SubscribeBarack Obama, Sr Committed Communist
From the Politico:
This undated photo released by his campaign shows Barack Obama and his father.
Long-lost article by Obama’s dad surfaces
By: Ben Smith and Jeffrey Ressner
April 15, 2008Barack Obama’s dad was such an important but absent figure in his life that he devoted his first book, Dreams From My Father, to the search for details about his father’s life and how the quest helped forge a son’s identity.
Now, a long-forgotten essay written 43 years ago by Obama’s father has surfaced, and its contents reveal much not only about the senior Obama’s grasp of economic theory but also the iconoclastic politics that, his son would later write, sent him into the spiral of career disappointment that concluded with his death in 1982 in his native Kenya.
Parts of the article, titled “Problems Facing Our Socialism,” have been making the rounds on several small blogs over the past week, but Politico is now reproducing the entire piece in its original form online for the first time…
Published in the esoteric East Africa Journal in 1965, the year after Kenyan President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta took power and the country declared independence from British rule, the paper takes a gently mocking tone to the Kenyatta government’s key, controversial statement of economic policy, titled “African Socialism and its Applicability to Planning in Kenya.”
Obama Sr.’s journal article repeatedly asks what the Kenyan government means by “African Socialism,” as distinct from Soviet-style communism, and concludes that the new phrase doesn’t mean much.
Elements of Obama’s argument now seem prescient, others deeply dated, but his central aim – particularly in the context of the heady early days of African independence – was moderate and conciliatory.
“The question is how are we going to remove the disparities in our country such as the concentration of economic power in Asian and European hands while not destroying what has already been achieved and at the same time assimilating these groups to build one country,” Obama Sr. wrote…
Obama Sr.’s 1965 paper, however, brims with confidence and optimism.
The article, with a loaded term in the title and a casual discussion of socialism, communism, and nationalization, has raised the hackles of some anti-Obama conservatives who have been discussing it online.
Greg Ransom, a blogger who unearthed the journal at UCLA’s library, calls the article “the Rosebud” that provides the missing key to Obama’s memoir. Ransom wrote about its contents recently in a posting with the provocative headline, “Obama Hid His Father’s Socialist and Anti-Western Convictions From His Readers.”
But Kenya expert Dr. Raymond Omwami, an economist and UCLA visiting professor from the University of Helsinki who has also worked at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said Obama Sr. could not be considered a socialist himself based solely on the material in his bylined piece.
Omwami points out Obama Sr.’s paper was primarily a harsh critique of the controversial 1965 government document known as the “Sessional Paper No. 10.” Sessional Paper No. 10 rejected classic Karl Marx philosophies then embraced by the Soviet Union and some European countries, calling instead for a new type of socialism to be used specifically in Africa.
The government paper rejected materialism (i.e., “conspicuous consumerism”), outlined the nation’s goals to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and disease, and also laid out important decrees regarding land use for economic development. Obama Sr.’s response covers these issues, frequently focusing on the distribution of real estate to farmers. Since most Kenyans could not afford farmland in line with market forces established earlier by white British farmers, Obama Sr. argued that strong development planning should better define common farming space to maximize productivity, and should defer to tribal traditions instead of hastening individual land ownership.
In other words, Obama Sr.’s paper was not a cry for acceptance of radical politics, but was instead a critique of a government policy by Kenya’s Ministry of Economic Planning & Development, which applied African socialism principles to the country’s ongoing political upheaval.
“The critics of this article are making a big mistake,” says Omwami, who read the document and the associated internet debate at the request of Politico over the weekend. “They are assuming Obama Sr. is the one who came up with this concept of African socialism, but that’s totally wrong. Based on that, they’re imbuing in him the idea that he himself is a socialist, but he is not.”
Omwami says he’d instead refer to Obama Sr. as “a liberal person who believed in market forces, but understood its limitations.” …
“If you understand the Kenyan context, you can clearly see in that paper that Obama Sr. was quite a sharp mind,” concluded Omwami. “He addresses economic growth and other areas of development, and his critique is that policymakers in Kenya were overemphasizing economic growth. We had high economic growth for years, but never solved the problems of poverty, unemployment and unequal income distribution. And those problems are still there.”
Obama Sr.’s projections and critiques are so spot on, says Omwami, that he plans on assigning the paper to his classes in the future.
Kudos to Politico for digging up the full article and to PrestoPundit for unearthing it in the first place. (Funny how once again our watchdog media has failed to do due diligence on their darling.)
Unfortunately, Politico’s attempts to spin the piece for Obama, Jr, including this:
Elements of Obama’s argument now seem prescient, others deeply dated, but his central aim – particularly in the context of the heady early days of African independence – was moderate and conciliatory.
Are simply laughable.
For as PrestoPundit’s Mr. Ransom correctly notes, Obama’s paper clearly puts him on the side of communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga against pro-Western ‘third way” leader Tom Mboya and the President of Keyna Jomo Kenyatta.
