The Tribune

Far from being a moderate, Barack Obama is a polarising United States president. Ralph J Massey, an American writer living in the Bahamas, examines Marxist influences in his background and how it has been kept hidden from the public.

By Ralph J Massey

Any discussion of ethics in government is difficult because of the complex nature of man and his culture. Yes, it is easy if one talks about the extremes, contrasting a totalitarian dictatorship and a popular democracy or even a corrupt popularly-elected government versus a less corrupt one.

Take the case of President Barack Obama’s penchant to deliberately misstate facts in order to advance his political objectives. I contend that this tendency flows directly from his political beliefs and that it has already produced significant adverse consequences.

At the start of the 2007 US presidential campaign Mr Obama claimed that he was a moderate who would bring Americans together while governing from the political centre. The public at that time did not recognise that this was a gross misstatement, since he also said that he would “fundamentally transform America”.

Five years later it is clear that he did not govern from the centre and he may be the most polarising President in history.

I have chronicled the emergence of the far left in America in a new book ‘What Happened to America? From Karl Marx to the Radical Socialism of President Obama: His Dreams, Politics and Performance in Office’. That analysis is beyond the scope of this article.

However, liberals might characterise what follows as “far right conspiracy theorising”. It is one important element in the evolution of radical and stealthy Socialism.

Origins

Let me step back for a moment. It must be recognised that Communism in America “stumbled politically” in the 1970s. During the 1930s and early 40s home-grown Communists successfully penetrated the US government up to its highest levels to a far greater extent than recognised.

Two examples of this were Harry L Hopkins, Franklin D Roosevelt’s chief diplomatic advisor and troubleshooter, and Robert Oppenheimer, the “Father of the Atomic Bomb”.

But after World War II the Communist Party USA had virtually no success in winning elections.

Their rhetoric and tactics simply did not produce a positive voter response. It produced a split in ideology and tactics within the party that caused the activist coalition ... that protested the Vietnam War so effectively ... to disintegrate quickly when the war ended.

This crisis within the Communist Party USA was the focus of the annual Socialist ScholarsConferences held in New York City from 1983 to 1985. These Conferences led to the “rebirth of the sixties struggle for civil rights” - and here the theory of “Stealth Socialism” carried the day.

Peter Drier, Professor of Politics and Urban Development at Occidental College, California, argued for the merger of populism and electoral politics. It is where community organisers enter politics at the grassroots level to create specific and politically viable interest groups.

These promote government programmes that seem to be “reforms” of the capitalist system.

Rightly understood, these reforms create a “revolution of rising entitlements” that gradually precipitate a financial collapse that in turn leads to the true long-term socialist objective, “a forceful and overt attack on capitalism”.

This strategy was called Non-Reform Reform. The first of these occurred years later with the Affordable Housing initiative that produced a housing bubble that burst in 2006 causing the Great Depression of 2007 and a dramatic change of government.

Saul D Alinsky, the author of ‘Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals’, spoke about modern community organising. In ‘Dreams from My Father’ Barack Obama refers to it as “my organiser’s handbook”. In fact, ‘Rules’ is “Modernised Marxism” or “small c” Communism.

Alinsky had already built stealth into the community-organising profession and told organisers to downplay their own ideologies ... to use the public’s grievances to stoke change. Instead of calling for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, confront power; instead of advocating socialist revolution, talk “radical social change”; instead of attacking capitalists, go after “targets” or “enemies” ... “pick a target, freeze it, personalise it and polarise it.”

Barack Obama was a self-professed Marxist in his two years at Occidental College; and, while a student at Columbia in New York, he attended at least two of the Annual Socialist Scholars Conferences of 1983-85. In ‘Dreams’ he alludes to them but carefully does not identify them by name nor comment truthfully on their significance.

He describes them as “intense and purposeful” and with a “socialist flavour” and “just one of the many diversions that New York offered”. This is a massive understatement and misstatement since it was here that Socialism changed tactics and he chose a career.

“That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organise black folks at the grass roots for change ... [Such] communities do not exist ... [They] “had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens ... that was my idea of organising. It was a promise of redemption.”

Obama and Ayers

Let’s now look at the relationship of President Obama and Bill Ayers.

Today Bill Ayers is the long-time Far Left activist, South Chicago resident and retired Professor of Education from the University of Illinois.

In the 1970s he formed the Weather Underground that “nursed wildly improbable hopes offomenting revolution through a terrorist war waged against the police, the military and the symbolic seats of American democracy”. He is the un-convicted and still un-repented bomber of the Pentagon who identifies himself as a small “c” Communist. He is married to Bernardine Dohrn, the convicted bomb maker of the Weathermen. Today they are described by Ben Smith of the Politico blog as “fixtures of their neighbourhood”.

