Suitably Flip

AUDIO: Obama's Redistributionist Roots

Barack Obama's revealing statement to Joe Wurzelbacher was no impromptu slip of the tongue.  His latent Marxism is as long-standing and considered as you suspect.

Gateway Pundit points out this audio discovery made by Naked Emperor News of a 2001 radio interview during which State Senator and Constitutional law professor instructor Obama bemoans the fact that the Warren Court never got around to foisting socialism on us.

But don't despair.  He's a lot more optimistic that "radical" "redistributive" change can be achieved legislatively.

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k.

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.

It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

This shouldn't have shocked his Chicago constituents back in 2001, since he was an active member of a socialist party when they elected him in 1996.

Since hitting the national stage, Obama has largely succeeded in closeting his socialist leanings (run-ins with impudent plumbers notwithstanding).  The full measure of his redistributionist ideology is coming to light very late in the game, but there's still time to save ourselves from such an eager advocate of this most quintessentially unAmerican ideology.

Previously:
Revelation Of Obama's Socialist New Party Membership Goes (Sort of) Mainstream
Barack Obama: Socialist Party Poster Boy
Obama Was a Socialist Party Member In 1996

Update: Not surprisingly, this is turning into one of those wildfire clips.  Also playing at:

The Corner
Little Green Footballs
Atlas Shrugs
Ace of Spades (with flaming skull, no less)
Michelle Malkin
Stop the ACLU
RedState
HillBuzz
Protein Wisdom
Hot Air

Update: And now it's hit Drudge, so with the ensuing traffic flood at YouTube, it should only be a matter of time before users flag it as hate speech.  I've ripped a local copy in case it disappears.

Update: Here's Obama's spin:

"In this interview back in 2001, Obama was talking about the civil rights movement – and the kind of work that has to be done on the ground to make sure that everyone can live out the promise of equality," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton says. "Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Obama’s economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut. It’s just another distraction from an increasingly desperate McCain campaign."

Burton continues: "In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of 'redistributing' wealth. Obama’s point – and what he called a tragedy – was that legal victories in the Civil Rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country.

"As Obama has said before and written about, he believes that change comes from the bottom up – not from the corridors of Washington," Burton says. "He worked in struggling communities to improve the economic situation of people on the South Side of Chicago, who lost their jobs when the steel plants closed. And he’s worked as a legislator to provide tax relief and health care to middle-class families. And so Obama’s point was simply that if we want to improve economic conditions for people in this country, we should do so by bringing people together at the community level and getting everyone involved in our democratic process."

Note the failure to even attempt to refute the idea that Obama does indeed support "redistributive change" through legislative means (or other "coalitions of power"), given that the Supreme Court is unlikely ever to be sufficiently radicalized to "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution."

Comments

AUDIO: Obama's Redistributionist Roots

Barack Obama's revealing statement to Joe Wurzelbacher was no impromptu slip of the tongue.  His latent Marxism is as long-standing and considered as you suspect.

Gateway Pundit points out this audio discovery made by Naked Emperor News of a 2001 radio interview during which State Senator and Constitutional law professor instructor Obama bemoans the fact that the Warren Court never got around to foisting socialism on us.

But don't despair.  He's a lot more optimistic that "radical" "redistributive" change can be achieved legislatively.

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k.

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.

It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

This shouldn't have shocked his Chicago constituents back in 2001, since he was an active member of a socialist party when they elected him in 1996.

Since hitting the national stage, Obama has largely succeeded in closeting his socialist leanings (run-ins with impudent plumbers notwithstanding).  The full measure of his redistributionist ideology is coming to light very late in the game, but there's still time to save ourselves from such an eager advocate of this most quintessentially unAmerican ideology.

Previously:
Revelation Of Obama's Socialist New Party Membership Goes (Sort of) Mainstream
Barack Obama: Socialist Party Poster Boy
Obama Was a Socialist Party Member In 1996

Update: Not surprisingly, this is turning into one of those wildfire clips.  Also playing at:

The Corner
Little Green Footballs
Atlas Shrugs
Ace of Spades (with flaming skull, no less)
Michelle Malkin
Stop the ACLU
RedState
HillBuzz
Protein Wisdom
Hot Air

Update: And now it's hit Drudge, so with the ensuing traffic flood at YouTube, it should only be a matter of time before users flag it as hate speech.  I've ripped a local copy in case it disappears.

Update: Here's Obama's spin:

"In this interview back in 2001, Obama was talking about the civil rights movement – and the kind of work that has to be done on the ground to make sure that everyone can live out the promise of equality," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton says. "Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Obama’s economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut. It’s just another distraction from an increasingly desperate McCain campaign."

Burton continues: "In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of 'redistributing' wealth. Obama’s point – and what he called a tragedy – was that legal victories in the Civil Rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country.

"As Obama has said before and written about, he believes that change comes from the bottom up – not from the corridors of Washington," Burton says. "He worked in struggling communities to improve the economic situation of people on the South Side of Chicago, who lost their jobs when the steel plants closed. And he’s worked as a legislator to provide tax relief and health care to middle-class families. And so Obama’s point was simply that if we want to improve economic conditions for people in this country, we should do so by bringing people together at the community level and getting everyone involved in our democratic process."

Note the failure to even attempt to refute the idea that Obama does indeed support "redistributive change" through legislative means (or other "coalitions of power"), given that the Supreme Court is unlikely ever to be sufficiently radicalized to "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution."