In Dreams from My Father, the memoir Obama wrote when still in his 30s, he mentioned an influential person by the name of “Frank” some twenty-plus times, but never included his last name. This strong mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a card-carrying communist and editor of communist newspapers in both Chicago and Hawaii. Obama’s grandfather put the two together during Obama’s teenage years in Hawaii, and the relationship continued until he went off to Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Once in college, Obama described how he sought out the Marxist professors and radical students with whom he felt the most comfortable. As a young man, that type of philosophy and behavior isn’t all that unusual; but the fact that he has never disavowed those beliefs must necessarily cause one to accept that he still holds to that ideology. In his presidency, several of his closest working associates were from families embedded in the militant left of the 30s through the 60s. Whether they like the characterization or not, the leftists of today are descendants of the leftists of the past and the current president is a product of forces of long-standing leftist ideology. History repeats itself, over and over, with each generation.
Populist sentiment has been growing in this country for some time but without, I feel, a true understanding of how the implementation of such an ideology would play out. Countries like Venezuela and Argentina provide a strong example of once-prosperous upwardly mobile nations that have been reduced to massive poverty, sky-high inflation, and loss of personal liberty, under the guise of government benevolence. It is at once a tragedy to behold, and a cautionary tale for a free country like the US
The real challenge is in recognizing what lies beneath the “comfort” and “surety” of a populist agenda. One will find a drive for power, and control over the individual, fueled by the belief that people are incapable of directing their own lives. The failures of that agenda speak for themselves. The fact remains that the United States, throughout its history, has provided the most freedom and opportunity for the most people; unlike any other nation. Nothing is “perfect,” there is no such thing. But the founders understood that the natural order is for men to be free to pursue their lives without the yoke of tyranny that is government control. Orville and my mother never got that message.
Another regret is that I was unable to confront Orville with the facts that have emerged over the past twenty years; he was gone by then. Most likely, though, it would have been a meaningless exercise, so devoted was he to his doctrine. And what new facts have we learned? We now have the invaluable evidence that we have gained from the Vassiliew Notebooks, the Mitrohkin Archives, the released records of the government Venona Project during WWII, the confession of Morton Sobell, the extrordinary autobiography written by Whittaker Chambers, and many other books and manuscripts by ex-communists about their experiences. In retrospect, the benign liberals who were duped and dragged along by their more militant comrades might have had quite a different take on their political endeavors had they had this information.
When considering the effects of the leftist writers and publications that so vociferously painted the rosy pictures of the Soviet Union and their cause, do we ever hear the heart-felt apologies for covering up or otherwise distorting the truth about the atrocities of the communist dictators? And do we hear from those who battled and ridiculed the House and Senate hearings of the 40s and 50s regarding communist infiltration into the government, now found to have been well justified?
Where are the past and contemporary leaders of the left and their media friends coming forth to admit they were badly misled and wrong, and guilty of misleading others; those who formerly spent their waking hours trying to tear apart the US government and the country’s institutions? Unfortunately, they are very quiet on these subjects, because most still see the US in the same light that my mother and Orville saw it. A newspaper can write a retraction fifty years later about a true monster like Walter Duranty, but of what benefit is that in contrast to the damage created at the time. Where are the mea culpas?
The philosopher George Santayana’s well known quote rings true to me: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” It is my strong belief that today’s growing populist political environment in the US is evidence of exactly what Santayana described.
As I have been writing this narrative over the past few years, I have been reminded of various incidents that stand out to illustrate my thoughts. One in particular will serve as a closing statement. When my mother was about eighty-five years old, and planning to move to a wealthy retirement community in Laguna Woods, California, I helped her choose a condominium in the luxury tower of the development. Although we did not recognize it at the time, her dementia was already beginning. But even then, her acerbic, leftist worldview was still firmly rooted in place. We found a wonderful unit with a perfect northern exposure on the fourth floor that looked out at the beautifully manicured entry courtyard. Framing the view across the beautifully planted sunny flowerbeds and lofty treetops were the fluttering American and California flags. It was a truly beautiful panorama; a picture postcard at its best. Upon seeing the flags, my mother immediately hardened, and refused to even consider the unit. With a dismissive snort, she stated emphatically that there was no possible way she would purchase a unit where she had to look out at an American flag every day. To her it was anathema, an unwelcome sign. Had it been the hammer and sickle of Soviet Russia fluttering on the soft breezes that wafted in from Laguna Beach, I believe it would have been a heartwarming and delightfully picturesque addition to the view.
