Trickle Up Poverty (12 page)

What are we talking about when we apply this advocacy of cadres—groups of people trained for a specific purpose—to Obama’s America? Think ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). I’ll explore ACORN’s role in the remaking of America in chapter eight. But make no mistake about it. ACORN is one of the early cadres of the Marxism-Leninism that I’ve been warning you about.

Power to the People

If for some reason you’re an Obamanic who still clings to the notion that socialism brings liberation to the people because it curbs the powers of an oppressive government, guess again. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, an expert in communist tactics, observed, “Communism means fewer and fewer rights for the private citizen, curtailment of freedom of speech and press and worship of God. The state becomes all-powerful, the absolute reverse of American tradition.”28

Even the left-leaning TIME magazine agrees that the application of Marxist philosophy in the real world was a fiasco. In one of those rare brushes with reality, TIME reported:

By any empirical standard, Marx’s major prophecies—such as Communism’s triumph over capitalism or the outbreak in industrialized societies of the workers’ revolution—have proved false. No economy based on his teachings has approached the efficiency of a free-market system, and governments that tried to enforce his Utopian views have been compelled to rely on totalitarian methods.29

In the face of such an indictment, you may wonder why Barack Obama doesn’t abandon Karl Marx, the failed darling of the radical far left. It’s a question I’ve given some thought to and believe the answer might surprise you. See if you agree with me on this. I’d say there’s a striking similarity between Karl Marx and the young Barack Obama.

Just as Marx aligned himself with a wealthy patron who picked up the tab for his lifestyle, Obama did the same thing while a student pursuing his Marxist ideologies at Occidental College. In a moment, I’ll explain why this is noteworthy. Let’s begin with Obama’s choice of a roommate, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, a wealthy Pakistani student. John Drew, Obama’s contemporary at Oxy, recalls:

When Barack Obama was a young man at Occidental College his sophomore year, he had a very wealthy patron in Hasan Chandoo. They had a wonderful, big house where they threw lavish parties. Chandoo was throwing the money around. Obama was dressed in the nicest, slickest clothes … I thought they were both wealthy.30

Dr. Drew recalls going out to dinner with Obama and his roommate Chandoo in Chandoo’s BMW while arguing for hours about the merits of Marxism and Leninism over drinks and cigarettes. He says:

[Obama] was arguing a straightforward Marxist-Leninist class-struggle point of view, which anticipated that there would be a revolution of the working class, led by revolutionaries, who would overthrow the capitalist system and institute a new socialist government that would redistribute the wealth.31

Do you see the irony? On one hand Barack Obama—a student who comes from a broken home and with no visible means of support—was living high on the hog, compliments of his rich roommate. On the other hand, Obama was arguing about the merits of redistributing the wealth to end class struggle. Doesn’t that strike you as bizarre, if not downright hypocritical? He and Marx had a lot in common. Both suffered from a severe case of class envy coupled with an entitlement mentality.

Each wanted the good life.

Neither wanted to work for it.

Both were happy to sponge off someone else.

And so it should come as no surprise that when Obama’s patron saint pulled out of town, that was his cue to move on to greener pastures to find another sugar daddy. Here’s how Dr. Drew saw it:

When Obama knew that Chandoo was going to leave Occidental College he knew that the money supply was gone, the big house was gone, the parties were done, and he thought it was better for him to get the heck out of there and go to Columbia. Because Chandoo wasn’t financing his lifestyle anymore I don’t believe Obama was ever able to create that same charismatic presence on the Columbia campus.32

Things didn’t quite work out at Columbia as the budding Marxist Obama might have imagined. Upon arriving in New York, Obama sought out Sohale Siddiqi, a friend of Chandoo. Maybe he thought any friend of Chandoo would be able to offer him another gravy train to ride for a season. Turns out Siddiqi was no moneybags. “We were both very lost,” he said. “We were both alienated, although [Obama] might not put it that way. He arrived disheveled and without a place to stay.”33

Siddiqi says he and Obama ended up in “a slum of a place” on East 94th Street in a rough neighborhood infested with druggies, where gunshots were just part of the backdrop. Siddiqi admits, “it wasn’t a comfortable existence. We were slumming it.”34 Why is this important? What does this have to do with Obama’s socialist views? I’m no psychologist, but I do know how people with an entitlement mind-set, like Obama, see the world. I understand the subtext to their twisted convictions.

