Wrote movie director Milos Forman, for The New York Times:
Milos Forman, PBS image, American Masters
When I was asked to direct One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, my friends warned me not to go anywhere near it. The story is so American, they argued, that I, an immigrant fresh off the boat, could not do it justice. They were surprised when I explained why I wanted to make the film. To me it was not just literature but real life, the life I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do; what I was or was not allowed to say; where I was and was not allowed to go; even who I was and was not.
Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.
. . . Whatever his faults, I don’t see much of a socialist in Mr. Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Fred Clark writing at Slacktivist.
More information:
- Actual Socialism (washingtonmonthly.com)
- Socialist: I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means (carpebootium.com)
- Milos Forman: Obama’s No Iron-Curtain Socialist and Socialism Has No Human Face (txwclp.org)
- Is Obama a Socialist? An Answer to Milos Forman (realclearpolitics.com)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Capitalism fails to realize that life is social.
Communism fails to realize that life is personal.
The good and just society is a socially conscious
democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism. – Martin Luther King
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Interesting view, Jim — and historically accurate, so far as I can see.
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Howdy, KW! Welcome to the Bathtub!
I’m a regular here that Ed is gracious enough to tolerate and I hope you will join us. I have enjoyed reading the thread thus far.
I’m always amused at the attempt by some of our friends on the right to taint President Obama with a Marxist, Communist or even Socialist label. I know you’re not doing that…just asking honest questions.
While I am not a pure Socialist, I would guess that I come a lot closer to being one that either Ed or James. I find it baffling that anyone would consider Obama anything but a center-right corporatist. I suppose we could call a few of his social policies center left; you know…abortion rights and gay marriage. But what’s his big Socialist tax proposal? Yep – bumping the top tax rate up to 39 % and only for those making a quarter of a million or more. If you want to talk about Socialist tax policy, you’d be on safer ground indicted Dick Nixon, Jack Kennedy or Ike. Eisenhower taxed the top earners at 91%. (Oh, and they still got plenty rich too!) So what President Obama is proposing doesn’t seem Socialist at all.
And candidly, there was nothing “Socialist” about Nixon or Kennedy or Ike either. No, not even where taxes were concerned. These men just realized something our European cousins know already. Both Socialism AND Capitalism are corrupt, dangerous and toxic…if left unchecked. Unchecked Socialism inevitably spirals into repressive Communism. Unchecked Capitalism devolves into…well…into what we’re experiencing in the USA right now. Pure, unadulterated Social Darwinism.
So what’s the answer? Well, I suspect far more left wing people than Barack Obama (you know, people like Clifford Case, Jacob Javits or Dwight D. Eisenhower) would tell you that the answer is found in permitting one economic narrative to be restrained by the most noble impulses of the other. Now, here in the US, I suspect it would work best for us to remain Capitalist. But to – as we did from 1933-1981 – allow the best and most honorable impulses of Socialism to sand off Capitalism’s roughest edges. It worked mighty well, don’t you think? We got out of the Great Depression, defeated Germany, Italy and Japan, rebuilt Europe and Japan, built an interstate highway system that was the envy of the world, fought another war on the Korean peninsula, rebuilt South Korea, cured polio, made measles and other diseases far less common, put two cars in most every garage and beat the Soviets to the moon. (And I suspect you could name some other pretty amazing American achievements of the 1933-1981 era.)
And how did we do that? By being a basically Capitalist country…but not one that let the Capitalist ethos rape and pillage everything and everyone in its sight. (Don’t blame Capitalism or Socialism for raping and pillaging. It’s what EITHER system will do if left unchecked.) We just checked our Capitalism with a modicum of compassionate, Socialisticky (hat/tip to former Governor Palin!) taxes and expenditures.
