Ron Paul calls obama a Corporatist, claims corporations are taking over country

[npk]

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Supporters of the Texas lawmaker appear to represent a significant number of the 3,500 attendees here, fueling speculation that Paul is likely to win the straw poll later today. The Campaign for Liberty, Paul’s political outfit, declined to discuss how many of his supporters were at SRLC.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/04/10/ron-paul-barack-obama-is-not-a-socialist/?mod=rss_WSJBlog

--------------------------------------------------------------

Some might agree with Paul in the sense that with the recent SCOTUS ruling have given corporations an even large influence and a bigger stake in our government.

[apples and oranges]

1. Isn't Paul pro-privatization of most industries including Education?

[Fire1]

16. Yeah. Pot meet kettle. n/t

[madchick44]

21. The teabaggers need to read this link and so does DU

We are being disgratected from addresssing the really significant issues of our time and being led to focus on the nut jobs who don't have a clue about what is happening to them or the coountry they claim to love. Once again the oligarchy controls the masses to fight their wars, fund their schemes, and line (sorry, FILL) their pockets. While we turn on each other, the 2% give our money to themselves while taking down our government at the same time.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going

Read it or listen to it and weep.

[cascadiance]

25. Maybe he's "reformed" here like he has been with his past history on racism too...

:sarcasm:

[MrsCorleone]

45. Yes, Ron Paul was Milton Friedman's golden boy, his absolute fav

free-market, pro-corporation member of congress.

How absolutely rich of RP to now project his own deeply held ideology on Obama.

What would Ole' Milton say?

RP is a hypocrite. It's that simple.

[Johonny]

48. pretty much

[Abq_Sarah]

2. It's hard to argue

Against the idea that "Washington is corporatist" (not just the President) when you are a small business owner.

[hobbit709]

3. And just exactly when has he ever done anything to rein in corporations?

[Enrique]

4. voted against wars

and against war funding.

[hobbit709]

8. And what else?

[Enrique]

9. voted against TARP n/t

[Zynx]

51. TARP was not a handout. Actually, it was temporarily used as a lever for heavy regulation

of banks. If it was such a great deal for banks, why were they so eager to repay it?

[Donnachaidh]

10. he's been calling for an internal revue of the FED for YEARS.

Of course, that won't happen with Timmeh and all the other Former Fed people at the WH. He won't get access to the backroom deals these guys did in the past. They are in the perfect spot to play CYA.

[LeftishBrit]

40. That is because the Federal Reserve provides (in his view) too MUCH regulation

He doesn't want it abolished in favour of more direct government oversight of banks. He wants it abolished in favour of no oversight at all.

He is one of the 'Healthcare is not a right' crowd; as such, he is a monster. He also calls gay rights 'heterophobia'; is anti-choice; considers welfare as 'theft' - etc.

The only good thing about him is that he's against the war. For all the wrong reasons, but still, a vote against the war is a vote against the war. But he is not someone worthy of support.

[RainDog]

5. If Paul really thinks this - why is he so fucking stupid about govt. regs?

the whole purpose, imo, for the interaction of govt and biz is to provide oversight for entities who have no moral purpose, whose charters require them to take advantage of every way to fuck over anyone, regardless, b/c they have to assume their competitors do the same...

of course people do not have to do biz this way, but this is how it's done.

so Paul, by this statement, indicates that he thinks his economic philosophy is bad for this nation. funny, dat.

government and industry and workers make up a tri-part "balance of power" just as the three branches of the govt. do, imo. they should not be in bed together. they should be checks on powers for each group.

[npk]

12. Paul actually gave an interview not too long ago

He stated that the problem with many government regulators is that they can be bought and controlled by the same influences that can buy and control government. Basically Paul believes that almost all forms of government, including regulators can be corrupted. I don't exactly know what his alternative would be. Very strange man.

[RainDog]

15. what a stupid statement

of course ANY entity can be bought and controlled.

so the answer is not to have any oversight? even the ethical kind? d'ohinfinity

[npk]

17. Like I said he is a strange man. n/t

[cascadiance]

28. you don't tear down the corrupted. You FIX that! You should tear down the CorrupTORS!

That is the point that Paul is missing. An unregulated private sector just eliminates the middleman in their quest to completely grab power and resources for themselves. Of course if he were to start coming down on the private sector that ARE the corruptors in this, and ARE the root of the problem, he'd lose his libertarian base and get the equivalent of the Bart Stupak treatment from them.

[CynicalObserver]

35. why would anyone think government cannot be corrupted

corruption is an integral part of government, throughout history. It is the nature of the beast. Of course regulators can be corrupted/co-opted.

[onehandle]

6. Yeah, it wasn't like that before Obama.

:eyes:

But I agree that Obama could do more to fight it.

[Donnachaidh]

7. anyone who says he's *not* a corporatist is delusional

Jesus Christ -- FIRST thing on the agenda was to open the treasury to *bail out* banks with some verbal threats of investigations which have NOT happened. Goldman Sachs has so many former workers in positions of power you can very well say that that company has an undue amount of influence over our WH.

He made backroom deals with Pharma and the Insurance lobbyists for *healthcare*.

Has *anything* of substance been done to get the little guy back to work? Oh yeah, a few piddly tax cuts for BUSINESS....

:shrug:

[CynicalObserver]

36. goldman, to be fair, has been a big player in both gop and dnc

administrations. I agree with everything you say. The US is getting an increasing dose of fascism/corporatism, and the trend only looks to continue.

