2001: Obama's Principles for a Socialist State (Analysis)

In the following 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio (Hat Tip All American Blogger) we can hear Barack Obama positing a couple of important matters, against the backdrop that redistribution of wealth is a value. Under discussion is, how come 'economic justice' isn't in place yet, and how can we bring it about.

Now remember that 'redistribution of wealth' or - more politically correct, 'economic justice' - is a core Marxist principle. In fact, it is what constitutes Socialism. He stops short of advocating nationalizing the means of production, which would be plain Communism. The translation of the interview might read as follows:

1. The Founding Fathers neglected to bring about a Socialist state. They were amiss because they only instituted negative liberties (what the state cannot do to citizens), and omitted to implement positive rights (what the state has an obligation to do for We, The People).

2. The Civil Rights movement was negligent in not bringing about the revolution. They were not radical enough. We still suffer for it today.

3. The Courts are not a good tool to bring redistribution about. This is best done administratively.

Listen for yourself, and please feel free to comment at any time.

Updates:

Tom Blumer in "Obama’s Redistributionist Obsession" over on PJM's has a transcript, comments and a fiscal analysis ... "This is astounding stuff from a man who is one election away from the presidency. In politer tones, he is saying things that would make his mentors — Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, and William Ayers, not necessarily in that order — proud as peacocks. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are probably beaming too."

Roger Kimball in "The Real Obama: Forget the Constitution, Economic “Justice” Demands Redistribution of Wealth" asks the rhetorical question why "such (radical) elements in Obama’s political DNA so far seem to have little impression on the public at large". Part of the answer lies in that a large percentage of the white constituency are suffering from dialectically induced self-loathing, thanks to three decades of Bill Ayers' educational reform.

They hunger for redemption: voting the first black president into the White House would be a good start. Redistributionism, taking the form of reparations towards the black 'educational debt' under the management of Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond, would be a good follow up (see "The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign").

The psychology of guilt and fear must not be underestimated: which is why we disagree with Kimball's optimism that Obama's radicalism will fast start to register with the voters in the coming days. It's more than a thin veneer of celebrity adoration. Back to Kimball's political analysis of the Obama radio interview:

"his invocation of “formal” rights–that’s left-wing law-speak (they get it from Marx) for “bourgeois,” “insufficient,” “bad.” What people like Obama and Ayers want are not “formal” rights, but substantive ones: e.g., not equality of opportunity, but equality of result. (...) economic justice? That would require Justice to pull aside the blindfold and top-up your bank account if had less than others. (...)

"While you think about what it might mean if the President of the Untied States wanted to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution,” note that Obama goes on to disparage the Constitution as merely “a charter of negative liberties”: that is, it only tells you what the state and federal government “can’t do to you.” (...) That sort of traditional political freedom is not enough for left-wingers. Ever since Marx decried bourgeois freedom as merely “formal,” the left has set out not to preserve freedom but to remake society according to a utopian scheme. (...)

From radical “community organizer” to coalitions that achieve the “power through which you bring about redistributive change.” What would Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher have to say about that? (...) Come on, Joe, you have to get beyond the old “formal” notion of rights–that quaint idea that people used to have that the Constitution was a safeguard against the government doing things to you. When it comes to issues of “political and economic justice” in this society, Joe, it might well be that the government has to do lots of things to you. Like what? (...)

As Glenn Reynolds observes, Obama's radical platform, which would ditch the Constitution for the sake of "substantive" justice, is just business as usual in academic law circles. But that of course is exactly the problem. What we are seeing here is the realization of the radical dreams of the 1960s translated from the airy purlieus of the academy to the corridors of power. >>>

... which brings us back to our unionist friend over on Global Labor, "Who Sent Obama?" ...

Update: Atlas Shrugs is reporting that Obama, in the same interview, made the quintessential Postmodern collation: lumping America with Nazi Germany; but then, they hold humanism responsible for two world wars - the delusion is total and irreparable - but it remains to be seen if such a confused person should be the one in charge of the most influential country in the world: "OBAMA LIKENS US TO NAZI GERMANY: DER FUHRER WOULD KNOW" ...

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