I have waxed both seriously and clownishly on this site about Barack Obama’s “Cotton Candy Candidacy” and the fact that his nebulously formed ideas make him something of an empty suit when it comes to trying to figure out where he stands on many issues.
I have also pointed out that this is deliberate obfuscation on his part, done in order to hide his liberal past. Indeed, there is no candidate in recent memory who has taken such pains to see that his political philosophy remains a cipher – a razor thin record in the Illinois Senate along with almost as invisible US Senate votes are carefully hidden away in the campaign’s attic, gone and mostly forgotten in the rush to proclaim the candidate The Agent of Change.
A slippery fish, this fellow Obama. Controversial votes when he was a state senator were avoided by voting “present” or claiming later that he erred by pressing the wrong button and didn’t really mean to take that position. Seen in the context of the “Great Game” the left plays with the American people in trying to mask their liberalism for fear of rejection by the voter, Obama, it turns out, is a master of “post partisan problem solving” – hiding his liberalism under an avalanche of platitudes and feel-good bromides that have his supporters swooning and the media eating out of his hand.
But the closet Obama may be in the process of being revealed. This is the Obama that voted to make a criminal out of a homeowner who was forced to use a gun in his own defense in his own home. This is the Obama that voted against making it a criminal offense for convicts on probation or on bail to have contact with a street gang. Indeed, Obama’s record on anti-gang legislation is simple; because gang members are more often people of color, they shouldn’t be singled out for increased attention or special penalties by the law.
But beyond his clearly liberal voting record in the state senate and his being named the most liberal senator in the US Senate by National Journal there is an issue just starting to bubble and froth below the media radar that may or may not become a huge issue depending on how protective the national media wants to be of Obama.
I am talking about the extent of the candidate’s ties to domestic terrorists from the 1960’s and how the American people might feel about their future president paling around with someone who set off bombs as a member of the group Weather Underground and to this day refuses to apologize for it. William Ayers told his followers back then:
“Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” This earns Ayers at least some spiritual kinship to Osama Bin Laden. (In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, which of course went to press before Sept. 11, Ayers maintains that this was “a joke.” In a more serious vein, Ayers was quoted by another Times interviewer as saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”
The earliest known contact between Obama and Ayers was a “meet and greet” at Ayers house in Hyde Park – an upper middle class neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. Ben Smith at Politico gives an overview of the time and circumstance of the meeting:
In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.
Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering on the road to a minor elected office stands as a symbol of how swiftly he has risen from a man in the Hyde Park left to one closing in fast on the Democratic nomination for president.
In fact, Ayers – unrepentant about bombing his own country as he claims – is an establishment figure in the unreconstructed liberal circles in Hyde Park – a hero to many of the University of Chicago faculty and other leftists who reside there. This is the district Obama ran successfully for state senate.
Ayers and Dohrn are simply the most visible of the far left supporters who propelled Barack Obama’s early political career. The woman who touted Obama at the Ayers meeting, Alice Palmer, was herself a far left activist who was into community organizing like Obama. There was Dr. Quentin Young, a radical physician who was quoted in USA Today in 2005 saying “”national health insurance is no longer the best solution, it’s the only solution: All other alternatives have been proven disastrous failures.” According to Ben Smith, Dr. Young describes Ayers and Obama as “friends:”
Neither Ayers nor the Obama campaign would describe the relationship between the two men. Dr. Young described Obama and Ayers as “friends,†but there’s no evidence their relationship is more than the casual friendship of two men who occupy overlapping Chicago political circles and who served together on the board of a Chicago foundation.But Obama’s relationship with Ayers is an especially vivid milepost on his rise, in record time, from a local official who unabashedly reflected a very liberal district to the leader of national movement based largely on the claim that he can transcend ideological divides.
There were other “encounters” with Ayers over the years, including the fact that both men served on a far left foundation as board members:
Wondering whether the three may have crossed paths is not speculation. It is a fact that they have. Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama have appeared together at a number of gatherings and academic events.In November 1997, Ayers and Obama participated in a panel at the University of Chicago entitled Should a child ever be called a “super predator?” to debate “the merits of the juvenile justice system”.
In April 2002, Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama, then an Illinois State Senator, participated together at a conference entitled “Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?” sponsored by The Center for Public Intellectuals and the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ayers and Obama were two of the six members of the “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis” panel.
