SOCIALIST?
While a small group of bloggers have productively explored Obama’s New Party ties, discussion has often turned on the New Party’s alleged socialism. Was the New Party actually established by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)? Was the New Party’s platform effectively socialist in content? Although these debates are both interesting and important, we needn’t resolve them to conclude that the New Party was far to the left of the American mainstream. Whether formally socialist or not, the New Party and its ACORN backers favored policies of economic redistribution. As Obama would say, they wanted to spread the wealth around. Bracketing the socialism question and simply taking the New Party on its own terms is sufficient to raise serious questions about Obama’s political commitments ” questions that cry out for attention from a responsible press.In 2002, Micah L. Sifry, a former writer and editor with The Nation magazine, published Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America, a book that contains what is probably our best account of the rise and fall of the New Party. Although Sifry leaves us hanging on the socialism question, his chapter on the New Party is more than enough to raise disturbing questions about Obama’s radicalism, and about his ties to ACORN.
Sifry reports a quip by New Party co-founder, Daniel Cantor: “The shorthand strategy for accomplishing all this is to get the Bruce Springsteen, Lauryn Hill, and Pete Seeger vote united in one party.” The Peter Seeger vote does sound like shorthand for the old-time socialist Left ” but also for far-left-leaning baby boomers in general. Bruce Springsteen and Lauryn Hill point to young blacks and whites on the left, perhaps including, but not restricted to, openly socialist sympathizers. In short, the New Party was a mid-1990s effort to build a “progressive” coalition to the left of the Democratic party, uniting left-leaning baby boomers with minorities, relatively militant unionists, and “idealistic” young people.
PARTY WITHIN A PARTY
In contrast to Ralph Nader’s recent third-party campaigns, the New Party’s strategy was to work through “fusion.” Fusion parties were popular in the 19th century. Although these small parties had a separate line on the ballot, they often endorsed one of the major-party candidates. That meant these third parties didn’t have to act as “spoilers” in close elections. Yet by constituting themselves as separate entities and offering their endorsement as bait, fusion parties tended to push the major parties further to the right or the left. We see remnants of the old fusion-party pattern in New York State, where separate Liberal and Conservative parties sometimes shift elections by endorsing one or another major party candidate.As the New Party’s founders put it, they were looking for a cross between the “party within the party” strategy favored by leftist Democrats and the “plague on both your houses” stance later adopted by the Naderites. That means Obama’s New Party ties place him on the far left end of the Democratic party, arguably with one foot outside and to the left of the party itself.
Does this make Obama “socialist?” Maybe so, but according to Sifry, the vague “New Party” name was chosen precisely to avoid such ideological pigeonholing. Maybe that vagueness was designed to avoid exposing the party as the socialist sympathizer it was. Or maybe the name was a way of avoiding complex internal struggles between competing ideological factions, some socialist and some not. (The answer is “both of the above,” I tend to think.) In any case, the New Party was clearly far to the left of mainstream Democrats, and according to Sifry, the party explicitly thought of itself as made up of committed “progressives,” rather than conventional “liberals.” That is entirely consistent with a famous 1995 profile of Obama by Hank De Zutter, which portrays him as closely tied to ACORN, and holding a world-view well “beyond” his mother’s conventional liberalism.
To get a sense of where the New Party stood politically, consider some of its early supporters: Barbara Dudley of Greenpeace; Steve Cobble, political director of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coaltion; prominent academics like Frances Fox Piven, coauthor of the “Cloward-Piven strategy” and a leader of the drive for the “motor-voter” legislation Obama later defended in court on behalf of ACORN; economist Juliet Schor; black historian Manning Marable; historian Howard Zinn; linguist Noam Chomsky; Todd Gitlin; and writers like Gloria Steinem and Barbara Ehrenreich. Socialist? Readers can draw their own conclusions. At one point, Sifry does describe the party’s goals as “social democratic.” In any case, the New Party clearly stands substantially to the left of the mainstream Democratic party.
ACORN CONNECTION
Unquestionably, ACORN was one of the most important forces behind the creation of the New Party. According to Sifry: “Wade Rathke, ACORN’s lead national organizer, was in on the founding discussions that led to the New Party, and the group’s political director, Zach Polett, also came to play a big role in guiding New Party field organizing for the party [in Chicago and Little Rock].” In fact, Sifry portrays ACORN’s leading role in the New Party as the result of a conscious decision by the organization to move into electoral politics in a more substantial way than they had been able to solely through their political action committee. In addition to Rathke and Polett, a key early supporter of the New Party was Obama’s closest ACORN contact, Madeline Talbott.While ACORN played an important founding role for the New Party nationally, ACORN was clearly the main force behind the New Party chapter in Chicago. In general, New Party chapters built around an ACORN nucleus were the most disciplined and successful party outposts. Nationally, the New Party’s biggest wins were in Chicago, very much including Obama’s victory in his 1996 run for the Illinois state senate. Chicago’s New Party was actually formed around two core elements, ACORN and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 880. Yet, as Sifry notes, SEIU 880 was itself an ACORN offshoot.
