Radical-in-chief : Barack Obama and the untold story of American socialism PDF
Preview Radical-in-chief : Barack Obama and the untold story of American socialism
Threshold Editions Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com Copyright © 2010 by Stanley Kurtz Portions of Chapter Nine appeared in different form in The Weekly Standard Aug. 11–18, 2008, and are © 2008 The Weekly Standard. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Threshold Editions Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 First Threshold Editions hardcover edition October 2010 THRESHOLD EDITIONS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Elliott Beard Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kurtz, Stanley. Radical-in-chief : Barack Obama and the untold story of American socialism / Stanley Kurtz.— 1st Threshold Editions hardcover ed. p. cm. 1. Obama, Barack—Political and social views. 2. United States—Politics and government—2009– 3. Illinois—Politics and government—1951– 4. Radicalism—United States. 5. Socialism— United States. 6. Presidents—United States—Biography. 7. Legislators—Illinois—Biography. 8. Political activists—Illinois —Chicago—Biography. 9. Community organization—Illinois— Chicago—History—20th century. 10. Chicago (Ill.)—Social conditions—20th century. I. Title. E908.3.K87 2010 973.932092—dc22 [B] 2010032032 ISBN 978-1-43915508-0 ISBN 978-1-4391-7696-2 (ebook) CONTENTS PREFACE What on Earth Is a Community Organizer? ONE The Socialism Puzzle TWO A Conference for Marx THREE From New York to Havana FOUR Obama’s Organizing: The Hidden Story FIVE The Midwest Academy SIX ACORN SEVEN Ayers and the Foundations EIGHT Jeremiah Wright NINE State Senate Years TEN The Obama Administration Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index PREFACE What on Earth Is a Community Organizer? Ever since Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to the presidency began, Americans have been asking themselves that question. The answer, it turns out, solves the riddle of Obama’s political convictions. Community organizing is a largely socialist profession. Particularly at the highest levels, America’s community organizers have adopted a deliberately stealthy posture—hiding their socialism behind a “populist” front. These organizers strive to push America toward socialism in unobtrusive, incremental steps, calling themselves “pragmatic problem-solvers” all the while. Barack Obama’s colleagues and mentors were some of the smartest and most influential stealth-socialist community organizers in the country. Their strategies of political realignment and social transformation guide the Obama administration to this day. Although contemporary community organizers deliberately hide their socialism, with a bit of digging, their secrets can be revealed. In neglected archives and long-forgotten issues of obscure journals, the untold story of modern American socialism lives. As the revolutionary hopes of sixties radicals banged up against the hard reality of a popular Reagan presidency, America’s socialists turned to a combination of community organizing and local politics to move the country steadily leftward by degrees. These were the socialists who schooled Obama. Their story is his story. The socialist community organizers who inspired and trained Obama openly embraced American democracy. Although they admired Marx, Lenin, and Mao —along with Obama’s idol, Saul Alinsky—in the medium term, at least, these organizers surrendered their revolutionary hopes and abandoned authoritarian ways. Some retained a soft spot for Third World Communist regimes in Cuba and Latin America. And surely the program favored by Obama’s organizing mentors could be seen as a subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—assault on traditional American freedoms. Yet this new stealth socialism, which Obama studied and absorbed as a
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