Neocon Kristol : Obama and Marx ....

[Trajan]

While Democrat Attacks Democrat, liars propagandize the electorate with fallacious appeals and false associations.

It's time to wake the fuck up ..... They will use misdirection to attack EITHER Hillary or Barack .... One might wonder if it matters that some here win their personal battles, while we lose the larger war between diametrically opposed parties ....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinion/14kristol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The Mask Slips

By WILLIAM KRISTOL

I haven’t read much Karl Marx since the early 1980s, when I taught political philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, it didn’t take me long this weekend to find my copy of “The Marx-Engels Reader,” edited by Robert C. Tucker — a book that was assigned in thousands of college courses in the 1970s and 80s, and that now must lie, unopened and un-remarked upon, on an awful lot of rec-room bookshelves.

My occasion for spending a little time once again with the old Communist was Barack Obama’s now-famous comment at an April 6 San Francisco fund-raiser. Obama was explaining his trouble winning over small-town, working-class voters: “It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

This sent me to Marx’s famous statement about religion in the introduction to his “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”:

“Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people.”

-snip-

[Postman]

1. What Obama said is true. Look at how the oppressed masses of Muslims cling to their religion...

for guidance and for some, an outlet for their frustrations that are manifested into such things as Al-Qaeda.

For Asshole Kristol to try to to twist this into a "communist" argument is ridiculous.

People who are desperate cling to that which gives them comfort and to that which gives them answers in an uncertain world. Religion is just one "crutch," out of many, that fills that need.


Maybe that's why insecure people in this country identify themselves with the rightwing republican party.

[Trajan]

3. Exactly ....

With the GOP race settled, and with the Democrats in a vicious battle, it is a Turkey Shoot for guys like Kristol to point and shoot into the fray, loosing fusillades of bullshit and lies upon the two Democratic party contenders .....

The circular firing squad is getting an assist from interested parties who will resort to ANY lie just to keep battering the image of a strong contender ....

Obama = Marx ? .. PREPOSTEROUS ! .... Yet the assertion is cast to the wall by those who hope it will stick .... at least a little ....

This story is now number 4 in the NY Times 'Most Emailed' list ....

[MrModerate]

2. Anyone who takes Kristol seriously on any topic is already lost . . .

And trying to conflate Obama's remarks with Marx's remarks (hey! that almost scans correctly) just makes him look even sillier than usual.

It's the dialectical equivalent of the "Hitler Argument," guaranteed to end debate with the utterer relegated to the corner as a witless provocateur. Bring it on, Bill!

[Trajan]

4. As much as we hate Kristol ....

His connections to the Neocon war machine seems lost in the clutter of MSM bullshit .... Im pretty sure that is on purpose ...

WE know who he is, yet they plaster his face on FAUX, and those in the middle might give him more credence than he deserves ...

Isn't that the idea of propaganda ? ....

[MrModerate]

5. Yeah, but who is Kristol to the American public?

• He's a credible intellectual to informed wingnuts (already lost to reason)

• He's Mr. "Never Been Correct on Anything" to informed lefties (already in our camp)

• He's "some guy" to the vast majority of people who've never heard of him, and every time he comes up with these bizarre and inappropriate comparisons he slips toward "that dumbfuck I saw on TV last night."

Kristol is a spent round, and every time he tries to ricochet it's more pathetic than the last.

[Voice for Peace]

12. yep, thanks Mr... Kristol is a turkey. (no offense meant to turkeys)

[struggle4progress]

6. Four sentence summary of the article for those who can't stomach reading Kristrol:

"Obama said something about religion, and I own a book proving Marx said something about religion. I didn't understand what Obama said, and I didn't understand what Marx said either: could that be a coincidence? Here's the clincher: I don't like Obama and I don't like Marx. Obama Marxist Obama Marxist Obama Marxist Obama Marxist Obama Marxist, see?"

[Enthusiast]

7. His is a goal of obfuscation.

This is what the neo-cons are about. Send out a smoke screen to cover up your own evil deeds. It's been awful smokey for the last eight years.

[Sal Minella]

8. When he accused Obama of being supercilious and looking down his nose at people,

all I could think of was what I told my kids growing up about commenting on other people -- "The world is a mirror, and what you see is what you are."

[Voice for Peace]

13. LOL good summary.

[judasdisney]

9. If Kristol Cares About God, Then

...why wasn't he busy fighting the pro-China policies for the past 8 years?

Isn't China "godless" and "pro-Marx" and "Commie"?

[bemildred]

10. Kristol is as dumb as Feith.

No easy bar to get under, but Kristol manages it.

[nealmhughes]

11. I am shocked to learn that he ever taught. I do believe that it was Dr. Kristol

who said that teaching was too tedious and did not pay enough. Why did he bother with a PhD then, I ask? Oh, it was to please Mommy Midge and Daddy Irv.

I can never really "read" Kristol: his smarmy shit-eating grin and cool "affable-on-the-surface" just doesn't mesh with his prose, which is total BS.

He is a lot like Ariel Cohen, credentialed, but so what? Wrong every time they open their pie holes.

In summary, Mr. Scaife pays a lot for PhDs to sell their souls. He was a legacy at his school, ya know, and still barely passed with his BA. I reckon a Mellon to have a bit of sway in Pittsburgh -- for some odd reason.

[susankh4]

14. I really wish he had not done that....

at least not at this juncture.

He could have saved it for the G.E. :sarcasm:

Now he will be accused of supporting Hillary.....

[underpants]

15. "Manchurian"." unknown". now a direct comparison to Marx

This will be the right's strategy in the fall.

Fine. bring it on.

[FVZA_Colonel]

16. Also a tie-in to that old lie about him being some sort of a "sleeper muslim."

Even though someone like Kristol would never, NEVER say something so reprehensible directly, things like that are just the wink and the nudge (hell... the blood-soaked red meat) his audience needs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. The idea of a second-generation neocon pundit talking about "elitism"

is absurd, which makes it doubly infuriating that the NYT gives him space.