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The Spectacle Blog
There’s a tendency of conservatives to carelessly toss about the “S” word. Like John McCain, who opposed the Bush tax cuts while spouting left-wing rhetoric, then accusing Barack Obama of being a socialist because the latter proposed to increase taxes on the rich. It was bad liberal redistributionist policy, but McCain—for every bail-out as well as cap-and-trade—was in no position to call his opponent a socialist for advocating the same dumb liberal redistributionist policies.
However, as the Washington Examiner pointed out last week (and the Washington Times mentioned today), Carol Browner really is a socialist. Or at least, she belonged to the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of the Socialist International. Granted, these are pretty wimpy socialists, rather than serious guys with guns intent on seizing everyone’s property. But still. Reports the Examiner:
Conservatives are often accused of scaremongering when they claim left-wing environmentalists are actually socialists hiding behind green disguises. But with Carol Browner, incoming President Barack Obama’s freshly appointed Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change - the so-called White House “Climate Czar” - there is no question about the socialism. Browner is a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society (CSWS), which is a formal organ of the Socialist International. Oddly enough, the group’s web site was recently scrubbed to remove Browner’s picture and biography, but her name is still listed next to the photo-biographies of her 14 colleagues on the commission. The Socialist International is no group of woolly-headed idealists. It is an influential assembly of officials from across the international community whose official Statement of Principles describes an agenda of gaining and exercising government power based on socialist concepts.
Browner’s CSWS is similarly open about the economic costs it is willing to impose, across national borders to achieve its environmental utopia. On Sept. 5-6, 2008, the commission noted that the costs of its proposals would “rang[e] in the hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades,” and it called for a “redesign of the international rules on intellectual property.” That is international bureaucratese for compelling an inventor to surrender property rights in order to “share” technologies with less-developed countries.
At the Congress of the Socialist International held last June 30-July2, the CSWS officially resolved that “market solutions alone are insufficient and will not provide the financial support and resources necessary to achieve the required combination of deep emission reduction, adaptation to already changing climate conditions, energy security and equitable and environmentally sound economic development.” Again, that’s bureaucratese. It means that international taxes should be imposed to provide the “resources necessary” to impose what the CSWS repeatedly refers to as a ‘regime” against “global warming.” By appointing Browner to a White House post, Obama has at the least implicitly endorsed an utterly radical socialist agenda for his administration’s environmental policy. The incoming chief executive thus strengthens critics who contend environmental policies aren’t really about protecting endangered species or preserving virgin lands, but rather expanding government power and limiting individual freedom.
The best part is that Browner obviously is embarrassed by the connection, since someone has engaged in a bit of Stalinist air-brushing of history by eliminating her picture and bio from the socialist website.
Alas, she’s headed to the White House—ironically, to be “Czar” of the Climate. (Didn’t socialists revolt against the last real Czar?). That means there will be no Senate confirmation process, with an opportunity ask appropriate questions.
View all comments (65) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/12/carol-browner-a-socialist
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KS| 1.12.09 @ 7:16PM
I thought that Obama once belonged to the socialist New Party. Is that incorrect?
Steve Lee | 1.12.09 @ 7:45PM
It is no surprise that socialist ideas are held by the leaders of the environmental organizations that will end-up being the big winners of the presidential election, Click Link:
Where Politicians Get Their Bad Environmental Ideas
Jeremiah| 1.12.09 @ 8:18PM
KS --
While Sarah Palin was good enough to remind us all that Obama was a terrorist, it's not true he was ever a socialist.
Of course, these Democrats are all the same -- socialists at heart. I think someone did a study and found that 25% of troops serving over seas identify themselves as Democrats. They're socialists, too, unlike brave conservatives who sit back at home and listen to right wing radio as a way of serving their country.
I hope Obama is a socialist so we can finally get around to our agenda of destroying this country and dragging the free world into a nightmarish prison-house of oppression and gloom.
Mao? Stalin? Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. Just wait until Obama Hussein enact is Baathist coup and we're all slaves to a technocratic dictatorship run by the likes of Whoopie Goldberg, Dan Rather, and Ward Churchill.
Vive la revolution!
ConservativeWanderer | 1.12.09 @ 8:43PM
KS, I don't think Obama was ever a card-carrying socialist (any more than Sarah Palin was ever a card-carrying member of the Alaska Independence Party), but Obama did garner the endorsement of the American Socialist Party, if memory serves. I could be wrong, I haven't time right now to look it up.
Interloper| 1.12.09 @ 9:12PM
Duh! As I said on the other thread milking this non-issue, the organization is actually mainstream. It has British participation, as well as American.
Dandapani| 1.12.09 @ 9:40PM
The Internet Wayback Machine finds:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080212060043/www.socialistinternational.org/6SWSCommission/19Nov07/Pressrelease-e.html
QUOTE:
The Commission brings together leading personalities, among them serving and former heads of state and government ministers from different continents, to set out recommendations to tackle these fundamental issues.
Ricardo Lagos, former President of the Republic of Chile and a Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General on Climate Change, and Göran Persson, former Prime Minister of Sweden, have been appointed Co-Chairs of the Commission, and other members are: Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom; Carol M. Browner, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton;
Simon| 1.12.09 @ 10:21PM
Dear Interloper,
You make the sad point, but ignore it: "the organization is actually mainstream." In other words, Socialism is now mainstream (Winston Churchill stated that the vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings while the virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery. You are one of many poorly informed people.
Simon| 1.12.09 @ 10:29PM
Interloper: By your logic, if slavery is/was mainstream, then slavery is/was a "non-issue." Why would anything "mainstream" automatically be a "non-issue?" Hitler's policies were mainstream, you . . . . You might want to reconsider your position (educate yourself).
