Ms Russell proclaims that Marxist theory “… views economics as the base and cultural beliefs as the superstructure springing from that base.” This is not exclusive to Marxism and in fact is a tenet of Keynesian economics which is a purely capitalist theory.

I suspect you have some server reading-comprehension problem. See Mrs. Russell’s initial reply to your first comment.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
- Barrack Obama

Feel free to explain how this is Marxist thought. I believe Marxist theory would predict that this downtrodden proletariat class of people would revolt against the oppression of government. Then again, I don’t have a MASTER’S DEGREE FROM CAL BERKELEY, so I might be wrong.

So we’re now to believe that people being disaffected by breaking of promises by government (on the part of both parties), and as a result, voting based on issues that are important to them, is somehow Marxist.

I’m sure you had really bothered to read what he actually said instead of just assuming that what his political opponents painted his meaning to be, right?

Dan, his very comments that people are jaded-into guns and religion-because of their economic status is by definition Marxist thought.

Why is this concept so difficult for you to understand. She had provided the evidence of his Marxist leanings.

Prove to me that John McCain was not brainwashed by the Vietnamese during his long stay at the Hanoi Hilton, which he chose to extend voluntarily. Surely he is the Manchurian Candidate.

Obama doesn’t “deny his connections to his ‘Muslim’ past,” he wrote a whole book about it. Visiting a college friend makes him a Muslim? Going to a secular elementary school in the country his family lived in as a child makes him a Muslim? Having a middle name that means “Peace” in Arabic makes him a Muslim?

Why am I even bothering to argue with someone so dumb that they actually believe that Obama is a Muslim? Forget it. You win, vote against the guy and then spend the next four or eight years bitching about how the president is a secret Muslim.

Its interesting to see that we have two members of apparently the same family that believe that Obama is either a Muslim (and therefore presumably a Theocrat) or a Marxist (and therefore presumably an Athiest.)

What ever happened to reason in this country? I’d love to blame Karl Rove but I’m pretty sure its been dead since 1960.

“If you’re intellectually honest enough to admit that Obama is clearly not a Muslim you really ought to be honest enough to admit that he’s not a Marxist/Communist/Socialist either”

He may very well be a muslim. He did attend a madraas in Indonesia, although he denies it and his half-brother confirms it, and did go in 1981 to Kariachi, Pakistan to attend another muslim school. From the NYT:

According to the report of Larry Rohter of April 10, 2008, in The New York Times, the Obama campaign staff, when questioned about the revelation of Obama’s 1981 trip to Karachi, stated: “Mr. Obama visited Pakistan in 1981, on the way back from Indonesia, where his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, were living. He spent ‘about three weeks’ there, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Bill Burton, said, staying in Karachi with the family of a college friend, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, but also traveling to Hyderabad, in India.”

So why does Barack Hussien Obama deny his connections to his muslim past? What is it he is trying to hide? And did you know that HIS Rev. Wright is also a “former” Muslim? Hmmmm….lots of “former” muslims around Barack.

So the real question is Dan, are you intellectually honest enough to admit that Obama is hiding something from his muslim past/present?

I’ve read several of your posts and your use of your MA as a crutch is tiresome. You have a degree in political science - that’s great. You apparently do understand that Marxism is different than Leninism - that’s also great. You take Obama’s statement about clinging to religion/guns as being an indicator of Marxist beliefs - that’s unsupported and unsupportable.

I realize this is a blog and not an academic paper but you might at least try to support your statements beyond proclaiming Obama a Marxist. Otherwise, I would be equally valid in proclaiming Bush a Fascist - after all, he has intertwined corporations with government. See how easy that was? I don’t need to support my statement either, right?

Obama is not a Marxist and if you have any ability to think in a non-partisan way you’ll realize that. He is a free-market capitalist of a slightly less Laissez-Faire strain than the current GOP platform.

By the way, I have a M.A. in political science from U.C. Berkeley, and my main area of study was the Soviet Union and other Communist states, along with Marxist theory. In future, I’d advise you to be more careful to get your facts straight before you lecture people.

Republicans have a long history of trying to conflate Democrats with Marxism when in fact no Democratic presidential nominee ever has been anything but a free market capitalist. Calling Democrats (particularly moderates such as Obama as opposed to someone like, for example, Dennis Kucinich) Marxists is exactly as stupid as calling Republicans Fascists.

The difference is a matter of degree, Democrats tend to believe that capitalism needs oversight while Republicans tend to believe that markets work better with less regulation. History has proven that the best option is somewhere in the middle, as we’ve seen over-regulation stifle the economy at times and we’ve seen complete lack of oversight lead to economic disasters like the stock market crash of 1929 and our current crisis with sub-prime lending.

If you’re intellectually honest enough to admit that Obama is clearly not a Muslim you really ought to be honest enough to admit that he’s not a Marxist/Communist/Socialist either. If you have problems with his economic policies you should probably debate them directly instead of trying to conflate them with a failed economic system that they have nothing in common with.