After his free ride in California, Obama may have resented his poverty-stricken circumstances on the streets of New York City. I don’t blame him. Who wants to live in a rat hole? Especially after tasting the benefits of the good life, the parties, the fancy house and car, compliments of his college roommate at Oxy. Having lived in two vastly different worlds—one characterized by wealth, one marked by poverty—Barack the student couldn’t reconcile the dichotomy these experiences presented. That’s where he went wrong.

Rather than see economic and individual freedom, entrepreneurialism, capitalism, and self-determination as the best engine to drive people out of poverty, Obama filled the vacuum in his head with the failed theories of Marx he had been studying in school. What’s more, those classes were supplemented with what he learned from his childhood mentor and communist friend, Frank Marshall Davis.

I’ve been opposed to communism all my life because I see the devastation that is wrought around the world everywhere it’s been tried. The worker has never benefited from a Communist Revolution. Never. The worker has always been sold the nonsense that after the Revolution, after nationalizing (transferring private businesses to state ownership and abolishing class distinctions) the bourgeoisie (those allegedly greedy capitalists) would be strung up and their property distributed to the poor (the working class).

That has never happened.

The worker was supposed to be the king.

Instead, their property and wealth were always redistributed to the ruling elite, to the bureaucrats. Look at Cuba, that communist state where the workers have been crushed, for fifty years, under the thumb of Fidel Castro, and remain so to this very day. Likewise, the middle class under Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez remains oppressed. Have the workers benefited? Of course not. Only Castro’s and Chávez’s inner circle have been enriched. How can this be? Didn’t Marx say, “Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

He was dead wrong.

This phenomenon is a reversal of the Marxist-Leninist theories that Obama was programmed to believe. What’s more, time and again, the elimination of private enterprise created widespread trickle up poverty instead of ushering in the promised efficiency and collective profitability that would benefit everyone. Under communism and socialism, the poor got poorer because Marxism-Leninism inherently enslaves people—body, mind, and spirit.

You might want to read that again.

Contrary to what Marx taught and Obama believes, spreading the wealth around impoverishes us. This really isn’t so difficult to understand. Taking money from you and me to give to someone who is looking only for a handout, a bailout, or a way out, removes our incentive to excel, to grow, to risk investments, to invent, and to dream big dreams.

Why work so hard to underwrite another man’s slothfulness?

Lessons from a Tuna Fish Sandwich

When I was between the ages of eight and nine, I was a typical kid living, at the time, in Queens, New York. I remember it was a warm Saturday morning late one June. School was out and summer was in full swing. Most of my friends were sleeping late or goofing off. Me? I’m wearing the dungarees, polo shirt, and sneakers, working for my father in his Manhattan antique store since dawn. I’m not complaining, mind you. My father gave me a hard work ethic most kids today can’t comprehend. Everything’s been handed to them on a silver platter—with a remote control and a cell phone.

As noon approached, Dad called down the stairs and told me to go buy some lunch for us. While I was glad to be out of the basement, my heart started to race when it became clear he wasn’t going with me. I hated the thought of facing the mean streets alone, dodging the rats, the garbage, and the thugs hanging out on the street corners.

I think my father saw my hesitation, but he insisted that I face those horrible streets alone. Sending me out into the byways of Manhattan was how he wanted to toughen me up. My father thought I might be too soft, you know, growing up in a safer neighborhood as we did. So, off I go in search of lunch.

Several blocks away was a restaurant that served no meat, just salads, tuna fish sandwiches, and such. I ordered the tuna, paid the man behind the counter, and a few minutes later headed back to the store. When I gave my father the sandwich, he opened it up and saw a huge dead fly in it. I’ll never forget his reaction. His face turned red, his eyes went wide as twin saucers, and the veins along both sides of his neck bulged. He looked as if he were ready to erupt like Mount St. Helens.

