digg

Join DiggAbout

The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.

Socialist party 2008: Obama's ties to us don't matter

wthrockmorton.com — In March 2008, Bob Roman, writing in the Democractic Socialist of America newsletter said that Obama's ties to his party was a story which "has no legs." He did not deny the ties but dismissed them as irrelevant. Obama was a member of the DSA's New Party and asked for their help in voter registration. I believe his socialist mentoring matters.

show profanity settings
expand all
  • mreal197, on 10/10/2008, -31/+20Brought to you by the same idiots that brought us 8 years of Bush. Worst. President. EVER. I guess if you can't convince them with issues, baffle them with Bull SH!T
    • dw4prez, on 10/10/2008, -9/+9You should use Jr. If we had the other brother instead, I think a lot of things would be different. Jr is a liberal in what he does and that is one of the reasons for our economy issues. I do not Obama to continue the this liberal stupidity. Heck I do not want McCain either but he gets my vote for being less Liberal than Bush Jr.
    • knucklebusted, on 10/10/2008, -8/+13No, Jimmy Carter is still the worst president in living memory. He'll keep that title a very long time.
      • ironhide, on 10/11/2008, -7/+2Not according to the American people. But you types don't have a real history of listening to them.
      • SAR2009, on 10/11/2008, -0/+4Only until 2009 if ∅bobblehead should win in November!
    • Zacktopia, on 10/10/2008, -8/+9"Mr. Carter quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the Presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst President we ever had."

      -- Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005)
      http://www.slate.com/id/2166661/nav/tap2/
      • SAR2009, on 10/11/2008, -0/+3And these words from the paradigm of leftist lunacy (well, until kookcinich and ∅bobblehead came on the scene).
  • sultanknish, on 10/10/2008, -19/+34Being a member of an extremist party is a major campaign issue
  • tkstock, on 10/10/2008, -18/+31As suspected, the far left have used the current president's unpopularity to push a candidate that departs so far from the current administration, he's against our entire system of government and economics.
    • Marble68, on 10/10/2008, -6/+19Well put, tkstock. Well put.
    • ericcarroll, on 10/10/2008, -6/+15Notice they don't utilize Democrat-lead Congress' popularity to push Obama. Nobody talks about Pelosi's, Reid's, Dodd's, etc. popularity. I wonder why that is.
  • MommaLu, on 10/10/2008, -19/+24I think Obama isn't going to be just the 1st African American President but the first American Dictator. He'll throw out the Constitution faster than his predecessors.
    • peheimbach, on 10/11/2008, -9/+2I guess that's why he's spent four years taking a degree on the US Constitution and then ten years TEACHING the Constitution at one of the best schools around. He wanted everyone to know how much he knew about the Constitution before he took it down. Gimme a flippin break.
      If we vote wrong in this election -- if we vote for McCain and his lobbyist handlers -- not only will you find out who's the real destroyer of the Constitution, in case the fact that we have 8000 STANDING TROOPS in this country, and HUNDREDS of other VIOLATIONS in the last eight years -- not only will be find that out, but it will probably be the last time ANY OF US will be allowed to vote.
      Stop getting FORCE FED cute little phrases ... and remember that dictators LOVE to feed their voters such things to keep themselves in power by FEAR.
      • comwiz7, on 10/11/2008, -2/+7"I guess that's why he's spent four years taking a degree on the US Constitution and then ten years TEACHING the Constitution at one of the best schools around."

        Then why does he support laws that go against the constitution?
      • SAR2009, on 10/11/2008, -1/+3For someone alleged to be a "Constitutional scholar" (sorry, even linking the term with ∅bobblehead provokes a fit of laughter), the ∅bamamaggot seems remarkably uninformed on such minor issues as the 2nd Amendment, the Logan Act and the like.

