Obama, Liberals and Nationalism: Oh My!

NATIONALISTIC CONCEPTS ARE VERY MUCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF MANY EUROPEAN NATIONS IN RECENT DECADES

By Glenn S. Reiner

WHEN former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned last week that major banks — at the rate they are spiraling downward — ultimately might have to be nationalized, he didn’t realize the term would set off the type of alarm that hasn’t been heard since the Communist witch hunt of the McCarthy era!

Nationalism, or government owned, is synonymous with Socialism. This is why the mere thought of that “forbidden” concept brought even the most obscure conservative talking heads across the nation out of hiding to denounce this notion passionately. And, needless to say, they used every media outlet available.

‘The government has no right to be in the banking business,’ was the jest of they collectively preached. ‘Everyone knows the private sector can do a much better job.’

Oh really?

Where have these geniuses been for the past several months? Hasn’t it been the private sector — mostly through the greed, deception and an utter lack of integrity of their multi-millionaire CEO’s — which led the major banking empire down the fast track to extinction?

Yet, one mention of Nationalism tends to unjustifiably terrify much of our society, which acts as if its time to go back into those old fallout shelters built in the 1950s as protection against  a possible Soviet nuclear attack!

Interestingly, nothing has ever been more effectively employed by Conservatives than fear to control Americans’ collective mindset. Sadly, this completely disingenuous tactic is facilitated through propaganda campaigns.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower laid the groundwork for both the Korean and Vietnam Wars with his “Domino theory.” His philosophy was simple, although quite short-sighted: By allowing a Communist takeover of any turbulent nation on the other side of the globe, the entire region would fall to the Marxists.

In just three years in Korea, the American death toll reached just below 37,000. Fighting a losing battle in Vietnam for over a decade, more than 58,000 died.

In recent years, the Bush Administration used a fear campaign after 9/11 to remind us why we needed to continue fighting an enormously ludicrous war in Iraq. You might remember, he even linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and “The war on terrorism.” The sad truth was that there were no terrorists in Iraq until we intervened.

Even last fall, John McCain used deception and propaganda in a futile attempt to scare the electorate away from Barack Obama.

“Guess who is the biggest Liberal in the Senate,” the Republican candidate exclaimed during one of the debates. “This one,” as he pointed to Obama. It was as if he was calling his opponent a Communist conspirator.”

The Republican Party has tried to minimize government for decades, claiming it crams the space of the private sector with “unnecessary regulations.” But ever since Ronald Reagan lifted many of those regulations in 1981, Corporate America has led us by the hand into financial ruin.

There is a reason for government, and a rock-solid one at that. It’s the same logic used for having larger police departments.

Left to their own devices — or should I say egos and greed — the lords of Big Business tend to become addicted to power, prestige and money — with emphasis on the later!

Let’s face it, there is a huge necessity for government oversight because these unscrupulous animals simply can’t be trusted.

And please allow me to make an important distinction: The Nationalism we’re addressing here is not the Communism of Lenin’s Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung’s China, Castro’s Cuba or even Ho Chi Min’s Vietnam. In reality, those regimes didn’t even constitute anything close to authentic socialized governments in the first place. All of them, without exception, employed very few basic socialistic principles in conjunction with Totalitarian political systems.

Karl Marx, the father of Socialism, intended for his economic philosophy to allow people to live in true freedom, emancipated from unnecessary economic anxiety and political oppression.

Many European countries have successfully blended Nationalism with free market principles to create Social Democracies. And it has worked far more effectively than our system over the past 30 years.

For one thing, you will never see a homeless, starving individual there, nor will you see a citizen — any citizen — without health insurance.

In other words, no human being suffers without the absolute essentials of life, while the opportunity to make a great deal of money still exists as well, but under heavy regulation.

In reality, Nationalism has been going on in the United States since the 1930s in one form or another. Some examples:

- Social Security

- Public Works programs, which put many victims of the Great Depression back to work

- Medicare

- Medicaid

- The Veterans Administration, which has provided an untold number of vets with quality health care, a college or trade-school education and disability benefits when service related.

- Federal grants for a variety of useful purposes, including higher education and vital research — specifically in medicine.

- Food Stamps for the impoverished

- Programs from the “Great Society” — which was a catalyst for the great success many minorities have enjoyed in both the public and private sectors.

- Affirmative Action, which evened out the playing field for people of color, and women.

Yet, none of these programs were instituted with the forbidden label of “Nationalism or Socialism.” But they have all worked quite competently — that is, until the GOP started hacking away at the funds appropriated to them since the Reagan years.

And now, it has been suggested by Greenspan — one of the foremost experts of our time on the banking industry  — that the government might have to buy and run some of the most troubled banks in order to keep them buoyant.

What is so aweful about that?

In fact, a few banks recently have already asked Uncle Sam to buy shares in their failing financial institutions –  in effect — offering the federal government part ownership.

As the stock market continues to plummet each week, reaching a 30-year low on Monday, it is imperative for the government to step in.

We are dealing with a horrifying viscous fiscal cycle, as stockholders continue to sell off their shares to avoid even further loses. Someone has to pick up the slack, and Washington seems to be the best and most pragmatic candidate.

This is also why national (or universal, which sounds less socialistic) health insurance is a necessity. We can no longer go on allowing our citizens — especially children — to go without the proper treatment for their ailments, especially those that are life threatening. In private medicine, treatment is just another commody sold only to those who can afford it.

