"Obama could effect—as promised—the long-awaited transformation of American politics." Edsall, 4/1/2010
9/24/12, "Full audio of 1998 ‘redistribution’ speech: Obama saw welfare recipients as ‘majority coalition’," Daily Caller
"The Daily Caller has obtained a complete audio recording of the October 19, 1998 Loyola College forum on community organizing and policymaking during which a future President Barack Obama said he favored the government redistribution of wealth. The audio demonstrates the context of that remark and reveals other far-left positions that Obama held as a state senator.
Those positions encompass issues as wide-ranging as gun control, universal health care and welfare reform. Obama also said he viewed welfare recipients and “the working poor” as “a majority coalition” that could be mobilized to help advance progressive policies and elect their champions.
Last week the liberal Mother Jones magazine published video footage, shot during a campaign event, showing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney opining that 47 percent of Americans are captive Democratic voters because they receive government benefits without paying income taxes.
Loyola College refused repeated requests from TheDC for a copy of the full one-hour and 42-minute videotape from 1998. But a source in Chicago who gained permission to view it recorded the sound secretly, confirming the accuracy of — and expanding on — initial (NBC) accounts that featured only a brief audio excerpt.
“I actually believe in [wealth] redistribution,” Obama said in that 96-second excerpt, published September 18 on YouTube. “At least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody’s got a shot.”
The following day, NBC News said it had obtained what it called “the entirety of the relevant remarks,” and complained that Republicans had taken the original lines out of context.
NBC published only 35 seconds of video, however, more than half of which overlapped with the YouTube audio from a day earlier. The (NBC) news agency claimed the full context demonstrated that Obama only “seems” to support “redistributing wealth.”
“How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities?” Obama asked in the seconds NBC added to the national discussion.
But Obama’s voice is heard during more than 29 minutes of the recording, including his prepared remarks and his answers to questions from the audience. At one point on the tape he suggests that the “working poor” on welfare are a political voting bloc that can be harnessed.
Obama is also heard lamenting Americans’ distrust of “government action”; identifying his political opponents — that is, Republicans — as “the bad guys”; declaring his support for labor unions and community organizers; endorsing the public financing of political campaigns; and staking out liberal positions on gun control, government-run health care and welfare reform.
Many of those positions, he conceded, had “no chance of seeing the light of day in Springfield” — the Illinois state capital — “or in Washington.”
It’s unclear if NBC News had a complete recorded copy including Obama’s unedited remarks." via Michael Savage
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"A majority of the American labor movement is now directly dependent on tax dollars."
4/1/2010, "The Obama Coalition," The Atlantic, Thomas Byrne Edsall
"Over the last two years, there has been a massive increase in the number of people who have no place to turn except to the government. Enactment of the Obama administration’s health care reform legislation demonstrates the growing power of this burgeoning constituency—a constituency which will reap a disproportionate share of the $1 trillion in new health care spending over the next decade....
Constituencies strongly supportive of government intervention in the economy to provide a much stronger safety net are expanding. In the 2008 election, three previously-marginalized groups—unmarried women, Latinos, and African Americans—made up 43 percent of the total electorate and just over 62 percent of the voters who backed Obama. ...
As each of these left-leaning constituencies grows, they transform the Democratic Party....
While these trends have been in evidence for decades, last year, for the first time, public sector union members outnumbered those in the private sector. The consequences of this shift are profound. A majority of the American labor movement is now directly dependent on tax dollars....
The fundamental economic issue in post-Great Depression American politics, the issue that dominated politics from the start of the Great Depression into the mid-1960s, has renewed salience....
Health care reform marks a significant milestone in the restoration of the American progressive tradition."...
[Ed. note: Mr. Edsall: ObamaCare is an insurance mandate, not a healthcare mandate. It's also a massive tax increase on the middle class, funnels billions to bureaucrat cronies, and guarantees a gold plated separate health care delivery system for the political class to be paid by the proletariat.]
(continuing): "Obama has taken major risks. He could go down in flames; he could blend into history in the manner of Fillmore, Arthur, and Harding; or he could effect—as promised—the long-awaited transformation of American politics."
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Ed. note: White background framing most of this post was inserted by hackers. I can take a hint, blogger would like me to leave. I'll accommodate them in due course.
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