President Obama Attacks Wall Street & Wealth in Class Warfare Campaign

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"And now it's our turn", Obama preaches to the masses.

President Obama continued his reelection campaign with a swing into Florida where he spoke to students at Florida Atlantic University Tuesday between three major fundraisers that added $1.9 million to his campaign bankroll.

Billed as an "economic" speech it sounded a lot more political and a lot more radical than just another chat by the president with some college kids. I wonder if the White House even knows that Obama is the president of all the people, not just those loyal to his massive redirection of government and wealth campaign?

If he presided a little more over the country and a little less over the Democratic National Committee and his principal mouthpiece Debbie Wasserman Schultz he would probably be a shoe in for reelection. But a Chicago boy cannot stand being above the fight.

Because political speeches this year have been particularly boring and deceptive by all sides I thought I would see what inspires our President to be the champion for the downtrodden while shaking down Wall Street for financial donations.

In this article I offer his words to the students at FAU while showing possible sources of inspiration for his policies and war on Wall Street from three unlikely but viable sources, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler. Quotes from the Communist Socialists, Lenin and Marx are in red and from the National Socialist Hitler are in blue.

Of course the White House will continue to deny any connection between the President's speech writers, his education, college career and whatever he was doing in Indonesia and other countries during and after college with the worldwide socialist movement but it is hard not to see a connection between these leaders of "change" and their socialist view of the world.

Here are excerpts of what Obama had to say to the students at FAU:

Obama speaking in Germany

The President of the United States, Barack Obama.

So at a time like this, we've got to ask ourselves a central, fundamental question as a nation: What do we have to do to make sure that America is a place where, if you work hard, if you're responsible, that that hard work and that responsibility pays off?

(Applause.) And the reason it's important to ask this question right now is because there are alternative theories.

There's a debate going on in this country right now: Could we succeed as a nation where a shrinking number of people are doing really, really well, but a growing number are struggling to get by? AUDIENCE: No!

But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.

Vladimir Lenin.

THE PRESIDENT: Or are we better off when everybody gets a fair shot -- (applause) -- and everybody does a fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules? (Applause.)

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.

Vladimir Lenin

That’s what the debate in America is about right now. This is not just another run-of-the-mill gabfest in Washington. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and everybody who's aspiring to get into the middle class. And we’ve got two very different visions of our future. And the choice between them could not be clearer.

A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure.
Vladimir Lenin

I believe the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. (Applause.) But here’s the thing. I also agree with our first Republican President -- a guy from my home state, a guy with a beard, named Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) And what Lincoln said was that through our government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. (Applause.) That's the definition of a smart government.

Lenin speaking in Soviet Union

Free education for all children in public schools.
Karl Marx


That's why we have public schools to educate our children. (Applause.) If we didn't have public schools, there would still be some families who would do very well. They could afford private schools or some would home-school. But there would be a lot of kids who would fall through the cracks. So we do that together.

So these investments -- in things like education and research and health care -- they haven’t been made as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. This is not some socialist dream.

Hitler speaking in Germany

Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Karl Marx

When we guarantee basic security for the elderly or the sick or those who are actively looking for work, that doesn’t make us weak. What makes us weak is when fewer Americans can afford to buy the products that businesses are selling, when fewer people are willing to take risks and start their new business, because if it doesn’t work out they worry about feeding their families. What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few, which is what’s been happening for over a decade now, and gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists.

Vladimir Lenin

In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few. Prosperity has always come from the bottom up, from a strong and growing middle class. (Applause.)

This is not about a few people doing well. We want people to do well. That’s great. But it’s about giving everybody the chance to do well. (Applause.) That’s the essence of America. That’s what the American Dream is about.

Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.
Karl Marx

These folks, they keep telling us that if we just weaken regulations that keep our air or our water clean or protect our consumers, if we would just convert these investments that we’re making through our government in education and research and health care -- if we just turned those into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, then somehow the economy is going to grow stronger. That’s the theory.

Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises“economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government.
Vladimir Lenin

And here’s the news: We tried this for eight years before I took office. We tried it. (Applause.) It’s not like we didn’t try it. (Laughter.) At the beginning of the last decade, the wealthiest Americans got two huge tax cuts -- 2001, 2003. Meanwhile, insurance companies, financial institutions -- they were all allowed to write their own rules, or find their way around rules. We were told the same thing we’re being told now -- this is going to lead to faster job growth. This is going to lead to greater prosperity for everybody.