[saltpoint]

11. My optimum deal with Ron Paul, a man I consider to be a racist kook,

would be for him to disrupt the GOP into a billion fractious shards and then implode on the way out the door.

At the moment he is doing a reasonably good job, if inadvertently, of dulling the shine of Romney's "inevitability."

[EFerrari]

31. And that would be the best use of this racist kook, agreed. n/t

[saltpoint]

37. - - -

:hi:

[LeftishBrit]

57. Agreed!

[Speck Tater]

13. The cycle goes like this:

1. The poor outnumber the rich, so they vote to take money from the rich to help the poor (i.e. progressive taxation and beneficial social programs).

2. To defend themselves from the poor the rich minority buys more and more power until they control the government so that the superior number of votes of the poor no longer have power over the rich.

3. Once the rich own the government their greed destroys the middle class who are added to the ranks of the poor.

4. When the poor are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently downtrodden they rise up and throw the rich out of the government, and we go back to stage 1.

Right now we are transitioning from stage 2 to stage 3. The rich corporations own the government and they are in the process of destroying the middle class. In another generation from now the poor will reclaim their superior voting power and throw the rich out. But for now we are definitely in the corporatist stage of the cycle, like we were in the 1870's and 1920's. And that includes both political parties. They are both owned by the rich.

[laughingliberal]

18. "their greed destroys the middle class who are added to the ranks of the poor."

Absolutely spot on. I'd just say instead of being in transition from 2 to 3, we are firmly living in 3. Sadly, there are still enough hanging on to middle class status right now to foster the apathy for a while longer.

[provis99]

30. well, that's essentially what Karl Marx said.

Though he left out cycling back to stage 1. I guess he wasn't so cynical.

[orwell]

43. Stop making sense...

...this time it's different...uh...because I say so.

[Cleita]

14. I have to agree. I don't think he is a laissez faire corporatist though and

probably wants to rein in and regulate a lot of the abuses that were introduced by Bush/Cheney and company. However, you won't get much populist legislation coming out of his administration. I believe the reason that we are still at war is because he's protecting the industries that are making money from their contributions to the war whether it's artillery and other hardware or manpower as in mercenaries.

[Quantess]

duplicate post

[Quantess]

19. Obama is continuing the corporatist agenda, true.

But it was the Supreme Court who made that recent ruling, not Obama.

[npk]

20. Very true

And to Obama's credit, he came out very strongly against that decision.

[arcadian]

22. Yeah, because it was safe for him to do so.

"My hands are tied on this one, guys." *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*

[cali]

38. oh bullshit. he clearly was strongly opposed to the Citizens United decision.

[arcadian]

42. Not clearly

and apparently not strongly enough

[Lorien]

56. Exactly. words only, no deeds or efforts attached. nt

[Joe the Liberal]

23. Can't say I disagree although.....

whether he knows it or not Ron Paul and his policies would be very welcome by corporations, more so than Obamas imo.

[Toasterlad]

24. The Crazy Man Is Correct.

[SidDithers]

26. Who cares what Ron Paul thinks?....nt

Sid

[Sebastian Doyle]

27. While Paul is correct in his estimation of the problem, he doesn't exactly offer any solutions

Randtard Libertarianism (he named his own son after the stupid fascist c*nt) would enable corporatism even WORSE than the status quo.

[boggeyman]

33. Correction

Little correction, his son Rand(al)Paul was not named after Ayn Rand. He has even been on record about this lie. Also his brand of libertarianism is that of the Austrians (misses, Rutbard etc). Ayn is the one that thinks the west deserves ownership of Saudi oil fields just because they taught them how to extract it and as a staunch defender of private property, i serious doubts he subscribes to such a belief

Btw this is my 1st post on DU, I have been reading articles and message boards on DU for a very long time (4+ yrs) since I started off a liberal and now have been transformed into a libertarian. Anyway, I hope am not labelled a troll and my message scrubbed from the forum.

Paul/Kucinich 2012

[ixion]

29. Well, they are...

and he is, in my opinion.

[Odin2005]

32. The crazy crackpot is right, for once.

[The Gunslinger]

34. I swear that the republicans (and thats all Ron P. is) make a sport out of

saying the most hypocritical things and trying to get away from it. What a Joke.

[misanthrope]

39. And what's a Libertarian?...

...Government is supposed to be the safeguard against corporatism and Libertarians want to get rid of that watchdog. The Libertarian avenue would only exacerbate corporate takeover of the nation.

[Sebastian Doyle]

41. Well, as Thom Hartmann often says....

they're really just Republicans who like to smoke dope and get laid. :evilgrin:

[EFerrari]

52. And he's right!

lol

[jakeXT]

44. I'm surprised he is educating the Republicans, his top contributers after the military

were Google and Microsoft.

The military wants out of the AfPak & Iraq, but closing all bases of the empire?

Google wants no censorship ?

http://goonanism.com/hudson/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/080407-iTulip_FIRE-Economy-in-Crisis-Part-II.pdf (includes opensecrets contribution data on pages 5-10)


Or could someone educate me on that?

[branders seine]

46. Obama *is* a corporatist

:shrug:

[scheming daemons]

47. But all the teabaggers who worship Ron Paul call him a socialist????

They cant even get their insults straight.

[apples and oranges]

49. Good catch, but teabaggers don't know the definition of either word

[Zynx]

50. Coming from a man who wants completely unregulated capitalism, I find this amusing.

[krabigirl]

53. Well, agree with him on other issues or not, he's right about this.

[B Calm]

54. How many conventions do republicans have a year?

[Hannah Bell]

55. ron paul = a corporate approved populist & quasi-fascist.