I have contended for some time that President Barack Obama owes his political career to three Marxist organizations, Communist Party USA, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and Democratic Socialists of America.
Of the three, Obama’s decades old ties to Democratic Socialists of America are most easily documentable.
It should come as no surprise to learn that Washington Post columnist and D.S.A. member Harold Meyerson was the one of the first, if not THE FIRST , journalist to promote Barack Obama outside his his adopted state of Illinois.
Meyerson, wrote in the Washington Post February 25, 2009, a column entitled Another Star in Chicago
In March of 2004, a few days before the Illinois Democratic senatorial primary, I wrote a column for this page headlined “A Bright Hope in Illinois.” It was, I believe, the first column for a daily newspaper outside Illinois devoted to a rising young pol named Barack Obama. Bolstered by polling that showed Obama to be the clear leader in the race, I fearlessly predicted that he’d become Illinois’ next senator and quoted the assessment of Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic member of Congress from Chicago’s Gold Coast district, that Obama would “march right onto the national stage and the international stage.”
Meyerson, and his fellow D.S.A. affiliate Jan Schakowsky, were of course right.
The only question is – was Harold Meyerson a predictive genius, or had D.S.A. already marked out their young protege for great things?
While usually described as a ‘liberal”, Meyerson could more truthfully be labeled as Marxist.
At the 2005 Los Angeles Democratic Socialists of America conference in Los Angeles, D.S.A. Vice Chair Harold Meyerson, described himself as a “third generation Menshevik”, while discussing the continuing relevance of certain parts of the Communist Manifesto to understanding today’s “shareholder capitalism.”
Meyerson, whose parents belonged to the Socialist Party USA of Norman Thomas, was active in Los Angeles radical circles since the 1970s.
In 1982 Meyerson was a committee member of the Socialist Community School in Los Angeles, which was run by members of the radical New American Movement, a mix of former Students for a Democratic Society activists and Communist Party members. Meyerson then went on to play a leading role in that year’s merger of N.A.M. with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form Democratic Socialists of America.
In 1996 Harold Meyerson, LA Weekly was one of the original 130 founders of Campaign for America’s Future, ” a strategy center for the progressive movement” and front for D.S.A. and the far left Institute for Policy Studies, C.A.F. has played an huge role in promoting “progressive” politicians (including Barack Obama) through their annual Take Back America and America’s Future Now! conferences.
On April 6, 2010 at the McShain Lounge in McCarthy Hall Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. a seminar “Labor, the Left, and Progressives in the Obama Era” was held.
“After the success of health care reform, what’s next on labor’s agenda? How can the labor movement grow and engage with a progressive movement that speaks to the Obama era? What is the role of younger workers, workers of color, and women? Is there a new “New Deal” on the horizon?”
DSAers Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed”, Gerry Hudson, executive vice-president of the Service Employees International Union, Michael Kazin, co-editor of Dissent and Harold Meyerson, spoke alongside DSA friendly Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.
The forum addressed the mass mobilization of “progressive” forces that would have to be organized to ensure Barack Obama would push through the D.S.A./AFL-CIO agenda.
Meyerson’s writing has appeared in almost every left-of-center publication, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, The New Statesman, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Dissent.
Meyerson is an opinion maker, who can claim at least some credit for putting a fellow socialist in the White House.
Meyerson gets away with his propaganda, because nobody calls him out on his Marxist affiliations.
That needs to change.
Very good blog article.Really thank you!