Continue reading and then send the link to everyone in your address book!
Why are you trying to distract me from the real issues like Joe the Plumber’s tax records?
Exactly John =d>
Let me ask all of you folks posing the “Socialism issue” a simple question. What is it about Obama’s plan that suggests he’s a socialist? The fact that he wants to tax the extremely wealthy and cut taxes for the extremely poor? This isn’t a redistribution of wealth. There’s nothing here that suggests Obama is interested in taking that money from the wealthy and GIVING it to the poor. That’s not what he’s doing with his tax plan. He’s simply putting the burden of our society a little bit more on the shoulder’s of those who can most handle it and taking it a little off of those who can’t. That burden of our society, as Powell so clearly put it in his Meet The Press appearance includes maintenance of our roads, police forces, fire departments, schools, public infrastructure like bridges, public utilities (sewer, water, gas), our military, etc. Now I don’t know about you, but I tend to think that these burdens of our society are incredibly important to us as a nation. And its easy for me to say because I’m not in the 5% of the country who’d be taxed a little more, that I think taxing the rich is a good way to go towards making sure those things are ensured and supported by our government. Hell, whatever taxes I would end up paying under an Obama presidency I would much prefer go towards these VITAL services. Call me a Socialist if you like, but I just think I’m a patriot.
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We have many conversations on the subject of redistribution of wealth in the archives. Taking tax money from the wealthy and handing a person $1200 at the end of the year, a person that didn’t pay any income tax, is by definition, redistribution of wealth. It is welfare. We both know that. And what is the poors burden? What is their responsibility?
When did you start quoting Powell, yesterday?
I pay local/state taxes for the schools, police, fire, libraries, roads etc..Part of my federal taxes cover the same items..What does Obama have to do with it? It takes the House and the Senate to appropriate the funds, all the POTUS does is sign it.
Why should the top 5% pay more? They are paying more than their fair share. There is no reason that any of the services listed aren’t already being taken care of.
BTW, who is complaining about paying for those services? We are referring to redistribution of wealth..
FYI..
“Let me ask all of you folks posing the “Socialism issue”a simple question. What is it about Obama’s plan that suggests he’s a socialist? The fact that he wants to tax the extremely wealthy and cut taxes for the extremely poor? This isn’t a redistribution of wealth.”
You are a Socialist, and if you are a Patriot it isn’t of traditional America.
Obama is not only a Socialist, he’s a Marxist.
Well Let’s see where Obama’s economic policy foundations come from… His father was a Marxist. His Grandfather’s friend, that Obama referred to as Uncle Frank was Frank Marshal a member of the American COMMUNIST party. He claims to want to “spread the wealth” and tax the rich to do it. Giving money taken from a person who earned it and giving it to one that didn’t is called theft if someone without a badge does it, it’s called Socialism when someone with an IRS badge does it.
Here’s a thought for all of you little leftists out there. When was the last time a poor person built a factory and hired a bunch of people? When a company has to cut operating expenses to pay taxes, they cut the largest controllable expense which is payroll, ie they cut jobs. How much income tax does someone who’s unemployed pay into the system? Is it more than they take out or less? How easy is it for someone to pay their mortgage or rent on unemployment benefits? When a company can no longer reduce its payroll expenses to pay taxes and stay in business, how do they get the money to continue paying taxes? They raise prices. The only means to attempt to control inflation is for the federal reserve to raise interest rates to restrict buying. This is why when you raise taxes on businesses, you cause increases in unemployment, inflation, and interest rates. This leads to a condition called Stagflation. A stagnant economy (no growth) at the same time that there is double digit inflation. If you want confirmation of what I’ve said is true, research the Carter administration. Obama is nothing new, except he just wants to do it on a much grander scale with a larger economy, a larger population, and stakes that make him look like a high roller to Jimmy Carter’s penny ante player. His plans will bankrupt this country. It could result in a worldwide depression that makes the 30s look like a joke. If that occurs, I expect a revolution to break out. Quite possibly with the US being broken into a number of regional countries as various ethnic groups fight for supremacy in their sphere of influence. Considering I’m in what the Mexicans want to claim as Aztlan, I’m not very keen on that idea.
Criticism of Obama’s policies, positions, background, or the Messiah himself!
That is intolerable to Obamiacs! You have transgressed against them.
According to “La Mentalita” (which unless I am mistaken could be interpreted to mean little mind; very appropriate), you are racist for critcizing anything about Obama whatsoever!