WhatFinger


Black Rage, Drugs, and a Communist Mentor

Media Abet Communist Cover-Up



In a surprising admission, Barack Obama’s 40-page so-called “rebuttal” to Jerome Corsi’s book, The Obama Nation, acknowledges for the first time that the senator once had a personal relationship with identified Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Frank Marshall Davis, a key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii.

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But the 40-page report, advertised and sold to the media as a refutation of Corsi’s “lies,” doesn’t identify Davis as a hard-core communist and it dishonestly edits an article about Davis to eliminate references to his admitted involvement in CPUSA activities and make the black revolutionary writer and “poet” look like a civil rights activist. In fact, Davis was a secret CPUSA member who continued his involvement in the CPUSA or its front activities into the 1970s, when he met Obama. At this time, Davis was still involved with a CPUSA front organization, the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, dedicated to keeping foreign communists such as his friend and associate labor leader Harry Bridges from being deported from the U.S. Corsi’s book devotes part of chapter three, “Black Rage, Drugs, and a Communist Mentor,” to Davis. He credits our work in the text and footnotes.

Excusing Russian Aggression

This official Obama campaign cover-up, which attempts to further mislead voters about Obama’s mysterious and controversial background, occurs as serious questions are being raised about Obama’s initial soft line toward the Russian invasion of Georgia. In his first statement on the crisis, Obama failed to directly condemn the Russian invasion. Obama “did not directly blame Russia” for the crisis, the New York Times acknowledged. Did Obama’s position reflect inexperience in foreign affairs, the influence of advisers, or an ideological tendency to take Russia’s side in global affairs against the U.S. and its allies? According to the editor of Davis’s books, John Edgar Tidwell, Davis was not only a secret CPUSA member but tried to recruit a prominent poet to the CPUSA. It’s not known if he tried to recruit Obama into what was then an underground communist movement in Hawaii because the major media refuse to directly question Obama about his relationship with Davis, and Davis died in 1987. Curiously, Tidwell, who has access to Davis’s FBI file and his personal papers, has refused to talk about Davis, even to a sympathetic reporter from the Associated Press, saying Davis has been victimized by McCarthyite “smear tactics.” The AP story refused to identify Davis as a CPUSA member and described him only as a “left-leaning” poet and journalist. For his part, Davis appeared before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1956, taking the Fifth Amendment when asked about his CPUSA activities. His lawyer was Harriet Bouslog, another CPUSA member. The same Senate subcommittee issued a report in 1956 declaring, “Founded in September 1919, the Communist Party of the United States of America is an organization unique in American history. It is not a true political party and differs fundamentally from all political parties in this country. It is in fact a Russian-inspired, Moscow-dominated, anti-American, quasi-military conspiracy against our Government, our ideals, and our freedoms.” In 1982 testimony, FBI assistant director for intelligence Edward J. O’Malley testified that the CPUSA has been “one of the most loyal and pro-Soviet Communist Parties in the world and has unfalteringly accepted Soviet direction and funding over the years.” The recent book, Comrade J, based on interviews with a Russian spymaster at the United Nations, documents that Soviet intelligence operations against the U.S. continued even as the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia emerged in its place.

Selective Editing

The Obama report admits that the mysterious “Frank,” who was referred to several times in Obama’s 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, was in fact Frank Marshall Davis—something AIM confirmed back in February. But in trying to rebut Corsi’s charge that Davis was a significant negative influence over Obama, the Obama report on page 10 quotes “an article on Davis” that describes him as being involved in the “labor movement” with other “African-American intellectuals” and committed to racial integration and harmony. No title or name of the author of the article is given. The article is simply identified as being from the Western Journal of Black Studies. We found a copy through Questia, an online library of books and journals. The article, “Frank Marshall Davis: A Forgotten Voice in the Chicago Black Renaissance,” was written by Dr. Kathryn Takara, an Obama supporter who has been critical of Accuracy in Media’s attempt to document Davis’s involvement in the CPUSA and his mentorship of Obama. Takara is a radical poet herself, having written poems in honor of Communist Party member Angela Davis and convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. She was recently quoted in an Associated Press article that portrayed Davis as a positive influence on Obama and ignored his CPUSA membership. The pro-Davis quotes in the Takara article in the Western Journal of Black Studies, which are cited in the Obama report, are actually preceded by Davis’s own incriminating words, in which he says: “From now on I knew I would be described as a Communist but frankly I had reached the stage where I didn’t give a damn. Too many people I respected as Freedom Fighters were listed as Red for me to fear name calling.” These quotes are carefully omitted from the Obama report. Instead, the report only uses quotes that make it appear as though Davis was not an extremist of any sort. The Obama report also ignores the Davis quotes in the article in which he talks about the “honor” of being targeted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and upsetting “the white power structure.” The Takara article acknowledges that Davis was investigated “due to his associates and involvement in what were considered in the forties to be radical communist groups.”

