Barack Obama is not a socialist.

As we all try to define exactly what the shadowy president Barack Obama really is, it is important that we be careful with our terminology.

It is a disservice to socialists everywhere to call Barack Obama a socialist. He is no more a socialist than is Hugo Chavez. Socialists are well-meaning Robin Hood utopians who believe you can take from the rich to give to the poor and everyone will be happier. The continent of Europe and its hapless financial plight is proof enough that this kind of idealism cannot be sustained.

For the Barack Obamas and Hugo Chavezes of the world, socialism is merely a convenient cover for their real purposes. Socialism gains the support of the underachieving half of all societies (a half which grows to a majority in a socialist economy) and it seduces the productive, successful class by appealing to their Judeo-Christian principles. Thus a Barack Obama can undermine the most successful elements in a capitalistic society for his own ends while his supporters think they're helping him create a society just overflowing with peace and justice and a higher consciousness and all that tripe...

What Barack is really about is consolidating government and corporate power in one. It is no accident that the same Wall Street he has attacked as the root of all evil has been the greatest beneficiary of the bailout money, nor is it an accident that GM and GE and all those corrupt "green" companies are morphing into quasi-governmental agencies.

So far the oil companies have been strong enough to fend off such attacks, even after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But they have seen what just happened to Exxon in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez accused Exxon of cheating the Venezuelan people, then nationalized its assets in Venezuela. Exxon had spent nearly a billion dollars there but had not yet started enjoying profits from its investment. With an oil crisis - perhaps aided by President Obama's friends in Iran - American oil companies are vulnerable to just the same fate. They will be accused of exploiting Americans through high gas prices and then taken over by the government as soon as they feel they can get away with it.

When governments nationalize corporations it is known as fascism. The word derives from a Roman term that essentially means "bundling". Most simply put it is a bundling of state power with corporate power to minimize the economic and political power of the individual and thus completely dominate a society.

But be careful to understand fascism correctly. Fascism is not the same as Nazism, though there has never been a more successful fascist state than Nazi Germany. Though the Nazi Party purported to be socialist (that's what the Z stands for in Nazi), it was really fascist. It was through this consolidation of both political and corporate power that Hitler was able to squelch the voices opposed to him in Germany and wage war against the free societies of Europe and beyond.

Though most of us who might call Barack Obama a socialist mean it in a disparaging way, we should recognize that Barack Obama loves to be called a socialist. As long as we complain that he is a socialist he can work his fascist aims more effectively.