00:04:37 | Joining me to explain, author of the new book Radical-in-Chief, Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American socialism, Stanley Kurtz is with us. |
00:04:50 | Thanks for having me. |
00:04:51 | Sean: hiding socialism. |
00:04:53 | It is interesting when conservatives such as myself and others pointed out we felt Barack Obama had radical ties and socialist, radical views, we were laughed at, made fun of. |
00:05:08 | People thought we were too hard. |
00:05:10 | . |
00:05:11 | Too harsh. |
00:05:12 | Now 60% of the American people view him as socialist. |
00:05:16 | Were we right? |
00:05:17 | You were absolutely right. |
00:05:19 | Frankly I was nervous about the socialism charge myself. |
00:05:21 | When I started searching Barack Obama's history after two years probing the archives, I realized that you and all the people who said he was socialist were right. |
00:05:32 | The book vindicates what you have been saying for the last three years. |
00:05:36 | Sean I thought we went deep into his background I read Dreams of My Father, Audacity of Hope, what did you find that stood out more than anything else that proved this point? |
00:05:47 | Well, the big picture is there is almost a conveyor belt running from socialist activism to community organizing to electoral politics. |
00:05:58 | Obama was riding that conveyor belt. |
00:06:01 | The reason people don't understand that is community organizers intentionally keep their socialism secret. |
00:06:09 | The book explains the background of community organizing and I used that to explain his entire political career. |
00:06:18 | One example, the beginning of the book lays out what happens at conferences Barack Obama an continued when he lived in New York City between 1983 and 1985. |
00:06:29 | Those conferences connected Obama to groups, strategies to mentors that have guided his entire political career. |
00:06:38 | For example, this conference, community organizing is the key to moving America gradually toward socialism. |
00:06:46 | Obama would first have heard about the groups ACORN and Project Vote. |
00:06:53 | Most amazing of all, these conferences touted a newly form alliance between Black Liberation Theology and socialism. |
00:07:03 | It was these socialists conferences that Obama on the path that led home to Reverend Wright. |
00:07:09 | That's the key that led him to Reverend Wright, which Black Liberation heology rooted in mark. |
00:07:17 | . |
00:07:17 | You go into detail about the scholar's conference and Democratic Socialists of America and activities that he attend during the years we have all question marks about. |
00:07:30 | His time in New York. |
00:07:33 | Basically, you are saying this was him from the very beginning? |
00:07:36 | That's right Sean. |
00:07:38 | Those socialist conferences gave Obama a program for his whole career. |
00:07:43 | It didn't stop in his early adulthood it went right on. |
00:07:47 | Those conferences pointed Obama, for example to a remarkable community organizer training institute in Chicago call the Midwest Academy. |
00:07:56 | The Midwest Academy was run by some of America's most prominent socialists. |
00:08:02 | These community organizers, strongly believe you don't talk about your socialism out loud. |
00:08:08 | You use it to strategize. |
00:08:10 | You don't tell the people you organize about your socialism. |
00:08:14 | These are the folks who trained Obama, funded Obama and most importantly, they sponsored his political career. |
00:08:21 | Why would they have done that if he didn't their their views? |
00:08:26 | You quote Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and it is no surprise he's governing in this fashion. |
00:08:37 | Is there any indication in your analysis, in your study, that he has any capacity to change or recognize that he's wrong? |
00:08:46 | Because seeps to be lashing out at his own base as we were discussing earlier. |
00:08:51 | He seems to think it is a communication problem as we saw in the New York Times this weekend. |
00:08:56 | Seems to as we were talking with Karl Rove earlier, to think that the American people just don't get it. |
00:09:03 | And that they are not scientifically -- they are too afraid they are not scientifically-oriented in times of fear? |
00:09:13 | I don't think he will change his views maybe if the election is an overwhelming repudiation of him he'll put himself in check temporarily. |
00:09:22 | What he has been doing lately fits closely to the long term political strategies his socialist mentors had. |
00:09:30 | He's been attack the Chamber of Commerce, a real American institution. |
00:09:35 | A lot of people saying why is he doing that? |
00:09:38 | What's the political gain? |
00:09:39 | Obama's socialist mentors have a long term strategy for raligning the Democratic and Republican party along class lines. |
00:09:46 | They thought if you attack business and drive it out of the Democratic party you simultaneously jumpstart a populist anti-business movement of the Left. |
00:09:55 | Bring that into the Democrats then the country is polarized on class lines and in the thought of his mentors the party of have-nots will gravitate toward increasingly socialist ideas. |
00:10:10 | 40 million in need of food stamps, 1 in 7 Americans in poverty. |
00:10:15 | Stanley, good book, thanks. |
00:10:17 | Thanks Sean. |