Obama the new leftist: everything old is new again
Barry Rubin has written a piece describing Obama as a new kind of leftist:
Barack Obama is not a communist, a fascist, a Muslim, a Marxist, a Progressive (in the pre-1920s meaning of that word), or even a socialist. Obama and those who control much of America’s academia, mass media, and entertainment industry ”” plus a number of trade unions and hundreds of foundations, think tanks, and front groups ”” are believers in a new, very American form of leftism. It is very statist, very dangerous for freedom, and economically destructive…
So what are we dealing with here? A radical leftist movement pretending to be liberal, growing out of the New Left of the 1960s, painfully aware of how the far left miserably failed in American history, and trying to create a twenty-first century stealth leftism. The first step was to gain hegemony in the key institutions that created ideas, rather than the factories that created material goods. They succeeded brilliantly.
The next step was to shape millions of Americans, especially young Americans, to accept their ideas that the United States was a force for evil in the world, a failed society, a place of terrible racism and hatred for women, and a country where the vast majority didn’t have a fair chance because the system was unfair. In fact, if you take away the varnish rhetoric, they argue that America is a virtual dictatorship of a small minority of wealthy people who just set everything up for their own convenience.
I kept reading Rubin’s piece to see what was so very very new about this, because it just didn’t seem new to me at all. It seemed rather old, actually, and known by the name Fabianism—and in fact, I’ve long thought of Obama as a type of American Fabian.
Who were the Fabians? They were British socialists who got together in the late 19th century and believed in peaceful gradualism:
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organization whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means….
An explanatory note appearing on the title page of the group’s first pamphlet declared:
“For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently, when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless.”…
The first Fabian Society pamphlets advocating tenets of social justice coincided with the zeitgeist of Liberal reforms during the early 1900s. The Fabian proposals however were considerably more progressive than those that were enacted in the Liberal reform legislation. The Fabians lobbied for the introduction of a minimum wage in 1906, for the creation of a universal health care system in 1911 and for the abolition of hereditary peerages in 1917.
There are differences, of course (particularly in foreign policy), as befit a different time and place. But the similarities are striking, as is the fact that the Fabian Society was manned (and womanned) by intellectuals and artists, especially writers.
I’m hardly the first person to make the comparison. Just Google “Obama Fabian” and you’ll see. One of the earliest articles on the subject was this one by Jerry Bowyer, appearing in Forbes around the time of Obama’s 2008 election. I wrote much the same about Obama in October of 2008; although I didn’t actually use the term “Fabian,” that’s what I was referring to.
I’ve never ascribed to the “Obama isn’t intelligent” philosophy. He may not be wise, but he’s very smart about the things that especially interest him. One of these things is political strategy of the Alinsky variety. Another is “progressivism.” A third is how to appear to be moderate and soothing, and thus ingratiate himself with enough of the public to win an election.
[NOTE: The title of this post comes from this song.]
I’ve never claimed he’s a moron, just that his lack of common sense (i.e., wisdom) renders him incompetent. A fine example of this was his double-time gaffe with the UK — first the UK PM came here, with an appropriate exchange of gifts expected.
THEY gave US a desk set from one of the sister ships of the Resolute, which had been used to create the Resolute Desk, A gift of Victoria to R.B. Hayes, and used almost nonstop by every President for the last 130 years. The One gave to the prime minister “a box of 25 DVDs with movies including Star Wars and E.T.–all of which were Region 1 disks, unplayable on most machines sold outside the United States”
Rather clearly, The One ignored the notion that he had Protocol specialists who were experienced in identifying appropriate gifts to give to other heads of state (No doubt he also waved them off when they were trying to instruct him in how to act and address other foreign heads of state… notably “you don’t bow to them”)
Now, a wise person, after making the error of not paying attention to these protocol specialists, would pay special attention to them in the future.
But learning from previous mistakes is not the liberal way.
(I’d argue, in fact, that if there is a single unique quality that marks modern liberals, it’s a consistent inability to learn diddly-squat from experience. They’re all damnfools).