Guess what -- it didn’t. (Laughter.) Yes, the rich got much richer. Corporations made big profits. But we also had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical American family actually saw their incomes fall by about 6 percent even though the economy was growing, because more and more of that growth was just going to a few, and the average middle-class American wasn't seeing it in their paychecks. Health care premiums skyrocketed. Financial institutions started making bets with other people's money that were reckless. And then our entire financial system almost collapsed. You remember that?

We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.
Adolph Hitler

Now, some of you may be science majors in here. (Applause.) I like that. We need more scientists, need more engineers. Now, I was not a science major myself, but I enjoyed science when I was young. And if I recall correctly, if an experiment fails badly -- (laughter) -- you learn from that, right? Sometimes you can learn from failure. That’s part of the data that teaches you stuff, that expands our knowledge. But you don’t then just keep on doing the same thing over and over again. AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: You go back to the drawing board. You try something different. But that’s not what's been happening with these folks in Washington. AUDIENCE: No!

Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a“third” ideology).
Vladimir Lenin

THE PRESIDENT: A lot of the folks who were peddling these same trickle-down theories -- including members of Congress and some people who are running for a certain office right now, who shall not be named -- (laughter and applause) -- they're doubling down on these old broken-down theories. Instead of moderating their views even slightly, instead of saying, you know what, what we did really didn’t work and we almost had a second Great Depression, and maybe we should try something different, they have doubled down.

They proposed a budget that showers the wealthiest Americans with even more tax cuts, and then pays for these tax cuts by gutting investments in education and medical research and clean energy, in health care.

But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.
Karl Marx

Now, this is not an exaggeration. This is math. And when I said this about a week ago, the Republicans objected. They said, we didn't specify all these cuts. Well, right, you didn't because you knew that people wouldn’t accept them. So you just gave a big number and so what we’ve done is we’ve just done the math. This is what it would it mean.

The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
Karl Marx

They say, well, we didn't specifically propose to cut student loans. Okay, if you don't cut student loans, then that means you’ve got to cut basic research even more. The money has got to come from somewhere. You can't give over $4 trillion worth of additional tax cuts, including to folks like me who don't need them and weren’t asking for them, and it just comes from some magic tree somewhere. (Laughter.)

So if you hear them saying, well, the President is making this stuff up -- no, we’re doing the math. If they want to dispute anything that I’ve said right now, they should show us specifically where they would make those cuts. (Applause.) They should show us. They should show us. Because, by the way, they're not proposing to cut defense, they're actually proposing to increase defense spending, so it’s not coming out of there. So show me.

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.
Vladimir Lenin

Look, America has always been a place where anybody who's willing to work and play by the rules can make it. A place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, it grows from the bottom; it grows outward from the heart of a vibrant middle class. (Applause.)

And I believe that we cannot stop investing in the things that help create that middle class; that create real, long-lasting, broad-based growth in this country. And we certainly shouldn’t be doing it just so the richest Americans can get another tax cut. (Applause.) We should be strengthening those investments. We should be making college more affordable. (Applause.) We should be expanding our investment in clean energy. (Applause.)

Why nationalize industry when you can nationalize the people?
Adolph Hitler

Now, here’s the other thing that the Republicans will tell you. They’ll say, well, we’ve got to make all these drastic cuts because our deficit is too high. Our deficit is too high. And their argument might actually have a shred of credibility to it if you didn’t find out that they wanted to spend $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. I don’t know how many of you are math majors, business majors -- you can’t pay down a deficit by taking in $4.6 trillion of less money, especially when you’re denying that you’re going to be making all these cuts. It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense.

So let me ask you what's the better way to make our economy stronger? Do we give another $50,000 [sic] in tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country?

AUDIENCE: No!

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other.
Karl Marx

THE PRESIDENT: Or should we make investments in education and research and health care and our veterans? (Applause.)

And I just want to emphasize again -- look, I want folks to get rich in this country. I think it's wonderful when people are successful. That’s part of the American Dream. It is great that you make a product, you create a service, you do it better than anybody else -- that’s what our system is all about. But understand, the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent has climbed to levels we haven't seen since the 1920s.

The folks who are benefitting from this are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years.

Society’s needs come before the individual’s needs.
Adolph Hitler

And now it’s our turn to be responsible. Now it’s our turn to preserve the American Dream for future generations. Now it’s our turn to rebuild, to make the investments that will assure our future, to make sure that we’ve got the most competitive workforce on Earth, to make sure that we’ve got clean energy that can help clean the planet and help fuel our economy. (Applause.)

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Karl Marx

It’s our turn. It’s our turn to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our airports and our ports. It’s our turn to make sure that everybody here, every child born in whatever neighborhood in this country it is, that if they're willing to dream big dreams and put some blood, sweat and tears behind it, they can make it. (Applause.)

Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear.
Adolph Hitler

I know we can do that. I know we can do it because of you. You’re here because you believe in your future. (Applause.) You’re working hard. Some of you are balancing a job or a family on the side.

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
Karl Marx

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: You have faith in America. You know it’s not going to be easy, but you don't give up. That's the spirit we need right now, because here in America we don’t give up. (Applause.) Here in America, we look out for one another. Here in America, we help each other get ahead. Here in America, we have a sense of common purpose. Here in America, we can meet any challenge. Here in America, we can seize any moment. We can make this century another great American century. (Applause.)

Do you now appreciate the depth of our National Socialist Movement? Can there be anything greater and more all comprehending? Those who see in National Socialism nothing more than a political movement know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than religion; it is the will to create mankind anew.
Adolph Hitler

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END 3:39 P.M. EDT

PS Is it any coincidence that Vladimir Lenin's birthday and Earth Day are both on April 22?
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Obamaville - Campaign 2012 - A Millionaires Delight?

With just two days until the GOP primary in South Carolina a new player has unexpectedly joined the Republican fracas as the Obama White House has officially broken a promise to stay on the sidelines of the GOP primary politics.

Apparently the Obama advisors just can't resist a chance to influence the vote and for the first time this election the White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, used the podium of the White House to blast Mitt Romney over his personal income tax comments.

To be fair, Romney was left unprotected and unprepared by his campaign staff on the issues relating to releasing his income tax records.  For a campaign that has maintained a sharp focus on the economy for the long haul and the battle against Obama for the presidency, this was a serious media blunder.

Sensing blood in the wind, the Chicago gang of Obama simply could not resist joining the effort to distort and smear their probable opponent.  In perhaps a blunder on their own part, it was rather odd they left the hatchet job to the White House Press Secretary, paid for by US tax dollars, when all the good Obama mouthpieces are with the campaign and not on the government payroll.

But then they also have President Obama, also on the taxpayer payroll, racing around the country raising hundreds of millions of campaign dollars while acting like a president.  In another related development the Obama campaign is starting to air political campaign commercials in battle ground states even though he is unopposed and the GOP opponent will not be selected officially until the end of August.  By my calendar that is still six months away.

So Romney comments on his probable tax rate of 15%, speakers fees of $300,000 and is ill-prepared to defend his right to be successful, make a lot of money, and be an example for others.

Carney used the White House podium to say Romney is evidence of the need for the millionaire's tax to prevent the rich from paying lower tax rates than middle class Americans.  This is what he had to say.

“The president feels very strongly that everybody needs to pay their fair share and that everybody, therefore, gets a fair shot at the American dream,” the White House press secretary Jay Carney said at his press briefing.

"That includes millionaires who might be paying an effective tax rate of 15 per cent when folks making $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000 a year are paying much more,” Mr. Carney added.

Though he tried to keep Obama out of the fray by saying his comments were not "specifically" discussed with the President, anyone with any knowledge of the workings of the White House knows nothing is said by the Press Secretary without the approval of the President.

One might consider this politics as usual but there are a couple of potential issues that might benefit Romney as his taxes are released.

First, most of his income came from investments, not salary, just like Obama advisor Warren Buffett and most millionaires.  There is a fixed tax rate of 15% for such income so that is the law.  Romney has supported comprehensive revision of the entire tax code.

While the capital gains tax, which is lower than individual tax rates, favors the wealthy, it was set up to encourage the investment of such funds into building businesses which generates jobs.  If anything, reinvestment in America seems to be a good thing.

Romney is the only presidential candidate who has called for a means test to limit capital gains to only the rich, $200,000 plus income.  The media and political pundits forget that many Americans are subject to this tax for their mutual funds and other investments.

According to U.S. News almost half (42%)  of all Americans use 401(k), IRA, Keogh or other type of retirement account.  A record low 23% of Americans expect to receive pension income, while 20% expect stocks and mutual funds to be a major source of retirement income.  Withdrawals from retirement accounts are taxed as normal income while stocks and mutual fund withdrawals are taxed at the lower capital gains rate.

In addition, when the Romney taxes are released don't be surprised if it shows Romney gave more to his church than anyone else, quite possibly more than all the other candidates and President Obama combined.  His other charitable contributions may also dwarf the other candidates.

Taxes are complex.  There are thousands of pages of US tax code.  It needs an overhaul but attacking classes of taxpayers and calling for the redistribution of wealth is no way to achieve it.  All candidates and both political parties must work together to make the system fair and just.