Obama’s Red Mentor Praised Red Army
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | April 30, 2008
The revelations about Davis’ poetry will add to the controversy over what kind of role Davis played in shaping Obama’s political views.
Barack
Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the
Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA, wrote a poem dedicated to the Soviet Red
Army. “Smash on, victory-eating Red Army,” he declared. He also wrote poems
attacking traditional Christianity and the work of Christian missionaries.
The “Red Army” poem
goes beyond hoping for the communists to beat the Nazis in World War II and
hails the Soviet revolution. It says:
“Show the marveling multitudes
Americans, British, all your allied brothers
How strong you are
How great you are
How your young tree of new unity
Planted twenty-five years ago
Bears today the golden fruit of victory!”
One Davis poem, “Christ is a Dixie Nigger,”
dismisses Christ as “another New White Hope” and declares:
“Remember this, you wise guys
Your tales about Jesus of Nazareth are no-go
with me
I’ve got a dozen Christs in Dixie all bloody
and black…”
The revelations about Davis’ poetry will add to the controversy over what kind
of role Davis
played in shaping Obama’s political views. Davis (1905-1987) seems to have had the same
kind of anti-American outlook that animated Obama’s longtime pastor, Jeremiah
Wright. In fact, Davis
was pro-Soviet, not just anti-American.
The controversial poems
are included in the book, Black Moods, a collection edited by John Edgar
Tidwell, a professor at the University
of Kansas and expert on Davis’ writings and
career. He confirms that Davis
joined the Communist Party but that he publicly tried to deny his communist
affiliations.
Davis’ poem, “To
the Red Army,” says that “rich industrialists” in Washington
and London
wanted Hitler to win and “wipe Communism from the globe.”
One Davis poem, “Onward Christian Soldiers,”
mocks the Christian hymn by the same name. It talks of Africans being killed
with a “Christian gun” instead of a spear by the missionaries following “the
religion of Sweet Jesus.” Another Davis
poem refers to Christians “who buy righteousness like groceries.”
Davis’ writings have become an issue because he became a
father-figure to Obama, who is the leading Democratic candidate for president
of the U.S., during their
time in Hawaii.
Obama acknowledges in his book, Dreams From My Father, that he knew and
accepted advice from a black poet named “Frank” but doesn’t identify “Frank” by
his full name. However, several sources, including Professor Gerald Horne and
Dr. Kathryn Takara, have confirmed that “Frank” was in fact Frank Marshall
Davis. Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and
blogger, first noted evidence that “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis in a
posting in March of 2007.
Secret History
In remarks at a reception of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) archives
at the Tamiment Library at New York University, Horne, a contributing editor of the
Communist Party journal Political Affairs, asserted that Davis
had come into contact with Obama’s family in Hawaii and became the young man’s mentor,
influencing his sense of identity and career path.
Obama writes in Dreams
From My Father that he saw “Frank” only a few days before he left Hawaii for college. He
said that Davis
called college an “advanced degree in compromise,” warned Obama not to forget
his “people,” and not to “start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity
and the American way and all that ####.”
The record shows that
Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where he
developed his close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, and listened to his “poetry” and
views.
But in the same way
that he fails to identify “Frank” as Frank Marshall Davis, Obama says nothing
about the nature of this “poetry.” However, Tidwell says that several of Davis’ poems were viewed
as “subversive” by the FBI and that they help explain why it monitored his
activities. Tidwell says the FBI maintained a file on Davis.
Anti-American
One Davis
poem, “Peace Quiz for America,”
includes the lines:
“Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam
Why did you send me against Axis foes
In the death-kissed
foxholes
Of New Guinea and Europe
Without shielding my back
From the sniping Dixie lynchers
In the jungles of Texas and Florida?”
Tidwell asserts that Davis was a “closet”
member of the CPUSA and that it’s not clear how long he stayed in the party.
The Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee (SISS) reprinted the 1953 and 1954 Reports of the
Commission on Subversive Activities of the Territory
of Hawaii, which refer to Davis as “an identified
member of the Communist Party” who was affiliated with a number of Communist
fronts and circulated “inflammatory racial propaganda.” Davis
also wrote columns for the Honolulu Record, a Communist paper, featuring
“unrelenting and unmitigated complaints of racial discrimination in the United States.”
