The Knish puts into historical context the term “Forward” and analyzes the left-wing roots of the use of the term that Obama has been using as a 2012 campaign slogan which means that we should not look back at his failures (of which there are plenty) but think of the ultimate goal of changing America into the socialist workers “paradise” that he so much admires. “Forward” or “Hope & Change” – all the same socialist pablum.
In Maryland, Governor Martin O’Malley, a liberal Democrat, turned a billion dollar surplus into a two billion dollar deficit, and then ran for reelection on what other slogan but, “Moving Maryland Forward”.
by Daniel Greenfield
The Obama slogan for 2012 is in and it’s “Forward”, which is a compact version of that old classic, “Don’t change horses in the middle of a stream” that every incumbent is forced to run on sooner or later. Forward implies that there’s no alternative but to go backward, which is a place that no right-thinking person wants to go.
The left has always been enamored of “Forwardism” or “Progressivism” which mean much the same thing. Before MSNBC had Lean Forward, Mao had the Great Leap Forward which killed some 40 million people, far more people than MSNBC can ever dream of tuning in to their programs.
When Lenin wanted to launch his own newspaper, he called it, “Vperod” or Forward. The name still lingers on among the left and appears on the mastheads of newspapers across the world. It’s Vorwarts in Germany, Voorwarts in the Netherlands and Ila al-Amam in the Arab world. Back in New York it’s The Forward, the venerable blotting paper of the Jewish left.
There are any number of left-wing political parties who have already named themselves “Forward”, including the Forward Communist Party of India, Kadima, the left-wing opposition party in Israel, and Vperod, a Russian political party that split off from the Socialist Resistance on account of the latter not being radical enough.
Picking “Forward” as his campaign slogan puts Obama in good company with the likes of Lenin and Mao, and it sounds positive until you stop and realize that it’s meant more as an order than a suggestion. There’s a reason most leftist newspapers with that name add an exclamation mark at the end of it. It’s not a proposal, it’s a command. Lean forward, march forward, live forward and then die forward. We’ve burned the bridges, run up the deficit and trashed the economy so there’s no going back.
[......]
That may be why it remains a popular campaign slogan among desperate left of center candidates. When Adlai Stevenson, dean of the liberal eggheads, ran in 1952, the campaign buttons read, “Forward with Stevenson”. The country chose to go backward instead with Eisenhower winning by a landslide.
Tony Blair ran for his third term under the slogan, “Britain, forward, not back”, which despite its clumsiness did conclusively explain that”Forward” as a campaign slogan means there’s no going back. However, Blair forgot to tell voters that this referred to his immigration policy which helped create Broken Britain.
[.........]
Had Blair been a touch more honest, the slogan would have been, “Britain, so forward, it’s backward.” Much like having a mind so open your brains fall out, that is one of the dangers of being so forward, going so far ahead you end up in the middle of the Arabian desert praising absolute monarchies and slave states like Qatar as beacons of freedom and democracy, while your police hunt witchhunters and the mutilators of little girls.
In Australia, Julia Gillard rolled out “Moving Forward”, explaining that the slogan fit because Australians are an optimistic forward-looking people. Which they had to be as their country had suffered the worst economic decline in twenty years. When things are that bad, you might as well look forward and find something to be optimistic about.
The Grenadan Revolution had its own forward thinking slogans like “Who Controls the Minds of the People Have the Power” and “Forward Ever, Backward Never”. Sadly the revolution ended up going backward when the reactionary running dog capitalists overthrew the Cuban-backed revolutionaries and robbed them of control over the minds of the people.
[........]
Romney might ask you if you are better off now than you were four years ago, but Obama will tell you to forget the past and look forward to the eternal future that is always peeking over the horizon. The mirage of the progressive world of tomorrow which we can reach over a pile of dead senior citizens, energy saving lightbulbs and multicultural coloring books.
The very use of “Forward” as a slogan summons up a century’s worth of socialist ghosts that they are blind to. But recognizing that would require looking backward, which forward thinking people do not do.
In Maryland, Governor Martin O’Malley, a liberal Democrat, turned a billion dollar surplus into a two billion dollar deficit, and then ran for reelection on what other slogan but, “Moving Maryland Forward”. The people of Maryland have moved on to what else but more billion dollar deficits. That is what you get when you move “Forward”, deficit spending today that will reap dividends in tomorrow’s utopias, economics by officials who can’t be bothered to count how much money they have because they’re too busy looking forward to the future.
