The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky … Obama!

Posted on | April 30, 2012 | 40 Comments

Yes, comrades, they all share the same slogan: “Forward!”

The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism. . . .
The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism. . . .
There have been at least two radical-left publications named “Vorwaerts” (the German word for “Forward”). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany’s SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.

A Memeorandum thread, with commentary by Gateway Pundit, American Thinker, Jammie Wearing Fools,  Hot Air, The Jawa Report, The Lonely Conservative, Weasel Zippers, and Joel Pollak at Breitbart.com.

(Hat-tip to Victor Morton on Twitter.)

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2012, History

Comments

40 Responses to “Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky … Obama!”

  1. Figures! Obama’s New Campaign Slogan Has Long Communist History | The Lonely Conservative
    April 30th, 2012 @ 10:21 pm

    […] still more to do.”Update: Cross-posted at Right Wing NewsUpdate: Linked by The Other McCain – thanks!google_ad_client = "ca-pub-1395656889568144"; /* 300×250, created 8/11/08 */ […]

  2. andycanuck
    April 30th, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

    At least those @ssholes wrote for their magazines. Obama’s lazy even as a Communist. 

  3. JeffS
    April 30th, 2012 @ 10:49 pm

     Fascinating.  Not surprising, but fascinating.

  4. ThePaganTemple
    April 30th, 2012 @ 11:04 pm

    Of course he’s a communist. He can’t come right out and admit it so he uses weasel words, like all liberal Democrats, and for that matter probably most of the so-called moderates. There’s different forms of socialism and communism, so when Obama and these traitors claim they’re not one, they’re just saying they’re not one specific kind of communist. A real, pure communist, by the way, believes in government socialism only as a temporary measure to pave the way for the withering away of the state and the culmination of the dream of local control by way of soviets (local councils), though the world by then would be more or less unified under socialism.

    When Obama claims he’s not a communist, that’s the kind of communist he means. The kind he is, is the more Stalinist inspired state capitalist, fascist type of state, more like Nazi Germany, more nationalist in structure, but at the same time with internationalist goals and pretensions. 

    Look at the way his administration goes out of their way to bend the business community under their thumbs. They’ve turned the concept of free enterprise into an obscene joke, and the way they spit on the constitution is the worst form of treason.

    I would suggest to Speaker Boehner that he has more than enough reason to bring impeachment charges against Obama, in the event the scum is reelected and we have the votes in the Senate to convict. But on the other hand, he’d probably start bawling if anybody did bring it up.

  5. Adobe_Walls
    April 30th, 2012 @ 11:26 pm

    Do they have no one doing research or do they just not care?

  6. Mike Rogers
    April 30th, 2012 @ 11:48 pm

    They Just Don’t Care.
    Since Hillary began her campaign in 2007, she and BarryO resurrected the term Progressive, because they realized that ‘liberal’ was getting a little too well worn, now they are reaching even further back into the grooveyard for the golden oldie of “forward” from the era of Otto von Bismarck.
    If Romney (R-Money) can’t knock his silly ass out of the park, he isn’t putting enough effort in, and we will truly be doomed.

  7. M. Thompson
    May 1st, 2012 @ 12:04 am

     Also, ex-Senator Russ Feingold lost using “Forward” as a slogan in 2010.

  8. Adjoran
    May 1st, 2012 @ 2:31 am

     It has been a frequently used Marxist slogan for 150 years.  In addition to the German publication which attracted some of the founders of communism as authors, there was a Jewish Marxist publication called The Forward in New York around the turn of the 2oth century.  It was so common because it was an essential part of the ideology.

    Marxist dialectic materialism sees history as an ongoing series of conflicts based on economic interests.  They believe each conflict advances humanity towards a more ideal distribution of resources.  They see the capitalists and the bourgeoisie as impediments to this, seeking to defend the status quo that privileged them.  So “forward” is a concept central to their philosophy.

    As a simple, positive word with vague meaning, it was also useful for propaganda purposes. 

    They had to know.  It’s that common. 

  9. Jmraytown
    May 1st, 2012 @ 3:31 am

    Well his mother and father met in a russian language class back in the day. That was really all I needed to know.

  10. Dave C
    May 1st, 2012 @ 7:18 am

    Like most of the Big ‘R’ Republicans, he’ll do what he can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

    Maybe.  Mitt reallyreallyreallyreally wants to be President so we’ll see how that plays into it.

