Obama’s International Socialist Connections
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | February 14, 2008
The socialist connections of Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member but a vice-chair of the DSA.
Campaign workers for Senator
and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying
a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial
socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based
Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections
to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.
Obama's socialist backing
goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the
Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an
Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter
reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul
Mendelson, one of the "champions" of "Chicago's democratic left"
and a long-time socialist activist. Obama's stint as a "community
organizer" in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship
with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally
ignored.
Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama's
career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a
fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly
socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders,
who won his seat in 2006, called Obama "one of the great leaders of
the United States Senate," even though Obama had only been in the
body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself
as "the most liberal Senator." More liberal than Sanders? That is
quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too?
DSA describes itself as the
largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal
U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International
(SI) has what is called "consultative status" with the United Nations.
In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body.
The international connection
is important and significant because an Obama bill, "The Global Poverty
Act," has just been rushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
with the assistance of Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the chairman, and
Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The legislation (S.2433) commits the U.S. to spending
hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign aid on the rest of the
world, in order to comply with the "Millennium Goals" established
by the United Nations. Conservative members of the committee were largely
caught off-guard by the move to pass the Obama bill but are putting
a "hold" on it, in order to try to prevent the legislation,
which also quickly passed the House, from being quickly brought up for
a full Senate vote. But observers think that Senate Democrats may try
to pass it quickly anyway, in order to give Obama a precious legislative
"victory" that he could run on.
Another group associated with
the SI is the Party of European Socialists (PES), which heard from Howard
Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, back in 2006.
Dean's speech is posted on the official Democratic Party website,
although the European socialist parties are referred to as "progressive."
Democrats, Dean said, want to be "good citizens of the world community."
He spoke at a session on "Global Challenges for Progressive Politics."
Following up, in April 2007,
PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reported that European socialists held a meeting
"in the Democrats HQ in Washington," met with officials of the party
and Democratic members of Congress, and agreed that "PES activist
groups" in various U.S. cities would start working together. The photos of the trip show Rasmussen meeting
with such figures as Senator Ben Cardin, Senator Bernie Sanders, officials
of the Brookings Institution, Howard Dean, and AFL-CIO President John
W. Sweeney, a member of the DSA. The Brookings Institution is headed
by former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, a proponent
of world government who was recently identified in the book Comrade J as having
been a pawn of the Russian intelligence service.
The socialist connections of
Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the
Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member
but a vice-chair of the DSA. Meyerson, the subject of our 2005 column, "A Socialist at the Washington
Post," has praised convicted inside-trader George Soros for manipulating
campaign finance laws to benefit the far-left elements of the Democratic
Party. Obama's success in the Democratic presidential primaries and
caucuses is further evidence of Soros's success. Indeed, Soros has
financially contributed to the Obama campaign.
It is not surprising that the
Chicago Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, has endorsed Obama. Schakowsky, who endorsed Howard
Dean for president in 2004, was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored
by the Chicago chapter of the DSA. Her husband, Robert Creamer, emerged
from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial
crimes. He pleaded guilty to ripping off financial institutions
while running a non-profit group. Before he was convicted but
under indictment, Creamer was hired by the Soros-funded Open Society Policy
Center to sabotage John Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the U.N.
After his release from prison,
Creamer released a book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand up Straight:
How Progressives Can Win, described by one blogger as the book that
was "penned in the pen." A blurb for the book declares, "Some
people think that in order to win, Democrats need to move to the political
center by adopting conservative values and splitting the difference
between progressive and conservative positions. History shows they are
wrong. To win the next election and to win in the long term, we need
to redefine the political center."
In addition to writing the
book, Creamer is back in business, running his firm, Strategic Consulting
Group, and advertising himself as "a consultant to the campaigns to
end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America's
budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform." His
clients have included the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. In fact, his client list is a virtual who's who of the Democratic
Party, organized labor, and Democratic Party constituency groups.
Creamer's list of testimonials comes from such figures as Democratic
Senators Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Harold Meyerson,
MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd, and David Axelrod, a "Democratic political
consultant."
Axelrod, of course, is much
more than just a "Democratic political consultant." He helped State
Senator Barack Obama win his U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and currently
serves as strategist and media advisor to Obama's presidential campaign.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
12 Comments
While I am a supporter of socialist politics, it disgusts me that these issues are not talked about in public. The media focuses only on “personality”, and the likability of a candidate and not on important issues at hand. Our political system is designed to be a selection process and not an election. Even though Obama has ‘socialist’ connections in the past, to be able to be where he is in the current system, he’s been totally compromised to be begin with, he will not be working for anyone but the rich.