Forwardistan is not some enigmatic place, it’s Lenin’s Russia, Mao’s China, O’Malley’s Maryland and Obama’s America
Forwardistan is not some enigmatic place, it’s Lenin’s Russia, Mao’s China, O’Malley’s Maryland and Obama’s America. It’s what happens when you drive leaning forward, because maps and rear view mirrors are for backward thinking people who lack the courage to take the great leap of faith forward into the economic dead zone of uncontrolled spending and crude control of the economy.
Progressives do not like looking backward in the rearview mirror, there’s too many things there that they would rather not see, like the Great Leap Forward, the Gulags, the ghosts of Five Year Plans and a thousand failed ideologies and dead philosophies taunting them. Forwardism frees them from having to contemplate the unemployment figures or the deficit, there is no past, only the eternal future. Forget your troubles and groove to a new hopeful slogan that promises a better world tomorrow for a hamburger today.
In 1887, Edward Bellamy published the classic socialist tract, “Looking Backward” that imagined a Socialist America in the year 2000 where all industries had been nationalized, the economy had been militarized into an industrial army and retirement age was set at forty-five. Though Bellamy named his book, “Looking Backward”, he actually meant looking forward to the wonders of a new age that would apply progressive ideals and industrialization to every sphere of human affairs.
Bellamy’s utopia never quite came about, except in parts of Europe, which are swiftly going down the economic tubes, and the Soviet Union, which imploded in failed production quotas, debt and senseless tyranny. But there is one brief excerpt from “Looking Backward” that amply sums up the wrongness of Forwardism.
[.......]
Bellamy was fifteen when the Civil War ended and he died without ever seeing his country fight another major war. Had he lived to the Great War, he might have understood something of the wisdom of sergeants and the folly of generals. Perhaps he would have even realized that while generals can see farther than sergeants, they don’t know the terrain or what it takes to hold it.
After a century of Bellamy’s scientific generals of industry losing the battle on every front, his successors are still moving backward by looking forward, not to the year 2000, but perhaps to 3000, or at least 2100. Some year in the distant future when mankind will finally be run by a machine state that will run everything fairly and rationally under the guidance of the generals of the state.
That is what “Forward” really means. The “Forwardism” of that future which never seems to work, but is on the edge of working, with enough money, enough laws and enough marching orders, mankind will finally set foot into that mechanical state where leaders look upon us from their balloons and tell us how to live and how to die.
On college campuses, Obama stretches out his hand, urging students to take it and make that great leap forward with him into the future. That is what this election is really about and that is what this year will decide. Do we leap forward with him off the cliff or do we turn back and try to find a better way ahead?
Read the rest – The Forwardism disease
Tags: Daniel Greenfield, Sultan Knish
Forward is Adelante in Spanish. one of Castro’s slogans was Adelante Companero (Comrade). Chavez uses Adelante al Socialism!
This is Marxism/3rd World Liberation 101.
Yea… Mao Christmas ornament on the whitehouse Christmas tree, America really does not need a “Great Leap forward”. (which only cost 1200 million Chinese their life’s)
doriangrey wrote:
Opps… 100 Million…
My suggestion: Stagnation. Or maybe Floundering.
Obama slipped on Ted Kennedy’s mantle and then some. Dentritic Tumor Ted Kennedy said in all seriousness the reason communism/socialism always failed in the past was because he, Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy, wasn’t in charge then. Ineducable.
waldensianspirit wrote:
The Obamanation Administration officials, the majority of which are Marxist’s knew exactly what the historical connection to the phrase “Forward” was when they chose it, it is in fact exactly why they chose it.
@ NoThreat2U:
I’m shocked his campaign slogan isn’t I am the divine Pharaoh and you must worship me!
doriangrey wrote:
What is worse if you ask me, is that once you put this in context with Obama’s proclamation back in 2008, that “We are the ones we have been waiting for” it is all to clear that Obama is attempting to rally the Marxist’s into supporting his Marxist coup against the United States.
@ doriangrey:
That’s why they have created a divine cult around him. It’s very similar to the Juche cult in North Korea.
doriangrey wrote:
Oh, and I am honestly praying that Obama and his Marxist fellow travelers have seriously overestimated the size and dedication to their cause of their fellow travelers.
@ Rodan:
Heh. I’m surprised they don’t replace Christ on the cross with him…seeing as how Oblahblah sacrifices so much more for us.
Rodan wrote:
Yup, he has to resort to North Korea’s Juche because if he tried Stalin’s approach the Marxist Coup would not only come to a screeching halt, it would most likely end with a great deal of Stout Hemp Rope and many occupied Lampposts.
NoThreat2U wrote:
That’s coming. That’s the reason I’m voting against him. Give him one more term and they will declare him a god.
