.Several blogs, including Powerline, previously documented that while running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the socialist-oriented New Party, with some blogs claiming Obama was a member of the controversial party.
The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.
Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.Obama's campaign has responded to the allegations, denying the presidential candidate was ever a member of the New Party.
But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party's official
newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him
the New Zeal Blog, an independent blogger, has dug up this clipping from a newspaper the party used to publish.
For about five years in the mid 1990's, the New Party took advantage of a rule called fusion in which they would piggy back on top of the Democratic Party. Fusion allowed one candidate to run on multiple tickets. Their stated goal was to use fusion to move the Democratic Party as far left as possible.
Folks like Barack Obama were used in order to gain influence in the Democratic Party and attempt to move it further left.
Now, think about how stunning this news should be. Barack Obama was recently caught on tape saying one of the tenets of Socialism "spread the wealth around", and now we find out that he was in fact affiliated with a Socialist Party for four years while in Illinois. If the media were performing their role as a watchdog, they would try and find out as much as possible about this story. Instead, a blogger, from New Zealand no less, is the one discovering the so called "smoking gun" on Obama's membership in a radical Socialist Party.
Of course, this news comes on the heels of more revelations about Obama's associations with both radicals Bill Ayers and ACORN. In fact, as WND reports, the New Party was itself in bed politically with ACORN.
Following the initial reports of Obama's purported membership in the New Party, Obama associate and former Chicago New Party activist Carl Davidson posted a statement on several blogs claiming his former party was not socialist, but he admitted it worked with ACORN.
"[The New Party] was a pragmatic party of 'small d democracy' mainly promoting economic reforms like the living wage and testing the fusion tactic, common in many countries but only operational in New York in the U.S. The main trend within it was ACORN, an Alinskyist outfit, which is hardly Marxist," wrote Davidson.
Isn't all of this worth investigating? So, what was on the front page of the New York Times yesterday? It was a story about how much the RNC spent to dress Sarah Palin.
Let's examine this another way. When Sarah Palin was first chosen as the Vice Presidential pick, the media was in a frenzy to uncover information about her. One of the things the New York Times "discovered" was that Sarah Palin was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party. (one of the tenets of the AIP is the secession of Alaska from the United States) The only problem is that it wasn't Sarah Palin that was a member of this party but her husband. When I say a member, I mean he registered as a member of the AIP. Keep in mind that Todd Palin is not that active politically. (the original story ran on the front page while the retraction ran on their blog, viewed significantly less) In other words, the Times is significantly more interested in whether or not the spouse of the Vice Presidential candidate was once a member of a radical party, then whether or not the Presidential candidate once ran on the ticket of a radical party.
There is even more though. Check out this column by Kirsten Powers.
ONCE the McCain campaign said Barack Obama was a ter rorist sympathizer, we should've have known "socialist" was next.
Ever since Obama told "Joe the Plumber" that we should "spread the wealth," John McCain and Sarah Palin have taken to blasting Obama's tax plan as a socialist plot.
Socialism involves collective ownership of the means of economic production and similar institutional "sharing of the wealth." Nothing Obama has proposed comes close to that. (Instead, the Bush administration is virtually nationalizing the banks.)
What McCain calls socialism is actually just old-fashioned progressive taxation - taxing the wealthy at higher rates than the poor. It underlies most of US tax policy - so mainstream that one of its biggest defenders has been . . . John McCain.
First, the difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama is the first candidate to propose taxing one group of tax payers in order to give a tax cut to another. There is progressive taxation and then there is income redistribution.
More than that, what folks like Ms. Powers want the electorate to believe is that unless someone believes in every tenet of Socialism, there is absolutely no story to be told. Is Barack Obama a full fledged Socialist? No, I don't think he wants government control of all business. Instead, he just wants government control of most health care. He wants to tax the rich more while at the same time taxing the poorer less. He wants the govenrment to take the lead in creating new jobs. How close to a full fledged Socialist does the potential President need to be before it is something news worthy? It appears that being once a member of the Socialist party and believing in most, if not all, of their tenets isn't enough, and certainly, that isn't nearly the news story that the Vice Presidential candidate's wardrobe expenses are.
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