's your opinion on this

That all evidence points to the contrary...

[feeLtheLove]

What's your opinion on this

You need to stop believing everything you hear

[billydan225]

Uyeah you're right I need to stop beliving in what Fox News said

[RedHal]

it's what liberals and CPUSA'ers want Obama to want ;)1

[Geiseric]

Obama is a fucking sociopath who enjoys and brags about drone striking people. Does that sound like social democracy?

European "Social Democracy" is a welfare state on steroids, that's it.

[Let's Get Free]

Obama and his center right policies are no where near social democracy. Take Obama's SOTU address, where he declared “the biggest cause of the nation’s long term debt” was “medical for the aged”, in other words, Medicare. Obama’s fixation on Medicare as the prime target for deficit cutting is not much different than what the Republicans want. All the more so since he’s been calling for massive Medicare cuts for the past two years.

The other tragedy in Obama’s SOTU address was jobs. The proposals raised were rehashed old programs, like his September 2011 ‘jobs’ bill; more subsidies and tax breaks for multinational corporations and manufacturers; a token infrastructure spending proposal with no details; and a pre-school education proposal that was strangely offered as the first step toward a ‘job retraining’ bill.

[Geiseric]

Obama and his center right policies are no where near social democracy. Take Obama's SOTU address, where he declared “the biggest cause of the nation’s long term debt” was “medical for the aged”, in other words, Medicare. Obama’s fixation on Medicare as the prime target for deficit cutting is not much different than what the Republicans want. All the more so since he’s been calling for massive Medicare cuts for the past two years.

The other tragedy in Obama’s SOTU address was jobs. The proposals raised were rehashed old programs, like his September 2011 ‘jobs’ bill; more subsidies and tax breaks for multinational corporations and manufacturers; a token infrastructure spending proposal with no details; and a pre-school education proposal that was strangely offered as the first step toward a ‘job retraining’ bill.

Waiit I thought fighting for all of those things was reformist.

[Prisma]

What's your opinion on this

Haha, this surely a joke?!

Although the history of european social democrats is filled with shame and atrocity, I assume your usage is meant to imply a degree of enlightened social liberalism or internationalism, how can you square these thoughts with his record as it stands today?

To put this is the plainest most emotive way possible, he murders middle eastern children with robots and remote controlled missiles. He's probably killed at least if not more people than the republican murderer he replaced.

[Red Commissar]

As far as Americans are concerned "European social-democracy" is just a softer way of saying the usual nonsense about Obama's EuroSocialist, or as it's often said "European style politics" junk. This goes along with the equally dumb nonissues of "big government" they tend to focus on for no real reason beyond some person yelling at them about it (ex THERE ARE MORE TAKERS THAN EARNERS IN OUR COUNTRY)

Let's look at the scoresheet so far:

-Instead of going for a nationalized healthcare system that SocDems championed, he compromised and instead created what's essentially a regulated private insurance system that everyone has to participate in.

-SocDems generally focus a lot on public programs. While Obama has been hesitant to enact deep cuts that the Republicans want in social security, unemployment, etc., he has also been continuously pointing out that those programs need to be restructured. While there has been a growth of people on food stamps, this is hardly because Obama made it easier for people to get on those programs, which are infact more the responsibility of states since the 1990s...

-SocDems are usually associated with Labor interests. Trade Unions threw themselves behind Obama (as they have done with Democrats in the past) in hopes of passage of the Employer Free Choice Act which the Dems didn't even pass when they had a working majority in Congress.

-Obama has been busily pushing for free trade proposals and embraced market globalization. SocDems were generally more focused on protectionist measures in the past.

-Obama has embraced the notion of "school reform", such as sugar-coated proposals like performance pay for example and charter schools. While he has opposed Republican measures for vouchers he has been fine with municipalities taking any necessary measures to control spending in their schools.

-Continuing from the above, while Obama has been pushing heavily for more higher education enrollment and trying to lower barriers for it, this is part of an overall strategy to make the workforce more educated and thus more appealing for foreign investment. Plus, it's not like education has become free, even community colleges need tuition (even if they are lower than a state college).