Dad was infuriated that someone would take advantage of his son like that. He assumed they did it on purpose—just to be spiteful. They probably did, but what did I know? Now, my father wasn’t necessarily a violent man, but, in that moment, he looked as if he could have strangled a bear with his bare hands. He was incensed by the sheer wrongness of what he had discovered.

So, my father grabbed me by the hand and dragged me up the street back to that lousy luncheonette. He opens the door with a bang and looks around. The sleepy customers glance up from their menus with interest at this new development. Dad spots the owner coming out of the kitchen wearing a smirk and an apron as if nothing was wrong. My father unloaded with both barrels, yelling, “How dare you give my son a sandwich with a fly in it!”

The deli man said, “Don’t worry, I didn’t charge you for it.”

I learned a valuable lesson that day.

I learned that there are bad people in the world who will do bad things for whatever reason and that remaining silent when faced with wrongdoing isn’t an option. It might be unpopular to take a stand. It might turn a few heads. But my father taught me to speak up in the face of adversity. Which brings us to Obama’s socialist revolution, which is far worse than planting a fly in a tuna sandwich. Which is all the more reason you and I have an obligation to speak against the destruction he’s planning of this once great country.

Make no mistake. The storm of trickle up poverty is about to hit the middle class with the force of a tsunami. Everyone of us has to start pulling on the oars, whichever way we can in order to steer the ship out of its path. For me, that’s driving home the message everyday on my radio show, The Savage Nation. But you don’t have to have the third largest radio talk show in the country to make a difference. You don’t have to be the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, as I am, before you can speak up.

Everyone has a part to play.

“But Michael,” you may think, “I’m just a homemaker trying to stay afloat with the Herculean job of raising kids and managing the household. What can I do to lend a hand?” Or maybe you’re a small business owner working far too many hours already just to keep food on the table. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, there’s a simple strategy that you can employ to turn this ship around while there’s still time. As J. Edgar Hoover once said, “If our government is to remain free, it needs the help of every patriotic man, woman, and child.”35

Let’s get practical for a moment.

Let’s look at how you can start to shape public opinion even in the supermarket line. I’m not suggesting that you should jump on a soapbox and start screaming, “Obama is a closet communist!” If you try that stunt, the men in white jackets will come and put you into a nuthouse. Instead, you use the methods of the quiet cultural revolution and turn it back on the left to defeat them with their own tactics.

The next time you’re standing in a supermarket line, look at the magazine rack. Pick one that features President Obama or Michelle smiling on the cover and then just casually say to the checkout clerk while others in line hear you, “You know I voted for him and he turned out to be such a liar and such a phony. Look what he’s done to this country.” Or maybe, “Obama might be spreading the wealth around, but I haven’t seen any, have you? “Or even, “He sounded like Robin Hood, but he’s taxing me into poverty.”

That’s all you have to say.

Don’t sound angry or engage in a discussion or launch into a five-minute diatribe. Just make the statement. And if there’s a Tea Party scheduled near your town, why not plug it? Why not say, “I’ve decided enough is enough. I’m going to check out the Tea Party this weekend.” Throw that pebble into the quiet lake and you’ll see the ripples go across America. Why? There’s tremendous power when you challenge the status quo.

There’s even more power when we who are patriots collectively speak our minds. Imagine the impact if the ten million weekly listeners of The Savage Nation said something each week at the supermarket about Obama wrecking the country, or that he studied Marxism, or that he surrounds himself with those who embrace communism. You’ll create a quiet revolution in the country. Who cares what the people in the checkout line may think about you. The truth you speak will resonate with the Liberty Bell when it first sounded out its message of independence in 1776.

It’s a sound the sheeple have long forgotten.

It’s a sound rarely heard.

It’s a sound that must awaken us if the American Dream is to survive.