@ doriangrey:
That’s why its personalized with him. Notice its not on his polices his re-election is based on. Its based on Obama.
Rodan wrote:
Obama is actually very lucky that Americans are predominately none violent law abiding people otherwise he would probably get the violence he is so indisputably attempting to foment, and the result would just as indisputably be him and his Marxist fellow Travelers Occupying a lot of Lampposts.
@ Rodan:
That will be the end of the US as we know it. Remember that commandment about having no false gods? Oh these worshippers are in for some hellfire.
Ah, The Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Maryland… I keep advising friends to haul their buns south across the Potomac river… The place hasn’t been right since it found itself under Union occupation in the 1860s.
Maryland is a politically effed up state.
The Knish is a heckuva writer, huh?
The suggestion here that Obama has experienced failure
is disturbing and probably and probably raaaaacist./
He got an academic scholarship to college , even though
he was a rotten high school student. Success!
He was a Community Organizer that did not find even one
person a job, but got plaudits. Success!
He is considered brilliant, yet he has managed to keep
his college transcripts under wraps. Success!
He was President of the Harvard Law Review, yet never
submitted an artice? Success!
For a mediicrity to advance this far is success!
waldensianspirit wrote:
His elder brother Jack would have vomited at a statement such as that.
Rodan wrote:
I thought a good slogan for him would be:
“Obama, God’s Other Son!’
From comments on pathological narcissism:
“Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim
Jones, the charismatic leader of People’s Temple , the man who led over
900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder
their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles
Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, Kim Jong Ill
and Adolf Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All
these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created
a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches
elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and
instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope!
They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom.”
Democrats, especially black democrats, need an ‘intervention’ in order to overcome massive brainwashing. They will believe every false promise their messiah preaches.
I can’t wait for iteration #5 of Obama and his 5 year plan,…
yenta-fada wrote:
They should have long ago politically matured. Automatically giving a political party 90% of your vote is just plain dumb.
Speranza wrote:
Ah, an Imus reader…
@ Mike C.:
That was a long, long time ago.
@ Speranza:
I think that they may go with,
“Don’t evict a Black man from his home”
Speranza wrote:
The Knish digs through the bullsh!t with his ability to explain the facts. I subscribe to the free email alerts to his latest essays.
yenta-fada wrote:
He does write thorough columns.
RIX wrote:
Good one.
@ NoThreat2U:
The media have set him up like a divine figure.
@ Speranza:
OMG!
@ NoThreat2U:
@ RIX:
@ yenta-fada:
@ Speranza:
This is very interesting. Obama is running ahead in the polls more than he should be with these economic conditions.
@ RIX:
Sadly, that is part of the Obama mystique.
Speranza wrote:
It takes a real effort for anyone to rise above the circumstances they are born into. We get conditioned by our families and education.
I didn’t begin to change my world views until Sept.11/01.
yenta-fada wrote:
I didn’t need 9/11 to show me how awful the Religion of Peace was.
Rodan wrote:
It is. The less they know about him, the more they slobber
over him.
RIX wrote:
Are you sure that is saliva dribbling from their mouths? 8)
@ yenta-fada:
@ Speranza:
I was raised that islam was evil since I was kid. SO 9/11 didn’t shock me. What stuns me is how both parties kiss Islamic ass after 9/11. That’s what shocks me!
Speranza wrote:
Frankly, I thought Islam was just another religion. I think that’s where most people remain until a critical mass of outlets break through the massive media/government propaganda.
@ yenta-fada:
Unless one reads history,. Then you realize its not a religion but a political system.
Rodan wrote:
You are an exception due to your family background. It must bug you even more than most to see success of the complete distortion of Islamic Supremacism. ‘They’ control the narrative. e.g. BBC, NYT, major U.S. TV networks.
Rodan wrote:
LANGUAGE is power. Screaming Islamphobia and using oil money for lawfare shuts out the truth.
@ yenta-fada:
.
They control my country! To see someone like Rubio who comes from a similar background to me and was raised with the same stories wanting to help the Muslim Brotherhood take over Syria really gets me upset. He should know better. AT this point, I think the Marxists who control the Democratic and Republican Parties view Islam as a friend. There’s no other explanation for this.
Rodan wrote:
There is a lesson here. Have your coreligionists
slaughter a bunch of Americans.
Blame it on support for, oh I don’t know, Israel.
Claim that you are really the victim.
Brand any criticism as hateful & phobic.
Demand stuff & special tretment.
Repeat as necessary.
yenta-fada wrote:
The same year of 2001 -- The Disco Massacre in Jaffa and the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem.