It work’s just the same way, only in reverse, in places like Norway, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada and Sweden. Despite Europe’s economic woes – nearly all of which began in no-tax or tax-scofflaw states like Ireland and Greece – these countries are doing reasonably well. They are mostly Socialist but they have generous amounts of Capitalist thought and policy in place to keep everything from going off the rails. Me? I prefer the American way – Capitalism first, but Socialism a close second. Our government is built on checks and balances so I fail to understand why our economy shouldn’t be. Especially when it worked so swimmingly for almost 50 years. We tried deregulation, tax cuts and trickle down. It failed. Time to get back to what has worked historically.
Unfortunately, I am afraid Barack Obama is far too much of a Capitalist to do anything more than nudge us in the right direction. We need a Bernie Sanders or a Paul Wellstone who can shoe us in the rear end and get us moving. So no worries about Socialists in the White House. I can only wish…
Cheers!
Jim
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To quote: As far as socialism, we have lots of social programs in the US (i.e. welfare) that are socialist, and that is a good thing.
No they’re not socialist. They’re examples of Keynsian capitalism. They’re also examples of Adam Smith capitalism. They’re only examples of socialism if one so twists the meaning of the word “socialist” so that it has no valid or specific meaning any longer.
TO quote: The growth of more social programs troubles my wife and I because it leads to an entitlement mentality and laziness.
since most people pay taxes that go to those entitlement programs…i.e..they pay for them then no those programs aren’t an “entitlement” nor do they breed lazieness. For just under 20 years now I’ve worked and paid into social security, medicare, medicaid and unemployment insurance. I’ve paid for those things..it’s not that I’m “entitled” to them..it’s that I already bought those things. Just as my dad busted his tail for 55 years. Just as my mom busted her tail for 45 years. Just as the rest of my family bust their tails.
However an example of laziness is Mitt Romney sitting on his fat white arse doing supposedly nothing for the last 6 years and getting paid at least $45 million dollars for it. Oh and then paying no taxes on it.
And there’d be a lot less need for “entitlement” programs if 1: the economy would be fixed and 2: the economy would be rebalanced so it doesn’t benefit solely the chosen rich few.
But those on the other side never quite seem to realize that fact.
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Amen. Of course, that’s a problem for all political philosophies (Hitler, Wounded Knee, Andrew Jackson, Kenyatta, Ferdinand Marcos), isn’t it?
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First, I appreciate the information and perspective you have shared. You have forced me to consider things I have not considered before. Also, I am white, but my wife is black. We were discussing these points this morning. She read “Black Boy” by Wright a few months ago and she said she was surprised that a lot of blacks were active in the CP back then, and I concede that a condemnation of communism is not straight forward. I want to read this book soon. I can see how some system of activism was need to fight repression.
As far as socialism, we have lots of social programs in the US (i.e. welfare) that are socialist, and that is a good thing. I will not defend the evils of any system. Socialism, in my opinion, *can balance* the evils of capitalism. What I have trouble reconciling to the grass roots communism is the communist regimes that they grow into. All are repressive to the very humanity they portend to save. The growth of more social programs troubles my wife and I because it leads to an entitlement mentality and laziness. This is the environment my wife grew up. It should be a hand up, not a hand out. If social programs do this, we are in favor of it.
Also, I will say that communism is a philosophy and should be separated from the material world. A professor at the university and Stalin can still be communists, but their influence on the material world is very different. Just because a person hasn’t acted out communist policies does not exclude them from being a communist and acting them out if given the chance. Using your example, the Chihuahua may be small, but can have the same “philosophy” of a wolf, and give a wolf body, would be a wolf. I agree with Forman if one ties Obama to the manifestation of communism in the Soviet empire, but that still doesn’t exclude him from being a philosophical Marxist.
Forgive me if I have not answered every point, but life is just too busy. I don’t even have enough time for my own blog. And James, thanks for the apology. I agree that most of the times people are not reasonable and forums/comments sections are like the halls of lunatic asylums. I hope I have a least proven myself reasonable.
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Marxism? Jon Stewart said: “Or as your second grade teacher would call it, ‘sharing.'”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/jon-stewart-obama-romney-fox-news.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
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kwlowery: One of the points Milos Forman makes is that calling Obama a Marxist, or socialist, trivializes the very real damage of Marxism gone amok in the Soviet system, or the dangers of socialism in the Eastern Bloc.
