Phatscotty wrote:There is new evidence Obama literally and physically signed up to join a Socialist party in 1996-97.
Obama deadbeated his dues to the New Socialist Party in 1997.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... -New-PartyNew Party principles
* Full public financing of elections, universal voter registration, proportional representation, free party competition.
* The establishment, defense, and facilitation of worker, consumer, shareholder, and taxpayer rights to democratic self-organization.
* The creation of a sustainable economy based on the responsible and reverent use of our earth's resources-taking no more than we need, replacing and reusing all that we can.
* A society in which we all take seriously our responsibilities as parents, workers and citizens.
* The democratization of our banking and financial system-including popular election of those charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner control over their pension assets, community-controlled alternative financial institutions.
* A Bill of Rights for America's Children, guaranteeing true equality of opportunity, providing equal education for all students, and achieving an adequate standard of health care, nutrition, housing, and safety.
* Community-control and equitable funding of our schools, within which we seek true excellence in public education along with equal opportunity to achieve it.
* Full employment, a shorter work week, and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a universal "social wage" to include such basic benefits as health care, child care, vacation time, and lifelong access to education and training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs to ensure gender equity.
* A progressive tax system based on the ability to pay.
Rebuilding our cities and metropolitan regions-the cornerstones of a high-wage and ecologically sustainable economy-through community-led programs of comprehensive, democratic, high-wage, and low-waste economic development.
* A community in which residents, neighborhood organizations, businesses, police and local officials work cooperatively as equal partners to provide a safe and secure environment in which to live and work and study.
* A reduction of national military spending to that necessary to the defense of the United States and an end to unilateral military interventions.
* Trade among nations consistent with mutual improvement in living standards, reduced cross-national inequalities, and sustainable development.
* In all aspects of our economy and social life, an absolute bar to discrimination based on race, gender, age, country of origin, and sexual orientation, and absolute security in reproductive rights, fundamental liberties, and privacy.
Hmmm. Most of these principles are those that Founding Fathers held as self evident; many more that they omitted as "obvious" got added in later.
Personally, I do prefer a country that considers citizens to be more important than corporations, and definitely distinguishes corporations from citizenry. I mean, how horrible is it, really, for a "political party" to want people to be able to vote - compared to the party that (shamefully) wants to give a Corporation the right to vote.
How horrible it is to think that things like safe workplaces, wages you can live on, equality to prevent corporations from running across borders to avoid paying taxes or give workers a reasonable standard of living.
Many - not all, but many - companies that are so internationally wealthy, got wealthy to begin with on the backs of taxpayers. Many of these companies got lucrative U S GOVERNMENT research and development contracts back when government contracts were lucrative, which are essentially taxpayer investments in those corporations. So, on taxpayer dollars they were able to develop a product. Then, on tax-paid-for-roads and tax-paid-for-ports they figured out good ways to transport materials back and forth.
Now, they feel they don't need us, and it's true, they don't. But they wouldn't have got where they are today if it weren't for us, and it's "wrong" for US to think, hmmmm, maybe a little loyalty and patriotism should temper your wish to make 1000% more for your ceo compared to your lowest paid worker than you were able to do before US taxes helped you get there?
It's "wrong" for us to think, hey, don't pollute our environment, we know, now, from history, that when you do, you won't pay to clean it up because it's too expensive, so you leave that burden back on the taxpayer when you move on because now we want you to pay back a little of what helped you grow so big.
The Revolutionary war was waged in part, to ensure that common folks got a fair shake, because as things were then, only royalty and their appointees got to reap benefits. So, now, instead of "royalty" we have corporations and their officers, as Kings of Commerce.
A CEO who runs its business into the ground so that thousands of people are laid off, still gets his contractual $250 million dollar bonuses because in the end, all those layoffs and declarations of bankruptcy take away the red lines and put a company back into the black so he met the target... and that's okay, but a peon worker asking for healthcare or time off is not?
Capitalism only works for a country if along with it, goes a huge dose of Patriotism; but when Capitalism replaces god, loyalty, patriotism, or simple human decency, it annihilates a country... and that's what's happened.
Sorry, dudes, it's not Barack (I don't give a rat's tush what his middle name is, he did not pick it, his parents did) Obama's fault that we don't have jobs. It's the fault of his predecessors who changed port impact fee laws and other things to make it so very ridiculously easy for corporations to sell out and move out to places where the people will work for peanuts and yet still sell products here at prices damned close to what it would cost if WE were still making them.
Why is it that athletic shoes made by less-than-dollar-an-hour laborers cost as much or sometimes more than shoes made by New Balance (a store that still makes their shoes here) where the MINIMUM laborer makes ten times as much money?
No. That's not Obama's fault. It's not the New Party's fault. But, it is why we need both.
I said that growing up in America is an irreplaceable and invaluable part of understanding what it means to be an American. You went wrong when you for some unknown reason assumed that to mean growing up in America is the 