-Coming in to office as the recession started, Obama pushed through the stimulus package instead of a public works package that some of his supporters had hoped. While the Stimulus package had provisions to help with unemployment payments, medicare, and other similar social programs, the bulk of it went towards the debt-drowned banking sector and various programs to help with businesses and hiring. A SocDem would have likely done different.

-Tying into the above, corporate profits continue to rise. Social and public programs continue to get slashed across the country by different state and local governments without any opposition from the white house over it. There is none of the token investments into public programs that socdems are typically associated with as far as Obama is concerned- for the most part it has remained unchanged from the Bush years, which in turn did not adjust too heavily from the Clinton years.

Yes, more people may be on unemployment or foodstamps, but that's because the economy's on crap and not because he made it easier to do so. Plus as I said earlier most of those programs get decided at the state level.

Obama is hardly a leftist firebrand that the media in the US makes him out to be, indeed I think it's rather pathetic the lengths these morons will go to make assertions that Obama is socialist because of x regulation or y social program. Or big government/spending = socialism :confused:. It's a sad indication really that politics in the United States is so skewed to the right that Obama, who would honestly come off as a centrist at best, is apparently the antichrist, aka the second coming of Karl Marx.

Obama may have had some "radical" moments in his youth he had moved beyond them by the time he became a professional. His community organizer roots don't really mean diddly as far as a secret, insidious radical agenda for eurosocialism. As far as his position in the Democratic Party goes, he's part of an emerging trend in that party that has eschewed both the old conservative blue dogs and the more liberal west coast and "progressive caucus" members in favor of a distinctly more neoliberal direction. IE the third way politics Bill Clinton was known for.

In Europe I don't think Obama would be seen as a social democrat at all. Hell there are only a few people in the US I would think could become a social democrat in Europe- maybe Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kuchinich- and the current socdem, not the "old" socdem that is associated with their left-wing members yearning for post-WW II policies.

[Ocean Seal]

He actually wants Islamo-Communism, but don't tell anyone.

[billydan225]

i hate obama

[Geiseric]

i hate obama

The CP USA doesn't though.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Obama is a fucking sociopath who enjoys and brags about drone striking people. Does that sound like social democracy?

To a "T". ;)1

[Lokomotive293]

Obama is a fucking sociopath who enjoys and brags about drone striking people. Does that sound like social democracy?

This (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=5KV7e6hgIIBO3fii1pDrNQ&cp=7&gs_id=s&xhr=t&q=Gustav+noske&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Gustav+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42553238,d.Yms&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) and this (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=9MQbLKiCHAP-IyHv__gznQ&pq=germany%20bombing%20yugoslavia&cp=17&gs_id=2n&xhr=t&q=nato+bombing+of+yugoslavia&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&oq=nato+bombing+of+y&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) is social democracy.

[billydan225]

I don't support the CPUSA anymore after I found out their not communist they just want to vote for the democrats

[Geiseric]

This (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=5KV7e6hgIIBO3fii1pDrNQ&cp=7&gs_id=s&xhr=t&q=Gustav+noske&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Gustav+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42553238,d.Yms&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) and this (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=9MQbLKiCHAP-IyHv__gznQ&pq=germany%20bombing%20yugoslavia&cp=17&gs_id=2n&xhr=t&q=nato+bombing+of+yugoslavia&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&oq=nato+bombing+of+y&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) is social democracy.

Those are just capitalist wars, none of this has anything to do with upper case, Bebel and Leibhnacht, legitimate marxist Social Democracy, which phrase mongering doesn't equate with. Obama is a bourgeois chronic lier, not a social democrat, just like the "social dems" in erope within Labour and the French socialists.

[Luís Henrique]

Obama is a fucking sociopath who enjoys and brags about drone striking people. Does that sound like social democracy?

Yes.

Luís Henrique

[Yuppie Grinder]

What's your opinion on this

Sorry but Obama is a proven Anarcho-Juche spy from NK, not a social democrat by any means.

[BOZG]

In Europe I don't think Obama would be seen as a social democrat at all. Hell there are only a few people in the US I would think could become a social democrat in Europe- maybe Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kuchinich- and the current socdem, not the "old" socdem that is associated with their left-wing members yearning for post-WW II policies.