  11. Dave C
    May 1st, 2012 @ 7:19 am

    May Obama share in Feingold’s success.

  12. Anamika
    May 1st, 2012 @ 7:40 am

    Well, me being raised on Marxism, I was taught, that we are all equal, but than imo Lenin was right when he said that the ‘formal equality’ is fraudulent, it creates the illusion of equality, but what we all know is, that behind this, in every other way, there is actually unequality.

  13. Anamika
    May 1st, 2012 @ 7:49 am

     
    Thomas Jefferson may have said “all (wo)men are created equal,” but nobody with a modicum of mayic awareness ever maintains they stay that way.  Comrade Lenin was a pragmatic man who never confused Marxist idealism with practical politics — unfortunately, his successors forsook ideals entirely and the Soviet experiment became a typical (and typically corrupt) tyranny painted with a thin coat of Marxist rhetoric.

    The true bolsheviks were the ones who went to fight in Spain in the thirties. After they became corrupt. The case is, that there is ALWAYS a new ‘aristocracy’ is at birth whit a power change. And that was the start of corruption what killed the Marxist ideology. Russia jumped a system, went from feudalism straight to ‘socialism’. Plus, in communist regime, the new elite, the ruling class came from the illiterate proletars and they were just too vulgar and brutal to have the power to rule. Ide Amin and the warlords of the day in the African continent comes to my mind. But, tyranny is even worst when in the hands of the ‘money elite’.imo

  14. Anamika
    May 1st, 2012 @ 7:54 am

     Greedy bankers or greedy commissars, there’s not all the much difference — and even Marx admitted that capitalism was the only viable economic system at the time he was writing. What is required is a workable balance between labor and capital, balance that has been severely distorted by the cronyism and legalized bribery that infects countries where  free enterprise is confused with amoral, ruthless, heartless avarice driven by mendacious commercialism.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    May 1st, 2012 @ 8:21 am

    The Left doesn’t do anything without planning it.

    They know damn well the origin of the word.  In their twisted way, they’re laughing as they use it and watch many people not understand it’s origins.

    It’s just like the use of May Day.  How many people under, say, fifty understand what today means to the Left?

  16. Bob Belvedere
    May 1st, 2012 @ 8:22 am

    That’s where she met Frank Marshall Davis?!?

  17. Bob Belvedere
    May 1st, 2012 @ 8:33 am

    I think it safe to say that Comrade Obamnin is not the pure kind of Communist you correctly describe.

    I find the philosophy of him and his crew rather fascinating: they’ve combined the philosophies of Marx/Engels, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Trotsky, and others such as Alinksy in a big stew.  One would think that such divergent takes such as between Mao and Lenin could not exist in the same mix, but contradictions have a way of being ignored with relentless intensity by the Left.

    Right now, La Cosa Obama are utilizing the strategy and tactics of the Nazi’s and the Fascista as their transitional philosophies on the road to, for lack of a better term, Obamunism.  The nationalism part is not a key component, however.

  18. Garym
    May 1st, 2012 @ 8:35 am

    http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/d2presid.html
    Here is what the true believers did to the non-believers. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  19. Quartermaster
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:23 am

    Crony capitalism also inlcudes the Union Bosses that are as corrupt as they come.  The “balance,” for years has been against capital, alas.

    But cronies like Corzine, and Obama are in it for themselves. There is no enlightened self-interest as Adam Smith expressed it. The left couldn’t live if there were.

  20. BLBeamer
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:32 am

    I don’t understand how people can be duped by the idea that there is anything forward-looking or of the future about Marxism.

    This is a slight simplification, but Marx took an imaginary (and impossible future), declared it as inevitable and then re-interpreted historical events in light of that fabrication.

    He thus turned Christianity on its head.  Christians take historical events as support for their view that the inevitable future will end up just as their Scriptures say.

  21. House of Eratosthenes
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:32 am

    […] one-word mantra of “Forward,” on the other hand, is a complete disaster (hat tip to The Other McCain. The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new […]

  22. Pathfinder's wife
    May 1st, 2012 @ 9:46 am

    Communist/socialist/fascist allusions aside (and those are bad enough and make for effective response to this), I’m not sure if this is a smart slogan to be using — too easily mocked.

    Forward! Over the cliff/towards the iceberg/into the minefield/whatever 
    Backward!
    Downward!

    It doesn’t take a lot of thought to mock this one or pick it apart.

  23. Anamika
    May 1st, 2012 @ 10:08 am

    Faith! Family! Freedom!

