Why Is Karl Marx Cheering from the Grave?

Karl Marx, the author of the failed economic system of communism, must be cheering from the grave over the prospect of Barack Hussein Obama becoming President of the United States. If the polls are correct (and I pray they are not), then the American people are about to elect a trained and avowed Marxist as President. How can I say this?

It is the result of having read both of Obama's books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. In them is revealed the degree to which Obama has been and continues to be influenced by the principles of Marx and Marxism. Likewise, his continued relationships with radical leftists, whom he refuses to disavow, also show it. Finally, his actions as an Illinois State Senator and a U.S. Senator illustrate his commitment to radically changing America’s economic system of capitalism.

As a youth, Obama disdained American middle-class values, what Marx would have ridiculed as “bourgeois” [capitalist] values. “Theirs [his white grandparents] were the faces of American Gothic, the WASP bloodline’s poorer cousins…the world in which my grandparents had been raised, the dab-smack, landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty…where fear and lack of imagination choke your dreams…” (Dreams from My Father, Three Rivers Press: New York, pgs. 12-13; 15)

Obama’s white mother, who grew up in the Midwest, tried to instill her values (“Honesty – Fairness - Straight talk - Independent judgment”) in him, but he rejected them. “My mother could give voice to the virtues of her Midwestern past…I would dutifully nod my assent, but she must have known that many of her ideas seemed rather impractical…My mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess…a faith that rational thoughtful people could shape their own destiny…” (Ibid. pgs. 49-50) Later, he wrote, “…Her [his mother’s] faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn’t overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn’t help plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.” (Ibid. p. 96)

One of Obama’s early mentors, a kind of father figure during his teen years in Hawaii, was a man he calls by only his first name, “Frank,” in Dreams from My Father. He warned Obama as he prepared to enter college, “Understand something, boy. You’re not going to college to get education. You’re going there to get trained. They’ll train you to want what you don’t need. They’ll train you to manipulate words so they don’t mean anything anymore. They’ll train you to forget what it is that you already know. They’ll train you so good, you’ll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit…” (Ibid. p. 97)

Who was this “Frank”? He was a black poet named Frank Marshall Davis. He was also a card-carrying member of the Communist Party U.S.A. [CPUSA] during the years it was controlled by the Soviet Union. Davis joined the CPUSA during World War II and never resigned before his death in 1987. His membership was confirmed in a 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 and wrote columns for the Honolulu Record. Davis was a friend of Obama’s white grandfather, who introduced the young Obama to Davis.

Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs and a history professor at the University of Houston, talked about the relationship between Obama and Davis in March 2007 in a speech, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party," at the Tamiment Library at New York University where CPUSA archives are housed. “Davis ‘befriended’ a ‘Euro-American family’ that had ‘migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama.’” Horne wrote Davis “became the young man's mentor, influencing Obama's sense of identity and career moves.” (Cliff Kincaid, "Obama's Communist Mentor," Accuracy in Media, Feb. 18, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/)

Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa did her dissertation on Davis. She confirmed Davis was the “Frank” in Obama’s first book. She notes that Davis had “‘an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world’ and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation.” He "espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy." (Ibid.)

Writing of his days at Occidental College, Obama heeded his mentor’s advice, “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets…We were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints.” (Op.cit. pgs. 100-101) While there, he became involved in the efforts to force Occidental College to divest its investments in apartheid South Africa. Among his efforts was “contacting representatives of the African National Congress to speak on campus” (Ibid. p. 105) The African National Congress [ANC] was and is a communist-backed front group.

Obama completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia University in New York City. He continued his Marxist studies, where, “Political discussions…came to take on the flavor of the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union or the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem and Brooklyn during the summers – a few of the many diversions New York had to offer…” (Ibid. p. 122)

Upon graduation, Obama set out to become a community organizer. However, he could not find a job in that field. “Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office.” (Ibid. p. 135) Frustrated working in a capitalistic, profit-making enterprise, “In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Touré, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Power fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature and arguing with each other about Trotsky’s place in history. Inside Touré was proposing a program to establish economic ties between Africa and Harlem that would circumvent white capitalist imperialism.” (Ibid. pgs. 139-140)

Finally, Obama was hired by Marty Kaufman, a white Chicago community organizer and moved to Chicago. There he “came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.” Marx founded the SI.