A fact that even the apologist Mr. Omwami notes:
Omwami points out Obama Sr.’s paper was primarily a harsh critique of the controversial 1965 government document known as the “Sessional Paper No. 10.” Sessional Paper No. 10 rejected classic Karl Marx philosophies then embraced by the Soviet Union and some European countries, calling instead for a new type of socialism to be used specifically in Africa.
Though Mr. Omwami pretends that Mr. Obama, Sr was not arguing for classical Marx philosophies — which seems to be obviously untrue.
If you have a moment (and a pdf reader like Acrobat), the original article really is worth a quick scan.
And a quick scan should be all it should take to convince you that besides being a completely irresponsible drunken racist polygamist, Barack Obama, Sr was also a committed Communist.
Which, alas, seems to be the real “dream” Junior has had handed down from his father.
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12 Responses to “Barack Obama, Sr Committed Communist”
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April 15th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Kudos to SG for crediting the folks who found this article. S&L is a class act.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am
“Kudos to SG for crediting the folks who found this article.”
Thanks, NSOS. Of course we always try to do so.
Especially as we know all too well how it feels to go un-credited.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:17 am
On one of the talking head shows Sunday morning, it was mentioned that Obama has been so much of a media darling in his short time in the public eye that he has not been properly vetted. He has been pretty much overlooked or given a pass until recently by most of the MSM. So now as issues arise everyone is up in arms but they did this to themselves. They knew they weren’t looking at him critically at all and now that all this “info” has surfaced it affords them the dubious claim of piling on or the tried and true “representative of a vast right wing conspiracy”.
This is the fault of the Dems and the MSM (the Dems mouthpiece) for not fully vetting this guy before this late in the election cycle. I think many figured Hitlery was the nom so why bother. Plus it may have been a feeling that he would be her VP or cabinet appointee so why sully his rep.
I don’t know for sure why but I know for a fact who and it is offering hours of gleeful viewing as the Dems implode. Every time I see a political based discourse on TV now-a-days it is all Hillbama…….McCain can sit on the sidelines and pot shot. And the longer this goes the more we find out about both of the Dem candidates…..like we didn’t know enough about Hitlery to hate her already………..
I am breathlessly awaiting May 6th when me and the misses do our part in Operation Chaos.
Go Hitlery Go!!!!!!! LMAO!!!
April 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am
There’s a posting on The American Thinker which, I think, dovetails nicely with this article…
http://www.americanthinker.com.....n_the.html
Considering all the radical and Communist associations Obama has (Alinsky disciple, liberation theology, Laurence Tribe at Hahvahd, the Weather Underground), I have to doubt the mohammedan connection to a small extent…unless this creep’s just a typical, garden-variety, radical who only wants to bring the United States down and doesn’t care how he does it or who he’s affiliated with.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:51 am
hiya all!
Google keeps taking me down or indexing only one page when, for whatever mysterious reason, Im put back on after re aplying for index -(actually I went to Obamas website and copied his keywords and now i seem to stay indexed more than 2 days - maybe googie just didn’t like my, Obama racist marxist communist black power Lib socialist commie, keywords :)
but I wrote about this Paper and communist Connections 9 days ago! yea! I was on top of something finaly - I mean on top of something that wasn’t everywhere already as far as the paper - unfortunately i get zero traffic. i still havent looked up this Alinsky guy I keep reading about but Obam seems to be a man of habit/s. The patterns will be recognized soon i hope. http://obamanation.sampasite.c.....-budships/
April 15th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“Like father, like son” as they say.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
After reading this I couldn’t resist any longer.
For the history buffs on S&L - Compare Barack with the Roman emperor Septimius Severus.
He’s been called the beginning of the end of Rome. He swelled the ranks of the Praetorian Guard with foreigners and extended Roman citizenship throughout the empire. Sound familiar? Oh, he also despised the very Romans he ruled over.
Sorry for the little sidetrack.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
“Sorry for the little sidetrack.”
You mean the excellent sidetrack.”
History analogies are always greatly appreciated.
For while history may not repeat itself, stupid sure does.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
SG
“History analogies are always greatly appreciated”
Thanks - I’ll keep that in mind when posting.
In this case the analogy breaks down with the wide difference in talent. Severus could stand on his own where Obama relies on so much deception.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I did some digging on the “expert” used by journalists Smith and Ressner. When Smith and Ressner went trolling for a friendly authority, they ended up scraping from the bottom of the academic barrel.
A Google search for “Raymond Omwami” produced only four non-Politico results. A Google Scholar search produced two results. Professor Omwami does not appear on the web site of the University of Helsinki, nor does he show up on the web site of UCLA. He’s not on the faculty of the economics department at the U. of Helsinki, and he’s not on the list of visiting scholars or faculty at the economics department of UCLA. And he doesn’t show up on the web site of the World Bank. And he doesn’t show up on the web site of the International Monetary Fund. The only sign of Mr. Omwami is as a 2004-2005 fellow of the Globalization Research Center — Africa which is affiliated with UCLA and several other universities. Omwami is not currently in the the UCLA spring schedule of classes, as far as I could determine (although a woman with the same last name is). We’re clearly not dealing with the leading development economist in the world here — and certainly not with a leading historian of Kenyan history, such as I myself have cited in my own article posted at PrestoPundit.