Calling Obama a Marxist is to ignore the evils of Marxism, to pretend Stalin was not so bad as he was, to cry “wolf!” when the neighbor’s chihuahua barks.
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Just to add. Frank Davis grew up in a time where capitalism was sanctioning the oppression of his people based merely on the color of their skin. His parents or grandparents generation were the last of the slaves..which was again imposed on them by capitalism. He grew up in a time where a white man could kill him and get away with it.
For it’s faults communism opposed those things….on those things communism was right and capitalism was wrong.
So it’s pretty easy to see why communism would appeal to him…it’s because capitalism had been beating his “race” down for generations.
You’re railing against him for his opposition to the society that had been enslaving, discriminating and persecuting people just like him for the better part of three centuries?
As for the economics side of things…most people in this country bust their asses at work. And yet most of us are barely staying afloat while the chosen few like Mitt Romney, the supposed epitome of capitalism, get fat off our work.
If Mr Kengor really has such a problem with communism then he should be out trying to fix capitalism instead of stupidly railing against Frank Davis. He should be out helping the President rebalance the scales instead of using someone from way back in the President’s childhood to bash the President with.
Instead those who so love to rail against communism and socialism are the ones doing the most to so completely tip the scales of capitalism in favor of the rich few and against the masses.
For all their hatred of Karl Marx and what he taught the “ubercapitalists” in this country like Mitt Romney sure love following his predictions to the letter.
If all those “capitalist geniuses” like Mittens were really quite so intelligent they should be backing Obama to the hilt. Because if they don’t agree to rebalance the economic scales in this country they are going to be on the short end of the stick when the masses get completely cheesed off.
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Grove City is a formerly good, small liberal arts school. If they turned some corner, perhaps after the Supreme Court case that bears their name, too bad. I know a few Grove City grads, and they seem relatively normal.
So was Woody Guthrie — but I think that’s a urination poverty reason to claim “Roll, Columbia” is subversive, or that “This Land Is Your Land” is unsuitable for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Communists share, with Winston Churchill, a great distaste for Adolf Hitler and fascism, a distaste that was opposed by many Americans like Charles Lindbergh and Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.
So what? Many American patriots were Communists at one time. It’s no sin. We have this thing called the First Amendment that says anyone can believe any fool thing they wish to believe.
Davis was a card-carrying Communist? He obviously was thinking a lot harder than most Birch Society members. So what?
It’s an opinion that such information should bias us against people who carried those cards. Kengor implicitly condemns Davis, but a thinking person should be more skeptical, in my opinion. There should be honor in having opposed Hitler prior to 1939, not shame. Kengor expects that we have the opposite view — and my question to him would be, why should we honor people who supported Hitler prior to Pearl Harbor, and not those who opposed his regime? Kengor’s giving us less than half the story. I prefer a whole truth.
Let me make this clear: Communists were premature patriots through the 1920s and 1930s. Communists stood up for the Bill of Rights when no one else would. Communists opposed lynching and agitated for justice.
People who defend human rights, oppose totalitarians, favor Constitutional rights (especially for minorities), and oppose unjust violence are regarded as evil in all times in American history. Experience should tell us that those who paint those people as evil are, instead, or maybe in addition, evil themselves.
Davis stood up for civil rights 20 years before Martin Luther King, Jr., you say? Is that good or bad?
If we look at Davis’s life, he seems like a normal sort of guy, if a bit talented in poetry and writing — where do you see harm here?
From a bio of Davis on Wikipedia:
Why is Kengor condemning Davis, really? Davis spent most of his life working for civil rights and promoting the advancement of colored people. Is that what really bugs Kengor? Where do we see Davis endorsing Stalin? I don’t see it at all.