Actually, you're probably wrong on this front. European Social Democracy is an extremely vocal cheerleader of Obama and I wouldn't at doubt that there are elements which see Obama very much as a SocDem, albeit maybe one on the right. They're probably somewhat embarrassed by his hawkish FA policy but then again, this is a political tendency whose members included Mubarak and Ben Ali until the masses were overthrowing it.



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[Jimmie Higgins]

What's your opinion on thisProbaly a large chunk of Obama's supporters do want this - though they are convinced it is impossible. Obama wants nothing of the sort and even if he did, he could not make that happen - no president could, it would take something drastic like a war or a large movement and a split in the ruling class like in the 1930s for a reform reversal like this to happen. They are still very much persuing increased privitization and more cuts to the welfare state and working class wages and living standards. They still have education and social security to sell off in the US.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Probaly a large chunk of Obama's supporters do want this - though they are convinced it is impossible. Obama wants nothing of the sort and even if he did, he could not make that happen - no president could, it would take something drastic like a war or a large movement and a split in the ruling class like in the 1930s for a reform reversal like this to happen. They are still very much persuing increased privitization and more cuts to the welfare state and working class wages and living standards. They still have education and social security to sell off in the US.

There is not a homogeneous ruling class agenda.

[Rusty Shackleford]

european social democracy that we know today was basically born out of imperialism and benefits from imperialist plunder.

[Jimmie Higgins]

There is not a homogeneous ruling class agenda.No, there is instability in capitalism and this causes uncertaintly for the ruling class as to the way forward, but in the US at least there isn't exactly a split in the ruling class agenda right now - probably in the first year of the recession, but now they seem fairly on-board with the plan: continue with neoliberalism while pushing austerity and weakening popular methods of resistance (the unions, bourgois rights, etc) because the financial sector can live with that plan and it will lower wages to allow production to become more profitable which industry will like. The Republicans can play the role of stick and then the Democrats can play the role of "soft austerity" but it doesn't seem like there is much evidence of any alternatives coming from the top - a few token neo-Keynsians are there in the wings as loyal opposition, but I think it would take a defeat of the union-busting strategy for the ruling class to begin to really have some heated opposing views of how to manage capital during these economic times.

In Spain and Greece however, there are probably pretty significnt splits in the ruling class and that's why the governments have come close to being paralyized and there is a lot of political polarization. So far the ruling classes have been able - with a lot of difficulty on their part - pass everything they have needed to, but if things get to the point where they can no longer keep doing this and if the movements can actually neutralize (if no push back) these attacks, then there will probably be sections of the ruling class supporting other options on both the left and the right to "solve the crisis".

[Lokomotive293]

Those are just capitalist wars, none of this has anything to do with upper case, Bebel and Leibhnacht, legitimate marxist Social Democracy, which phrase mongering doesn't equate with. Obama is a bourgeois chronic lier, not a social democrat, just like the "social dems" in erope within Labour and the French socialists.

It's what the opportunist SPD developed into - a party that shoots at workers, works together with fascists to suppress the revolution, and today, paradoxically even more than the conservatives, stands for the support of Imperialist wars and social cuts. Of course, long ago, social democracy and socialism were synonymous, but today, social democracy is widely accepted as an equivalent for opportunism.

[Mackenzie_Blanc]

The other tragedy in Obama’s SOTU address was jobs. The proposals raised were rehashed old programs, like his September 2011 ‘jobs’ bill; more subsidies and tax breaks for multinational corporations and manufacturers; a token infrastructure spending proposal with no details; and a pre-school education proposal that was strangely offered as the first step toward a ‘job retraining’ bill.

Ah yes! Forget class struggle and all that commie nonsense, we need corporate subsidies and pre-school programs, that will fix poverty. Oh, and more middle eastern wars! :glare:

[Red Commissar]

Actually, you're probably wrong on this front. European Social Democracy is an extremely vocal cheerleader of Obama and I wouldn't at doubt that there are elements which see Obama very much as a SocDem, albeit maybe one on the right. They're probably somewhat embarrassed by his hawkish FA policy but then again, this is a political tendency whose members included Mubarak and Ben Ali until the masses were overthrowing it.


