Is President Barack Obama a Progressive?

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How can Obama be a socialist and corporate lackey at the same time? How can he be a socialist and a Nazi at the same time? How can he be a Nazi if he's black? Why is being Muslim bad?

Let's remember that you can't blame the recession on Obama, because it was already in full swing when he took office.

And remember, FOX News is part of the media. [sarcasm] Yeah, they've been going real soft on Obama.

Oh no! Civil rights! Panic! [/sarcasm]

I don't think Obama is getting a complete free pass any more at least but you gotta admit the press fawns over the guy. Remember the NYT reporter who asked like a 4 part 10 minute question on a prime time press conference about what was the most surprising, humbling, enchanting, troubling moments of his presidency so far? Or the endless coverage of the search for a white house dog. He's given a ton of softball interviews too. (If I see him talking about basketball or the White Sox again, I don't even know what I'll do)

Press didn't even mention that his deadline for having all troops out of Iraq a few weeks ago, you don't hear anything about Guantanamo Bay anymore, etc.

The problem with conservatism is that eventually you run out of other people's words.

Is Obama a progressive? The answer is no.

Thatcher's quote is so wrong on so many levels. First of all, sovereign countries create money and so it belongs to the country, so there isn't other people's money to spend. Secondly, this money creates economic activity that means that goods and thus money is being produced all the time and so it is not a fixed amount as is suggested by Thatcher's ridiculous quote. She may think that a country is the same as that shop that she kept but it is not!

Another probleming with quoting that social darwinist is that she didn't believe her own BS. For one, she got to University on a state-funded scholarship (OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY) and contributed to Britians pint sized military industrial complex (USING OTHER PEOPLES' MONEY).

In short, Margret Thatcher was a hypocrite. The fact she admired an age-old Britian that stole OTHER PEOPLES' LAND further proves what a contemptible political thug she was.

Regardless of her faults, she helped dismantle the Socialist system as pushed by Clement Atlee and his buddies after WW2 ended. Regan did a similar thing with the New Deal.

ruveyn

Aside from the more obvious places where many of us use "other people's money" (such as the $1500 check the government mails me every year to help me pay for my education) we all depend on government (and hence "other people's money") in a number of less obvious ways. We use the roads, we attend the schools, we benefit from government efforts in public health, sanitation, irrigation, the fresh water supply, public order, security, medicine, and of course the aqueduct. There is no "self-reliant man" who stands on his own without accepting the government's help.

Yeah, that's the point I was trying to get at. The notion of the atomistic individual is utterly stupid and one of the reasons why I regard right-libertarianism as an inane ideology.

I think that all Obama knows how to do is travel and make speeches. He sucks at everything else.

America's government needed a higher approval rating to continue doing the same things with the support of it's public. Obama provided this by appearing progressive.

Lovely to see such fact-free assertions.

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richard ... ine-110309 (Ignore esquire's low-brow advertising and concentrate on the text)

While I disagree that the bailout and corporate friendly healthcare reform were truly good accomplishments, the claim he's doing nothing is BS.

I'm not claiming he's doing nothing, I'm claiming that what he's good at is campaigning. Certainly he's done more than just that. He's also given an Obama Bucks Free Money Stimulus package and of course the healthcare reforms with taxpayer money at a time when there is a more major issue of unemployment limiting the number of taxpayers for this healthcare to be paid for by. And also, I'm certain that he uses the restroom occasionally, which he may actually be better at than making speeches and seeking publicity and otherwise being a sponge.

The CBO says the healthcare bill reduces the deficit.

What is the cashflow?

The bailout was a stupid, unneccessary, waste of money. If they were going to go the route of subsidizing failure, they should've done what Sweden did in the 1990s (which actually made the gov't money). But Stimulus is immensely important to creating jobs (as Kenysian and heterodox economists have elegantly argued) and it should've been larger.