That’s not exactly right. What the Communist Manifesto talks about eliminating is the right of “bourgeois” accumulation of the fruits of the labor of others, while depriving the laborers of the fruits of their own labor. Look at the document, especially the few paragraphs immediately after their seemingly shocking statement that communism means the abolition of private property. Their claim — pretty accurate for the time — was that 90% of the people were deprived of the right to hold property at all by capitalism, and that their labors to increase capital were taken from them unfairly. In other words, they said property restrictions made it impossible for most people to get the benefit of their own labor, because those benefits flowed to the people at the top, by rights of class and inheritance. Engels and Marx were struggling to find a way to get a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work — and capitalism in Europe at the time they wrote did not allow that.
Now let me ask you: Are you opposed to letting people who work accumulate their own wages? Or do you think they should be taxed, privately, by those who own land?
Kengor is an educated man, and surely he knows the differences and nuances in the discussion — so his gross oversimplification is either deluded or intended to mislead.
If he says, ‘communists are opposed to all private property,’ again he’s told us a half truth. Why doesn’t he look at the argument that Marx and Engels actually made, that 90% of the people were deprived of the right to a fair day’s wage — deprived of the fruits of their labor — because under the bourgeois system, most of those fruits escheated to the “owners of capital,” the large land owners and factory owners?
Why doesn’t he say that he, Kengor, is opposed to letting workers get a fair day’s wage? It looks a bit different that way.
Which is a long way of saying, Kengor is not showing us all of his cards, but claiming he is. That’s a form of dishonesty, it seems to me, that calls into question all else he says.
Marx and Engels addressed the claim that no one would work in a society that doesn’t allow private property:
You wrote:
It’s difficult to tell from your photo avatar, but I assume you are not black, nor did you live when laws in most states forbade blacks from marrying across race lines, when laws in almost half the states made voting almost impossible, and when it was an invitation to death to try to register to vote, if you were black.
What sort of free market is built on such oppression, and do you support that, also? I submit that for African Americans in the lynching South, “free market” was not reality. Davis fought for free markets, for blacks, and the communists supported that fight. Again I think back to Thoreau’s answer to Emerson when Emerson found him in jail for failing to pay taxes, as a protest to injustice. “Why are you here, Henry?” Emerson asked. “Why are you not here, Ralph?” Thoreau responded.
From 2012, it’s easy to say “I support free markets.” But in 1930, there was no free market for Frank Davis, except if he fought for it. Communists supported his fight. It’s unfair, and inaccurate, to claim Davis was not for freedom, nor for free markets. That’s much less than a half-truth, and much closer to a whole lie.
And it’s useful to look at those 22 mentions. Obama doesn’t talk about Davis as a mentor, or as anything other than a guy dedicated to social change for good, and a character he knew as a child. Wikipedia notes it concisely:
Jerome Corsi, by the way, I regard as a congenital liar or a person really fouled up by hallucinogens. He’s absolutely unreliable as a source, and a malpractitioner of history.
Did you see anything in Obama’s book to suggest any deep relationship, let alone a “mentor” relation? I didn’t.
You wrote:
Hayek and the Austrian School define socialism as the case when the government owns and/or controls the means of production. Socialism in the Affordable Care Act? Private citizens determine when and where to purchase health care. That care is delivered by private physicians in their private offices, or in private clinics and private hospitals (there are a few public hospitals, but most are not). Medical devices and pharmaceuticals are chosen by the private physicians and patients, created, manufactured, distributed and sold through private companies. Government does not restrict any part of that system, exercising no control over any part — except the insurance companies, who currently have a private bureaucracy that spends $25 out of every $100 in health care to create barriers to poor people, to keep the uninsured out of hospitals, out of doctor’s offices, and without access to modern, expensive medical treatments.
So, I would say there is zero socialism in the Affordable Care Act, by the definitions of the conservative economists the political conservatives claim to follow (a false claim, it seems to me).
Obama has failed to act against Wall Street wrongdoers, leaving the worst forms of capitalist behavior to run rampant (Congress has been the stumbling block here). No socialism. Obama derived a uniquely capitalist solution to save two of America’s three native automakers. That was an anti-socialist solution.