Obama is more warmly received in Europe than Bush was before him, it's not just Social Democrats that view him like this. Most polling in the past election cycle gave him ridiculous numbers which clearly cut beyond electorates who voted strictly social democrat or some parallel party.

I'm speaking strictly in the sense of a Social Democrat that is big on nationalization, regulation, welfare state etc. Obama does not really want to be the "big government" type that conservatives try to paint him as, they just conflate regulations with such things.

Third Way Social Democrats like Tony Blair who've been trying to jettison their older ways would of course be quick to laud Obama like they did with Clinton by stating they had "modernized" their political views and are moving with the times, rather than clinging with antiquated views as they would criticize their opponents as.

[Lucretia]

There is not a homogeneous ruling class agenda.

It can be a useful abstraction to refer to the ruling class "agenda" in the singular. Members of the class certainly don't agree on everything, but they agree on many things.

[MarxArchist]

Obama wants what he advocates which is DLC type right wing capitalism. Neoliberalism. He wants what capitalism needs to keep functioning. He wants expanding profits. If consessions to workers makes that possible he'll try to help facilitate that. If attacks on workers is what makes that possible he'll help to facilitate that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Obama wants what he advocates which is DLC type right wing capitalism. Neoliberalism. He wants what capitalism needs to keep functioning. He wants expanding profits. If consessions to workers makes that possible he'll try to help facilitate that. If attacks on workers is what makes that possible he'll help to facilitate that.And since, outside of maybe China, ruling classes don't seem to be offering wage consessions in exchange for labor peace (and it's slowing there from what I understand, and producing resistance), I think we know which way Obama will go all things equal.

[human strike]

Obama is an accelerationist insurrectionary anarchist. He wants full capitalism now, full communism tomorrow.

[billydan225]

What exactly is social democracy?

[Rusty Shackleford]

What exactly is social democracy?

Social democracy today is simply welfare state politics. The scandinavian and lowland social democracies all have monarchs still :lol:

sure, labor is treated better but national minorities still face reactionaries like Geert Wilders.

Generally it is left of liberalism but capitalism is preserved and fortified with a shell of a strong 'benevolent' social contract between the people and the state.


not to mention the German Greens have even moved towards supporting military intervention and the SPD is nothing more than the country's 'labour party' or 'democratic party'

[Agathor]

This (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=5KV7e6hgIIBO3fii1pDrNQ&cp=7&gs_id=s&xhr=t&q=Gustav+noske&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Gustav+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42553238,d.Yms&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) and this (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3Bernk_timediscounta&gs_rn=3&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=9MQbLKiCHAP-IyHv__gznQ&pq=germany%20bombing%20yugoslavia&cp=17&gs_id=2n&xhr=t&q=nato+bombing+of+yugoslavia&es_nrs=true&pf=p&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&oq=nato+bombing+of+y&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=bfcabee2546bdbe9&biw=1366&bih=667) is social democracy.

It's always much easier to smear your opponents as total demons; it frees you from the obligation of arguing with their positions.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Those are just capitalist wars, none of this has anything to do with upper case, Bebel and Leibhnacht, legitimate marxist Social Democracy, which phrase mongering doesn't equate with. Obama is a bourgeois chronic lier, not a social democrat, just like the "social dems" in erope within Labour and the French socialists.


pre and post-war social democracy are two very different movements.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Social democracy today is simply welfare state politics. The scandinavian and lowland social democracies all have monarchs still '

Social-democracy, understood as what you mentioned, is dead, just like pre-WWI social-democracy died. It died after a series of ideological convulsions during the 1970's and early 80's, which affected all European social-democratic movements. It was a reconciliation between capital and the political leadership that the era of concessions was over (the delusions regarding the imagined threat of the Soviet Union no longer loomed in most of their minds), it was biting into their profit margins and had to be reversed. Welfare policies and regulations to increase social peace and limit economic stratification have been gradually phased out and cut since, all to the merry enjoyment of the ruling classes.


It's always much easier to smear your opponents as total demons; it frees you from the obligation of arguing with their positions.

Well, not like anyone missed the announcement that you're a socdem...

[Lokomotive293]

It's always much easier to smear your opponents as total demons; it frees you from the obligation of arguing with their positions.

Those are just the facts.