The United States of…Obama?
What sort of fresh egotistical hell is this?
Seriously. What the hell?
Does Barack Obama have even the foggiest idea what he’s invoking when he hauls out the Blue Eagle and sticks it on a podium in front of him? I realize that what he wants, as expressed in countless vacuous campaign speeches, is a revival of the National Recovery Administration, but I don’t think he has a clue about what the NRA was and what it stood for. At least I hope he doesn’t. I hope this logo design is just the result of overweening arrogance and not a direct throwback to a part of our past that makes the alleged excesses of the Bush administration look like a Libertarian orgy.
Someone with a grain of sense has got to sit Obama down and tell him how the administrator of the NRA, Hugh Johnson was a fervent supporter of fascism as was his boss (and by that I mean that he had a portrait of Benito Mussolini on his wall and handed out the fascist tract written by Mussolini’s Minister of Education to FDR’s first cabinet).
I would so much prefer to believe that Barack Obama doesn’t know his progressive history rather than to think that he wants to recreate it. If he truly wants to bring back the price controls and government-sponsored gangs of leg-breakers that roamed the street at FDR’s behest, then we should be deeply angry at the Democratic party for letting him get this close to the White House.
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Category: Featured, The Obamessiah
Umm, the eagle in the picture your link to is white, not blue. It is on a blue background; I'll give you that. So the standard you propose is that nobody can use a motif with an eagle and the color blue. Given that America's colors are red, white and blue; and that the eagle is our national symbol, that seems a little limiting (unAmerican maybe?). So I'll ask you, would a green eagle on an orange background be preferable? Or must we only use red and white when we display our national bird?
No…the eagle is most definitely blue. His campaign has an entire theme of blue eagles, as a matter of fact. It's not as blue as the rest of the sdeal, granted, but it is still very much blue.
The National Recovery Administration was fascism. Why are you surprised that Obama would want to emulate it? He is one. No one will say it, it can't not be proven. But every time he goes off script out it pops.
That is why I have no choice but to vote for McCain.
I'm not entirely sure he is, martin. The left is so purposefully ignorant of its own progressive history, it's tough for me to tell who really wants to bring back the fascism of that era and who is just ignorant.
Okay, so a white eagle with blue shadows is considered "blue." Gotcha. The interesting thing is you've missed something more nefarious. If shadows are blueish, then the light source must be kind of red (if they were truly blue, the light source would be magenta). It implies that the viewer is standing in the Red Light district. No doubt, if we thought really hard, we could come up with something even more nefarious.
"His campaign has an entire theme of blue eagles"
Really? I just went to his campaign site to check the wide variety of blue eagle themed items for sale. There's only one eagle themed item. It's the "Independents for Obama" button (http://store.barackobama.com/Buttons_s/200.htm). the eagle there is red and white (or just red, as you would say). Apparently Obama is trying to link himself to the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle. So he's both a American fascist and a Prussian monarchist? Amazing. But he's both a Muslim and a radical Christian, so I guess anything's possible with Barack. Of course, the name Barack implies he's a Jewish general working for Deborah.
Or maybe we might just be reading a little too much into this. Blue is a fairly common color for democrats to use because of the red/blue motif used by the media in elections. Using Red would imply he was a Republican, which such a bad brand these days that I'd bet a lot of Republicans are using blue these days. So it's not really surprising Obama would use it. Rather than try to read too much into symbols, maybe you should look at the policies, which are not nearly as fascist as Bush's.
Check out the desktop wallpapers he had for download. They're light blue on blue, just like this eagle.
I might be reading too much into this. But when an inexperienced Democrat who has been heavily soaked in tradition of his party by folks like Saul Alinsky and the Chicago political machine starts using blue-tinged eagles as his emblem, I have cause to be concerned. I'll err on the side of caution. I've no desire at all to return to those days and I suspect that you don't either no matter how hard you try to minimize his obvious problems.
Well, I certainly don't want to return to an economic crisis so bad that solutions like the NRA seem reasonable. Of course, in those days, nobody knew a damn thing about economics, so they were willing to try anything. At least FDR was willing to end programs when it was obvious they weren't working. FDR was a pretty stupid person, but at least he knew it and was capable of changing course. But for now, it's extremely important to avoid a major economic crisis. Which is why I opposes our current weak dollar and deficit spending policies. McCain wants to dramatically increase the deficit. And he will need to further devalue the dollar to accomplish that. That's not good. If he's elected, I'll move the majority of my investments overseas to protect their value. As of now, only about 1/3 of my investments are foreign. Amazingly, my Australian bank account has turned out to be a better investment than even Exxon Mobil. One piece of good news from McCain is that he wants to build lots of nuclear reactors. That's good for me, I'm already planning to invest in Australian uranium mines (just waiting for the uranium market to bottom out first).