Hitler’s propaganda rules based on Gustave Le Bon.
http://brainblogger.com/2008/11/04/hitlers-guide-to-propaganda-the-psychology-of-coercion/
@ yenta-fada:
1. Keep the dogma simple. Make only 1 or 2 points.
2. Be forthright and powerfully direct. Speak only in the telling or ordering mode.
3. As much as possible, reduce concepts down into stereotypes which are black and white.
4. Speak to people’s emotions and stir them constantly.
5. Use lots of repetition; repeat your points over and over again.
6. Forget literary beauty, scientific reasoning, balance, or novelty.
7. Focus solely on convincing people and creating zealots.
8. Find slogans which can be used to drive the movement forward.
@ RIX:
@ yenta-fada:
I saw the demonization of Serbia. Here are a people who in WWII fought the Nazis to a standstill, saved Jews, saved American bomber pilots and lost people in death camps get labeled Nazis. All because they gave the Muzz a taste of their own medicine. Many Conservatives still view the Serbs as Nazis, support the Islamists in the Balkans because they are White and viewed as “different Muslims”, yet don’t like Arab Muslims.
That’s a perfect example of how the Muslims control the narrative and The Left and many on the Right are suckers.
@ Rodan:
Conservatives are not going to change human nature. Neither will Libertarians. Using the tactics of the left is distasteful, but it needs to be done.
@ yenta-fada:
I have no qualms using Leftist tactics. They are effective and work.
Speranza wrote:
My lefty friend has been brainwashed into blaming ‘the settlers’ rather than defending the Jewish State. She is a Utopian.
Rodan wrote:
You, my friend, do not feed at the Republican trough. Self interest is extremely high in all politicians. Allen West is an exceptional human being.
Rodan wrote:
I think Rubio could be trained to be much more effective. He needs a powerful mentor with lots of money.
@ Rodan:
A war fought as a distraction, because Clinton got
a bj in the Oval Office.
While Clinton demonized Milosivich (sp) all I thought
was, he believes something, Clinton doesn’t.
@ yenta-fada:
Rubio has potential. On economic/fiscal policy he gets it. He’s the most effective person in the GOP when explaining Conservatism. But on foreign policy he is being misled by the McCain-Graham-Lieberman Axis. These 3 are Saudi agents and Rubio undue his great domestic stands with his terrible foreign policy views.
@ RIX:
Milosevic was right. In an interview on CNN, he said I am fighting the terrorists. They will come after you afterwards. He was right.
One of the reasons Alinsky methods are so successful is that they TRAIN their people to use propaganda techniques ONE by ONE. They understand that each individual can be used to train the next individual. Then they go to small groups with the same tactics. It is basic programming or human conditioning used to spread the simple message over and over. They have the cache of the Kennedy School of Government, but it is like training lab rats.
@ yenta-fada:
I hate the GOP as much as I hate the Democrats. My dream would be a New Center-Right Party that is about American interests and national unity emerge and then defeats the Democrats and Republicans. Both parties divide Americans and serve the interest of foreigners. 2012 is the last time I will ever vote Republicans and I mean that. Obama has been made a god-king and as a Catholic I must vote against a false idol.
Allen West speaks the truth and that’s why the GOP establishment hates him.
@ yenta-fada:
Yup precisely!
RIX wrote:
Clinton is brilliant at telling people what they want to hear. He is another narcissist, but with brains and polish.
Rodan wrote:
Lab rats with government cheese give Ozero his high numbers. Also polls tend to ask the wrong questions or phrase them to get the results they want. It’s more self-fullfilling propaganda.
@ yenta-fada:
The worse is that they have deified Obama. That’s really want irks me. They have Juche him.
@ yenta-fada:
As much as they loved Clinton, the media was never in the tank for him like Obama. This is outright worship.
Obama gets away with being a complete moron
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/05/03/dumb-obama-accuses-gop-of-outsourcing-jobs-to-manila-by-using-verizon-dumber-obama-uses-manila-based-telemarketing-firm-to-contact-donors-dumber-x-2-obama-appointed-verizon-ceo-to-wh-council/#comment-679152
Rodan wrote:
Serbias problem was that they had begun to win.
Clinton was looking for an underdog to sell it
to the American people.
He tried to distract from Lewinsky.
doriangrey wrote:
I am still in shock that the Mao Christmas ornament was on the White House Christmas tree. Bascially giving a middle finger to Christmas. Put a mass-murderer’s likeness on a Christmas tree. Obama is certainly NO Christian. It is these little things that should wake American people up. Yet no outrage over that ornament. There should have been.