In the 2008 presidential debates Senator Barack Obama’s relationship to him was raised; and his immediate response was “I strongly condemn the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as I do all acts of violence ... But I was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect me with events of almost 40 years ago is ridiculous.”

Subsequently in a televised debate, George Stephanopoulos, the former Communications Director of President Clinton and anchor for ABC News, stated that Ayers “never apologised for the bombings”; and Obama’s campaign had described the Senator’s relationship with Ayers as “friendly”.

He then asked the Senator two questions: “What is the relationship?” and “Why should it not matter to Democrats?” Senator Obama responded: “This kind of game in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, somehow their ideas could be attributed to me - I think the American people are smarter than that.”

On another occasion he said that Ayers was just “a guy who lives in my neighbourhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.”

And the mainstream media supported Obama’s response. For example ... The New York Times did not focus on his non-response and misdirection. George Stephanopoulos, the panel moderator, had previously appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show where Hannity suggested that he ask this question in the up-coming debate.

The Times alleged that Hannity, a “right-wing talking head”, had projected himself into the debate. Keith Olberman of MSNBC noted that the debate “may have seemed dirty” because the moderator found his questions at Fox News.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s headline read “Sleazy as ABC: The Debate that Degraded”.

These responses and comments are gross misstatements; but the truth ... if widely understood ... could have blocked a possible trip of Senator Obama to the presidency. That is why the Ayers issue was raised by Republicans and confronted so effectively by Democrats.

South Chicago

In 1985 Barack Obama moved to Hyde Park, Illinois, a centre of socialist organising and an inner-city neighbourhood surrounding the University of Chicago. After his job as a community organiser and a degree from Harvard Law School, he plunged into a legal practice, ten years of teaching Law at the University of Chicago and local politics. His strategy was to “combine a strong African-American base with progressive white and Latino voters ... a recipe for success.”

When he met Ayers is not clear; but Ayers had already changed his focus from revolution to public school reform. Now he was dedicated “to teaching against oppression, against America’s history of evil and racism ... thereby forcing social transformation”. They became close political allies who secured two Far Left funding vehicles - the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and the Woods Fund of Chicago - to promote their agendas.

The CAC was a public school reform project created in January 1995 that used $49.2 million of “seed” money provided by the Walter Annenberg Foundation. Bill Ayers was one of three who prepared the initial proposal to the Foundation; and Barack Obama was elected to its Board of Directors as the founding Chairman and President from 1995 to 1999. He determined how the funds were used. The project ended in 2001; and the final report on its activities stated that it, the CAC, “had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes”.

The Woods Fund of Chicago was formed in November 1993 as a grant-making foundation whose goal was to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities. In 2004 it was the 43rd largest in Illinois with assets of $67 million. Barack Obama was a director from 1999 to December 2002 and he brought Bill Ayers into the Foundation as a co-director.

The New Party of Illinois was a “progressive” third party started in 1992 and expired six years later. It was the political arm of the local ACORN community organisation and the Service Employees union. Initially they even shared the same building. Its objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward to form a new political party with a strictly socialist agenda by running candidates that had a reasonable chance of winning.

Barack Obama joined the New Party on January 11, 1996 and formally requested its support to run for the State Senate’s 13th District seat to replace New Party member Alice Palmer who resigned.

She chose Barack Obama as her successor and introduced him to the Party at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Also present were Dr Quentin Young, Chicago physician and single-payer healthcare advocate, and Rashid Khalida, a Columbia University professor and co-founder of the Arab American Action Network, a recipient of funding from the Woods Foundation.

The “Party-at-Bill’s-House” was raised in the 2008 and 2012 election campaigns; but its significance did not gain traction in the media and was easily denied since there was no concrete evidence of Barack Obama’s party membership. That is until late in 2012 when

Stanley Kurtz, the journalist, found the record buried in the archives of ACORN at the University of Wisconsin. Even then it did not matter to the media and public at large.

A perspective

The Obama/Ayers relationship is an interesting case study. The honesty issue should have been important; but it was not. This is an indictment of both political parties and America’s popular democracy.

And there have been “adverse consequences”. Look at the the President’s oft-repeated statement supporting the Affordable Care Act. “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

There was no serious public discussion of the Act’s likely adverse consequences or its alternatives. Nor was there any bi-partisan support. According to Alinsky’s ‘Rules’ the revolutionary must use any mean to achieve his end and “the most unethical of all means is the non-use of any mean”.

President Obama is a successful practitioner of radical and stealthy Socialism; he has never wavered in his plan to create a socialist state; and unfortunately, the country must deal with the consequences.

• Ralph J Massey is a retired American economist and writer, founding member of the Nassau Institute and a long-term Bahamian resident. His latest book ‘What Happened to America? From Karl Marx to the Radical Socialism of President Obama: His Dreams, Politics and Performance in Office’, is available as a kindle edition via Amazon and will be found at Nassau bookshops.