The media have not questioned Barack Obama’s background, until now. Cliff Kincaid, president of America’s Survival, Inc., a U.N. Watchdog group, spoke about Obama’s alleged ties to communism and socialism on Capitol Hill on May 22.
“We’re here to provide information; we are trying to put out information that the media are reluctant to dig into,” said Kincaid, who also serves as the editor for Accuracy in Media. “Obama was raised in a Marxist-rich environment…and some people are refusing to deal with reality.”
Herbert Romerstein, an author who specializes in Soviet espionage, said that Obama’s ties are most closely linked to Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Obama’s grandfather introduced him to Davis while Obama was studying at a prep school in Hawaii during the late 1970s, Romerstein, who spent many years as an investigator for congressional committees said.
Two U.S congressional committees—including the one Romerstein worked for— investigated Davis’s communist ties. When asked about his party membership by the U.S. Senate Internal Security subcommittee, Davis took the fifth, refusing to incriminate himself.
“Frank Marshall Davis was in Hawaii trying to promote communism,” said Kincaid. “Any major public figures that have ties to communism should be examined.”
Kincaid said that the media bias in favor of Obama has “gotten beyond belief.” So he decided to do some examining on his own. Both Kincaid and Romerstein found it suspicious that Obama referred to communist Davis by his first name only in his book, Dreams From My Father.
“In Obama’s 1995 book, he tries to obscure the identity of Frank. He conceals his middle and last names,” said Kincaid. “Was Obama aware of the fact that….Davis had not broken with the Communist Party?”
During the question session, one audience member pointed out that young communists and democratic socialists fully endorse Obama. Kincaid and Romerstein verified this point with research.
“Obama has links to hostile political elements,” said Kincaid. “The socialists and communists back him and identify with his movement for change.”
Communists and socialists aren’t the only groups endorsing Obama. Kincaid said that “Hamas made a public statement endorsing Obama which he had to reject.”
A former staffer for the controversial U.S. House UnAmerican Activities Committee, Romerstein said that most of Obama’s current endorsements are tied to his questionable past.
“He’s a blank slate, but we know that for 20 years he listened to anti-American racists,” said Romerstein. “What did he learn from these people? Does he repudiate that? Did he learn that terrorism was a terrible thing?”
One audience member tried to connect Obama’s campaign slogan “change” to the socialist “change” movement of the 1960s. However, although his slogan cannot be directly tied to communism, Romerstein said that Obama needs to start explaining himself to the American people.
“He hasn’t been explaining what’s behind these slogans…,” said Romerstien. “He comes out of nowhere….We know nothing about him. We need to understand the things he believes in [and] what influences him.”
At the end of the presentation, Romerstein argued that the media is not sufficiently covering Obama’s past and present connections to anti-democratic regimes. If the media isn’t questioning Obama, then someone has to, he argued.
“We’re raising questions. We don’t have all the answers,” said Romerstein. “Perhaps Barack Obama does.”
Melinda Zosh is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