No, The One went to the UK, about a year later. And, while there,
a) Gave the Queen an iPod… filled with The One’s speeches. O-boy, give me a copy o’ that!
b) Michelle brilliantly touched the Queen. (Hint: Absolutely NOT done).
Obviously, they ignored their protocol experts and instead did just what any ignorant bumpkin would do.
As far as his general ability, however, that’s of serious question, as well. He’s not stupid, but he’s certainly not the genius he’s been hailed as in oh-so-many quarters. I’ll let someone else make the point:
Stop It Already — He’s Not So Smart
The quick shot: “He supposedly became editor of the HLR on merit. Really? Where were his scholarly works that gave him that job? What, if any, were the brilliantly written case summaries that said, “This is a major player”?
My own take: Not only do they not exist, you can’t even look at The One’s college records AT ALL. Clearly, they are either “unimpressive” or blatantly mark him as the socialist fool many grasp him to be… or, more likely both. They probably make the case that the only reason he became editor of HLR was affirmative action.
As an expatriate American long resident in Australia, my take on Obama has been that he is a Social Democrat. But Barry Rubin convinced me that was a slander on Social Democrats who have worked hard to make their social justice initiatives actually work. To use my favorite example here in Australia we have a health care system that has the same or better outcomes as the US system that costs about half as much. Yes there is a public health system the covers everyone, but there is also a private insurance based system and together they cost about 8.5% of GDP as opposed the 16% in the US. (When the public system has waiting lists that are too long people buy insurance and if the premiums rise too much they drop the insurance – the systems police each other.) So from my perspective there is a difference between Social Democrats and American Fabians with their stealth approach – Social Democrats actually try to run the systems they set up responsibly and sometimes even succeed. Part of the irresponsibility of the Obamcrats is just part of the US having too much for too long – look at the irresponsibility of Bush’s unsupervised Republican congress. But part of it is a postmodern disconnect from reality and I think that is what Rubin is trying to get at – Frankfurt School and all that. He is alerting us to the idea that there is something new going on.There is plenty of same old, same old and I agree with Neo that the current American left have adopted Fabian gradualism. Unfortunately, but they have lost the plot. Obamacare limits % of GDP growth to 16.5% by 2017! What is new is that these people are delusional in precisely that Postmodern way that claims reality is what they say it is. Consequently their policies will bring collapse more quickly. Ryan’s budget is a sensible attempt to economize before it is too late. He sees the approaching calamity. Speaking of which, I recommend Mark Steyn’s After America to understand just how fast our current course could bring collapse and ruin. Recall the Obama who thought the public sector wasn’t doing enough job creation to contribute its fair share to reducing unemployment. Evidently he doesn’t understand or believe that public sector jobs are by and large created out of the surplus of the private sector.
Lorenze: “What is new is that these people are delusional in precisely that Postmodern way that claims reality is what they say it is.” I think that nails it. What he says is smart because he says it. What Michelle wears is pretty because she wears it.
I vote for “po po mo”: post post modernism.
This is an excellent posting and so are the comments. No need for me to say more…already said better than I could.
It is fascinating to learn the movement for universal health care achieved visibility in 1911, when productive healthcare interventions were only marginally existent. The X-ray had been discovered by Roentgen only about 10 yrs before, antibiotics did not exist, and hospitals were basically places where patients healed themselves, surgeries aside. Halsted invented the radical mastectomy about this same time.
So it’s Fabianism, not Gramscianism (1920s), that is the root of it all, Neo?
Creepy, crawling termites by whatever name.
Rubin’s commentary has validity but I too find it insufficient as explanation. Nor do I think Fabianism fully encapsulates the left. Obama and the left have elements of previous ‘isms’ but incorporate too many to fit into previous categories.
Analysis can’t get to the heart of Obama because there are no core values beyond advancement of ‘the agenda’ by whatever means available.
The left and Obama’s tactics are clear enough but his strategic goals, what he’s striving for, are vague because its the journey that’s defined, not the end point. Utopia’s, a world without ‘unfairness’ must always wait beyond the veil of reality.