Davis was
labeled “a bitter opponent of capitalism” and “staunch defender” of communists
and communist sympathizers.
Max Friedman, a
longtime writer and researcher on internal security affairs, discovered that Davis testified in 1956
before the SISS and took the Fifth Amendment on his Communist Party membership.
The House Committee on
Un-American Activities (HCUA) took testimony in 1950 from a member of the Honolulu branch of the
NAACP, Edward Berman, who referred to
“Comrade Davis” as someone who “sneaked” into the NAACP meetings “with the
avowed intent and purpose of converting it into a front for the Stalinist
line.”
Tidwell says that
Davis “felt betrayed” when Soviet dictator Stalin signed the 1939 nonaggression
pact with Nazi Germany, which triggered World War II, but that Stalin’s
eventual decision to join the U.S. and its allies in a war on the Axis
powers “restored a measure of Davis’ confidence in the USSR.”
Another book, The
New Red Negro, by James Edward Smethurst, says that while Davis had said he was disturbed by the
Hitler-Stalin pact, he did not leave the CPUSA in protest over it.
Tidwell maintains that
Davis moved to Hawaii
from Chicago, Illinois, in 1948 under “the governmental
pressure of McCarthyism,” a reference to anti-communist Senator Joe McCarthy.
However, the SISS and the HCUA had nothing to do with McCarthy’s committee,
which was the Permanent Investigations Sub-committee of the Senate’s Government
Operations Committee.
In fact, McCarthy
didn’t emerge as a figure in the anti-communist movement until 1950.
The SISS hearings were
held for the purpose of determining the “Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States.”
William Rusher, who
served as associate counsel to the SISS in 1956-1957, has written that “It is
hard for most people to imagine the influence that even a relatively small
number of dedicated people can have, but the CPUSA exerted significant power in
its heyday—a heyday, be it remembered, in which the Soviet Union impressed many
people as the wave of the future, destined to overwhelm a weak and fading West,
including the United States.”
This pro-Communist view
appears to have been the mindset of Frank Marshall Davis, who spent many hours
advising and reading poetry to a young Barack Obama.
JOURNALIST
ASKS BUSH TO PROTECT IRAQI CHRISTIANS
On the eve
of the Pope’s visit to the U.S.,
journalist Raymond Arroyo took President Bush to task for his policy toward the
plight of Christians in Iraq.
Arroyo, anchor of the show, “The World Over,” aggressively questioned Bush
about some of the issues we raised in a recent AIM Report. The entire interview
aired on April 11 on the EWTN Global Catholic Network. Here are excerpts from
his tough interview with the President:
Q—I think his [the Pope’s] perspective is going to be
very different from what we’re reading in the newspapers this week. I think
what he’ll primarily talk about, and if my sources at the Vatican can be
believed, he will probably talk about the 40 bombed churches”
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.”
Q—40 percent of the refugees being Christian—”
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.”
Q—he’s very concerned about that Christian minority in Iraq.”
THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely.”
Q—When he spoke to you in 2007 he raised this. What is
the administration prepared to do for this fledgling remnant of Christianity—an
ancient community there?”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, absolutely. You know, it’s something we have
been doing all along, is urging the government to understand that minority
rights are a vital part of any democratic society. And by the way, my concern
isn’t just for minority rights in Iraq;
it’s for minority rights throughout the Middle East.
And I have dealt with the Holy Father about—with not only the issue of Iraq, but also the issue of Catholics in—and
Christians in the Holy Land. I can remember
very well, early in my presidency, I think it was Cardinal Egan or maybe
Cardinal McCarrick came to see me about the mosque encroaching on the
Catholic—the great Catholic Church, and would I use my influence with the
Israelis to convince them to be mindful of the need for minority rights? And I
said, absolutely. In my visit to the Holy Land,
this recent time, there’s a lot of concern about the kind of, the—I guess,
non-acceptance. I met Sisters that were in the Galilean area that were just
serving mankind so beautifully, and yet their leadership was concerned about
minority rights. So my view is like—Iraq is important, but I’ve used
our influence all throughout the region. And I’ve used our influence all
throughout the world to promote rights for all religious minorities, including China. ”
Q—We saw that Archbishop Raho, he was murdered in Iraq. This past
weekend”
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, yes.”
