James,

I think it is simply the fact that Obama is an inexperienced empty suit, whose primary accomplishment is the impressive ability to sell socialist snake oil to emotion driven people looking for a messiah to resolve all of life’s problems. I could be wrong.

I find it humorous that his inspiring words seem to be repeated in so many different places: Deval Patrick, John Edwards, the movie “Malcolm X”. Then there is his wife, who for the first time in her adult life is proud of America. She actually tells us more about his policies than he does:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

Facism anyone?

Apparently he has convinced the Teamsters (1.4 million members) to endorse him as well. I am a 26 year Teamster and will not follow that recommendation. I am suspicious of his money and his church and I don’t know yet what it is he wants to do.

Slamfist, I have never understood Union endorsements. I always thought a union was supposed to represent it’s members in negotiations, not tell them how to vote.

My guess is that out of 1.4 million members, most are intelligent enough(Garrison excluded) to make up their own minds and will not vote a certain way just because James Hoffa told them so.

I think the most inspiring thing about Obama’s message is that he’s arguing for Americans to take more control over their government. The change message is bottom-up, not top-down and its clear in his proposals. Its a message that points to the things Republicans and Democrats share (make markets work better, but for all people; invest in your country and your country will invest in you). Maybe its a platform that we can use to innovate new ideas and solutions that didn’t exist when both sides were picking at each other’s differences.

James W. Froehlich:

“What has happened? Is it that after nearly eight years of a semi-literate president, we have lost all memory of the joy and benefits of such rhetoric?”

With Obama you call it soaring, inspirational rhetoric, but it’s simply an extension of the ‘Britney Spears’ emotional cultism promoted by the media and practiced by 11 year old girls and weak minded leftists.

Si Vis: Might I point out that Fascism is generally defined as extreme CONSERVATIVE politics and policy, not extreme liberalism. Calling Obama a fascist is indicative of a complete misunderstanding of classic political theory.

hs,

It has been true that “Fascism” HAS been generally used by liberals to portray conseratives in an unflattering light, but Jonah Goldberg’s new book; “Liberal Fascism” explains in great detail, the liberal, progressive roots of fascism. I suggest you pick it up. Here is a taste of what he has to say, in National Review, concerning the subject;

“As I discuss at length in the book, totalitarianism was for Mussolini a way of uniting businesses, classes, regions, religions, institutions and people from “all walks of life” — in Obama’s words — in a common cause for the common good. These segments of society would band together, like sticks around the fasces. This was a sacred, spiritual, calling. “Fascism,” Il Duce declared time and again, “is a religion.” And the animating dogma of that faith was that if we’re all in it together there’s nothing we can’t do. Everything in the state, nothing outside the state.

Such a vision is comforting because it plays upon man’s inherent desire to belong, to be protected by his fellow man and his community. “Strength in numbers” is the narcotic of all populists, the logic of all “people powered movements” as leftwing bloggers like to say (though for reasons that defy easy analysis, the left has mastered the art of casting itself as the voice of the dissidents against the oppressive, stultifying “herd mentality” even as it places the group at the top of its hierarchy of political aesthetics). This is the motivating passion behind the fascist quest for order.

Sometimes it sounds like Obama wants to talk about God’s plan when he’s talking about his own campaign for a New Order. But most times, you can see that he wants to stay on the secular side of the divide — where his white base resides — but without giving up the prophetic vision. He wants to persuade his followers, and perhaps himself, that he is elect, but he cannot do so without religious language.”

To me, the best example of liberal fascism is the college campus, where liberal professors preach their doctrine and conservative speakers are shouted down, or physically attacked.

If you want to see fascism, look at a liberal.

Star,

Goldberg’s definition of fascism is so broad that it is entirely meaningless. According to such a definition the founding father’s “will of the people” is a fascist idea. Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and many other presidents fall into this definition.

Second, your example of the university campus as an example sounds like you’ve never attended. Public choice theory is taught in nearly every public policy/government course. I’ve read Milton Friedman for every public finance, public policy, public sector economics course I’ve taken. Marxist economics is been nearly abolished.

tadb,

Read his book and then tell me his definition is so broad that it is entirely meaningless.

My college days are far behind me, but I know what I heard from my son and daughter, in more recent history. The liberal tilt in today’s colleges is undeniable. According to Howard Kurtz, of the Washington Post,

“College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative. ”

Several students who say they have Republican leanings argue that their grades have suffered or that their participation in classroom discussions has been stifled by liberal professors.

“Our institutions of higher education have become institutions of indoctrination,” declares Stephen Miller, a freshman at Duke. “That’s a frightening trend.”

From “The Chronicle of Higher Education;” Conservative college students have been intimidated and had their grades suffer, due to the mindset of determined liberal professors. “Now conservative activists are fighting back. David Horowitz, president of the California-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture, is leading a national campaign to change campus climates. The centerpiece of his efforts is an “Academic Bill of Rights,” which he is urging Congress and state legislatures to adopt. It enumerates several principles that colleges should follow, among which is that they should foster a variety of political and religious beliefs in such areas as making tenure decisions, developing reading lists for courses, and selecting campus speakers.”

“Across the country, college students who hold conservative views are coming forward with dozens of reports of incidents in which they assert that professors treated them differently than their more-liberal peers. On Web sites that collect such anecdotes and in other forums, the students tell stories of faculty members who made demeaning jokes about Republicans and spent class time urging students to protest the war in Iraq. Some of the students expressed the belief that their conservative opinions, no matter how well argued, have resulted in low grades. Others describe reading lists that include controversial material that is unrelated to the subject matter.”