Monday, April 07, 2008

Dreams of my (Communist) father

 
Holy crap! PrestoPundit has the scoop of the week... and maybe of the entire year.

There's a big mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams For My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. What was Barack Obama doing seeking out Marxist professors in college? Why did Obama choose a Communist Party USA member as his socio- political counselor in high school? Why was he spending his time studying neocolonialism and the writings of Frantz Fanon, the pro-violence author of "the Communist Manifesto of neocolonialsm", in college? Why did he take time out from his studies at Columbia to attend socialist conferences at Cooper Union?

And there is more mystery in the book. Why does Obama consider working in a consulting house for international business like being "a spy behind enemy lines?" Why does he repeatedly find it so hard to explain his political views to others? Why was he driven to become a left-aligned political organizer?

PrestoPundit acquired a copy of a seminal paper authored by Barack Obama (the elder) for East Africa Journal. In it, Obama criticizes a pro-Western policy for being insufficiently socialist. The 1965 paper -- entitled Problems Facing Our Socialism -- advocated an almost unbelievable agenda for Kenya.

1) Communal ownership of land including forced confiscation of privately held land.

2) Nationalization of "European" and "Asian" businesses with control handed over to the "indigenous" population.

3) Tax rates up to 100%: "...there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay..."

4) A rejection of socialism for communism.

5) Price controls to ensure the middle class can afford to tour Kenya.

6) Government-owned and -operated "model farms" similar to those of the Soviet Union.

And how does Barack Obama the younger deal with his father's communist leanings in his book? He obfuscates and disguises them -- as well he should.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tips: Gateway Pundit and Larwyn

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