Q—an Orthodox priest slain on the doorstep of his home.
Is the administration—do you believe that this is religiously motivated
violence?”
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I do. I believe they’re—I believe what they’re
trying to do is trying to send messages—“they” being the killers—trying to send
messages that it’s not worth your time, that you must abandon the efforts of
helping this free society deliver. I don’t think this is government-sponsored.
I think these are a bunch of thugs and killers who have this kind of dark, dim
view of the world, and are willing to kill anybody who’s willing to stand up to
them. And it’s not just these religious figures. There are a lot of innocent
men, women and children who are being killed by them, as well. This is their
techniques, this is their tactics, and it’s the same type of mentality that
caused people to fly airplanes into our buildings to kill 3,000 of our
citizens.”
Q—What can we tangibly do? What can the administration
tangibly plead with the Iraqi government to do to protect this fledgling
minority? Is there anything we can do?”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, one thing we can do is to keep our troops
there long enough to have a civil society emerge, and go after them, and go
after these killers, and bring them to justice so they quit killing people,
including our own troops, because this is a war.
Q—Would you commit our troops to protecting those
communities where they’re endangered?
THE PRESIDENT: I commit our troops to helping the Iraqis provide
safety for all innocent Iraqis. In other words, I—you got to understand that
what you’re witnessing is not just an assault on innocent Christians; you are
witnessing assault on innocent people of all faiths by a group of cold-blooded
killers who want to drive the United States
out of the Middle East because they hate free
societies.
Middle East Online
reported that “Iraq’s
Christians are targeted by both radical Sunnis and Shi’ites. Unlike those
Islamic sects, Christians do not have militias or large tribes to protect them.
That leaves them particularly vulnerable to kidnappings and ransom demands by
criminal gangs, who may pose as Islamic radicals—or by the real radicals who
target Christians because of their beliefs.”
In a new development, Rep.
Frank Wolf (R-VA) has formed a Caucus on Religious Minorities in the Middle
East, a bipartisan Congressional Member Organization dedicated to serving as a
central location for information on religious minorities in the Middle East. A congressional reception for the group
included a 60 Minutes segment highlighting the persecution of Christians in Iraq.
“FREE TRADE”
PROMOTES NORTH AMERICAN UNION
The White House had wanted a quick vote in favor of a
“U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement,” saying it would help U.S. business, bolster the anti-communist
government of Colombia, and
deal a setback to the anti-American ruler of Venezuela. The name had been
changed from the “U.S. Colombia Free-Trade Agreement.” But the U.S. can’t fight Colombia’s communist drug-dealing
terrorists, or Hugo Chavez, with trade agreements, especially those that don’t
really promote “free trade.”
Like so many issues, the dispute had become a case of
partisan politics. Congressional Democrats engineered a delay of the vote. But
what was lacking from the media, especially the conservative media, was a
coherent analysis of how flawed the agreement really was. The Colombia
agreement had 18 pages devoted to caring for the environment through new
institutions and arrangements.
You didn’t have to read past the preamble to see that it puts the U.S. further
down the road of sovereignty-destroying “hemispheric integration.” This
agreement also urges pursuit of the “Free Trade of the Americas,” described as an effort to unite the
economies of the Americas
into a single free-trade area. This is free trade at the expense of sovereign
nation-states. Many people forget that our national government originally
raised its revenue through tariffs and didn’t have a federal income tax.
Tariffs, imposts and duties are tools that a nation-state uses to protect
industries critical to the economy and national defense.
Some prominent Democrats such as Bill Clinton and liberal newspapers
like the New York Times were backing the agreement. Clinton forced the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress as an agreement, when he realized that he
couldn’t get the two-thirds he needed in the Senate to pass it as a treaty.
North American Summit
As Bush promoted the Colombia
agreement, he was preparing to host the next “North American Summit” in New Orleans on April 21
and April 22. It was designed to review the progress and give direction to the
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which was launched by Bush and the
leaders of Mexico and Canada in 2005.
