Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 11, 2012

How much power does he really have?

When people call Obama a Socialist, all they do is prove that they don’t have the vaguest idea what Socialism is, other than “some political belief that I don’t like”.

As usual, the only people concerned with race are…Liberals. The rest of us couldn’t give a rat’s tiny hiney.

Orion

But the strip is essentially correct. Obama is no socialist. He’s a fascist, plain and simple.

Words have changed their meanings so much since I first hit voting age. Republicanism has become a totally different thing, as has Socialism. Now those words really define the battle between hardcore Christians and “Godless” people.

Doesn’t matter which colour they are…they are all puppets on a string to the FED…or dead like Kennedy.

‎"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He [Karl Rove] expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

Rove said that guys like me were ‘’in what we call the reality-based community,’’ which he defined as people who ‘’believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ’’That’s not the way the world really works anymore,‘’ he continued. ’’We’re an empire now, and when we act, WE CREATE OUR OWN REALITY. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, CREATING OTHER NEW REALITIES, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

—Ron Suskind (senior national-affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000), “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush”, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, October 17, 2004.

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” ~ Sinclair Lewis

Anybody paying attention? This isn’t about racism. It’s about re-defining ANY term in ANY way to make it suit your personal agenda.I’m SICK of seeing that happen.If there could be a rule that the terms must be mutually agreed to, we would have NO arguments.People would have to say exactly what they mean and the truth would be right out there in front of God (whoever that is) and everybody.

Mikefive, um … Apple makes a TV box

“Half- breed”?? For real? This is a Doonesbury comment thread, not Gone With the Wind.

Santorum’s a WASC.

“myFACTS. Picking up where Orwell left off.”

Obama is our duly elected president. Idont agree with some of the things he wants but I do support him. To do less would not be patriotic.

If Obama was a socialist, I would have voted for him. He didn’t get my vote because he was too conservative for me. I voted for Brian Moore in 2008, the Socialist Party candidate, a real socialist.

by the definition of socialist “A BLACK GUY WITH POWER” that would include herman cain, alan keyes and robert johnson—b.e.t. founder. but would leave out bill clinton and hillary rodham clinton…

1. I don’t like O’Bama because his policies take away our freedom and harm our economy. It has nothing to do with his race.2. Calling everyone who disagrees with O’Bama a racist is in itself a bigoted response.

Obama is our duly elected president, Idont agree with some of the things he wants,but I do support him. To do less would not be patriotic.

Jebus. You folks trying to claim there’s no more racism really need to spend more time in The South.

Babka’s quotation from Karl Rove nicely supports Doughfoot’s point that Obama’s detractors hide their racism. An ideology that “creates its own reality” is creating an alternative reality, as Bush’s administration did when they decided to wreck the budget by using money they didn’t have to pay taxes foer the wealthy.

The alter in “alternative” means other. That’s why Republicans fear Obama’s otherness. Obama stands for an alternative (“other”) reality that to them looks like a nightmare.

In this war of ideologies, each side will fear the other and call him a Hitler for trying to impose his definitions on them.

Dandiwriter isn’t very coherent today…not really a “dandy writer”.

Colin Powell would have made an excellent president, but the far-righties let him know that if he ran they would make a big deal out of his wife seeking medical help for her depression. Except calling her “crazy” would be how they would have put it. (The same kind of people that think epileptics are possessed by the devil. )

From what I read, he’s not a socialist; he’s a post-colonialist, something rarely found in the U.S.

The strange fruit is this administration calling Dr. King a communist. I don’t like this.

Walt Kelly used to offer alternative strips for those that papers were likely to redact, but those strips were populated with bunnies. The strips were just as intelligent as his regular strips, but, you know…bunnies. It was easy to tell when your paper had censored a strip.

Why do so many closet Klanners read this strip at all? Not much about bullets and bad news here…

Don’t even pretend you know what Marxism is.

Actually, this whole “liberal racist” argument is just another example of the preemptive rhetorical strike that the right uses so often. They put a lot of energy into reversing minority gains and when they’re called out on it, they dismiss the claims as racist. Another example of this goes like this: spend thirty years reducing the size of middle class through union-busting and changes to the tax laws aimed at benefitting the wealthy, and when anyone complains, accuse them of fostering class warfare. In the land of the right, it’s okay to actually wage race or class warfare: it’s talking about it that’s harmful to society.

Santorum is Italian-Irish.

I love it when people say Obama is a socialist. I would ask, “What kind of socialist is he?” Check Wikipedia for the definition of Socialist and you will discover there are well over a dozen flavors of Socialism. So what kind is he? Plus, I cannot say any of them really come close to describing President Obama.

Wonder what their meaning of “Santorum” is? Google it!

Harrison Bergeron is absolutely right.

PS. Also a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan :P

“Socialism” = “I didn’t vote for him.”

Never unstand why Black and Jewish comunties vote Democrat when 3 Republican Presidents put it on the line for civil rights . Johnson was racist until he came on national scene. George Wallace ended his boxing career defending a black friend.

Trudeau is making a straw man argument. He is consistently claiming that conservative or Republican arguments are this claim (e.g. that Obama is a socialist despite his relatively moderate positions because he is black) when the actual claim is far stronger. In essence, Garry seems to make some pretty bold, unfounded claims about conservative arguments.

Ike and “his party” were the integrationists of the 1950’s and yes, “Dixiecrats” (Democrats in the south) WERE the segregationists. Today, post- Johnson, the Democrats HAVE lost the south, and the “parties” have basically flip-flopped on the issue. It is an issue that should have no bearing today. (but sadly, exists in the southwest, south, and rest of the country with different “elements” at contest.)

As to “socialist”? It’s just an epithet , that those using it haven’t a clue what it really means.

Regretably Prz Obama has turned out to be just another corporatist in the clutches of Wall Street and Big Oil. He has still helped the nation more than any right wing prz would have… It matters little if you agree with this other than it is a test of your own blindness… He is still miles ahead and better than any of the regressive cretins to the right of him… The haters are probably beyond reach.

where’s the real one….

Has anyone compared the number of times Obama’s been called a Socialist to the number of times Bush was called a Nazi? I know I must have done it a thousand times myself, and I’m a moderate.

All that playground name-calling stuff goes with the territory, and people like to demonstrate that, by being the most outrage. My Facts™ is a great business model to make a buck off of people’s worst instincts.

This week at Dooneswbury should be a humdinger. I stopped readind Doonesbury here because the comments took up so much of my time, but I plan to be on-board to read why so many papers are banning the strip this week. Remember how many papers banned his Sunday strip on masturbation a few years back? I’m glad my NY Daily News didn’t – I showed the strip to my urologist.

It was a beautiful day in NYC. Spring has come early. So glad I didn’t get too involved in this discussion.

it’s too bad Obama isn’t a socialist. The USA has had far too much of the wrong kind of socialism for far too long (the kind that takes from the poor and gives to the rich – when even the rich start complaining about it, it’s really gone too far!). You could do with a bit of the other kind.

Obama is as black as I am Scandinavian. (Spoken as a mixed-race Asian)

He’s a crook, a war criminal and a propagandist.