Asking the right questions can sometimes yield the right answers, and few seems to be questioning the degree to which any of the candidates have socialist leanings, or who are disguised communists through socialist rhetoric.
Because American democracy has fundamental values like equality for everyone, it may be that democracy itself may be socialistic but limit itself to promising more. Capitalism is not socialism only because it is rooted in economics, not political theology.
That America may have socialist political philosophy and capitalism as its economic philosophy is a distinct probability that has never been taught well, but which seems to reveal itself in our progressive attitudes and actions.
Playing to that socialist sentiment of “all-included” mentality, it’s possible that America has allowed the premise of economic socialism (a.k.a., Communism) to creep into its national identity through programs like affirmative action and through the economic focus of civil rights, etc. that sees the welfare state as the economic source of serenity - perhaps unfairly.
Where socialist economic has been indulged, can communism be far behind?
Identifying candidates by separating their political philosophy from their economic philosophy might be the necessary agenda to arrive at what Americans really think, and how to choose its electorate, as well as its Presidents, to find out who’s who in America.
Socialism says that your rights and responsibilities come from and are ordered by government. It is the ideology of coercion. It goes against what this nation stands for. It goes against individual liberty and freedom.
Our government does not give us our rights, it protects our rights. It does not give us privileges either, it protects our rights. With rights come responsibility. One cannot infringe on someone else’s rights. People need to learn this, and our socialist public school systems have failed to teach this. We talk about “how driving is a privilege,” which makes it sound like government gives us our rights. We are misleading our children into thinking like socialists.
A brief History of Barack Hussein Obama the Racist
IS HE FOR A BLACK PLANET?
http://www.blackplanet.com/barack_Obama/
ENDORSEMENT FROM THE BLACK PANTHERS
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2008/03/new_black_panth.html
http://wakeupblackamerica.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-black-panthers-support-barack-obama.html
BARACK AND THE NAACP FOR FREEDOM OR DOMINATION
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/050502-remarks_of_senator_barack_obam/
OBAMAS RACIST CHURCH Read down to the 10 points - Committed to liberation? Africa, ECONOMIC PARITY?
MEMBER OF INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP OF SOCIALISTS
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-international-socialist-connections/
Wow, great information about Obama for those who doesn’t know about his background.
http://www.visionomics.com/
Seriously…do any of you have any idea what Socialism really is? Or have you all just been scared into thinking that equality means communism. That our public schools are the socialist devils playground?
I have been studying sociology, political theory, world & american history for longer than I can remember…as a poor (literally) midwestern Woman…and I cannot for the life of me figure out what is wrong with all of you.
Have any of you experienced the blight that comes with the inability to progress into more well paid positions in order to sustain your family? I was born poor, and you just can’t break out of it.
Just a note: Democratic Socialism IS NOT Communism…it IS NOT Fascism…it IS NOT an ideology that empowers the government as many have mislead…what it is is a system by which the PEOPLE can take back the government, and eliminate corporate control, poverty, blight, environmental degradation, privacy infringements, inequality & human rights violations.
Everyone talks about Special Interests and Lobbyists like they know who they are…have you ever asked yourself WHO they really are…whose pockets they are lining, and why? I’ll tell you now…it’s the people who have been in charge for far too long.
Let’s not forget our founding fathers, who explicitly fought capitalist control:
Thomas Jefferson despised the developing state capitalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, warning that it was creating a new absolutism of concentrated power more dangerous than the one Americans rebelled against in 1776.
An extremely important socialist in the eyes of many in America is Jesus…
Jesus rejected the dominant classist cultural norms of his time by advocating and practicing open commensality (the shared taking of food by people of all classes, races, ethnicities, and genders) and by sharing material and spiritual gifts across the interrelated hierarchies of social and geographical place? As biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan notes, he saw the Kingdom of God as a community of radical equality*unmediated by established brokers or fixed locations.
-Paul Street, ZNet, 14 January 2006
Along the way, Jesus is reputed to have said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter that kingdom. He condemned the personal accumulation of earthly treasures and made it clear that God was no respecter of rich persons. He insisted that one must serve either God or Mammon and pronounced the poor, the blessed inheritors of the earth.
-Paul Street, ZNet, 14 January 2006
Interesting, isn’t it.