When I finally found information on Dr. Raymond Omwami, this is what I found. It turns out he’s not much of a development economist. His specialty his “investment appraisal and financing decisions” with elements of international finance and economic development (which in large part means World Bank and IMF studies — and don’t even get me started on the appalling history of LSE and Ivy League trained economists, development economics, and the NGOs). Omwami’s only academic publication would seem to be this: Omwami, R.K. (1988) “An Economic Model Underlying the Choice of Capital Intensity in Timber Production.” Acta Forestalia Fennica 204.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
PrestoPundit, Looks to me like somebody turned the barrel over and found what was underneath for a Kenyan expert. Wonder if anyone else would have looked that closely.
Good work.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:19 am
long lost article- (from a dead link - )
I found an article by Obama jr that had been removed from Illinoise state while trying to understand who this alinsky guy is. [these candidates sure do have some kindah power getting their past writtings removed left and WRIGHT]
Oh MY.
I have been very confused by Obama - his words- and the way he artfuly obscures and conceals while actually making statements that peoples are applauding - I’m sitting there like - HUH?
example; The people have to do the work - or - it has to come from the bottom up… etc
from the bottom up ? I sit there and can’t figure out why this doesn’t sound right?
To explain his great past it is said over and over again that he was a ‘”community organizer”… i guess on the surface that passes over ones head as if - well good for you pal - get on with your civil service self!!
But by now i am suspicious - so i ask google about “Obama” “community organizer” chicago …holy schmoly- yer kidding me? This is a philosophy in itself?
Also i keep readin about this Alinsky (who i read a few times about here) - after 2 days I gottah say I am confused by the Alinsky message, it’s goal, and how it is Obamas campaign words are implementing this plan.
I can feel it in the words.
i keep wrestling with apparent marxsim, communisum, and muslim connections and can’t figure how they all piece together. His churches rasium, his radical friendships, organizing black communities etc…
while reading something he said about churches i kept going back to it - i knew it felt wrong - but until the Alinsky key fell in my sights I couldnt figure out why Obamas community organizing bothered me …what was the message? what was the goal?
It’s all black.
Obama said in his book:
He [Reverend Philips] wasn’t sure, he said, how much longer his church would continue to serve that function [unifying Black community]. Most of his better-off members had moved away to tidier neighborhoods, suburban life. …
He feared that the link to the past would be finally broken, that the children would no longer retain the memory of that first circle, around a fire….[of improvised slave religion]
I asked him for introductions to other pastors who might be interested in organizing, and he mentioned a few names-there was a dynamic young pastor, he said, a Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who might be worth talking to; his message seemed to appeal to young people like me. Reverend Philips gave me his number, and as I got up to leave, I said, “If we could bring just fifty churches together, we might be able to reverse some of the trends you’ve been talking about.” [194]
So, humm, One of the problems of organizing the “poor and oppressed” seemed to be that once they got help - worked things out- improved their life - they moved OUT and AWAY…into the suburbs…forgetting about where they came from…and how to continue to support the ‘organizer’. In becoming (middlecalssedness?) blacks moved away and did not teach their children the ‘link to the past’ and the next generation would have little memory of slave-religion.
the Congregations became smaller; less in every way.
To the Organizer such as Obama his base never expanded - it could remain constant with new fish - but never grow.
The organizers complaints and the programs demanded to fix those complaints eventually also depleted growth, as the peoples lives who were improved moved on. You can keep peeps together just so long as they continue to believe they are poor and or oppressed…you improve their situation - they move on…into white society.
Not only did Obama Know of Reverend Wrights “appeal” but that the message Wright delivered aimed to keep peeps together, rich or poor, through an improvisied slave religion…and Obama had his answer - he knew the answer to organized growth was the ‘black anger’ inheritance and wanted to bring together 50 churches to reverse the trend of abandonment.
How to take away from the ‘have’s’, to give to the ‘have nots’ , without the ‘have not’s’ becoming the have’s… you have to give them something/s else to be ‘bitter’ about?
Now i know i havent explained it right– its tickling my brain and i can’t put it together…Alinsky- communities - hummm…organizing…change…hope…sustaining the ‘community’
anyway the article I found;
After Alinsky: Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City by Barack Obama
http://web.archive.org/web/200.....er1990.htm
maybe you all can understand it better … i can only pick out certain things here and there …
…Blatant discrimination has been replaced by institutional racism…
…As long as our best and brightest youth see more opportunity in climbing the corporate ladder-than in building the communities from which they came, organizing will remain decidedly handicapped.
another write up i read bothered me in this context: http://www.chicagoreader.com/f.....rackobama/
Obama: “What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer,” he wondered, “as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions.
“The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it’s always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.
“Now we have to take this same language–these same values that are encouraged within our families–of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other–and apply them to a larger society. Let’s talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more.”
God help america