Obama certainly embraces transnationalism and is certainly not opposed to many elements of Marxism. His socialistic prescriptions I believe are meant to be transitional, no doubt he realizes that change happens with less resistance, when it is incremental.
In the final analysis though, does it matter what category Obama may be classified as? His actions make him an enemy of liberty, as he works to impose his views upon America. Is that not sufficient for opposition from any friend of liberty and classical American values?
This is not only a fight for America’s soul but the survival of mankind’s last, best hope in a fallen world.
That is a struggle worthy of our ancestors.
Is it intelligence to have assumed, by repetition and rote, Frank Marshall Davis Communism, or Saul Alinsky anti-capitalist anarchy? It’s always been my impression that Obama is as incapable of more than mundane thought as, say, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and, like her, would be lost without talking points. His ingratiating persona seems yet another skill set. It would be an assault on the imagination, I think, to imagine Obama in the library in any intellectual pursuit. Long after the fabulist stories of his intelligence have faded he will be remembered as a not bright narcissist who once purportedly said “All in all, I’d rather be partying, golfing, or vacationing.”
Neo? – Someone can be cunning without being especially smart …and wisdom has almost nothing at all to do with more than a modicum of intellectual capacity.
Obama is cunning.
He is not wise.
His intellectual capacity is highly suspect.
davisbr: as I said, Obama is not wise.
He is definitely cunning. But I have always maintained, and continue to maintain, that he is smart about things he’s especially interested in.
George Pal: I think Obama has done much more than memorized Alinksy by rote. He’s applied it in many circumstances. He also taught it. A while back, I also read the evaluations of the students in his law courses (most of them about race and law). They thought he was a good professor. Again, this was a topic that interested him, and he was able to teach it and answer law students’ questions. That takes brains.
Also, his journals from student days show some intelligence. Hardly genius, but certainly intelligence (and angst).
I don’t think he has general intellectual curiosity, though.
In one word: rebellion. Rebellion against God, the natural order, the way things work.
Hippies and queers and athiests will find common cause and band together and what replaces God in their lives is art. However, they view art as any expression they happen to emote, but since they all live with each other, observe each other, and comment about each other, their expressions generally follow a pattern of social constructionism. Examples are the Bloomsbury group and Paul Goodman for the post 60’s and the rejection of Enlightenment reason.
The anarchy is complete: Faith, tradition, and reason do not inform. What does? Nothing. That’s their answer. Nothing so I’ll guess I’ll just take anything and pretend it’s something.
This is likely the reason they are so hard to pin down. Since a life informed by nothing is not possible, they do use reason and faith and tradition but with a buyer beware foundation. The foundation which is not a foundation allows for a continual morphing and the lack of any outrage over failed promises (We won’t get fooled again”). Each participant “chooses” what he needs or what looks attractive to him from the bucket of necessary “tools” but maintains that inner core, that foundation of nothingness. He doesn’t see nothingness as despair but freedom. Since all their dreams turned out to be doo doo, the material world itself is denied, and life turns out to be one fat joke that they can laugh at and especially enjoy if they can damage someone else or take away their freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q
Some people are so picky. Adder? Pit viper? A snake is a snake and there isn’t much difference. Since the antivenin for these particular political snakes is the same it just doesn’t matter.
Don Carlos: Fabianism and Gramscism, joined at the hip.
That is a struggle worthy of our ancestors.
It is indeed. Are we up for it? Some of us are. Most of the commenters on this blog, for instance, seem understand that time grows ever shorter to overcome the creeping whatever-it-is that 0bama and Co. seek to impose on our once-glorious nation. Some of the younger war veterans, battle-hardened from Afghanistan and Iraq, are now starting to enter the political arena. While their views are by no means monolithic, with some going to the Democrats, and others gravitating towards the GOP, it’s likely that those who faced down and defeated Al-Qaeda terrorists in Fallujah or Konar will not be intimidated by the modern 0bama-style elitist, whose closest experience to combat is throwing a hissy-fit at the barista who got his latte order wrong. Others, ordinary folks in flyover country, or even expats like me, are wondering how we got into this mess and what can we do to get out of it. Will it be enough? I don’t know, but betting against America has not been a smart wager over the last two centuries. We can start this November by sending 0bama and his Fabian wrecking crew packing.