        Oh, and DA, law school is THREE years. If this took it four, this is only more proof of how its sole talent is oratory. Then again, ConLaw is typically only a single 4 credit required course for 1L students. Harvard may offer further courses for upper level students, though. Still, I suspect your assertion is simply a matter of some ignorant leftist (sorry for being redundant) passing farts and confusing it with wisdom.
  • zacharytelschow, on 10/10/2008, -12/+30Undeniably linked to socialist party? No, that doesn't matter. Long term friendships with Ayers, Wright, and Rezko? Irrelevant, and you're using racist old politics when you bring that up. A voting record that doesn't match the rhetoric? You're misinterpretting his votes! Don't you see, he had to vote against FISA after explicitly saying he wouldn't because Washington is corrupt. Having a history of granting political favors to his donors? Coincidence. His wife getting a $200,000 raise within months of Obama being made Senator and him later earmarking $1 million for that same hospital? Oh, I suppose his wife didn't deserve a near tripling in pay just because she's black, you racist. You're only attacking Obama because you just don't understand.
    • InRussetShadows, on 10/10/2008, -6/+13Perfectly on target. Thumbs up.
  • tjordanchat, on 10/10/2008, -15/+13The sky is falling. The sky is falling. I never thought that I would see this happen in my life time but now it is. All Americans will be homeless. We will be ruled by the Swiss if Obama wins, I know this because Obama wears a Swiss watch. We will all be jumping out of windows. Times will be worse that in the movie Gulliver Travels. Our rice will come from Italy. We will all be fat and talk like Freddy Krueger. My father tell me if Obama wins that there will no longer Happy Hours. All State fairs will end. He will close down all Zoos and Parks. We will only be allowed to swim on weekends. Cars all must one color. Orange. He will close down all Colleges and Universities. Life as we know it will be allowed to engage in the notion of whenever one tries to support or otherwise challenge us to whatever when ever. I even hear that he will ground all jets and make us travil by tooth and claw.
    • tkstock, on 10/10/2008, -6/+7No, but America will be one (or more) step(s) closer to Socialism. One step closer to the death of the American dream. One step further away from our Constitution.
      • peheimbach, on 10/11/2008, -5/+1Define socialism for me.

        And then explain to me how someone who spends four years intensively learning to love something like the Constitution, and then anther 10 years being what his students and peers consider one of the best TEACHERS on the subject, is going to destroy that same Constitution.

        And then ask yourself whether your current president-for-life isn't just force-feeding lies to your brain to cover up for the fact that he's destroyed huge chunks of the document already.
      • tkstock, on 10/11/2008, -0/+31. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
        2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
        3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

        And I don't think Obama was intensely learning to love the constitution. He's not even a strict constitutionalist. He's as liberal as the come.

        You mean our current president put up that website praising Obama for winning the IL state senate as a member of the New Party? I don't think so. The president doesn't control the web archive.
  • niradg, on 10/10/2008, -11/+14Outside the minds of right-wing wacko bloggers, The New Party has nothing to do with socialists. I can't believe you cretins are peddling such easily debunked lies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_(USA)
    • comwiz7, on 10/11/2008, -0/+4"The party could best be described as social democratic"

      Quoted from your link. Don't you feel stupid.
      • zacharytelschow, on 10/11/2008, -3/+1social democratic != socialist. Obviously, party labels are more important than party platforms. Don't you know anything? /s
  • sullivanst, on 10/10/2008, -13/+14Why do Republicans HATE the idea of registering people to vote so much? Is this an admission that they realize that they are the true elitests, and that the majority of Americans are not with them?
    • rearlgrant, on 10/10/2008, -6/+4Yep -- Republicans don't trust the voters.
      • gnocchi1442, on 10/11/2008, -5/+4Exactly the opposite. Republicans DO trust that the voters will vote for the better candidate. That's why they have to shut them down.
  • jimchap, on 10/11/2008, -7/+11because their candidates are now criminals so they don't want folks to vote.

    Extremist assholes and shameful McCain= Danger!
  • JenniferInMO, on 10/11/2008, -13/+12People who dugg this are either paid to do so or delusional fools.
    • comwiz7, on 10/11/2008, -1/+8I dugg it and I wasn't paid to do so and I am not a delusional fool. Therefore you are wrong.
  • sassce, on 10/11/2008, -14/+10buried as inacurate
  • booksnmore4you, on 10/11/2008, -7/+8Bob Roman himself, the real victim of this polemic, has already debunked this 6 feet under.

    --------------

    Thank you for your piece about Obama’s “radical past”. I do appreciate even hostile coverage when it allows people to actually review the source materials. As a polemic, I think you’ve done fairly well. One measure is how widely the article spreads, and this is doing relatively well compared to similar efforts.