    Those were slogans used by Taliban, bin Laden and Ahmajinedad for Christ’s sake!

    Does that mean that it’s in good spirit to call the conservative leaders in US as the America Taliban?

    I guess so. That comparison is more apt and based more in reality than this tasteless anti-Obama post by Stacy and the sick comments that it attracted.

  24. Anamika
    May 1st, 2012 @ 10:22 am

     

    …unfortunately, his successors forsook ideals entirely and the Soviet
    experiment became a typical (and typically corrupt) tyranny painted with
    a thin coat of Marxist rhetoric.

    I guess that’s who inspired Bush and Cheney to paint their tyranny with a thin coat of “Freedon and Democracy” rhetoric.

    The more things change………

  25. Pathfinder's wife
    May 1st, 2012 @ 10:38 am

    You’re getting desperate, hysterically so.

    I’d love to know how your mind comes up with some of the things it does….wait, no, no I think I’ll pass on that.

    How is pointing out how this is a slogan that could be mocked “sick”?  How is mockery “sick” for that matter?
    It’s a statement of probable fact — just wait and see; it’s easily mocked.

  26. Adobe_Walls
    May 1st, 2012 @ 10:56 am

    I don’t see why they think this pays,  it might have been catchy and inspiring a hundred years ago but I don’t think it does the trick  now and it presents an opportunity for mockery. It’s as someone running for office named Mike something started using the slogan I like Mike. As for the word progressive it had been revived long before Obamsky and Hillary in 07. For instance the Congressional Progressive Caucus was founded in 91.

  27. LC Aggie Sith
    May 1st, 2012 @ 11:01 am

     “La Cosa Obama”… that’s brilliant.

  28. LC Aggie Sith
    May 1st, 2012 @ 11:03 am

     Well, it’s not like the liberals let History be taught. That’s why we have Social Studies.

  29. Adobe_Walls
    May 1st, 2012 @ 11:04 am

    hysterical dungbat.

  30. Bob Belvedere
    May 1st, 2012 @ 11:13 am

    True.

  31. Mike Rogers
    May 1st, 2012 @ 11:46 am

    Just like everything else about the Left, it’s stolen.
    Originally a pagan festival of fertility, obliquely blessed by the Catholic church as the feast day of St Joseph the Worker, and completely subverted by the left as International Worker’s Day.

  32. Pathfinder's wife
    May 1st, 2012 @ 12:46 pm

    In other words…corporate socialism or the corporate welfare state?

    Which of course has nothing at all to do with free market capitalism or liberty…nor a balance between labor and capital (which  communists have never been able to truly understand or apply because they lacked a good understanding of some basic principles…namely the laws of reality and of human nature).

  33. BLBeamer
    May 1st, 2012 @ 2:08 pm

     I think we’ve touched a nerve.  Poor baby, did Stacy hurt your feewings by mocking your Messiah (while you felt free to mock his)?

  34. ThePaganTemple
    May 1st, 2012 @ 2:22 pm

     You’ll never win an argument with somebody that debates with slogans.

  35. ThePaganTemple
    May 1st, 2012 @ 2:25 pm

    Poor baby, did Stacy hurt your feewings by mocking your Messiah (while you felt free to mock his)?

    Stacy said something nasty about Enver Hoxha?

  36. Pathfinder's wife
    May 1st, 2012 @ 2:44 pm

    You have a point…ok…

    Forward!  Backward! Upwards! Downwards! East! West! North! South!
    …You spin me right round baby right round, like a record baby, right round, right round…

    Hey, fight a slogan with a slogan, and there ya go.

  37. Charles
    May 1st, 2012 @ 3:37 pm

    The Lean Forward folks at MSNBC are giddy, but it’s all frowns today at CNN.

  38. Wisconsin Rules the World, “Forward!” edition « The TrogloPundit
    May 1st, 2012 @ 6:52 pm

    […] aren’t all you right-wing bloggers just having a grand old time making fun of President Obama’s new campaign slogan: […]

  39. Hump Day Link-Around – Forward! « Nice Deb
    May 2nd, 2012 @ 11:58 am

    […] McCain: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky … Obama! Yes, comrades, they all share the same slogan: […]

  40. In case you hadn’t noticed… | Babalú Blog
    May 8th, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

    […] It's one of the oldest and most over-used of communist slogans.  Forward, Pa'lante, Vorwarts,  and so on. Some have noticed.  Take a look here. […]