Interloper| 1.12.09 @ 11:34PM
Simon, my point is that this is sophistry. Participation is this organization is not about being radical at all. The people who feed y'all all this alarmist B.S. treat folks as if they are too foolish to know what the normal political spectrum is. This blog entry is much ado about nothing and will prove as meaningless as most of the 'red meat' tossed to the snarling lackeys around here.
Deborah | 1.13.09 @ 4:33AM
Since the country is already struggling with socialist policies enacted during the last New Deal (Social Security) and also struggling with socialist policies enacted during LBJ's term (Medicare) and no one really knows what Mr. Obama's plans are, but we know he tends socialist, why wouldn't a rational human being be concerned about his appointment of Browner. She's someone who is a member of an organization that is in favor of "compelling an inventor to surrender property rights in order to 'share' technologies with less-developed countries. " That's about as socialist as one can get. And she's going to be advising our president who wants to "spread the wealth around." Also about as socialist as one can get. If it walks like a duck...
And just because y'all call us names doesn't mean we're going to shut up.
ConservativeWanderer | 1.13.09 @ 8:27AM
Interloper, if this post is so meaningless, why are you spending so much time trying to prove to use that it's meaningless?
If it really wasn't a threat to your sainted Obamamessiah, why not just let us poor neanderthals wallow in our ignorance?
In short, your actions belie your words.
Have a nice day.
KS| 1.13.09 @ 9:46AM
Jeremiah, Governor Palin merely pointed out the relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers. She never called Obama a terrorist.
stmichrick| 1.13.09 @ 10:02AM
Socialism in the Obama Administration?
Say it ain't so.
My fantasy is that with all this 'Change' in the air, history may be taught in the public schools once more. There might even be discussion of failed states.
I'll keep dreamin'.
Thomas| 1.13.09 @ 10:57AM
I said this before, but as I am feeling lazy and am overwhelmed by the fact that we seem to have nothing better to do than beat a dead horse: Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Jeremiah| 1.13.09 @ 12:08PM
Conservatives --
When children say "I'm starving" when they mean "I'm hungry" or "I want a Twinkie," adults sometimes are known to offer an edifying reminder that there are people starving in the world, and that they are blessed not to be starving or even hungry. (I assume conservatives and liberals are in agreement on this.)
Well, you people sound like these same children.
Socialism? Communism?
Give me a break. Republicans have controlled the agenda in Washington for 6 of the last 8 years, and had enough power to defeat any Democratic measure for the last two. They've run the show.
Sure, they socialized the pain felt by the very wealthy. That's what Republicans see as their primary function in life. But there's no real "socialism" in America -- and there's not going to be.
Interloper| 1.13.09 @ 2:53PM
"...there's no real "socialism" in America -- and there's not going to be."
Precisely!
ruth| 1.14.09 @ 1:16AM
Well knock me down! Obama's got a socialist in his cabinet. Precisely!
Deborah | 1.14.09 @ 4:42AM
Socialism "(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles." Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Transition, change... sounds pretty similar.
Chuck| 1.14.09 @ 2:32PM
Mentored by Frank Marshall Davis
Community organizer of the Saul Alinsky method
Enjoys the Company of:
Tony Rezko (Crook)
William Ares (Terrorist)
Rod Blagojevich (Criminal)
And now this. Wow he’s batting 1000.
Who's he going to pick next?
Alan Cheetham | 1.14.09 @ 6:45PM
See also this article on Carol Browner at www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Browner.htm
Pingback| 1.29.09 @ 7:07PM
Is Barack Setting himself up for failure?? - Page 3 links to this page.
faith| 3.17.09 @ 6:08PM
Carol Browner, I was thinking about turning on my air. I thought you may want to come turn it on for me? I guess Americans are too stupid to be in charge of their own thermostat. We DON'T NEED THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLING OUR LIVES. You left wing idiot nut jobs. I am just waiting for 2010 I know you are all going to be tossed out on your stupid asses.
Wue| 3.18.09 @ 2:27AM
I'm no socialist, but I have about had it with the neo-conservatives and others who think this country should be run by and for the moneyed elite. ESPECIALLY the ones who profess to be Christians.
We now have a president who is trying to pull this country out of a fincial hole, and because some of the programs that will put money back into the system first goes to poor people, oh! my God! we are becoming a communist state. Get real, people. We are all in this together. Help your neighbor and you will help us all.
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Rusty| 9.9.09 @ 3:39AM
Being that the Union Education Dept in this country has purposefully failed to educate our children, it would be surprising if anyone under 40 might recall the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The 'takeover' of Russia was implemented by telling the 'people' that the Rich were EVIL. The irony was that after a successful INDOCTRINATION, the 'plebes' or common people, did indeed murder or otherwise dispose of all of the "wealthy" ones. Sad thing, though, in doing so, they KILLED all of the PRODUCTIVE members of their Society, and had at least 3 DECADES OF STARVATION as the majority of those killed were the Farmers, manufacturers and producers. Go ahead you Obamanuts, SPREAD the WEALTH. Kill us all. (PS...Try reading up on your history)..
Mike Hamilton| 9.9.09 @ 8:58AM
By the way Obama was a member of the New Party from 92 or 94 to about 1998 which was a Communist Party but was was forced to disban in 1998.
Grandmagrace| 9.10.09 @ 2:52PM
Jeremiah
No socialism in America?
Get real.
Social security and
Medicare, medicaide
ARE SOCIALISM! and failing!
If we are to protect are country from futher socialism we have to call it like it is. Otherwise we are blind to what others are trying oppose on us!
I do not believe that this great country should push aside all the liberties that make this the greatest country in the world just so we can look like all the other social democracy in the world! We have always been better than that!
WAKE UP AMERICA!
Grandmagrace| 9.10.09 @ 2:54PM
Rusty,
You tell it like it is! Good work!
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