So it’s time for the American public — especially the GOP — to wise up and become edified about the true nature of Nationalism, rather than the myths passed down for 91 years!

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Below is a text of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  If you haven’t actually received a fomal education about Nationalism, you might want to read it in it’s entirety before continuing to make false interpretations about this delicate subject!

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Obama’s Trust In Conservative Repbulicans Betrayed

NEOCONS ON CAPITOL HILL UNSUCCESSFULLY TRIED TO STIFLE THE PRESIDENT’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY PACKAGE!

By Glenn S. Reiner

BARACK OBAMA was forced to pull another proverbial rabbit out of his hat this week, opting to again use the same sure-fire strategy that put him in the White House last month.

After extending a political olive branch to GOP Conservatives, who were maimed last November, he was betrayed by the minority party.

Rebuking unrelenting criticism of his economic stimulus and recovery plan from Conservative Republicans, the president took to the road once more, making stops in Elkhart, Indiana and Ft. Meyers, Florida to insure these two especially economically-strapped communities his plan would bring them relief. He also held his first prime-time nationally-televised press conference.

The president attended town-hall style meetings in both places, fielding questions from the participants, while asking for their support to prevent any further delay of his plan. Ironically, the president lost badly in both places last November.

Although a Liberal, the president showed a willingness to govern from the center in order to bring peace to Capitol Hill for the first time in 16 years.

True to his word, his cabinet choices included three Republicans, an unprecedented number in a Democratic administration. While in office for the past three weeks, he’s reached out to GOP leaders in key meetings at the White House.

And in a display of good faith, he traveled last week to Capitol Hill, huddling with House and Senate Republicans in separate meetings, hoping to solicit their support for the stimulus package.

Presidents generally don’t meet with opposition party leaders on their turf. Normally, they come to the White House. But he wanted show them respect in the classiest way.

However, GOP House leaders, true to form, called a meeting of its members an hour before his scheduled arrival, instructing them to vote against the legislation. Yet, not a single word was said to him to about the preceding party caucus, leaving the president optimistic of bipartisan support.

The bill did ultimately pass in the House, but only because the Democrats own a resounding majority — courtesy of the American voters, who were fed up with perennial GOP values that favored Corporate America and the affluent at the expense of the middle-class and the impoverished. Yet, not one single Republican voted in favor of it.

Then when the legislation reached the Senate later in the week, Republican leaders grandstanded against it, referring to the legislation as ‘just another liberal tax-and-spend plan.’ The GOP had used this talking point with great success for 28 years, but the voters finally saw it for what it was worth last November: political sewage.

The party’s leaders rushed in front of cameras outside the Capitol and in the studios of the three major cable news outlets all week, offering bizarre commentary of how they could have done job better at half of price.

And how would they accomplish that? By cutting the better portion of the money designed for necessary programs to help America’s most hard hit by the recession, creating an estimated three million jobs and long-term fiscal stability.

The GOP also wanted to slice any programs in the bill that would have aided the nation’s impoverished and children. But as always, the Republicans proposed further tax relief — especially to Corporate America, the author of this recession.

With 58 seats in the Senate, the Democrats were two short of the required 60 to avoid a Republican filibuster that would have killed the legislation and intensify an already volatile economy as well as the worst unemployment crisis in 26 years.

This is when a bipartisan group of five moderate Senators banded together behind closed doors and crafted a fair and decent compromise package.

Democrats Joe Lieberman (CT) and Bill Nelson (NE), as well as Republicans Arlen Specter (PA) and Susan Collins and Olimpia Snow — both from Maine – worked relentlessly through the entire weekend, much to the chagrin of GOP leaders.

With help from the three moderate Republicans, the $833 billion substitute legislation finally passed, 61-37.

But Senate Republicans refused to cut their losses, accusing their colleagues across the aisle of failing to satisfy Obama’s desire for bipartisan passage.

The House and Senate versions of the plan differed somewhat, and a final $789 billion final measure was hammered out by a Conference Committee a few hours ago.

The legislation will now go back to both houses for a final vote – which should again pass. The president will most likely sign it next week.

Essentially, the president’s bigest mistake was his willingness to work with the  Conservatives in the first place. He never imagined they would play Russian Roulette with lives of so many Americans, utilizing this vital legislation to trash his party.

The president should have learned a lesson from the campaign last fall, knowing these neocons are completely unscrupulous and not capable of compromise.

He should have remembered their futile attempt to discredit him as a candidate with bizarre lies and hyperbole. But we can feel confident White House Chief of Staff  Rahm Emanuel will never allow him to forget that again.

For the GOP, this was no more than political theater of the worst proportions. By opposing the stimulus package, the party launched an overly premature campaign to recapture both houses in 2010, similar to the one former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ran so brilliantly in 1994 – two years after Bill Clinton was elected.

But what they might have done instead is cut their own throats. Barrack Obama is a president who is clearly loved, respected and trusted by the vast majority of Americans, according to all major polls.

The voters, I believe, can now only perceive the Conservatives as the obstructionists they are and have been for a long time.

As long as the trio of moderate Republicans is willing to work with the president and their Democratic colleagues, he will have no need to deal with the Conservatives again, many of which will lose their seats in two years anyway!