Davis In Hawaii

On the recommendation of two secret CPUSA members, Paul Robeson and labor leader Harry Bridges, Davis moved to Hawaii in 1948, where he would later become a member of what an official inquiry described as a secret communist underground organization. Corsi’s book, which is supposedly “Unfit for Publication,” according to the Obama campaign, cites the congressional hearings and documents which identify Davis as a CPUSA member. It also quotes instances from Obama’s own book, Dreams From My Father, in which Obama talks about “Frank” giving him advice about various matters. For example, he tells Obama that blacks have a reason to hate whites. Davis also tells Obama that he should not believe the (expletive deleted) about the American way of life and that he was, in the final analysis, just “a #” in America. Takara’s article, written in 2002, acknowledges Davis’s deep involvement in communist activities. In one such instance, the article says: “However, by the time he [Davis] returned to Chicago and the Renaissance, he inevitably associated with people connected with the [Communist] Party since they were most likely to be involved in civil rights, labor, art, and the fight for equality…it seems that Davis did join the party for a short time, although on other occasions he denied it.”

The Truth Be Told

So here we have it: in an article cited by the Obama report as authoritative about Davis, he is acknowledged to have been a CPUSA member. But the Obama report doesn’t mention this key piece of information obviously because it confirms what Corsi reports in his book and what AIM has been reporting since February. In another part of the article deliberately omitted by the Obama campaign, Takara notes that “Davis met Richard Wright through his 1936 participation in the National Negro Congress, which was alleged to be a Communist Front Organization.” Of course, the National Negro Congress was an identified CPUSA front. Takara says that Davis had some contact with Wright over the years but that “Davis did not see Wright again after openly criticizing Wright’s attack of [sic] the Communist Party following the latter’s defection, although both men held on to the hope of equality.” Indeed, Davis was so extreme that he attacked Wright for “treason” for breaking with and exposing the CPUSA. Again, none of this is included in the Obama report supposedly rebutting Corsi’s book.

CPUSA Fronts

In yet another part of the article the Obama report ignores, Takara writes that “Davis joined the League of American Writers, a national united front organization for the Communist Party mobilized by the alarming rise of power of Hitler and Mussolini.” In fact, Davis signed a statement by the League of American Writers in June 1941 opposing war against Nazi Germany at a time of the Hitler-Stalin pact. This was a reflection of the CPUSA line. Davis went from anti-war to pro-war after the Nazis attacked Stalin. So here we have it: another official acknowledgement by an Obama (and Davis) supporter that Davis was involved in a CPUSA front. But the Obama report doesn’t admit anything of the kind. In fact, Davis’s entire record of involvement in the CPUSA and its fronts is completely covered up. Which raises the question that we have asked on numerous occasions: why are Obama and his followers in the media ignoring his documented relationship with a CPUSA member? And why did Obama only refer to Davis as “Frank” in his book? In an August 5 editorial, drawing heavily on material published by Accuracy in Media about the Obama-Davis relationship, Investor’s Business Daily took issue not only with the concealment of “Frank” in the Obama book but the recent dishonest Associated Press story about Davis and Obama. “If the relationship with Davis was as blasé as the Associated Press makes it sound, why is Obama mum about it? And why did he try to hide Davis’ identity in his first memoir, published in 1995?” The paper said that Obama had written that “With the exception of my family and a handful of public figures, the names of most characters have been changed for the sake of privacy.” Investor’s Business Daily added, “But there was no need to protect Davis’ privacy. He had long been dead. More likely, the cryptic references to his communist mentor were—and still are—designed to protect Obama’s background from the scrutiny it deserves.”

The Cover-Up Continues

The shocking thing is that this cover-up is continuing, in the form of the official Obama “Unfit for Publication” report attacking Corsi. The cover-up is now so blatant that an article that is generally sympathetic to Davis has been edited by the Obama campaign in order to delete references to Davis’s CPUSA activities. There must be a deeper and darker secret, in terms of the relationship with Davis and those who knew him, that the Obama campaign is trying to keep hidden. Otherwise, it would immediately begin to disclose everything. Gerald Horne, the writer for the CPUSA journal, Political Affairs, who first disclosed Davis’s relationship with Obama and his family, has told the Marxist publication that he is now writing “a history of the radical, Communist and working-class movement in Hawaii.” He explains, “It is not well known, I’m afraid, that before statehood in 1959 probably the most vigorous, communist and radical trade union movement under the U.S. flag was in Hawaii.” Frank Marshall Davis was a remnant of that powerful movement. “At some point in the future,” Horne said, in talking about Davis’s influence over Obama, “a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack’s memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis’ equally affecting memoir, ‘Living the Blues’…” While Obama’s communist and foreign connections are of serious and ongoing concern in Corsi’s book, his treatment of Obama’s admitted drug use has emerged as a special raw nerve for the Obama campaign and his media acolytes. They realize that many Americans, whose families have been decimated and destroyed by illegal drugs, may recoil at the thought of having an admitted user of marijuana and cocaine occupy the oval office.

