True, but the person who quoted him would presumably agree with him allowing you to address the points made in an interactive discussion.
But, the person who quoted him was not asked to quote someone else on the matter... they were asked to do the work to actually think about it themselves... Like, say, if you were a student, and your professor asked you to write a paper about the American Revolution... if your paper consisted of a brief introduction which said "Well Ben Franklin said" and then was a portion of Franklin's biography, you'd write and F for a letter grade...
True, but socialism is defined by the people or government having control over the means of production. It's not about the companies benefiting. It's about the companies not being controlled by the people.
The important thing to remember, that everyone who has been screaming about socialism has forgotten, nothing says that capitalism mans that companies cannot receive government money in order to keep them afloat. Nor does it prevent government investment in a company.
Obama's policies have not violated capitalism in any way. They have, however, violated the tenets of socialism because they prevented capitalistic companies from failing. That's something that violates teh very core of socialism, which would attempt to cause said companies to fail in order to replace them with one's that are controlled by the people. [/QUOTE]
That's not what socialism is defined by though... Nor is it completely accurate to the current situation either.
It is important to note here, when you speak of the government in the US, we are the government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" so anything the government does has all aspects of that involved. The people elect the representatives, who then inact and carry out the laws and other governmental actions, and in turn those actions are meant to benefit the people...
In this occasion the companies that were bailed out were bailed out because they were deemed too big to fail... not because it benefited the corportation, but because it benefited those workers who were supposed to not lose their jobs, and the economy as a whole, which would benefit the rest of the people not involved in those companies. So the main goal was not assistance of the companies.
AND
When you look at the situation with the GM takeover, it is the PEOPLE who control the company. The US Govt bought a majority ownership share in GM. They then tried to cover it up by diluting the shares. They dictated restructure terms. They then worked out negotiations with the Unions (which are socialist in nature), and used US and Canadian Govt money to fund their benefits. So the Govt is providing benefits to the UAW employees... Then, now the UAW is buying out a majority ownership in GM. This is essentially akin to GM being a Government owned and run industry.
However, it doesn't stop with just the wall st bailout, and the auto-bailout... there's been a massive expansion of farming subsidies. That's moving essentially towards a government run agriculture system. Match that up with the massive expansion of welfare, the government run healthcare, etc. The combined sum is a large socialist movement.
You still fail to investigate his background motivation for the policies he uses.
... While that might be true, he isn't here to do a point-counterpoint form of interactive discussion... Quoting him also forms a delegation of authority on the topic, which fits my same criticism that they haven't done the actual work to truly consider whether Obama is a socialist or not... 