Taylor Marsh, discussing the election of Francoise Hollande as president of France:
Anyone trying to associate [President] Obama with socialism is not only ignorant of the latter, but knows absolutely nothing about the former.
Biggest Loser After Anti-Austerity Vote in France? Infotainment Host, Joe Scarborough
There's little I can add to this at the moment. When I'm observing what passes for a discussion of economics in the news or on opinion shows, I'm astonished at the lack of basic understanding of both on the part of most participants.
President Obama is a socialist in the same way that I'm a rabid St. Bernard. Less, actually, because on occasion, I'll pretend otherwise. Obama, to my knowledge, has never even tried to make a pretense of being a socialist.
3 comments:
Obama will appear socialist when it is time to drag out the vote (DOTV) for his re-assension to the White House for the second term. His words will be as fraudulent as ever, snake-oil sales will have a new guide-star, Elmer Gantry will have competition and the manipulators of the recorded vote will have gainful employment for another season.
As for employing reason and thought to economic matters - not a hope. To begin with, words have become unhinged or separated from their meanings, up is down, left and right are synonymous of political madness, intelligence is treated like dog dirt on the bottom of the shoe. Opinion reigns supreme, facts have become irrelevant, knowledge is discounted and memory truncated to impossibly short periods. There is neither the peace nor the balance necessary for discussion or consideration to build the necessary model to base a common definition upon; the discussion on how to tend the desert is not happening whilst being swept away in a flood, the time to prepare is past, the maelstrom is upon us now, survival is the order of the day.
Addendum:
Re employing reason and thought to economic matters several items were overlooked that are obstacles to economic understanding. One is the near universal contagion of innumeracy, the dysfunction or inability to understand or use mathematics (and other rational thought). The other is in-numberacy, the fear of numbers, even those denoting years, thereby robbing history of its mile-markers, without which, history looses contact with itself and becomes a melange of meaninglessness.
I agree with your point about innumeracy. In fact, at some time in the past I know I've made that same point - that for many Americans, it seems that the difference between millions, billions, and trillions of dollars is somehow theoretical or otherwise to abstract to contemplate.
I try not to be pessimistic, but I really don't see much hope for change here in America anytime soon - at least not positive change. Plenty of the other kind in the offing, I suspect.
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