I’m with davisbr, with the slight emendation that it’s others who evince the cunning, not Obama. There’s a reason Andy Stern was a fixture at the White House: I suspect he was there as liaison (and once he was identified as a regular visitor, has probably been replaced by someone else). As evidence I’d point to his performance off the teleprompter (and occasionally his performance ON the teleprompter, such as when he welcomed himself to Norway before realizing he was reading the wrong speech.)
I don’t Obama is stupid by any means, but I also don’t think he’s especially bright. Intellectually he’s probably about the level of the average community college student, which would of course account for his reticence in releasing his transcripts (which I have no doubt were dire) from higher-powered institutions.
In a former position I had to interview prospective undergraduates, and then deal with the successful applicants on a weekly basis for several years thereafter (i.e., had a chance to reflect on – and sometimes regret – my original assessment). One of the most reliable reflections of intelligence was the ability to reason abstractly, i.e., the ability to recognize connections between apparently disparate phenomena and objects.
Obama evinces no such ability whatsoever; the closest he has come is confusing an inhaler with a breathalyzer (where the connection is in any case obvious, as opposed to connecting an inhaler with, say, a fuel injector).
These considerations, in conjunction with his stunted vocabulary, tenuous grasp of history and geography (Auschwitz, Austrian), which presumably would be core knowledge for an aspiring politician, his secretiveness about his academic performance, and last his lack of publications (President of HLR and law lecturer for 12 years and never published [i]one jot[/i]??) are the basis for my conclusion that he’s the political equivalent of Milli Vanilli.
Whatever you call it, and I’m willing to stipulate that it is Fabian Socialism, the four years of Obama’s administration (and God help us if it is eight) will fundamentally change America. This should come as no surprise — Obama himself promised us just this.
But I ask myself, where is the outrage? Where are the demonstrators marching in the streets and demanding that we get back the same nation “under God,” adhering to the same Constitutional guidelines, and once again respecting individual rights that Obama got at his inauguration?
I’ll grant you the people who care are mostly grey-haired and sedentary, but damnit, are we going to sit passively by and watch the nation we learned to respect, whose flag we pledged allegiance to in the morning, with the sea to shining sea images taped on the classroom walls, is going to be turned into a poor carbon copy of England or France?
I’m insulted, outraged and just a little scared. And super p!ssed off. If this is the doing of 25-year old layabouts and single women, we need to resolve to outnumber them November 6. Let’s roll!
I am with Doom; and Neo used the operative word as well. Statism. They call themselves by different names, and tinker with the philosophy, but all of these “isms” come down to a core idea, and that is Statism.
It all hinges on the idea that the elite few will control the rest–for our own good of course. What a Utopia they could create. There is one minor problem. Human nature seems to invariably corrupt the few with the power. I think a gathering of old white men in Philadelphia understood that concept very well.
I am sure that Australia’s health care system is fine. There was one little hook in the description provided to us. Those who do not want to wait for treatment can buy private insurance. And what percentage do that? When I worked in England, one of the incentives in many white collar employment adverts (as they say) was company provided health insurance.
Others, ordinary folks in flyover country, or even expats like me, are wondering how we got into this mess and what can we do to get out of it.
Undercutting the aura of coolness and intelligence with which the MSM have surrounded Obama is probably the key.
We’re fighting to win over the low information voters, so charts and figures won’t cut it. Stripping away Obama’s carefully constructed veneer, and making the object of derision (a la Jimmy Carter) is one of the few ways of penetrating the thick intellectual carapace of low information voters, and thereby, with luck, voting Obama out.
It’s a sorry lookout for representative democracy when its fate turns on the likes of Stewart and Colbert, but there it is.