The Attack Begins

Acting on information provided by a left-wing group known as Media Matters, which functions as an unofficial arm of the Democratic Party, the New York Times attacked Corsi for charging that Obama has “yet to answer” whether he ever dealt drugs and when he stopped, if indeed he ever did. The Times protested that Obama has answered that charge, at least the part about quitting marijuana and cocaine, by saying that he hasn’t used drugs since he was 20 years old. The Times story defending Obama against Corsi’s book was followed by a Washington Post story attacking the author. The liberal media were forced to take note of the book because it became number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. So why did Corsi raise the subject of drug abuse when it supposedly has been put to rest? It’s because, as an experienced investigative reporter, he knows that a few perfunctory denials, which could be expected from someone running for office, do not constitute any form of proof or convincing answer that he in fact ever did quit drugs. As Corsi has suggested in defending his book’s account of Obama’s admitted drug use, self-reporting by drug users about when they quit is notoriously unreliable. Every drug addict claims to have quit at one time or another. That’s what drug testing is all about. Joyce Nalepka, president of Drug-Free Kids: America’s Challenge, points out that recovering cocaine addicts say that the high from cocaine is so intense that you never stop wanting it. She points to the case of former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, who was caught twice using cocaine. Barry was caught in one case as a result of a police sting and another because of court-ordered drug testing. Don’t you believe Obama when he says he quit drugs? “No,” replied Nalepka. “And I didn’t believe Mayor Barry either.”

The Soros Connection

However, she does believe that, if Obama is elected, his backers in the drug legalization movement funded by billionaire George Soros will press for legalization of marijuana, cocaine and other dangerous drugs. Soros is a big backer of Obama and has contributed financially to his campaign. During the Reagan Administration, Nalepka served as the president of the anti-drug group that Nancy Reagan served as honorary chair. She warns that Obama has “voted for at least two pro-legalization [of marijuana] bills” and that drug legalization advocates are spreading the word that Obama will not support federal enforcement of federal marijuana arrests. She said a questionnaire, which includes the question, “Do you support keeping drug possession, dealing and trafficking a crime?,” has not been answered by the Obama campaign. John McCain, on the other hand, vows to “uphold the law,” she says. Even if Obama took and passed a drug test, Nalepka says she would never vote for him, explaining, “It appalls me at the thought that people would be naïve enough to vote for someone who admits drug use.” She says this view stems from 30 years of “watching parents wail and cry and talk about the hell their families went through” because of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. But the views of Nalepka and others in the campaign against illegal drugs have been ignored by media anxious to accept Obama’s word that he has quit dangerous mind-altering drugs. “We worked long and hard to close those drug paraphernalia shops in the 1980s and long and hard again to get student drug testing in the schools so we could get drugs out of the schools,” she said. “And we’re going to allow someone to come in to the White House of the United States of America who was a drug user?” Roger Morgan has similar concerns. A San Diego businessman whose two stepchildren became addicted to drugs at ages 12 and 14, Morgan has spent 30 years dealing with the horrors of substance abuse. He was the Founding Chairman of the Coronado SAFE Foundation; a past Director of the San Diego Prevention Coalition; Co-Founder of Californians for Drug Free Schools; and a member of the National Student Drug Testing Coalition. George Soros and his Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) “have infiltrated our government(s) at all levels,” he warns, “and they effectively own the Democratic Party. We need a President who has the courage and wisdom to mandate random drug/alcohol testing in all schools for all kids in grades 6 through 12. That could happen with McCain. It will never happen with a Soros-backed Democrat at the helm.” Another line of attack—that Corsi is doing the bidding of the Republican Party and the John McCain campaign—makes no sense because Corsi writes very critically of McCain and is a member of the Constitution Party, which is fielding its own presidential candidate, Chuck Baldwin, this fall. Plus, Corsi’s editor at WorldNetDaily, where he writes regularly, is Joseph Farah, whose book, None of the Above, argues against Obama and McCain. The pro-Obama media emphasize that the Corsi book is published by Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions, whose main editor is former GOP strategist Mary Matalin. The 40-page Obama report dishonestly claims the Corsi book is “brought to you by the Bush/Cheney Attack Machine.” But it is clearly the case that Corsi and Farah are independent conservatives who have no allegiance to the GOP. Corsi has written a book on Obama for the obvious reason that there is little evidence that the major media are interested in uncovering or publicizing the hidden facts about him.


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Cliff Kincaid -- Bio and Archives

Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. usasurvival.org.

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