According to a blurb posted on The Wall Street Journal blog, Susan Davis reports that Ron Paul, the right-wing populist Congressman from Texas, recently told an audience of supporters who assembled in New Orleans that President Barack Obama isn’t a socialist, but a corporatist:
“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. “He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”
If the above quote is accurate, this makes Paul perhaps one of the few Republicans serving in the U.S. House of Representatives who truly understands that Obama’s agenda has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with serving his billionaire backers on Wall Street.
Despite the hallucinatory rant former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich made last week claiming Obama is a “secular, socialist machine” who oversees “the most radical administration in American history,” some right-wingers aren’t saps for this kind of silly hyperbole.
For example, Timothy P. Carney, a regular columnist for The Washington Examiner, a right-wing daily newspaper published in Alexandria, Virginia and distributed around the Washington, D.C. area, wholeheartedly agrees with Paul’s assertion that Obama is by no means a closet Bolshevik:
Ron Paul is right. Obama has signed: a health-care bill that mandates we buy private insurance and has the endorsement of the drug industry; a tobacco regulation bill that earned the applause of the largest cigarette company in the country; a credit-card regulation bill that the banks like; a stimulus bill approved by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and nearly every lobby in the country; a Cash-for-Clunkers bill that subsidized automakers, car-dealers, and more. Also, Obama has a huge corporate lobby on his side for cap-and-trade legislation. Plus, Obama backed the Wall Street bailout, has stuck close to its main authors Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, and even expanded the bailout.
Although I have respectable disagreements with Paul on a number of different issues, I’m quite elated to see that both he and I agree that Obama is nothing but a puppet of big business interests. That anybody considers him a “socialist” — much less “progressive” — is quite laughable.
I suspect when future historians get around to reviewing this chapter in U.S. history, they’ll write that Obama was one of the most politically corrupt and morally bankrupt presidents we’ve ever had: he’s done more to line the pockets of the rich than all of his predecessors combined.
For purposes of disclosure, the author of this missive is the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California.
YEE RON PAUL!! i love that guy
You had me up until the word “corrupt”. If by corrupt you mean illegal, then you’re wrong…nothing Obama has done is illegal.
And everything that Ron Paul said, which I agree with, can be applied to Bush 2, Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan. Until Americans wake up and realize that corporate interests run this country, then all this ranting about the “power” and “reach” of government is totally directed at the wrong people.
anon says:
> You had me up until the word “corrupt”. If
> by corrupt you mean illegal, then you’re
> wrong…nothing Obama has done is illegal.
By using the word “corrupt”, I was thinking along the lines of “venal”, “dishonest”, “depraved”, “spoiled”, “debauched”, and “rotten”.
> And everything that Ron Paul said, which I agree
> with, can be applied to Bush 2, Clinton, Bush 1,
> Reagan. Until Americans wake up and realize
> that corporate interests run this country, then
> all this ranting about the “power” and “reach” of
> government is totally directed at the wrong
> people.
And I don’t disagree with you.
The problem is in the way we pay for our political campaigns. We need a system of financing that allows those running for office to have the money to get there message out.
Public financing is one option, perhaps there are others like a certain amount of free postage for quailfied candidates, a set amount of TV time. It does take money to get your message out. Perhaps a privately administered public system rather than a government one.
Until we change that system there is litle hope of anyone being able to get the real work done that the people want.
I think Obama has been doing a good job overall with the conditions he has to work with, you have to get congress to go along with what you propose and that is where the current campaign financing system really allows the corperations and other big money interests to control the system.
Electing Ron Paul or Duane Roberts will not change the system much. They would still have to find a way to get the agreement of enought people in congress to make major change.
In fact if you listened to his entire speech you would have heard that Ron Paul said the same was true of most Republicans. Thanks to the Supreme Court the influence of corporations over the political system will only get worse.