Coming Full Circle: The focus of this book has been on the radical liberal political philosophy of communist agitation and subversion practiced by my stepfather, mother, family friends and associates. My father, on the other hand, represented the more benign form of liberalism described earlier, a form of traditional Democrat liberalism that has unfortunately been receding greatly in the past decade.
My intention has been to give the reader an intimate insider view of how radicals view the world in all its many facets, and to show how those convictions have not only continued, but have seen a revival in this country, that is shaping modern culture and politics.
After being immersed in red for much of my early life, and finally emerging, the underpinnings of radical politics strikes me as inherantly a form of madness. I never understood it so completely until I read psychiatrist Dr. Lyle Rossiter’s book, The Liberal Mind, where he disects the various forms of leftist political thinking from mild to radical. Through my own transition from the far left to the right side of the political spectrum, I found it fascinating and helpful in sorting out my own past. It also helped me to better understand how the current trend of the left has twisted itself into such a self-defeating and self-loathing form of modern political expression.
In his book, Rossiter deals with what the radical liberal is and is not passionate about, eloquently capturing in totality the perceptions and values that I experienced and believed during the years of my “immersion in red.” He writes,
What the liberal mind is passionate about is the world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation, and injustice. Those who occupy this world are ‘workers,’ ‘minorities,’ ‘the little guy,’ ‘women,’ and the ‘unemployed.’ They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited, and victimized.
Rossiter goes on to explain how radicals bear no responsibility for their problems; that none of their agonies and complaints are attributable to faults or failings of their own, poor choices, bad habits, defects in character, low frustration tolerances, and on and on. All of this they blame on faulty social conditions such as poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, capitalism, globalization. And, of course, all of it inflicted by generic entities such as “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” “ US Imperialists,”
“the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”
Contrasting with the list of how the modern liberal mind views their fellow man, he also describes the values that the liberal mind is not passionate about: “Their] agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit: it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; … it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination … It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating.”
Rossiter goes on to touch on other topics that do not enter the radical liberal agenda. The ones that stand out to me, and were decidedly lacking in Orville’s “teachings,” were a celebration of the genuine altruism of private charity, the ethics of consent, or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. Instead, in Orville’s world, the government would decide how resources were distributed, making voluntary participation inconsequential.
These topics are endless grist for the liberal mill; for persistent never-ending protests and for political policies that promise to fix all the ills and inequities of society. They promise to round off the hills and fill in the valleys of each and everyone’s life, until their ideal is achieved, secured with binding laws that will maintain their vision of human societal perfection. What is always left out of this equation is the immutable fact of human nature which defies control unless forcefully coerced.
Orville could speak for hours on morality and his support of the have-nots, with his chest swelling, while at the same time seeing acts of lying, cheating, subversion, obfuscation, espionage, and ultimately redistribution of wealth, as being wholly acceptable. As Lenin once said, “There is no morality in politics, there is only expedience.”
Again, Rossiter explains,
The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is government everywhere doing everything for everyone … Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions.
And finally, he describes how these liberal intellectuals see themselves as heroes of the proletariat in this great societal melodrama, people that could take credit for providing society with whatever they wanted or needed even though they had not “produced by (their) own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them,” but had instead “taken them from others by force.”
The foregoing paints, very succinctly, what I lived and breathed. It is an agenda that has proved a failure and worse, whenever and wherever it has been implemented. Margaret Thatcher encapsulated this basic truth with a single blunt and straightforward sentence, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Socialism is, moreover, but a stepping stone to the radical politics that disregards individual liberty, and has brought untold human suffering to millions in the name of benevolence.
I have come along way since my formative years immersed in Marxist/ socialist ideology, as a witness to its deceptive character and insidious workings. As a result I am forever grateful to the various forces and experiences in my life that allowed me to shed my past and enter into the realm of truth.
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