Today I,m going to begin a series of posts vetting Barak Hussein Obama II. Prior to the 2008 presidential election, the mainstream media was totally remiss in this process and if even a limited review had been done, I am certain that either John McCain or Hillary Clinton would be president today. William Wordsworth wrote, "the child is father of the man," so I am going to start with Obama's families and early life in this installment.
During his campaign, his book, Dreams From My Father, was touted for its literary quality, but few actually analyzed what was written. (There is ample evidence that Bill Ayers actually wrote Dreams, although obviously Obama provided the material.) The publisher wanted Obama to write a book about the obstacles he overcame to become the first African American to head the Harvard Law Review, but instead got a book about socialism that was probably Ayers' idea. It is astounding to me that he even wrote a book about a man he had only met for a few days when he was ten years old and who contributed not a single cent to raising him although he did give him a basketball. The reason for this trip is debated and the only real explanation that I have read is young Obamas grandparents arrranged and paid for the trip as well as a payoff in order to aid in their grandson's claim to be an American citizen as he could not have attended the Punahou School unless he was. There is evidence that he was adopted by his step father Lolo Soetoro and lost his American citizenship. This will be covered in more detail in a future blog.
I'm certain that the dreams Obama got from his father had little to do with character. His father was a deadbeat dad who fathered eight children with four different wives. He beat his third wife, Ruth, leading to their divorce and was also an alcoholic who murdered a woman in a drunk driving incident also maiming himself. At age 46 he died in another drunk driving episode.
So what dreams did Obama get from his father? His father became a very special person in Kenya as it emerged from it colonialist past, becoming an independent state in 1965. It separated from the British East African Confederation with Uganda and Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Its first president, Jomo Kenyatta, had a capitalistic vision for his country utilizing the European property owners for Kenya's benefit rather than Great Britain's. Obama had other ideas. He hated the British and European imperialism as they exploited the African people and their resources. In addition, he went from adolescence to adulthood during the harsh British military action that suppressed the Mau Mau uprising during the 1950s. His father may have been imprisoned and tortured during the uprising. He wanted an economy based on land reform and socialism. (How's this working out in Zimbabwe where taking land from the white minority changed it from a rich food exporter to a country facing starvation?) Because of his American education he was appointed to a good government job only to loose it do his refusal to follow the official line and continue to favor socialism. He also testified at the hearing on the assasination of his political mentor Tom Mboya, a fellow Marxist. This explains Obama's hatred of the British and why as one of his first official acts as president was to return the statue of Winston Churchill that sat in the Oval Office to the British Embassy. Though Marxism was also part of is father's dreams, as we will see, Obama has numerous sources for his radical ideals.
Of all the members of Obama's family, his mother is most intriguing and something of an enigma. She was obviously a strong and open minded woman and considered a free spirit and "fellow traveler" by some and even the original feminist, yet she was naive enough to become pregnant as a seventeen year old. One wonders that if abortion was readily available in Hawaii then as it is now, would Barak Obama II have ever been born. As a teen, her friends thought her to be serious and intellectual. They also considered her to be an atheist. There are stories of her arguing with her second husband Lolo Soetoro about her son's Islamization in Indonesia where he apparently studied the Islamic religion and chanted Islamic prayers. She also argued with him about attending events in Indonesia with American Oil Company executives as Lolo served as his government's oil liaison. Although she at times had an anti American attitude, she understood the value of American citizenship and managed quite a few manuvers in an attempt to maintain his American citizenship. Though called a socialist or even a communist, her most highly regarded career accomplishment was developing a system of microfinance for poor women in Indonesia enabling them to start small businesses, a totally capitalistic venture. Her absence after his return to Hawaii from Indonesia certainly weighed on him, feeling abandoned by both his father and mother.
Though essentially abandoned by mother and father, young Obama was raised by adoring grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. They are also enigmatic and certainly not the typical grandparents from Kansas. During WWII Stanley spent four years in the army and Madelyn worked in a factory for Boeing. After the war they spent time in Berkley, California for Stanley to get a degree and then traveling around the country before winding up in Mercer Island, Washington enrolling their daughter in a school system with ties to the Communist Party USA. John Stenhouse was the chairman of the school board who had testified before the House Unamerican Activities Committee that he was a Communist. In addition there was a course in Marxism and one on homosexuality at the Mercer Island High School. This was back in the late 1950s! Stenhouse also was president of the local Unitarian Church that was joined by the Dunhams who were not religious people. After Stanley Ann graduated from high school, the Dunhams moved to Honolulu Hawaii where Stanley Armor Dunham became fast friends with and drinking buddy of Frank Marshall Davis a member of Communist Party USA and a writer for a local communist newspaper. Like Dunham, Davis was also from Kansas, but had spent much of his life in Chicago editing another communist publication. It was his grandfather who introduced him to Davis as a mentor, especially as someone who was black. His grandfather also took him into the predominantly black section of Honolulu where he would shoot pool and sip cokes while his grandfather sipped scotch. Though determined to give their grandson some street smarts the Dunhams sent him to the Punahou School, an expensive and exclusive private school where he was the only African American. They managed this with by a scholarships and personal financial sacrifice.
In my next blo,g I will discuss the controversy concerning Obama's birth and citizenship.
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