Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Face To Face With A Young Marxist:: Remembering My Days As An Anti-Apartheid Student Activist


Via Anonymous Political Scientist
I was going through some old photos and found this picture of me graduating from Occidental College back on June 9, 1979. As you can see, I'm wearing a red arm band. I was doing this to protest Occidental College's investments in South Africa. The fellow handing me my diploma was Occidental College president Richard C. Gilman. As I've written before, I was one of the founders of the anti-apartheid group that President Obama mentions in his book, Dreams of My Father.[...]

Nevertheless, I think my experience with the young Barack Obama is useful evidence of why he was able to win the trust and support of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Alice Palmer. In 1995, as you may know, Alice Palmer represented the state of Illinois' 13th District. After she decided to run for the United States Congress she named Obama as her hand-picked successor to replace her. In June 1986, Palmer wrote an article for the Communist Party USA's newspaper, the People's Daily World, now the People's Weekly World. Amazingly, it detailed her experience at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Be sure and read it all...

h/t Joyce

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