Ayers, “who in the 1960s was a member of the terrorist group Weatherman and a wanted fugitive for over a decade as a result of the group’s bombing campaign,” is currently the Board Chairman of the Woods Fund of Chicago and Obama is a former Board member.
Just what does the Woods Fund seek to do with its $68 million in assets?
This new Fund focused on welfare reform, affordable housing, the quality of public schools, race and class disparities in the juvenile justice system, and tax policy as a tool in reducing poverty. The Fund supported the concept of an expanding welfare state allocating ever-increasing amounts of money to the public school system, and the redistribution of wealth via taxes.
“Unreconstructed” liberals indeed.
There have been many articles written the last few weeks asking just how liberal Obama truly is? How far to the left are his true politics? Since his record is so unrevealing of where he stands, one must go to his life, his associates, and his supporters to fill in the blanks.
And what comes to the fore is clear evidence that Barack Obama isn’t just an ordinary liberal like a Kennedy or a Clinton. Obama’s associations and associates reveal someone who has courted far left activists, participated in far left forums, and belonged to far left organizations.
On top of that, his stint as a community organizer was marked by his training in radical organizing. My colleague at American Thinker Kyle-Anne Shriver delved into this aspect of Obama’s early adulthood:
Barack Obama had just graduated from Columbia and was looking for a job. Some white leftists were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago.Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Obama was 24 years old, unmarried, very accustomed to a vagabond existence, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine African-American community.
Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to “rub raw the sores of discontent,” in Alinsky’s words.
And Alinsky’s writings on radicalism and social change should chill the bones of not only conservatives, but more moderate liberals:
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971].”
If this doesn’t sound like the way Obama is running his stealth campaign, I don’t know what does.
I should add that I don’t believe Obama is a dangerous man in the sense he would overturn the government and turn the US into some gigantic gulag. But if the voters knew the half of it, Obama would have been marginalized as a far left liberal as surely as Dennis Kucinich. Instead, Obama has successfully used his oratorical skills to say very little about what he plans to do if elected while inspiring people with a message of hope and change.
Will the media expose Obama? Will they criticize Senator McCain if he tries to paint Obama as a radical? Will they dig deep into Obama’s associations and associates to discover the truth?
Taylor Marsh is perplexed:
This is the vein in the Democratic party I will never understand, cannot accept on any level. What is it about some people who just don’t get the problems with our Democratic nominee being friendly, even taking a contribution (however small), as well as having a meeting as recently as 1995 with an unrepentant domestic terrorist like William Ayers? It reveals a lack of seriousness about the issue of terrorism and the dangerously immature judgment of anyone who is going to associate with a man, at the very least, that Republicans will use to beat us over the head with, having the bonus of hitting a spot the public loves to drink up, which is that our party is not serious about the dangers we face in this world.
It’s the same impulse among those Democrats who think Castro is cool and Chavez is a hero. And in Obama’s case, if the American voter ever gets the full story, the party could be facing a defeat in a year where all the stars were aligned in their favor.
11:37 am
No one in their right mind will think that the MSM will take this upon themselves to report. There is a reason Hillary is losing to Obama. The MSM is in the tank for the one person they see as being able to persue their socialist ideals. These MSM types truely believe that the reason socialism has never worked anywhere is because it did not have the right person (people) forcing it down our throats.
They will dredge up old stories with no identifyable sources to slam Senator McCain, showing pictures of a good looking blond everywhere, but you will never see any pictures of Obama with his terrorists friends (and yes, Ayers and Dhorn were home grown terrorists). That just would not suit the agenda of the far left media.
It is not just Obama’s adherence to Saul Alinsky that bothers me. If one were to read Gramsci, they would understand that Obama follows his advise almost to the letter. Sex education for 5 year old (albiet age appropriate sex education, whatever that means) follows Gramsci’s advise that children must be indoctrinated while they are very young or they are lost to the movement. Government that treats the citizens as part of a whole (communalism) and not as individuals. Cradle to grave nanny state involvement with the politburo making the decisions for the prolitariat. And the nation (voters) seems to be asleep on the job aided in their slumber by a all too leftist media.
We have heard Messianic orators before. It has never worked out for the citizens of those nations.
4:01 pm
Obama and Terrorist Bill Ayers…
Obama and the Radicals…
4:14 pm
When good men and women stand by and do nothing, evil will prevail. (Some one else said this. The general public has no comprehension as to what life would be in a totally controlled federal socialist government. They should ask some of the present Cuban people. What should be known is that the elite of the socialist government all live high. The rest just try to live. Too bad we have decided that freedom is too much a problem. Let the government take care of us.