What has Obama ever done that meets any rational definition of socialism?
You’re welcome. Good questions that force me to organize thoughts better.
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And IMO the populace of this country really needs to start considering the reasons that the GOP wants to, to quote Grover Norquist, shrink the government to the point that they can drown it in a bathtub.
In my experience a party doesn’t create such hatred of government unless it’s got an agenda it wants to enact once the government is out of the way.
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To quote: Paul Kengor is a professor at Grove City College who just finished a biography on Davis. Yes, it is a Christian college
First off, I’m Christian. That isn’t my problem with him. He’s a regular contributor at Townhall.com which is the blogging universe’s version of Fox News. That’s my problem with him.
As for the tone I took my apologies for that. But after years of dealing with conservatives screaming “socialism!” or “communism!” at anything the government does I’m rather tired of it.
And no..I don’t think there is anything Obama has done that is remotely socialist.
As for this: Communists are dedicated to the abolition of personal property, period.
Communism is all but dead and I’m not going to pretend that it’s some big giant boogyman like it used to be. It’s bad enough my Congresswoman is acting like the female reincarnation of Joe McCarthy at the moment.
And as for this: Frank was mentioned 22 times in Obama’s book. Obama confirmed that it was Davis and issued a rebuttal. There is a claim that Davis was his mentor.
Yeah…and I know a priest that got caught playing hankypanky with little boys.
That doesn’t mean I’m one of them or that I helped him. Knowing someone is not the same as being the same as that someone. That the Republicans just love to engage in this guilt by association nonsense is only proof that when it comes to being a political party with worthwhile ideas and a party worthy of being elected…the Republican party is utterly bankrupt.
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First, I stated this was my first time on the site. Second, I only asked for opinion. I made no claim that Obama was a socialist or communist. I read something about playing nice in the tub here or something like that…? James, your comment “Sorry, *child*, don’t go making claims about people merely because you don’t like them” is both disrespectful and ironic, as you clearly don’t like me and yet call me a child and ridicule me. This looked like a good site and so assumed better treatment. Put your stereotypes back in your holsters.
Paul Kengor is a professor at Grove City College who just finished a biography on Davis. Yes, it is a Christian college and I understand that you can/will bash that, so can that be set aside. I grant it is probably a biased view. BUT, Davis *was* a self-proclaimed member of CPUSA. It’s not an opinion. His # was 47544. Communists are dedicated to the abolition of personal property, period. Favoring communists who fight against lynching is like allying ourselves with the Soviets during WWII and expecting them to love the American way. I acknowledge the flaws of capitalism, but believe a free market is better than what communism offers.
Frank was mentioned 22 times in Obama’s book. Obama confirmed that it was Davis and issued a rebuttal. There is a claim that Davis was his mentor. I was wondering if you thought it was a significant link. Clearly you don’t. I am not saying Obama is about to abolish personal property. I will ask this: do you think there is anything about Obama that is socialist or communist at all? If so, what? If not, fine. Oh, by the way, I do agree that what is being spouted as socialism is a lot of rhetoric, not all of it, but it is really nothing like what the Soviet Union was/is.
Thanks for your time.
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Now now Ed, you know if Communists came out in favor of the 40 hour work week the right wing would demand the end of the 40 hour work week in favor of the 80 hour work week faster then you or I could say “Crackpot”
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kwlowery, who is Paul Kengor, what does he say about Frank Marshall Davis? Where is there any evidence that Davis had any meeting with Obama, let alone any significant influence? What does this YouTube video have to do with any of it?
American Communists considered themselves “loyal Soviet patriots” . . . most of them not at all. They were dedicated instead to improving life in the U.S. For example, Congress blocked laws to stop the murder of African Americans by lynching for 30 years or more after their proposal. Thousands of American blacks were subject to murder by lynching. The American Communist Party opposed lynching. Why would any thinking person NOT favor the Communist Party’s position on lynching — and if that thinking person were black, why would he or she not join with the Communists in fighting against lynching? Southern Democrats would not fight lynching, Northern Republicans would not fight stop it. The question may be, why was anyone NOT a communist on that issue, at that time? (See Emerson and Thoreau.)
