The Occasional Observer

This must be blockquoted. It's screaming to be blockquoted. Here goes:

Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code -- socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times...

...Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark...

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that -- rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state...

Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" -- "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

Among his proposed "investments":

"Universal," "guaranteed" health care.

"Free" college tuition.

"Universal national service" (a la Havana).

"Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").

"Free" job training (even for criminals).

"Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).

"Free" child care and "universal" preschool.

More subsidized public housing.

A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."

And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.

That's just for starters -- first-term stuff.