5:11 pm
You forgot to mention how Obama kept a bill that would make it illegal to kill babies who survived abortion from getting to the Floor of his state Senate.It was passed as soon as left his office there.His speeches are one slogan after an othere slogan.And how he is modeling his run for the White House after another left-wing moonbat Deval Patrik in Mass…who is also from Chicago and ,like Obama an affirmitive action baby and like Obama’s wife…has a distaste for America and being proud of America . Obama must be exposed by McCain..even if it means taking hits and accusations of racism etc…by they moonbats of the media.Obama MUST be stopped.
8:43 pm
This is the Obama that voted to make a criminal out of a homeowner who was forced to use a gun in his own defense in his own home.
What vote was this? I couldn’t find it even on a fairly negative list compiled by gun control opponents. Cities and guns don’t mix as well as rural areas and guns, so picking over his gun-rights/control record as a state senator is far less reasonable that it looks at first read.
...his being named the most liberal senator in the US Senate by National Journal
Funny that. I recall JKerry being named most liberal senator by NatJ in their 2003 rankings before the 2004 election. I’d rate BObama about 85th percentile. Many on the left (including me) have deep suspicions that BObama is a closet centrist.
The tie-ins with Ayers & Dorhn, and Alinsky seem rather thin. Association does not imply agreement. I’ve been friends with a few left-radicals and had friendly arguments with them and thought they were profoundly confused. BObama seems plenty intellectually capable and confident enough to shape his own political philosophies, and to adapt them to carefully-observed reality.
8:45 pm
As I said before-if Republicans want to put the country before partisanship they should vote for Clinton in the open Texas primary.She is,at least,centrist and a proven patriot.If she gets the nomination and loses to McCain then all is well.If she beats McCain she would be a defender of liberty and a “conservative” liberal.
10:27 pm
Great article. I must say what struck me the most is your comment about Castro. I have been thinking the exact same thing. My parents are Cuban and they were around when Castro came into power. My dad remembers being awed by Castro’s words and promises. Obviously things changed when he came into power but by then it was too late. I see so many people caught up in Obama’s hype that they refuse to see beyond his speeches and celebrity support.
My only hope is that the media wakes up, exposes some of these facts and helps educate these people before it’s too late.
4:06 am
It always baffles me why you guys seem to fear socialism so much. It’s an idea that will ultimately fail every single time, no matter what. It’s a convenient boogeyman in the closet. Sounding off in worried tones about it is like Carl Rove getting gay marriage on a ballot. Scare the people! Fire them up!
Socialism will never work in the US, no matter how many socialist professors are spouting off, and no matter how many people who have been screwed by corporations decide to fight back. It doesn’t matter how many ridiculous extreme sounding stories you heard from a friend of a friend who heard someplace that some liberal public school kindergarten teacher was teaching sex ed to 5 year olds.
It’s nonsense. Look at the wealth distribution. That’s the way things are around here, scary stories about wealth redistribution via taxes are just that. The fact of the matter is this: A fat middle class prevents civil war. It allows the rich to keep being rich. Keep the middle class placated, and the system continues to chug along just fine. If some tax dollars need to be shifted around to accomplish this, then that’s what happens.
Fear of liberalism is insane. Fear of socialism is even more insane. This country will go down in flames before socialism ever has even a snowballs chance of taking hold.
Seriously. How hard is it to follow the money? A moderate dose of liberalism keeps the class balance in check. Nobody knows that better than the people who run the show.
8:46 am
“Will the media expose Obama? Will they criticize Senator McCain if he tries to paint Obama as a radical? Will they dig deep into Obama’s associations and associates to discover the truth?”
No. Yes. No.
10:29 am
[...] Also Blogging:Â OBAMA AND THE RADICALS: SOULMATES? [...]
10:41 am
thePeopleSaid
In case you haven’t noticed all those evil Corporations you seem to believe are screwing everyone have bowed down on their knees appeasing the identity politics of Liberal Fascism(another way of saying socialism) in order to avoid ACLU lawsuits. No one can work in the Corporate world without undergoing reprograming, aka sensitivity training courses, without Going Green, without donating lots of money to various Socialist politicians.
You really should ‘follow the money’ to find out where it really leads.