The SPP, which has never been authorized or approved by Congress, is a
secretive arrangement to integrate the laws and regulations of the three
countries.
Bush has seemingly embraced veteran Democratic Party
foreign policy specialist Robert Pastor’s vision of a “North American
Community” evolving from NAFTA. Pastor served as one of Clinton’s advisers.
In a speech, President Bush let the cat out of the bag, saying that the
Colombia agreement has
“economic potential” but “even greater national security importance because of Colombia’s
strategic location.” But there are better and other ways to support the
Colombian government politically. One is to provide more military aid to
intensify the war on the drug traffickers and their allies.
Free Trade?
The concept of “free trade” has been transformed into elaborate and
lengthy agreements between nations that do far more than just eliminate
tariffs. They build international institutions of a governmental nature that
manage trade relations between states. They place decision-making in the hands
of international bureaucrats.
This Colombia
agreement is no exception. It sets up a “Free Trade Commission” and
“Environmental Affairs Council” to handle disputes.
Going beyond this, the Colombia agreement declares that “The Parties
recognize that the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation
(NAAEC) provides that a person or organization residing or established in the
territory of the United States may file a submission under that agreement with the
Secretariat of the NAAEC Commission for Environmental Cooperation asserting
that the United States is failing to effectively enforce its environmental
laws.” The NAAEC is the environmental side agreement to NAFTA.
It’s one thing
to favor the lowering or elimination of tariffs, but “hemispheric integration”
implies much more. It suggests a political merger of some kind. The U.S. needs
less, not more, of this kind of integration with other countries. We need to
restore U.S.
sovereignty.
Promoting true free trade between nations is relatively straightforward
and easy to accomplish. “The vast majority of Colombian products pay no tariffs
to enter U.S.
markets,” the White House says. On the other hand, it says that “U.S. industrial and consumer goods exported to Colombia face
tariffs of up to 35 percent, with much higher tariffs on many agricultural
products.” The problem, quite clearly, is Colombia’s
high taxes on U.S.
goods. If Colombia wants to
buy more U.S.
products, it should reduce or eliminate those taxes. The U.S. doesn’t
need an elaborate agreement on hemispheric integration or environmental
cooperation to accomplish that.
DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG May-A, 2008
THEY ARE CALLING HIM GEORGE W. GORE. IT’S A REFERENCE TO A report in the Washington Times that the Bush Administration is preparing to submit legislation to Congress based on the unsubstantiated claim that humans are causing a warming of the planet. The result: more government control and higher energy prices. “Specifics of the policy are still being fiercely debated, but Bush administration officials have told Republicans in Congress that they feel pressure to act now because they fear a coming regulatory nightmare,” reports Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times. “With Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the remaining major presidential candidates, all favoring new controls on greenhouse-gas emissions, Mr. Bush could be trying to lay the groundwork for the next president,” he adds. Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute commented, “It would destroy President Bush’s legacy now to adopt Al Gore’s global warming policies after pursuing much more effective policies for seven years. It is true that global warming alarmists are filing multiple lawsuits to use the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act to cause a regulatory train wreck. But President Bush should not give into this political extortion.” Ebell wants “an open public debate on global warming” and we agree. It should begin with the media, except for the fact that our media have taken sides. But we must keep on fighting for an open and honest debate.
MCCAIN, LIKE DEMOCRATS BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON, FAVORS THE NEW Bush approach. But this isn’t the only example of where McCain is courting liberal votes. On April 13, he pleased the Big Media by endorsing a federal media shield law. The purpose of the law is to enable people claiming to be journalists to hide their anonymous sources of information even when those sources are involved in or have knowledge of criminal or terrorist activity. The bill would also give federal protection to anonymous sources in and out of government who hide behind the media in order to destroy or damage the lives of innocent people. In this case, President Bush is coming down on the right side and has threatened a veto. Because this bill has already passed the House and a Senate committee and may come up for a Senate vote at any time, please take a moment right now to call your senators and oppose this legislation. The Capitol switchboard number is 202-225-3121.The bill is S. 2035 in the Senate.
