On Tuesday, he devoted most or all (I didn't get to listen to the whole thing because I was traveling away from the radio signal) of his show to theories that tie President Obama (He calls him Barack Hussein Obama, and for reasons that escape me, he insultingly pronounces the second syllable in "Barack" with a short-A sound) with the Red Army Faction, Herbert Marcuse, Frankfurt School and even more wrongly, Mao Zedong.
Here's a clip (apologies for the poor quality)
He said last night that unlike the Red Army Faction, Obama is not seeking a violent revolution toward a socialist "takeover," but a nonviolent one, more along the lines of Marcuse's line of thinking and others. Savage calls it a "quiet revolution:"
I realize it's not the meat and potatoes that you've come to expect from talk radio, but we have to do it. We have to do it so you understand the danger we're in. You have to do it until you understand how little time is left before there's a total takeover of every aspect of your life from cradle to grave, which starts with health care reform.
Thus, Savage isn't unlike any of the other right wingers out there attempting to frighten folks into thinking the Obama administration is up to some big conspiracy to bedazzle us into socialism. For one, the lawmakers, even Democrats, who very much benefit from this capitalistic free-for-all era corporate lobbying wouldn't stand for it. Second, Obama's only got four more years, eight at the most. What does Savage think is going to happen in that time? Health care reform doesn't bring any new far left agendas to the table. We've already passed bills in this country that could, like health care, be called socialist, and numerous presidents prior to Obama were charged with the same crime.
So, we hear the same old claptrap over and over, and it's tiring. You don't want a few seeds of socialism (an economic system) or communism (a political system ... Savage seems to use the two interchangeably.) in this country? Good. Call your lawmakers or state lawmakers and tell them you want to abolish your local police station and your local sheriff's office. Tell them to do away with county-maintained fire departments. Tell them to stop working on the roads. Tell them to shutter the Federal Reserve so we can go back to trading in gold and silver and bartering. Tell them to do away with Medicaid, which helps children and disabled people, and Medicare, which helps the elderly. Tell them to offer up all Forest Service land to speculators, since that worked so well the last time. Public schools? Closed. Everyone will be home schooled from now on. Public colleges? Unnecessary and filled with folks who think too much.
Obama will either be our president in 2012 or he won't. The propogators of such nonsense will either continue the frenetic push to get people infused with fear and loathing for the administration, or they will tone their rhetoric back if a Republican gets in office and level the vitriol at whichever Congressman or woman seems the most progressive. The country will move on just like it did after FDR enacted his giant New Deal.
By the way, the Red Army Faction was actually an anti-imperialistic organization responding to the Vietnam war, German capitalism at the time and Germany's concealment that high-ranking officials were former Nazis. While it by no way excuses the violence and death caused by the organization, Savage fails to mention much in his incendiary, fear-mongering rhetoric.
And one final thought: Savage actually said that Obama's policy on economics was to take from the middle class and give to the rich. He calls it "reverse" Robin Hood. Has he even been paying attention? Has he heard the $250,000 figure tossed around ... reversing Bush's policy of giving tax breaks to the rich? I don't know about Savage, but I don't consider someone who makes more than 250k middle class at all. Maybe he has a different income gauge than I do. But I'm sorry to break the news: 250k is not a middle class wage level by any stretch. See here.
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