Neo,
“I don’t think he has general intellectual curiosity, though.”
also noted by:
“I don’t think anything that went on in these chambers affected him,” said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague (U. of Chicago) who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”
“The Chicago law faculty is full of intellectually fiery friendships that burn across ideological lines. Three times a week, professors do combat over lunch at a special round table in the university’s faculty club, and they share and defend their research in workshop discussions. Mr. Obama rarely attended…”
And ditto Occam’s Beard first comment.
Obama’s ideological comfort zone and his failure to assume a place at the round table belie a facile intelligence and suggest, as I said, a mundane one. His intelligence is of the sort capable of memorizing the times tables when that was called for and expressing memorized questions and answers in support of an ideology when that was called for. Perhaps there’s more to his intelligence but I’ve not seen evidence of it. No man without a curiosity of the ‘other’ and some working knowledge of the ‘other’ and incapable of expressing the ‘other’ in any but vilifying tones (note Obama’s political modus operandi — conducted of necessity), can be said to be intelligent. I would note, listening to the news, that both Obama and Islam have this in common. This is not a propitious comparison.
Undercutting the aura of coolness and intelligence with which the MSM have surrounded Obama is probably the key.
As someone who has been profoundly uncool his entire life, I have no problem with puncturing 0bama’s aura. A bit of schadenfreude, perhaps. And anyway, coolness and intelligence have never been correlated to me, except when they’re inversely proportional to each other.
Low-information voter. I’ve never heard that term before, but it’s as accurate a description as I’ve seen for a high percentage of the electorate. And I also think you’re onto something with portraying 0bama as the blundering buffoon he’s been the last four years. Sometimes a Three Stooges skit can make a point better than an Olivier soliloquy.
Re “penetrating the thick intellectual carapace of low information voters” . . . check out
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/09/14/narrative-wars-slap-the-honey-boo-boos-with-truthaganda/
“Sometimes a Three Stooges skit can make a point better than an Olivier soliloquy.”
Or an aging, respected actor doing a Bob Newhart type discussion with an empty chair?
Neo:
Universal healthcare in 1911 was simply an early attempt to get the camel’s nose under the tent. It would then have been dirt-cheap; there were many public and charity hospitals then; after all, medical care was cheap and generally ineffective for illnesses, in which case fractures and surgeries don’t count. The average doc, like my grandfather who made house calls in his horse-and-buggy, who slept on the way home at 4am because the horse knew the way, earned about twice what the average worker earned…and the pay for setting a fracture or reducing a dislocation was often a chicken or some veggies.
Human nature seems to invariably corrupt the few with the power.
In addition to which, even if those originally imbued with power resist that corruption, a concentration of power exerts a siren call toward precisely the people who most assuredly should not have it, viz., the Stalins of the world.
This is why the Reds’ bleating about making communism work by having the “right people” in charge is a charade. Even if the original leaders were philosopher-kings of the Marcus Aurelius variety, they’ll inevitably be supplanted eventually by raging murderous megalomaniacs.
Oh it’s much more simple than that. Obama is a Narcissistic anarchist.
Occam, here is a quote from Frederick the Great, it applies to lefty theorists like the Obama crowd:
“When I want to teach a province a lesson I send them a philosopher as governor.”
Also I remember reading that psychopaths are attracted to power. Paul Goldman “Spengler” deduced that Obama was a sociopath in 2008.
Interesting state of affairs when half the country is trying to guess which mental illnesses the President suffers from.
The rank-and-foul leftist is like “a sick man who wants the physician to cure him by treating the effects of dissipation without giving up his way of life.”–Gagdad Bob
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/
Each generation, each era, each epoch has its share of those who will not accept the cause and effect laws that God has declared. Of course all of us share this; the malady manifests as a spectrum with small transgressions to full blown gnashers of teeth. I defined the set earlier by “hippies, queers, and atheists” which is a definition by illustration and not accurate since many hippies, queers and atheists are quite different than the main and not rebels against cause and effect. In fact, the one defining character trait of the set is Pride. This is Obama’s entrance into the set and God has declared that Pride goeth before a fall.
