The Sport of Obama Bashing

Why is it that the average American has such a rabid fear of socialism without even the most basic understanding of what it means?

The media is full of anti-Obama comments all focused on some aspect of socialist conspiracy. This fear of socialism, appears to have taken the place of communism as the great satan now that we have "beaten" the soviets.

Perhaps I have been an ex-pat for too long so I am missing an understanding of the fears. To me there has always been a distinction between politics and economics, despite the efforts of members of the left and the right to merge the two.

Granted, at the extreme, communism presumes a "dictatorship of the proletariat" so the boundaries are blurred in that instance. But socialism is separate from communism. It is only the ignorant or those who prey and depend on the ignorant that hope to remove the differences between the two.

So now I hear that Obama's plan is to create such chaos that he and the Democratic Party can ride in and "save" America with a socialist/Marxist state.

This cry is followed rapidly by the charge that his goal is wealth re-distribution such that big government, voted in by the evil democrats will now force the wealthy Americans to pay for everything while the rest of the nation sits back and eats from the government trough.

It is ironic that the very people who are currently gorging themselves at the government trough, the nation's wealthy elite, after pushing through "moral hazard free" deregulation in almost every area but certainly in finance are now suddenly worried that their gravy train is going to end.

And their solution to the challenge-discredit Obama at every turn and twist his every act into some version of a socialist threat.

How they fail to see that Obama is the American Dream. Despite all the odds he has become president of the United States. Why does the right think he is not a capitalist?

Yes he wants liberty and justice for all. And he wants the freedom to fulfil the pursuit of happiness- for all of us. Not just the top 1%

This is not the time to be playing party politics. The U.S. has a number of serious problems to address. Energy, the value of the $, and how to manage the deficit at the same time as trying to instill growth into the economy.

The geopolitical aspects of our problems-energy resources, the value of our currency both outright and as "the" reserve currency in conjunction with a difficult economy require something other than business as usual.

The extreme commentators from the "true" left are busy adding fuel to the fire that the rabid populists of the right are busy stoking for their personal gain at the expense of our nation.