Talk about being behind the times, Barack Obama's indulgence into his socialistic tendencies, (getting into the auto industry, the banks, Wall Street and now trying to stick his paws into our healthcare decisions),comes at a time when countries around the world are seeing the epic failure of socialism.
Companion pieces that caught my eye this morning, starting with 81 yr-old veteran pop singer, Andy Williams, accusing Barack Obama of following a "Marxist" theory and wanting to creating a socialist country, via NYT, and ending with socialism in Europe suffering by NYT.
Williams, a lifelong Republican whose hits include Moon River and Music To Watch Girls By, told the Radio Times he thought Mr Obama wanted to turn the US into a "socialist country".
The 81-year-old was a friend of the Kennedy family during the 1960s and was present at the Los Angeles rally where Robert F Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.
"I was very close to Bobby and he asked me to be a delegate for him when he ran for president," he said.
"He knew about me being a Republican, but just laughed and said, 'Sign yourself in as a Democrat and then change back afterwards'. Sadly, I never got to do that.
"I was very close to Teddy Kennedy, too, and his death recently brought it all back. What a tragedy. Had he lived, I think Bobby would have been a great president."
But Williams had a less favourable opinion of the current president.
"Don't like him at all," he said, "I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist.
"Obama is following Marxist theory. He's taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail."
Why would he come to the conclusion that Obama wants America to fail?
The next NYT piece answers that by showing how socialism elsewhere is failing already, for the world, and Obama to see.
A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse.
German voters clobbered the Social Democratic Party on Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II.
Voters also punished left-leaning candidates in the summer’s European Parliament elections and trounced French Socialists in 2007. Where the left holds power, as in Spain and Britain, it is under attack. Where it is out, as in France, Italy and now Germany, it is divided and listless.
Some American conservatives demonize President Obama’s fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul as a dangerous turn toward European-style Socialism — but it is Europe’s right, not left, that is setting its political agenda.
Europe’s center-right parties have embraced many ideas of the left: generous welfare benefits, nationalized health care, sharp restrictions on carbon emissions, the ceding of some sovereignty to the European Union. But they have won votes by promising to deliver more efficiently than the left, while working to lower taxes, improve financial regulation, and grapple with aging populations.
SNIP
The situation in France is even worse for the left. Asked this summer if the party was dying, Bernard-Henri Lévy, an emblematic Socialist, answered: “No — it is already dead. No one, or nearly no one, dares to say it. But everyone, or nearly everyone, knows it.” While he was accused of exaggerating, given that the party is the largest in opposition and remains popular in local government, his words struck home.
SNIP
The internecine squabbling in France and elsewhere has done little to position Socialist parties to answer the question of the moment: how to preserve the welfare state amid slower growth and rising deficits. The Socialists have, in this contest, become conservatives, fighting to preserve systems that voters think need to be improved, though not abandoned.
“The Socialists can’t adapt to the loss of their basic electorate, and with globalism, the welfare state can no longer exist in the same way,” Professor Sartori said.
Enrico Letta, 43, is one of the hopes of Italy’s left, currently in disarray in the face of Silvio Berlusconi’s nationalist populism. “We have to understand that Socialism is an answer of the last century,” Mr. Letta said. “We need to build a center-left that is pragmatic, that provides an attractive alternative, and not just an opposition.”
So, you see, it is not hard why Williams believes Obama wants America to fail. Obama sees socialism destroying countries across the globe, bankrupting them, watches those country struggle under the weight of too much governmental interference, yet Obama continues to attempt to the very same thing to America.
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