This isn't from the 60s...

This is from 2002...

Tell me again how he's a "great American"...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I have more respect for him than I do Jane Fonda who has recanted her youthful ventures.
And yes. I think he is a great American. You can be a Marxist or a Catholic or an Evangelical or a Republican or Muslim or a Libertarian and still be a great American.
Those are just ideologies. My ideology might shock you; your ideology might shock me. Biggie Wow
America isn't a box. It is not one thing to be or one ideology to follow. Being American means you have the right to follow your dream or follow the leader. Follow the yellow brick road or whatever.
There were many who embraced Marxism in the 50's and 60's. There are those who embrace it now. Some of them are old hippies. Some are white supremists. And everything else you could possibly imagine.
There were people who were searching (as during the enlightenment) in the 60's for spirituality, for expansion of the mind and society. Our country was formed from such free soul searching and reading and observation. All this searching lead to conclusions by some. Some are still searching.
The reason this stuff scares you is because you don't look back on a time when people were struggling against insermounable obstacles to survive.
A vast amount of Birmingam Alabama looked like a third world country.
As recently as the 70's people in America ( illegally) still owned other people.
The Vietnam war era is hard to feature if you weren't there or you were in a comma. People whose whole family was gung ho military advising their friends not to go cause it was a slaughter. Suicide. Of couse if you didn't go you could be arrested tried and killed. And the people who sent us to war knew it was a slaughter. The French spent years there. They knew and they tried to tell us it was bloody folly. We were fighting a proxie war with Russia. (In Korea we had been fighting a proxie war with China.) They lied about the Gulf of Tolkin. We were never provoked into that war . We went into it to make some guys richer than they already were. And if you were a black man or a Mexican American or a Native American, you could be drafted alright, but at home you could get your nutts crushed or your head knocked in or castrated by the local police or sometimes a private citizen and not have legal recourse.

The reason there was so much extremism was because of the militaristic society we lived in. The reason we got Regan was the liberalism we lived in.
The pendulum swings when there is an imbalance.
Conservatives are more in to not changing their society. Liberals are into changing, changing. Sometimes we need one. At other times another. Today's Republican politicians have fuzzied the lines and gone too far right. America has already spoken. America has embraced the left. McCain, accused of being a Liberal by his own party, is the Republican candidate and Obama, the Democrat, is much further left than any top candidate in 40 years.
Many see the 80's elitism, and this Bush term as Natzism.
And given those choices between Hitler and Karl Marx...
I believe I'll take Marxism.

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Unfortunately Hitler was a socialist.......like modern liberals.......By the way Marx and Lenin BOTH caused more deaths than WWII did.
Watch and see how NAZI like Obama's regime will be. A prime example is what happened to "Joe the plumber" just because he dared to "ask a question". He was directly attacked by both Obama and Obiden....YES DIRECTLY attacked several times from their high and mighty pulpits on the campaign trail. Funny you keep hearing that Palin won't do interviews or press conferences or answer questions (which just ain't so Joe).........check to see what forums Obama and Biden have been on....they both keep disappearing for "medical" reasons like the emergency granny broken hip that Obama took three days to even leave for....that was 3 days after it was announced which was 3 days after she got OUT of the hospital for it. But you know she might not even make it to election day.......

Check out a book called "Liberal Facism" by Jonah Goldberg and you will have your mind opened.

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"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively and without self delusion---In the long run these are the only people that count."Robert Heinlein

Obama answered Joe's question at the event where it was asked. He talked to Joe. Then the McCain campaign decided to make some points with "Joe the Plumber" as a slogan since they don't really have one of their own. So the Obama camp was right to come back with something. Now because that something discredits McCain's whole theory about Joe the Plumber, the right is charging that Obama "attacked" Joe. Hogwash and silly feathers! LOL
As for isms do we really want to compare a revolution to today? We had our revolution and formed a Democracy with representation. France had a revolution and is now a country of capitalism with socialist domestic policy. Russia had a revolution and went through socialist viewpoints and communist outcomes to arrive at a totalitarian regime. Now they are supposed to be capitalist. They are but with oppression. They condemn socialism because it would wreck their party's party. China is capitolist and communist.
Their revolution turned them communist because they didn't want an emporer.
Of course non of these are cut and dried. There were other circumstances and wars that came into play as well as trade came into play.
When we see we are impeding trade we move toward a more totalitarian government. Why I have no idea, except that that is the safest bet at the time which it always seems is an emergency situation.
If we all sat down in a non emergency situation just once and thought it over, we would come up with a combination of some of these ideologies.
The Patriot Act = Facism
That is the over riding factor today.
The economy was purely capitolist by somebody's agenda but not by mine. In a purely capitalistic society, I would not be paying higher fees to sell my goods over seas than they pay to sell to me.
We have never had pure socialism in this country nor will we ever. But some things like social security are good for the insurance that seniors will not be begging in the streets. And health care reform of some kind is needed. A tax break is good unless you are homeless and don't have any taxes coming back.
Unless you are a woman whose husband handles all the finances and you can't get your hands on your taxes. Unless you are a child and don't pay into the tax system although you are a commodoty to some who do.
The world is not black and white. Let's have a little military protection and a little help for our underprivaleged friends.

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