11:51 am
[...] Via Right Wing Nut House: There were other “encounters†with Ayers over the years, including the fact that both men served on a far left foundation as board members: Wondering whether the three may have crossed paths is not speculation. It is a fact that they have. Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama have appeared together at a number of gatherings and academic events. [...]
3:19 pm
For those who did not live through the 1960s and 1970s and have no idea who the weather underground were, This one and one half hour video puts a happy face on a violent movement.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6078589535743610981
If you happen to go to an anti-war rally today you will see the same smug “we were right” attitudes and even some of the same people (Jane Fonda). Todays A.N.S.W.E.R. is another weather underground.
Look at the faces of these intelligent people and you see a sense of waste and self delusion.
It’s odd, but I recognized all the old cars. Today I wouldn’t know a Chevy from a Ford.
Ayers and Dohrn are featured too.
6:44 pm
Rick, check out these other Obama ‘soulmates”:
Cousin Raila Odinga, the losing Presidential Candidate in Kenya, whom Obama supposedly has almost daily conversations, has been linked to religous violence, burning of churches ( with parishioners in them), and other violence following his loss in the elections. Odinga was accused of making a secret pact with a Kenyan national muslim group to install sharia law in Kenya if he won the election. Oh by the way, check out the picture of Obama in Kenyaa tribal Muslim garb in 2006 at Sweetness and Light.
“Tony” Rezko, corrupt Syrian-Amerioan slumlord/ businessman and heavy poitical contributor to Chicago area democrats, who will be inducted this week I believe for corruption. This is the character, with a nineteen year relationship to Obama and his law firm, who put up the money for a portion of Obama’s lot so Obama could purchase his $2.1 million home. Rezko it seems also has ties to politically connected types in Syria and the former Saddam regime.
It seems that it was true that Obama was reaching out in bi-partisan way- it just was to the parties of the Islamic radicals and not to the Republicans.
This is a guy who:
• Won’t say the pledge of allegience
• Won’t wear an American flag pin.
• Whose wife has never been proud of American before her husband’s campaign.
• Who belongs to a racist anti-white church in Chicago.
• Who was enrolled as a muslim in Indoneisa’s schools and studied the Koran in afterschool clubs.
• Whose middle name is named after Ali Hussein, grandson of Mohammad and the founder of Shia d’ Islam. Incidentally, “Barrack” is awfully close to the name “Buraq”, the winged steed that Mohammad rode to heaven on.
This apostate muslim is the one who is to lead us on the War on Terror?
Pray tell, how is Barrack going to make peace between the Shia , Sunni and the Sufi, much less those other people of the Book, those infidel Jews and Chistians? The muslim Takfiri have only been waging war on the insufficiently pious muslims and infidel for over thirteen hundred years, or did’nt Barrack learn that studying the Koran as a teenager?
We as voters really need to hear from Barrack, how studying the Koran as a teenager affected and shaped his political outlook and worldview.
10:27 pm
[...] While writing this post, I received a comment on my article from yesterday about Obama’s radical friends. The wildly off base nature of most of the charges made almost make me believe I’m living on a planet full of escapees from the loony bin: Rick, check out these other Obama ’soulmates”: [...]
2:00 am
Syn,
I live and breathe capitalism. However, unregulated capitalism will systematically destroy everything it touches. On the other hand, intelligently regulated capitalism is probably the best working system the world has yet produced. The U.S. is somewhere in the middle.
I understand the flow of money. Corporations go green for one of two reasons. It makes them look better to their customers, or the resources they use are becoming scarce. Either way, it’s about money. ISO compliance is intelligent and saves money in the long run, which is the whole idea.
I don’t really think you understand what the word fascism means. Fascism is corporate run government. Thus, there can’t be “Liberal Fascism.” Socialism is completely outside the bounds of this discussion. Fascism is a trigger word in today’s politics used to cause particular emotions. (Islamo-fascist, Lib-fascist, etc.) It’s rarely used in proper context.
I don’t really understand how the ACLU applies here, but I also don’t really understand the point you’re trying to make either. It seems like you’re taking a jab at so called “political correctness.” I’m actually a big fan of political correctness. Why? Because it’s another way of saying “use common sense and don’t be an asshole.” In the real world, it makes good business sense to treat people with respect. You make more money that way.
This is the point where you might tell me of some extreme example of political correctness that’s either didn’t actually happen, or is completely blown out of proportion. If you’re tempted down that road of logical fallacy, I’d advise against it. Another option would be to point out some case where the ACLU defended some horrible person and about how morally wrong that was. Don’t go there either, it’s pointless.