UNDER MEDIA PRESSURE, ONE VERSION OF THE BILL PASSED THE HOUSE BY A VOTE OF 398-21. Only 21 members had the courage to oppose the demands of the Big Media lobby. The Senate version passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 4. The vote was 15-2. Only Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Jon Kyl had the courage to vote against it. Media lobbyists are now demanding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid schedule a full Senate vote and pass the bill and send it to the President’s desk. McCain’s endorsement was a major feather in their cap. Democrats Obama and Hillary Clinton can be expected to fall in line. By the term “media,” we are talking about the biggest guns in the business. As noted by Senator Patrick Leahy, a supporter of the bill, “The Free Flow of Information Act is strongly supported by more than 50 news media and journalism organizations, including the National Newspaper Association, the Coalition of Journalists for an Open Government, the Magazine Publishers of America and the National Press Club. The call for action extends to editorial pages across the country, including the Washington Post, Arizona Republic, Salt Lake Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times.” Please send the enclosed postcard to Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, asking her to convey our thanks to President Bush for his forthright stand against the shield bill. Send another postcard to Senator Kyl, thanking him for his opposition to the legislation.
IT’S OFFICIALLY CALLED THE “FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION ACT” BUT WE HAVE CALLED IT the “Special Rights for Journalists Act.” There are many problems with the bill, but one of the most glaring is the failure to adequately define a “journalist.” The media arm of a terrorist group might be able to qualify, depending on what a federal judge rules, as a protected organization. The bill says, “The term `journalism’ means the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.” What does “regular” mean? Would a blogger qualify if he or she posted material every other day or every other week? Does this apply to the media arm of al Qaeda? To Al-Jazeera? Consider that federal officials have indications that a “journalist” has knowledge of terrorist activity, based on his or her sources in a terrorist organization. Under the media shield law, the “journalist” could claim these are confidential sources and refuse to provide evidence of criminal activity that threatens the lives of the public. The bill has exceptions for national security or bodily harm, but the burden of proving that the protected information has to be known is put on those responsible for stopping terrorist activity. It may be too late to save lives with this bill in place.
THE MEDIA CLAIM A SHIELD LAW WOULD HELP THEM PROTECT SOURCES OF INFORMATION about government wrongdoing. But the Watergate scandal was disclosed without a federal shield law in place. One real danger of a media shield law comes when the wrongdoing involves those anonymous government sources leaking false information to the press and then wanting to escape accountability for their malicious actions. Former government scientist Steven Hatfill was falsely named in the media as a suspect in the anthrax murders case and his reputation and career were destroyed. He went to court years ago to get the names of the government officials who targeted him. Under current law, even though they are stalling him, Hatfill has a reasonable chance of forcing these journalists to provide this information so that he can hold those officials accountable. A federal media shield law would make it impossible to get those names and for him to get justice. We have written critically about this legislation for years but have been denied the opportunity to testify against it. This demonstrates the power that the media have over our elected officials. Simply put, when the matter before Congress is something that directly affects them, the Big Media will make sure that the American people are not given two sides of the story. Please send a postcard to Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, admonishing him for failing to have AIM testify against the bill. Fortunately, the Justice Department is fighting back against this massive media blitz. It has launched a web page with information about the dangers of the legislation. This represents the views of law enforcement officials and prosecutors trying to save lives—our lives. Please take action against this bill.
MCCAIN HAS BEEN HURT BY REVELATIONS IN THE WASHINGTON TIMES THAT SOME OF THE lobbyists in his campaign worked for foreign interests, including foreign governments. “McCain advisers tied to foreign lobbying” was the front-page headline in its April 11 issue. One, Charlie Black, signed a deal to lobby for a Chinese state-owned oil company. Meanwhile, the black racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues to pose problems for Barack Obama. We are still waiting for our revelations about Obama’s other mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, to break open nationally. This AIM Report gives you more shocking details. It looks like the liberal AND conservative media don’t know what to do with these amazing facts. Perhaps some journalists don’t want to be accused of “McCarthyism” by asking Obama about listening to poems and taking advice from an identified member of the Communist Party. But facts are facts. With your support, we will persist in drawing attention to them.
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