    The key to a good polemic, however, is to stick as closely to the facts as possible; any misdirection should be left to the reader. As models of good practice, I would recommend Cliff Kincaid and Josh Muravchik. They’re not perfect but no one is.

    However, I think you fell down in one crucial point. Nowhere in the article proper do you actually SAY that the New Party is a creation of the Democratic Socialists of America. This is a good thing. It allows your readers to jump to that conclusion themselves, and you’ll note that many of the repostings on the web do just that. Your error is have written the rest of the article as if that were indeed a fact. Chicago DSA was generally supportive of the New Party in Chicago, but the New Party was very much a different organization. Even the estimate, quoted in a recent article by Muravchik, that there was a 15% overlap in membership should be taken with salt. The folks organizing the New Party (ACORN, mostly, in Chicago) did not regard the ideological left as a prime (or even secondary) constituency.

    The assumption that DSA = NP makes much of the article nonsensical.

    Although I should add that for many of your readers, any distinction between the New Party, DSA, the Communist Party, the Americans for Democratic Action, the AFL-CIO, etc., would be mostly academic. We’re all unpatriotic, amoral animals, yes? In that context, you could say pretty much whatever you please, whatever makes a good story, and it would make perfect sense. It would not be factual nor would it be the truth.

    1a) The only Chicago DSA meeting that Obama every attended was the Town Hall Meeting on Economic Insecurity. And that was not exclusively a DSA meeting, having been organized by the UofC YDS and the UofC College Democrats. If Obama ever attended any other Chicago DSA meeting, it would be news to me, and I’d love to learn of it. (The memorial for Saul Mendelson, for example, was not organized or endorsed by DSA, though you can be sure that many DSA members were there.)

    2a) Obama did not seek the endorsement of Chicago DSA. This paragraph only factual and truthful if you were to substitute New Party for Chicago DSA.

    3a) The same as 2a above, although if you have any evidence that Obama actually used Chicago DSA’s endorsement, I’d love to see it. In fact, as he used the old political tactic of having all his opponents removed from the ballot, I’m not sure that he had much of a campaign.

    5a) This is actually both factually wrong and untruthful; Obama extended the invitation to the New Party at a New Party meeting.

    1b) Once again, the article was reporting on a meeting of the New Party, not a Chicago DSA meeting.

    5b) Once again, the article was reporting on a meeting of the New Party, not a Chicago DSA meeting.

    Making Chicago DSA the fulcrum of your argument makes the story easy. For conservatives, we are such a convenient hate-object. You need not go any further than the word “socialists” and all critical facility is gone. The actual story is rather more complicated, difficult to write, even if it should still be worrisome for most conservatives.

    Thankfully, none of this substantially changes your conclusion as in that final paragraph you broaden your focus from Chicago DSA to Chicago’s left in general. From an ideologically conservative point of view, these are questions worth asking even if I don’t agree that it’s of much interest to the majority of voters. It was a good thing that you included links to the original documentation as I think much of what we published in “New Ground” will provide some insights to Obama, even if I’m not sure that many of the folks commenting on your article have actually understood what they’ve read. (It’s not stupidity, mostly, but rather a matter of expectations getting in the way of perception.)

    Hoping for your complete and utter defeat,
    Bob Roman
    Editor, “New Ground”

    [ From http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/10/07/obama-is-h ... ]
  • HansFriedman, on 10/11/2008, -5/+9Obama was named the most liberal politician in 2007. And he has voted within his partys lines 97% of the time.
    • ironhide, on 10/11/2008, -3/+2Most liberal is a negative? I welcome it. You conservatives had your shot and ***** it up.
      • HansFriedman, on 10/11/2008, -2/+3If your talking about the financial crisis, then its the democratic party that ***** it up.

        Many democratic congressmen and acorn were pushing to allow the mortgage companies to give "poor people" and minorities sub-prime mortgage loans. At the same time Bush was trying to put more restraints on companies such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.



      • ironhide, on 10/11/2008, -1/+2Aw, look, more revisionist history from the right.
      • deem1890, on 10/11/2008, -0/+2Yep!!! the conservative are all screw up!
    • booksnmore4you, on 10/11/2008, -2/+2When you have GWB in office, you have to go against him much of the time.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.