I agree with you that sensitivity training is ridiculous, but for different reasons. I think it’s ridiculous because people should have the common decency to not be horrible to each other. We shouldn’t have to go through training, but alas, we do.
I’m a capitalist. I’m a fiscal conservative. Political correctness makes sense to me. The ACLU is a good organization to have around. They do far far more good than harm. So is the Electronic Freedom Foundation. They do good work as well. Why is it that to be a republican it almost seems mandatory to loath such organizations? That’s one of the reasons why I’m not a republican.
10:38 am
The People, you really need to look up the definition of fascism and understand what words mean before you write about it. You are trying to establish the proper context of the word when, it is obvious by your writings, you really have no idea what it means.
You also don’t seem to understand what modern liberalism is even though I believe you are a liberal (progressive). When we speak of liberalism in the context of government, we are talking about the application of government. Maybe it will make it easier for you if I apply it to an analogy. Lets say you have a reoccurring rash you are trying to get rid of. If you take a strong medicine like a prescription steroid cream, it will say apply in small amounts only where needed, and discontinue use after a certain amount of time. In other words, use conservatively. If you try a week over-the-counter lotion, it will say apply liberally to affected areas. Which means you can slather on as much as you want as many times as you want, for as long as you want without any restrictions. Our founding fathers understood that government is a very strong medicine.
From your comments I highly doubt you are a capitalist or a conservative. You are what Rush would deem, a seminar caller. And your defense of the ACLU? Please, if that doesn’t peel back the sheep’s clothing to see the left-wing wolf beneath I don’t no what would. Do you also support the ACLU’s defense of the group NAMBLA, too?
In one of your post you ask why we fear socialism so much. If you were a conservative and a capitalist, as you to claim, you wouldn’t need to ask that question. You claim that there is nothing to fear because liberalism has a snowball’s chance of taking hold in the U.S.. Do you think in 1920’s Germany they believed something like the Nazi/fascist mindset would take hold. Perhaps you need to study the politics and policies of this nation and see how far it has already gone toward socialism to understand how ludicrous your statement was. I guess what I’m saying is, your not fooling any one on this blog, it’s obvious you are a liberal seminar caller (writer).
Are you talking about me? Obviously not. Otherwise you would cite where in all my years of writing on this blog I have ever said that I ‘feared” socialism or that it could never take hold in the US, or that I “need to study the politics of this nation and see how far it has already gone toward socialism.”
You wouldn’t know “socialism” if it came up and bit you in the ass. What corporations does the government own and run? Which banks are run by the government? Which labor unions? Socialist states don’t have stock or commodity markets, fool.
I think you ignorant posting above is just about the most condenscending bunch of hooey I’ve seen on this blog in a while. My advice: Learn something before you post again. You only make yourself look ridiculous.
Ed
5:41 pm
[...] You can start by researching his friendship with radical anti-war terrorists from the Weather Underground. Rick Moran has already done the research on Obama’s ties to these unrepentant terrorists for you, so it should be easy enough for you. “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough,†Ayers told the New York Times in 2001. [...]
11:58 am
WE ARE DEPENDING UPON MCCAIN’S TEAM TO EXPOSE THIS IMPOSTER, OBAMA. WE CANNOT DEPEND UPON THE “NEWS MEDIA” TO DO IT, AS THEY ARE SO HYPONOTIZED FOR THIS MAN, AS EVERYONE ELSE IS, WHICH IS TYPICAL FOR CULT LEADERS, LIKE HITLER, JIM JONES, AND OTHERS. WITH POOR HILLARY OUT OF THE PICTURE, WHO WAS BASHED BEYOND BELIEF IN THE MEDIA, WHILE PRECIOUS OBAMA WAS IGNORED AND PROTECTED, JUST FOR BEING THE FIRST WOMAN TO REALLY COME CLOSE TO BEING PRESIDENT IN OUR PRESENT MISOGYNIST SOCIETY, NOW, HOPEFULLY, THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT ABOUT HIM. HE IS YOUR TYPICAL WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING. READ THE E-BOOK, OBAMA EXPOSED, AND SEE THE FACTS.
6:38 am
[...] semble que, forcés et contraints par nombre d’infos sorties notamment par les blogs (Politico, Right wing nut ou American Thinker) et quoi qu’en pense le WP ou le Guardian, les médias américains se soient [...]