"Obama said the solution was to give the 'banksters' more money so that they would have enough to loan it back to citizens, many now out of both home and job. A socialist would have stood for a peoples' recovery."

A socialist advocates; ownership of the means of production by workers collectively or through the government, an equitable sharing by all of the burdens and benefits of a society and the realization that justice denied to anyone, anywhere, is justice denied to all.

The U.S. has never been a democracy or government "of the people, by the people and for the people". After the Revolutionary war, we went from English Crown rule to rule by the elite, white, male property owners, as they were the only ones allowed to vote or hold office. A democratic revolutionary movement true to the mantra "all men are created equal" espoused in the Declaration of Independence would have had a socialistic foundation. There would have been property redistribution to the majority of Americans from these same property owners who had received vast tracts of land from the Crown. It would have insured all Americans a chance to pursue "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" by not aiding capitalistic exploitation of workers that played whites against blacks, Native Americans and each successive wave of immigrants.

A true democratic movement would not have practiced genocide on the First Americans and stolen their land. It would not have begun its policy of empire and "manifest destiny" that led to wars of aggression for territory and hegemony starting with the Indian, Mexican, Spanish and Philippine Wars and continuing with the Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. It would not have sent its CIA out to overthrow peoples' governments in Chile, Nicaragua, Congo, Iran, Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, etc, etc, etc.

When the Wall Street banks were in trouble, Obama was first in line to bail them out. While the $850 billion passed by Congress and supported by Obama seemed like a lot at the time, Wall Street bailout money has grown to $12.8 trillion in total with the addition of behind the scenes Federal Reserve money given to these institutions. That works out to a $42,105 donation from every man, woman and child in America to the Wall Street 'banksters' whose own greed and financial manipulations created their liquidity problems in the first place.

Of course a socialist would not do this, but what would a socialist do? Norway, a country with a mixture of socialism and capitalism had a similar banking crisis in the 1990s. They had become susceptible to the same neo-liberal creed of free markets, free trade and no regulations as had the rest of the world; with no thanks to both corporate political parties in the U.S., who dreamed up this prescription for disaster. So they eased regulations on their banks and allowed more lending with less regulation and less capital. When the crash hit and no private capital was available to rescue their three largest banks, the government moved quickly to take over the banks without bailing out the shareholders at the taxpayers' expense. The crisis was relatively short and the ones who suffered were those responsible, the bankers and shareholders.

In the U.S. a socialist would have responded to the crisis by nationalizing the banks like Norway did. Obama said the solution was to give the 'banksters' more money (the $12.8 trillion) so that they would have enough to loan it back to citizens, many now out of both home and job. A socialist would have stood for a peoples' recovery. A socialist would recognize the right of every American to a job at a livable wage and put government to work insuring all Americans a decent life. Any government favoring corporate profits to the detriment of the American people is a fraud.

A socialist would say that all Americans have the right to healthcare and that the only sane and affordable way to provide this is through a government single payer system similar to every other industrialized country in the world. Obama and his Democratic colleagues will give us a plan which increases the profits of insurance companies and does little else. He will do this while the Republicans jump up and down and call it socialized medicine.

A socialist would say that the progressive disparity between the haves and have-nots which is naturally created by capitalism must be reined in. For 45 years from 1935 until 1980 the highest individual tax rate in the U.S. was between 70-93%. During that period the U.S. actually had a middle class. It is now 35% and the middle class is for the few and not the many. Returning it to the 90% range would allow the government funds to insure all citizens a livable wage and single payer healthcare. And the rich will still be with us, just not quite as much.

Insuring justice for all would be a priority for any true socialist. So far Obama has cared little for the habeas corpus rights of those captured in the so called 'war on terror'. Many have rotted in jail for almost 8 years with no charges filed. Obama has called for this practice's indefinite continuation. Of course many of them have been tortured by the Bush Administration. Obama says we don't torture, but he flaunts both international law and the Constitution by refusing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld for implementing the torture program.

The great labor leader and socialist Eugene Debs from Terre Haute, Indiana said of his conversion to socialism while fighting for workers' rights against federal troops, police and private contractors all supporting the capitalist robber barons: "I was to be baptized in Socialism in the roar of conflict ... in the gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle revealed ... The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity."

Obama, just another corporate politician, without the courage of a single conviction, lacks the backbone of a socialist like Debs.

Nick is a Vietnam veteran and member of Veterans For Peace. He has been actively protesting our government's crimes of empire in both person and print for some years now and was named "Citizen of the Year" for Northwest Indiana in 2006 for his peace activism by the National Association of Social Workers.