On another note, I wasn't really that familiar with the NRA policies, so I looked it up. The policies seem a lot more like socialism than fascism. In fascism, you have corporate interests dictating government policy. In socialism, you have government dictating corporate policy. The NRA seems a lot more like the government dictating corporate policy. Not that socialism is really any better than fascism, but it seems the fascism label is misleading at best.
As for symbolism in general, we would be wise to not read too much into it. When I was young, my father and I were driving through the Pennsylvania Dutch country and I saw an old house with swastikas carved into it. I said: "Daddy, that guy is a Nazi!" My father then explained to me that the swastika is a traditional German symbol (representing motherhood) and that the barn was much older than the Nazi Party. Since then, I've traveled to India, where the swastika is the most common symbol you'll see. You'll even see the swastika placed next to the Star of David (another traditional Hindu symbol). If we read too much into the symbolism, we'd conclude that Hindus are really Jewish Nazis. And that's pretty silly.
Considering the blog reactions, I'll bet the seal disappears, and responsibility is placed on "one of my staff" who just thought it looked good. We'll see….!
The NRA never seemed reasonable for economic reasons. It seemed reasonable for governmental control reasons. Go back and read what FDR and his brain trust were writing about things then.
And how do you figure that no one knew anything about economics then? Plenty of folks knew about economics. Both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes were alive and working back then. Keynes published his seminal work in 1936.
You're also incorrect about the definition of fascism. In fascism, and you can look it up, the government dictates to the corporations. That's what happened in Italy, in Germany, in Russia, and in the US under both Wilson and FDR.
Which failed programs did FDR end? The NRA ended because the SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional.
"Both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes were alive and working back then."
Yeah, and both of them were proven wrong. John Nash had better ideas.
"That’s what happened in Italy, in Germany, in Russia, and in the US under both Wilson and FDR."
Russia was fascist? I thought they were the very definition of Communism. In fact, Russia and Cuba are really the only examples of true communism ever. The Communism of Southeast Asia was very different (more Maoist and Buddhist). In the end, I'll agree that there really isn't much difference between Communism and Fascism on a practical level. It's really just a question of who owns whom, and the public isn't the owner in either case. And my definition of Fascism comes from Mussolini, the quintessential Fascist. Mussolini was obviously delusional, but I think he knew a thing or two about Fascism.
As a side note, I always found it interesting that Mussolini thought of Hitler as kind of a younger brother. It infuriated him when he learned that he was to be the lesser partner. I guess when you dance with the devil, you're always the lesser partner.
OMG Jimmie this is quite a stretch. I mean, of course Obama was flirting with that blue eagle (even though it looks completely different), and not these blue eagles or, what the heck, even these.
Obama is running for president. The blue seal is an advertising/PR gimmick, playing on the design of the presidential seal. Panties need not be twisted.
I think you're really stretching economic theory, tom. Keynes and Smith overarching theories are still used today. Indeed, the general taxation struggle between conservatives and progressives is the essential battle between Smith and Keynes. My own take is that Keynes' method is seriously flawed, but it's still used quite a lot today.
And yes, Russia's government was, at heart, very fascist. Communism isn't a political structure. It's an economic system. Marxism, Nazism, and Italian Fascism are all branches of the same government control tree.
Chen, I'm leery of anyone invoking that particular symbol, married to a set of policies that's a very small hop to the resurgence of what that symbol stood for.
"Indeed, the general taxation struggle between conservatives and progressives is the essential battle between Smith and Keynes."
No it's not. On taxation issues, Democrats basically accept Laffer's theories while Republicans have moved on to the more comfortable tales told by the Tax Fairy. Republicans now accept the notion that lowering taxes ALWAYS increases revenues. Arthur Laffer demonstrated that such a notion is wrong. Again, Mr Laffer made me become a Republican, and then he made me become a Democrat. It all depends on which side of the curve we're on. Now that we're on the left side of the curve, Republicans strongly reject Laffer's ideas. And the Democrats now embrace them. It's too bad that neither party has the nerve to genuinely accept theories unless they tell them what they want to hear.
Oh, and John Nash left Adam Smith in the dust long before you were even born. Why you would cling to the obviously discredited theories of Smith is beyond me. But I will grant you this: it is true that many conservatives still cling hopelessly to Smith's theories. That's why they're so bad at managing the economy.
Because his theories are hardly discredited, man. We've successfully used them here. The Wealth of Nations is still a valuable book to read. I'm not quite sure where you've seen otherwise.
Conservatives haven't run the economy for quite a while. But when we have, it's always been very strong. See Reagan and Kennedy for instructive examples.
Obama had only 146 days in office as a new senator. Democrats think that he is a uniter. A uniter of whom? As a 20 year member of a Anti- American church,ran by racist pastors,friends to Anti-Capital Leftists,married to a woman who is proud of her country only for the first time, and not willing to allow oil drilling right here right now. Whats wrong here? I am a registered Democrate but Obama scares me. No I WILL NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA.
[...] initial reaction, I left at Jimmie’s site: Obama is running for president. The blue seal is an advertising/PR gimmick, playing on the design [...]