Also…a link to the DSA website…we are not evil…we just care about the world in which we live.
http://www.dsausa.org/about/where.html
From the DSA:
We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.
We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.
HeatherfromKansas—-
Please stop dragging Jesus’ goodname thru the mud to push your socialist ideals.
Yes, Jesus supported sharing food and housing and all the things you described.
Here’s the difference though:
HE DIDN’T WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO FORCE PEOPLE TO DO IT!
All of this was to be done with a person’s FREE WILL. Socialism is all about helping the poor and such, but only by FORCING PEOPLE to do so, thru high taxes and other means.
Jesus wanted you to do it out of the goodness of your heart, not because the law required you to.
No, Socialism isn’t about forcing people to do anything. The version of Socialism that the Cold War has left you believing in is about forcing people to do things..and it is NOT Democratic Socialism.
Also, the Jesus thing? I wouldn’t say I’m dragging his name through the mud, because I would never do that to anyones prophet, God or religion…I was merely making a point & I am sorry that you were offended. The point I was trying to make is that while everyone says that they believe in his (or anyone else’s)teachings, no one seems to care enough to actually follow them.
If you want to believe that the demise of the working class and middle class can be adequately resolved through capitalism, then fine…but I encourage you to study sociology, anthropology and religion before accusing me of trying to push any ideology.
All I’m saying is that you will find that most of the historical evidence shows that Socialist and Democratic principles produce the most productive and cooperative societies, with the lowest levels of violence and malnourishment, and These are not even societies overseen by a “government” in the sense that you imply.
Aside from that, aren’t you more concerned about the type of conrol our government has over its’ citizens. We have the constitution to protect us from the government, but at this point, who in our country is really taking it seriously besides all of us “politico’s” anyhow.
We may disagree, but I think it’s important and great that we both care.
Oh, and just to clarify, Democratic socialism is more of an economic governance. I don’t think any of us would like to have any part of our constitution dissolved. Once again, please refer to the statement by one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson…and keep in mind that he was not the only one of them who felt this way.
no government has the right to steal from peter to pay paul that is plunder.when a government plunders it is socialism. in a free society we have the right to suceed or fail. it is unconstitutional to steal my money and give it to someone who chooses not to suceed.let alone steal my money and give it to another country. (global poverty act along with many other socialist b.s involving the satanic u.n) PERSONALITY- LIBERTY- PROPERTY don’t mess with mine and I won’t mess with yours
Joe,
In your statement “it is unconstitutional to steal my money and give it to someone who chooses not to suceed.”
There are a few things that you need to think about, for one, the government is not “stealing your money” they are taxing you to provide services for it’s citizens. Again, have you ever needed services such as the court system (yes, to alleviate crime), highways and infrastructures (yes, that is how goods are delivered so that you may sustain life, and how you get to work). Those are just two examples…the list goes on.
You may or may not believe in the tax codes that we have here in our country, but you must admit that we would not be nearly as advanced without them.
Another thing…who are you to say that those who have not had the opportunity to succeed have not succeeded because in your words they “choose not to succeed.”
That is false. There are people and entities in this country who make it next to impossible to break the seal of poverty. Read a little,look a little and you will see that it’s not that easy to get out, and even harder to maintain any state of life while in poverty.
AND AGAIN…Socialism is not what you have described. If you knew anything about ideologies, history or political science, then you would have read that by now. You pass judgement without knowledge, and that my friend is the worst kind of ignorance.
Please educate yourself before spreading your hate gossip.
Simple, Obama is a socialist. He is part of what Webster Griffin Tarpley refers to as the “Post Modern Coup”. Read the book, do your research and discover that Obama is a CFR, TC and UN cronie who will continue dismantling civil liberties, raping the constitution, hiking taxes to the likes of which have never been seen, and bowing to communist empires such as Russia & China.
April 23 at 1:06 pm | #1 | Link
http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=3275
http://www.akpmedia.com/partners/daxelrod.html
they are selling a bag of real dangerous #### to stupid overweight infantile creatures of a shopping-mall-regime
Axelrod’s strategy has been to promote a personality, not issues. Perhaps this is why Obama’s campaign speeches have been more like Saturday Night Live Matt Foley motivational speeches than serious attempts to lay out what an Obama presidency would mean to our nation. Massachusetts voters are learning the folly of voting for a personality rather than sound policies and a plan. (This isn’t to discount the importance of character or personality in a political candidate, but the candidate should state what he’s going to do when elected – not simply give motivational speeches.)