For part 5 go here
By Max Friedman
Obama and reparations
The hidden theme of “reparations” as espoused by Sen. Obama came out in his July 27th speech at the “Unity Convention” in Chicago where he talked about the bad treatment of Native Americans (Indians) and “other persons of color in this country.” This was the forerunner of Obama’s involvement in the “reparations” movement though he has said that he is against reparations per se.
A few intrepid journalists who have followed Obama on this issue have found otherwise. While the word “reparations” has not been used directly, other code words for it have.
However, it is necessary to back up in time for a moment because of what happened in 2002. A “Millions for Reparations” was held in Washington, D.C. and it included the usual case of characters, especially those involved with N’COBRA and its constituent members. Speakers included Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), the sponsor of HR 40, the Reparations bill, Rev. Louis Farrakhan, Ray Jenkins (one of the so-called fathers of the reparations movement), and others.
A short account of this rally can be found in the Sept/Oct 2002 issue of “The New Crisis“, in an article by Hamil Harris entitled “Activists take reparations demand to national mall.”
He wrote that “The idea for the rally came from the Durban 400, a coalition of African American activists who traveled to Durban, South Africa, last year for the UN’s World Conference Against Racism. This group, led by the National Black United Front (NBUF) of Chicago and the Brooklyn-based December 12th Movement, successfully lobbied delegate to support a statement that condemned modern slavery as a ‘crime against humanity’ and expressed regret for past slavery. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBFRA) and the New Black Panther Party were also among the grass-roots organizations that supported the march.”
[The Durban Conference was a major UN-sponsored anti-American and anti-semitic affair which condemned the Jewish state of Israel and its founding ideals of “Zionism” (the recreation of the old Jewish homeland) as being “racist” regarding the Palestinians and Arabs].
Of interest from the rally was what Farrakhan said about reparations. “There is something owed to the descendants of slaves. We are not crazy standing in a city laid out by a Black man in front of Capitol built by slaves and a White House built by slaves. It seems that America owes Black people for what they have endured.”
As previously mentioned, what this “owes” means has been debated among the reparations groups, including the Reparations Coordinating Committee which included N’COBRA members and or Black Radical Congress members/participants such as Conrad Worrill (NBUF) and Cornel West.
Jump forward to 2008 and we have Sen. Obama talking about reparations by other names for American Indians, Afro-Africans, and pure native Hawaiians. Two articles sum up a lot of what Obama has said and advocated on this issue, all the while denying that he is for reparations.
An August 8, 2008 editorial in “Investor’s Business Daily”, entitled “Reparations By Another Name” list some of Obama’s quotes on this issue. Unfortunately, the dates of these quotes were left out as this was an “editorial,” not a footnoted article. However, the first few paragraphs addressed Obama’s positions directly and are worth reprinting here.
“I consistently believe that when it comes to … reparations,” Obama recently told a gathering of minority journalists, “the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.”
[NB: The full quote, as found in the July 28, 2008 edition of the “Star Bulletin” of Hawaii, in an article by Laurie Au entitled “Obama notes ‘tragic’ US past” was as follows:
“I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it’s Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.”]
A few days later, he clarified his remarks, saying he’s not calling for direct cash payments to descendants of slaves, but rather indirect aid in the form of government programs that will “close the gap” between what he sees as white America and black America.
He says government should offer “universal programs – such as universal health care, universal mortgage credits, college tuition, job training and even universal 401(k)s – that “disproportionately affect people of color.”
In other words, reparations by another name.” (End of editorial segment)
Obama obviously wasn’t a very good history student since he seems to have missed Pres. Lydon Johnson’s “Great Society”, the massive failed welfare programs which were finally reduced by the Republicans and Pres. Clinton in the mid-90s, “affirmative action” which many courts including the Supreme Court have found to be unconstitutional in most circumstances, and the massive failure of the subprime mortgage loan programs that the Democrats and a few Republicans let happen with such groups as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
“Job training”? The government has had job training programs since the 1930’s, but the labor unions objected to many of them as being competitive with them, so they were reduced. However, programs and groups like ACTION, VISTA, and others continued on with some job training.
“Universal 401(k)s?”. The Democrats have been holding hearings this month in Congress where far-out leftist economics professors are advocating that the government literally seize private 401K programs and make people join a government-run system, or be fined for not doing it. This is confiscatory marxism and if Obama becomes president with a veto-proof Congress, this could happen, though it would destroy the voluntary pension and retirement savings programs of private industry.
The extremely competent journalist Andrew Walden, of the Hawaii Free Press, has written an important column on the subject of Obama and reparations for Hawaiians. Hawaii was his second home while growing up as a young man, and where he came into contact with his Communist Party “mentor” Frank Marshal Davis, a friend of his grandparents, the Dunhams, so he feels an affinity with the “people” there.
In his July 30, 2008 article “Hawaii Braces as Obama Talks Apologies for Natives”, there is a reference to a leftist attempt to create a “Hawaiian tribal government” where none ever existed. It would be created in the form of a congressional bill known as “the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act” sponsored by old leftist Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hi) and a House version sponsored by another very far leftist from Hawaii, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hi).
It turns out that Abercrombie was “a close college friend of Barack Obama’s biological father” when they attended the University of Hawaii back in the 50’s. It must be remembered that the Communist Party once had a firm grip on much of pre-statehood Hawaii in the 1940’s until congressional and territorial investigations exposed them, leading to their virtual, but not total, destruction.
