The "S" Word

the Conservative Political Action Conference is going on right now in Washington D.C. And those all-American Conservatives are buzzing about the country's new president.

Specifically, there is talk that Barack Obama is a socialist.

By "there is talk" I mean a Republican U.S. senator actually said Obama is "the world's best salesman for socialism." (CNN)

Senator Jim DeMint also says conservative Americans might have to “take to the streets to stop America’s slide into socialism,” which sounds to me like he might be advocating the violent overthrow of the United States' democratically-elected government. I'm not sure that's legal but what do I know, I'm a commie Canadian who doesn't own even one firearm.

The conference started Thursday. Noteable moment yesterday: Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said “the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born.”

So what's with the socialism scare? The term “Socialism” describes an economic system where citizens, through their democratically elected government, own and control the means of production. There are degrees of socialism, from fully state-run economies to European-style social democracies, but in practice a country like Venezuela — with its nationalized oil industry and hostility to foreign ownership — is probably closest to what most people would think of as socialist.

The Obama-smearers know this. They know that by calling Obama a socialist they're suggesting the U.S. president is a dangerous extremist who's not much different than a Latin American dictator (yes I know Hugo Chavez was democratically elected but most Americans wouldn't, and while I don't have any actual "facts" on this I'll bet the few who DO know who Chavez is would be scared of him).

This is of course all insane, delusional propoganda. U.S. conservatives are trying to frighten moderate Americans into thinking their new president is a power-hungry dictator leading a coup against democracy to attract support for their jerky little political party, the Republicans.

Regardless, whatever one’s preferred definition, “socialist” is not a useful catch-all description for the basic government activities like collecting taxes, administering public sevices (like delivering the mail) and providing state health care (well, not in America because that would be "socialist").

Oh, and desperately trying to repair an economy wrecked by a terrible, and very conservative, president.

By the way, both Bush and Cheney addressed the 2008 CPAC. It's really nice that this year, a new president's got better things to do.