Rodan wrote:
The Ozero machine has infinite needs for money to keep control of the media. The drop off in donors is a serious problem. This makes him and the Mooch increasingly desperate. They risk becoming figures of outright ridicule. Ridicule is a MAJOR weapon because there is no real leadership coming from the White House. Just a tissue of increasingly elaborate lies.
waldensianspirit wrote:
This is the same lie repeated over and over again that communism/socialism didn’t work because the ‘right’ people weren’t in charge. I have heard this lie over and over again. That it is good on paper but the right people just didn’t get it done right. For me it doesn’t look good on paper either.
@ RIX:
I agree. Also the Clintons are fine with doing whatever it takes to be the top dogs.
Later y’all.
Deep thought for the day,
“Wherever you go, that’s where you are.”
Heavy!
yenta-fada wrote:
They are ethically challenged.
@ yenta-fada:
When Evan Thomas said Obama is God, that was really scary. Chris Matthews compared Obama to Henry V.
Issa sends out draft contempt order against Holder, says ‘Furious’ response ‘cannot stand’
Boy, for some weak-kneed, party hack squish, Issa is sure making a lot of noise…
@ yenta-fada:
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Polls are all three…
yenta-fada wrote:
Your lefty friend is a moron. I hope he/she is now your former friend.
Rodan wrote:
A lot of people aren’t buying it. Only the hard-core fringe element. The ones who will vote only for a person with the D behind their name.
I wonder with these people if Hitler (without knowing what he would do in the future) ran with a D behind his name would probably vote for him. That is how stupid they are. They don’t vett the person they are simply voting for the D behind the name.
yenta-fada wrote:
He is as Fred Barnes once described as “perpetually vulgar”.
Speranza wrote:
We don’t talk politics and she lives in another city. I could never hurt her. It’s just sad.
Mike C. wrote:
Standing up to the real bullies is a great step in the right direction.
Speranza wrote:
Refinement is not something a politician requires.
Rodan wrote:
Monkeys with keys to the zoo.
@ yenta-fada:
Nope, just a refined PR product
Drudge; Americans losing faith in banks and hiding money/valuables.
http://www.smartmoney.com/plan/banking/more-americans-keeping-valuables-in-safes-at-home-1334333683624/
yenta-fada wrote:
It is at least making noise in the media. That is a good step in the right direction. But it isn’t making enough noise.
@ Speranza:
Did you see Matthews say Obama is like Henry V?
This is how bad our schools have become…
Documentary ‘The War on Kids’ compares U.S. public schools to prison system
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/05/03/documentary-war-on-kids-compares-us-public-schools-to-prison-system/#ixzz1tpaZykOT
@ Lily:
Read this.
yes, these people would vote for Hitler if he had a D next them.
@ Lily:
As someone who went to Public HS and Catholic elementary I can agree with it. It is a prison like mentality and they treat kids from different ethnic groups different on purpose.
@ Rodan:
I didn’t see it, but I am not surprised that he uttered these words.
Mr. Chris *tingle up my legs* Matthew.
@ Lily:
I am waiting for them to compare Obama to Alexander the Great.
New Thread.
Rodan wrote:
The greatest general in history.
Rodan wrote:
Henry V was a bloody tyrant.
yenta-fada wrote:
The old mattress stuffer huh?
Rodan wrote:
I am seeing this in the older generation, they are completely off their rockers. Not to mention they will be the first ones to be given the *pill* instead of actual medical treatment if obamacare for some reason gets through the Supreme Court (heaven forbide). They are the least educated when it comes to politics, they are the least educated when it comes to history, they are very easily brain-washed through the media, they are unable to see the difference between good and evil, they are least likely to notice *clue* words, like forward, they will actually say they are for *social justice* and have no idea what that term means, they have no idea how many people have been murdered under the term *social justice*. They also are people who you can NOT even begin to debate. They become rabid in their views. It is actually mind-boggling to me.
They keep their eyes clued to the news and accept every piece of propaganda that is being fed to them.
Rodan wrote:
He still has his little girl crush I guess.
Rodan wrote:
They’d vote for Hitler,Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, you name it -- if they ran on the Democratic line.
@ Speranza:
WHich battle did Henry V win? Was it Agincourt?
yenta-fada wrote:
Bulllies come in all sizes -- not all are the run-of-the-mill school yard types.
Rodan wrote:
Yes Agincourt in 1415.
Edward III won at Crecy in 1348 (I believe) and Edward the Black Prince (his son) won at Poitiers ten years later.