Among the CPUSA operatives in Hawaii were Frank Marshal Davis, who was sent there by the Party’s top covert CPUSA leaders, and Soviet agents-of-influence, Paul Robeson and Harry Bridges (ILWU), Jack Hall, the secret CP member who became the mayor of Honolulu, and Ewart & Eugenie Guinier (later Prof. Guinier of Harvard, whose daughter Lani Guinier was denied a hearing before Congress regarding her nomination by the Clintons to be a leader of the Civil Rights Division at the already politicized Department of Justice under Attorney General Janet Reno and Assistant AG Jamie Gorelick).
Key sources about Communism in Hawaii include:
*House Committee on Un-American Activities publications “Report on Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee, A Communist Front”, June 23, 1950 and the “Report on the Honolulu Record,” October 1, 1950
*”Hearings Regarding Communist Activities in the Territory of Hawaii,”
(1950-51) especially Part 4 – Testimony of Jack H. Kawano”, July 6, 1951
* Senate Internal Security Subcommittee series of hearing “Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States,” Parts 40-41A (including Appendix Parts I-III), December, 1956.
For a coverup history of the extent of communist penetration of Hawaiian politics and industry, see T. Michael Holmes, “The Specter of Communism in Hawaii”, 1994, Un. of Hawaii Press. This book however, has a good, but incomplete bibliography for those interested in the subject of communism in Hawaii.
Interestingly, Sen. Dan Inouye (D-Hi) was very helpful in throwing the communists out of the Hawaiian government and some of the labor unions, which is why I previously mentioned that Representatives Patsy Mink (D-Hi) and Norman Mineta (D-Hi) had supported “reparations” for the Japanese-Americans who were interned in relocation camps in the US during World War 2, as did Inouye.
While the Japanese-American reparations were justified because of their unjust treatment, this new movement for “Hawaiian reparations” is nothing but a leftist/nativist attempt to rip-off the U.S. taxpayer by the creation of a non-existent “Hawaiian government.”
[For one very early sympathetic article on the fate of “pure Hawaiians”, see the Washington Post, Dec. 30, 1972, “Native Hawaiians in Identity Crisis” by Leroy F. Aarons].
So where does this leave us concerning Sen. Barack Obama and the subject of “reparations” for any particular group?
It leaves us now knowing that while he was a member of the Rev. Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago from about 1988 to 2007, his church was deeply involved in the black extremist reparations movement, especially in N’COBRA. They weren’t just spectators, but full fledged, deeply involved activists, and they associated with some of the most extreme black communists and separatists in American history.
We also now know the extent of most of Rev. Wright’s ties to both white and black extremist groups from the Cuban communists, American communists, black American extremists ranging from Maoists to separatists, to the Nation of Islam of Louis Farrakhan and all their connections to the Libyan dictator and terrorism sponsor Muammar Qaddafi. Other suspected ties yet to be explored include contacts with the Syrian dictatorships, the Palestinian terrorist groups, and other overseas countries/organizations that Wright may have met during his trips abroad.
In the past, Obama has said that “this wasn’t the Jeremiah Wright I used to know,” as he threw a lot of friends and advisors under the proverbial “bus.” However, how can Sen. Obama explain 18 years of blindness to what his church and his good “friend” Rev. Wright were up to regarding “reparations” and the extremist crowd that they were involved with?
It seems that the good Senator doesn’t “know” much about anything, does he? That degree of blindness and ignorance could spell total disaster for the United States of America if he is elected our next president.
"While the Japanese-American reparations were justified because of their unjust treatment, this new movement for "Hawaiian reparations" is nothing but a leftist/nativist attempt to rip-off the U.S. taxpayer by the creation of a non-existent "Hawaiian government."
you say that now because your not receiving reparations but if you were native Hawaiian you'd be all over this that's whats wrong with people now and days bitch and moan because the tax payer is getting screwed but wont bitch when they are getting the benifits
“Hope you’ve got the bunker well equipped Trev, cos it looks like the black dude is the MAN.”
I voted against Obama not for his race, but his policies. Your reason is full of BS. In fact, it was Obama whom openly lauded this false claim even though John McCain’s favorite President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House which was looked down upon.
McCain blantantly said something like that, but idiots like you would likely still see him “like” George Wallace.
I hope with good patience, your dreams of a utopian socialist world would fail. Utterly, utterly fail.
As I stated earlier, the focussing of the McCain campaign on attacking Obama with McCarthiest level anti communist fears has left McCain with a loss at the polls. It was clear that the more he did this the further he slipped in the polls. This was evident in the last few days when his campaign team figured this out and shifted his focuss to what he was going to change in the USA.
So Trevor if you indeed had the so called success you claim to have had in spreading the ‘truth’ about Obama’s past, influencing the McCain campaign to find out the so called deep secrets of Obama’s past, then you have in some small way helped McCain lose (vs helping Obama win).
McCain saw it coming but it was too late. When he did switch tact he went up in the polls, while he continue down the ridiculous path of demonising Obama he went down in the polls.
I can understand why you McCarthiests wouldn’t have been able to see that coming, but the failure is his for again not having the temerity to change tact when they saw the polls dropping because of a failing campaign tact.
Hope you’ve got the bunker well equipped Trev, cos it looks like the black dude is the MAN.