Another early Obama statement. Marxist? Your call!

[BCarp]

The emphasies are mine:
 
   “But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”
~Barack Obama,  interview with Chicago’s public station WBEZ-FM in 2001
 

[Gary G]

Obama does believe in redistribution; he has said as much. What is redistribution? It is taking by force, or threat of force, from some people to give to other people. One of it's purposes is to buy votes.


Now, in fairness, the republicans do the same. A good example would be Bush's medicare part D.


Foreign aid is an example. It is taken from the American people and given to foreign rulers for their obedience. Also, much of it must be spent with American companies. Therefore it becomes a distribution from the people to the military industry in exchange for missiles, etc. It doesn't buy votes, it buys obedience.
 
If we did it, it would be called theft or extortion and therefore immoral.

[magooch]

If the question is: Is Obama a communist?  He most certainly is.  Has communism ever worked in the long run? No.  It might begin with redistribution of wealth, but always, always ends with the universal distribution of misery.

[BCarp]

The whole economic world is about redistribution or transfer of wealth and funds...its what goes on...Righty political hacks dramatizing 'redistribution' will have this come back and bite them in the arse if there is ever a dawning of logic. As in redistributing assests, production and wealth overseas, for example.
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..TM7

Lefties equate "redistribution" with taxation, and it's not always the same thing.  Taxes collected to fund government functions and activities (the military, for example) is not "redistribution of wealth."  Taxing (confiscating) income from one group that has earned it in order to then hand it out to another group that has not - that's the sort of redistribution Obama is referring to in the above quote, and the sort he would like to increase.  After all, it's not "fair" that some hold more wealth than others.  That's not "economic justice" (a nonsensical concept in free-market capitalism)!
 
And how do you like that crack about the Constitution being a "charter of negative liberties"?  Obama clearly resents the restraints imposed upon government by those loony Founding Fathers of ours...!