This fellow on the YouTube video says nothing significantly new about American politics, but he does deliver a healthy dose of irrelevant material, in a good, nearly breathless delivery that makes him sound credible in saying very little. None of it relates to Obama. None of it suggests Obama is anything other than a red-blooded, capitalist American.
1. Frank Davis was a minor player in American communism.
2. It appears Davis left the mainland USA for Hawaii to find a place where a black man could fit in. Claims that he was a dedicated communist tend to ignore the fact that he migrated to Hawaii, not Moscow — as do many dedicated Hollywood capitalists, as did Stephen Covey, as do many thinking people today. Have you been to Hawaii? It’s not a communist paradise, but is instead an island paradise where, incidentally, capitalism is worshipped while held in some disrespect. It was capitalists, after all, who arranged for the U.S. Marines to take Hawaii from the capitalist monarchy there. Migrating to Hawaii seems more hedonistic than communist to me. Do you live there? Would you like to?
But I digress. Migration to Hawaii tends to make all claims about Davis being a dedicated Marxist, ridiculous.
3. Davis was not a teacher of Obama’s, did not play basketball with him, and so far as I have seen, there is little evidence they ever met or conversed.
4. Stalin was a nasty guy. Too bad so few people listened to Churchill, either before WWII or afterward. The guy had a great crystal ball. But Stalin’s horrors, no matter how breathlessly told, do not make Obama a Marxist. There is no connection. Stalin was dead for eight years when Obama was born.
5. Obama attended three overtly capitalist universities, and graduated from two of the most capitalist-oriented institutions on Earth. Frankly, three years of Harvard Law must be a much more powerful influence on a person than seeing a once-politically-active black man on the streets of Honolulu — as Obama’s memoirs well explain.
Who is Paul Kengor, what is HIS relation to Obama, or scholarship, and why should we care?
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Yeah..he got accused of being a Communist by the McCarthyites and to be declared a communist by them you merely had to look at them wrong.
In other words..your claim that he was a Communist is simply not credible.
Actually Mr Davis argued against communism.
But if you want to run with this guilt by association bulldrek, Lowery, should we start going through the GOP and see what we find?
Like how Grandpappy Bush had ties to Adolf Hitler….to the point that Prescott Bush had his company’s assets seized under the Trading with the Enemy act.
Lets see. That makes, under your logic, Prescott Bush a Nazi which makes his son George and grandson George W also Nazi’s. And both were the leaders of the GOP in their respective times…which makes the entire GOP now suspect as being closet Nazi’s.
Oh and then there’s Sarah Palin’s ties to the so called “Alaska Independence Party” which wants the state to secede even if it has to fight the federal government to do it. And then there is Michele Bachmann’s ties to the Iranian terrorist group MEK and her ties to a evangelical protestant church which apparently makes hatred of Catholic’s one of it’s core beliefs.
And then there is Paul Ryan’s and Eric Cantor’s love affair with Ayn Rand..a known whackjob whose beliefs are more or less straight of Antony Levay’s satanism….
Btw…Kengor is a known conservative hack.
You couldn’t name one single thing that Obama has done that is remotely socialist much less communist. Oh and please don’t claim “Obamacare” because yeah..that’s what the GOP came up with 15 years ago and later Mitt Romney implemented it in the state he was governor in.
Sorry, child, don’t go making claims about people merely because you don’t like them. And don’t go screaming “Socialist!” and “communist!” when it comes to the President and any Democrat…it just makes you look stupid.
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This is my first time visiting, so I don’t know your political leanings. I would like to ask your opinion of Paul Kengor’s analysis of Frank Marshall Davis, one of Obama’s mentors, who was a card carrying communist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-buR2S2rA&feature=related
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