Dr. Drew on Young Obama's Marxism - 1 of 6

I was interviewed on Breitbart.tv's "The B-Cast" show regarding President Obama's Marxist ideology on February 12, 2010. Young Obama and I were part of an intense, Marxist socialist subculture at Occidental College in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Drew
• Obama
• Marxism
• Boesche
• Occidental

[SomeoneCrazy2]

So child welfare programs began when child labor was made illegal? Even if that is so, big business didn't give up employing children just like that, people had to fight for that. And that is class struggle. I don't see how this proves anything. And claiming that Obama is a Marxist is simply ridiculous. He wants to save capitalism, not destroy it

[johndrew25]

.@SomeoneCrazy2 I think you will soon learn that the real world is actually more complex than your simplified class conflict model. If you read the history of the Progressive Era, you will find that the poor were actually the ones in favor of child labor. Business leaders and American elites saw child labor as something that was holding us back as a military and financial power.

[SomeoneCrazy2]

@johndrew25 Of course the poor were in favor of child labor, since they had no other way to survive. The problem is that you are using a strawman argument: You are saying people claim that progressive reforms were won directly through the struggle of the working class. However, it is a lot more complex than that, and progressive reforms were largely a weapon of the bourgeoisie to counter the revolutionary tendencies in the working class. They were won indirectly, not directly.

[johndrew25]

@SomeoneCrazy2 Please. You make it sound so easy. I won an award from the American Political Science Association in 1989 because I was the first political scientist in the country to articulate the connection between child labor law enforcement and child welfare programs. :-)

[R3AllyG00dB33R]

I am not sure he is a Marxist, but he is definitely a socialist. Thank you for sharing, I have heard that many of his autobiographical elements, differ from impressions people had of him . I was actually up until a few years ago a Marxist myself, I began to become interesting in economics, and everything about actual Marxist theory, suddenly made no sense. Anyway great interview.

[johndrew25]

@R3AllyG00dB33R My take? I think the Marxism label is accurate because of Obama's focus on class conflict, the idea of an inevitable revolution and his desire to redistribute the wealth. There is no evidence that he changed his beliefs since I knew him in 1980-1981 and his associations - Ayers, Rev. Wright - probably would not tolerate him if he were not sincerely devoted to their perspective.

[arcanus121]

@R3AllyG00dB33R Hi m a Brit living in England. Obama is a Marxist by virtue of being a socialist. Socialists are followers of the teaching of Marx. In my country Fabian Socialsts try to produce covert revolution by stealth with hidden demoralisation strategies. Obamas bio written by him claims he is a Marxist. His mother was a Cultural Marxist. It is a real danger to freedom in the USA but implemented in s first stage by attacking morale and increasing State governance.

[whoostino]

Y'all are such idiots. Obama's gonna stomp your Wall Street guy this year.

[GCrowdy]

Thank you so much for giving (and posting) this interview. A very eye-opening look into Obama's murky past.

[johndrew25]

@SuperGuitarman69 My theory is that his training as a lawyer and as a community activist didn't give him the opportunity to study up on why the Marxist socialist perspective was so incorrect. Nevertheless, his beliefs are probably elemental to him - consistent with his childhood and early adulthood. He's probably shocked that it isn't more popular and working right now.