After two-and-a-half years, Obama decided to enroll in law school. His stated purpose was to learn “power’s currency in all its intricacy and detail, knowledge that would have compromised me before coming to Chicago but that I could now bring back to where it was needed…bring it back like Promethean fire.” (Ibid. p. 276) He returned to Chicago after receiving his law degree from Harvard Law School and went to work as a Civil Rights attorney. Later, he was a part-time professor of Law at the University of Chicago.


Obama remained true to his Marxist disdain of the bourgeoisie, even when he began visiting Trinity Christian Church in Chicago and consulting with its pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Tellingly, he wrote, “There was one particular passage in Trinity’s brochure that stood out…’A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness,’ the heading read. ‘While it is permissible to chase ‘middleincomeness’ with all our might,’ the text stated, those blessed with the talent or good fortune to achieve success in the American mainstream must avoid the ‘psychological entrapment of Black ‘middleclassness’ that hypnotizes the successful brother or sister into believing they are better than the rest and teaches them to think in terms of ‘we’ and ‘they’ instead of ‘US’!’” (Op.cit. p. 284)

In 1996, Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate. He received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). “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.” ("Is Barack Obama a Marxist Mole?” Accuracy in Media Report, March 18, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-report/is-barack-obama-a-marxist-mole/)

“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.” Chicago Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky endorsed Obama and “was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the DSA.” (Cliff Kincaid, "Obama's International Socialist Connections," Accuracy in Media, Feb. 14, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-international-socialist-connections/)

With DSA encouragement, U. S. Senator Obama sponsored “The Global Poverty Act” (S.2433), which “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.” Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Obama’s vice presidential pick, pushed S.2433 through the committee. It is currently awaiting a vote by the full Senate. (Op.cit.)

Much has been written about William Ayers, the self-admitted and convicted Weather Underground domestic terrorist, and Obama’s working friendship with him. Obama served on the board of the Woods Foundation and authored the foreword to Ayers’ book. Ayers and his wife Bernadette Doerhn, another Weather Underground terrorist, helped launch Obama’s state Senate campaign by hosting an early “Meet and Greet” party in their home.

Few have looked at Obama’s on-going relationships with other Chicago radical leftists. Carl Davidson is active in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), an offshoot of the old CPUSA; he “helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.” (Cliff Kincaid, "Obama's Communist Mentor," Accuracy in Media, Feb. 18, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/)

Another CCDS activist is Leslie Cagan, who organizes anti-Iraq War demonstrations through a group called United for Peace and Justice (UPJ). Herbert Romerstein, a former Congressional investigator on communist activities, said the CCDS has “a close working relationship with the Stalinist remnants in the former East Germany, now called the Party of Democratic Socialism.” ("Is Barack Obama a Marxist Mole?” Accuracy in Media Report, March 18, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-report/is-barack-obama-a-marxist-mole/)

Lance Fairchok wrote accurately, “Barack Obama has a thing for Marxists. He befriends them, listens to their counsel, and he even hires them to work in his campaign. And they seem to feel the warmth.” For example, Sam Graham-Felsen is Obama’s official presidential campaign blogger. He also a writer for the Socialist Viewpoint, the mouthpiece of the Socialist Workers Organization (SWO). Graham-Felsen, “after being expelled from Socialist Action in 1999,” helped found the SWO “in an attempt to carry on the project of building a nucleus of a revolutionary party true to the historic teachings and program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.“ (Lance Fairchok, "Another Obama Marxist," American Thinker, April 2008 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/another_obama_marxist.html and Socialist Viewpoint socialistviewpoint.org)

"Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,' not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through." Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, penned these words in a letter to the party’s newspaper “hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses.” (Cliff Kincaid, "Obama's Communist Mentor," Accuracy in Media, Feb. 18, 2008 http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/)