And I believe it will be Obama’s Pride, defined as his belief that it is his right to define reality, to declare cause and effect, to re-make Nature other than it is. This is the old that is new as it manifests in each era, epoch and generation.
Whether or not Obama is a sociopath, it is his narcissism that underlies everything and informs his approach to government. It is also his inability to conceal his narcissism that allows those without willful blindness to see the disconnect between reality and his ever-changing statements of “fact”.
Those who naively think that, regardless of whether he is right or wrong, he’s doing what he sees as best for the nation, miss his character completely. Everything he says and does serves his own image, his own grandiose importance as the most consequential president ever. It explains his lack of authentic concern for the tragedies wrought by his policies — of joblessnes, loss of hope, and not least, endangerment of military lives through “leaked” classified information pertaining to elite military missions, in an attempt to burnish his own image. That alone should be grounds for impeachment.
Although he may see himself as a Fabian, if he gets another term I think he’ll be impatient to effect the complete “transformation” he desires before he leaves office. His narcissism will drive him towards more authoritarian overreach in service of a grand and historic legacy.
With no further need for restraint, perhaps even the loyal press will awaken to what they’ve been covering up these past years — but I doubt it.
Fabian Freeway – High Road to Socialism in the USA
Western Islands, Boston, MA, 1966
http://mises.org/document/4621
commenter:
from the forward:
The American people have been and are complacently unfamiliar with Communism’s helpmate, Fabian Socialism. For over fifty years but especially since the middle nineteen-thirties there have been insinuated into high places in our government at Washington men whose collaboration in this socialistic movement has been greatly responsible for breaking down our constitutional form of government and substituting therefor the Socialist idea of centralized government.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In the United States, where its identity has been even more carefully concealed and where its practitioners are usually known as liberals rather than Socialists, it has very nearly succeeded in reversing that movement of national independence which began in 1776.
remember, this was written in 1966
as i said in the previous post, we were warned as ar back as the 30s at their peak back then, we were constantly warned till their control redefined conspiracy as crazy and collective as not conspiracy based.
“Barack Obama is not … a Marxist … Obama and those who control much of America’s academia, mass media, and entertainment industry … are believers in a new, very American form of leftism.”
Let the author pick nits at the details if he wishes, but this “new, very American form of leftism” is at the very least a lineal descendant of the true-red Marxism of old. Adaptations to these times aside, it’s the same old same old.
For, what is “I just want to spread the wealth around” (Obama to Joe the Plumber) but a paraphrase of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”? And what is “You didn’t build that” if not a reformulation of Proudhon’s “Property is theft”?
Obama is a communist, a fascist and a Marxist. I don’t know about “Muslim,” but that doesn’t matter, because even if he isn’t, the Marxists have long made the decision to take the Muslims’ side in everything, ever since the day the U.S.S.R. fell down and they needed a new agent of violence to serve as pretext for their agenda.
Anyone who takes the double-headed threat of Marxism and Islam lightly will live to be subjugated by one of them. This is no time for cutting slack or bandying semantics.
Obama isn’t very bright. We can see this from 57 states and corpse-man, from the many foolish statements made when off the teleprompter, and from his standard tendency to resort to defamation of his opponents rather than to address their positions on the merits. He’s not smart enough to debate. He simply lies and tries to bully.
If Obama had been any kind of student at all, he would have had dozens even hundreds of companies anxious to hire him out of college. Had he any legal ability at all, every large firm in the nation would have made him very nice offers out of Harvard Law. Given his obvious love of the life of luxury (he’s even expressed concern about being able to pay the bills on his multi-million dollar income), he clearly would have jumped at any such offers had they been made.
Afghanistan is the land of a million Alamos
intent on keeping the outside world on the outside. These sorts of
pharmacies can be found independently, within grocery merchants and drug retailer chains.
Also part of the ab muscles are the rectus abdomius.