Posted on 10/06/2008 5:59:21 PM PDT by Fred Nerks
Univ. of Chicago Press Release, 2002: Obama was a Community Organizer in NY
Many researchers and reporters have highlighted Obama’s secrecy about his years at Columbia University in New York City. In our recent article on Obama’s friendship with William Ayers, I wrote:
Now the Mainstream Media is onto this story too, and has (finally) noticed that Obama is hiding records from Columbia University, where he completed his undergraduate studies after transferring from Occidental College in California. To be more precise, it’s not just Obama’s academic files that are missing, but more curiously, the files of his life. The Wall Street Journal had a story Thursday entitled Obama’s Lost Years:
What can be said with some certainty is that Mr. Obama lived off campus while at Columbia in 1981-83 and made few friends. Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him.
Martin questions whether this mysterious period of Obama’s life has to do with William Ayers:
Is it just a coincidence that Obama and Ayers were on the Columbia campus together? Did they meet and make their initial contact at that time?
In his special Sunday night, Obama and Friends: History of Radicalism, Sean Hannity said about Obama’s years in New York: “That’s where the roadblock begins,” questioning whether Obama’s secrecy about that period is an effort to hide his radical associations. Hannity also explained how Obama’s “community organizing” work is modeled on Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and was merely a stepping stone for Obama’s own political ambitions.
Now it’s come to my attention, thanks to an anonymous reader, that Obama was a “Community Organizer” in New York. Why has he failed to mention this on the campaign trail?
Here is a screenshot of a University of Chicago Press Release, found at http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/020110/mlk.shtml. The underlined text reads:
“During the 1980s, Obama directed community-organizing projects in low-income communities in New York and Chicago.”
Keep in mind that Wayne Allen Root, who graduated from Columbia the same year Obama says he did has no recollection of the guy, nor doe any of Wayne’s classmates.
I would love to read Obama’s dissertation that he wrote in Columbia. I wonder why it is such a secret? For some reason, I thought such works were in the public domain if the schools accepted gov’t grants. At any rate, if I had written a dissertation for my degree, I would have been very proud of it and would enjoy sharing it with people.
When it was all said and done (research) there was more said than done. Where's the beef?
from the TDblog:
Questions:
What kind of “Community Organizing” projects did Barack direct in NY in the 1980s?
Who did Barack work for in NY in the 1980s when he “Community Organized?”
Why hasn’t he featured this experience, since he apparently believes that “Community Organizing” work helps qualify him for the Presidency?
WHY ALL THE SECRECY?
I wonder why Nobama decided to transfer all the way to New York. Who did he know there?
Methinks there is even more here than what meets the eye:
“3 Killed in Armored Car Holdup”, N.Y. Times, October 21, 1981.
Concerns of Brink’s Survivors Website. http//www.ogrady/brown.com
“State Jury Finds 3 Radicals Guilty in Brink’s Killings.” N.Y. Times, September 15, 1983
AMBUSH: THE BRINKS ROBBERY OF 1981
|By Mark Gado
The Links are Uncovered
The F.B.I. entered the case immediately since deposits in the Nanuet National Bank are insured by F.D.I.C. Any theft that involves such funds constitutes a federal crime. Through their intelligence files, agents were able to ascertain that Boudin, Gilbert and Clark had previous connections with the Weathermen organization. Boudin, of course, had been on the run since 1970 from the Manhattan townhouse explosion and Gilbert was being sought for assault and possession of explosives in Colorado. Clark had served a prison sentence for her role in the “Days of Rage” demonstration.
After police conducted their initial investigation, they quickly arrived at several conclusions. Somehow, over the previous ten years, the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground, a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society, had teamed forces. This unlikely coalition was apparently committing robberies to obtain funds for the advancement of their respective “causes.”
-snip-
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/8.html
Anyone?
Bueller?
Did anyone check old Columbia yearbooks.?
Wow
cocaine.
WTF? Another cousin of obama??
Here are Wayne Root’s comments about Obama at Colombia:
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/09/libertarian-vp.html
Maybe he was a gay gigolo living in the Village.
“Did anyone check old Columbia yearbooks.?”
that question has been asked previously, several FReepers tried without success.
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/obamas-ties-to-ayers-back-to-high-school/
Obama’s Ties to Ayers: Back to High School? [UPDATE]
October 5, 2008 by texasdarlin
[UPDATE: At the end of this post, I should have stated the question which, in my mind, provides a probable link between Barack Obama and the Ayers family that would reach “back to high school:” Were Frank Marshall Davis and Thomas Ayers (Bill’s father) acquainted?]
P.U.M.A.S FOR MCCAIN-PALIN:
He won’t allow his transcript from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to be released.
He “lost” his thesis on Soviet nuclear policy (see “Where in the World is Obama’s Missing Thesis“ which might provide insight regarding his seeming lack of knowledge about Soviet policy during the Kennedy years).
He won’t answer questions about his days at Harvard Law School.
He “lost” his Illinois Senate records.
He will only release a simple one-page letter from his doctor on his medical condition.
He won’t release his application to the state bar, which, as National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes raises questions about whether he told the truth about parking tickets and drug use, among other issues.
He won’t disclose list of his clients from his law firm days or the nature of the work he did for them as a lawyer (his clients include the indicted political fixer Tony Rezko).
He walks away from uncomfortable questions about Rezko at a news conference.
His cultists try to shut down inquiry into his stewardship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by sliming a journalist investigating his days at the helm of that group, which blew through $100 million dollars with no discernible benefit for the schools and students that it was putatively designed to help (what does the constitutional law lecturer say to the chilling of free speech by his acolytes?).
He tries to muddle his long-standing ties with Pastor Wright by producing a version of his attendance record at Trinity Church that is sharply at variance with previous versions he has given (”Obama Re-invents his Trinity Church History“).
The Wall Street Journal joins the battle over Obama’s past in today’s editorial (”Obama’s Lost Years“):
The Columbia years are a hole in the sprawling Obama hagiography. In his two published memoirs, the 47-year-old Democratic nominee barely mentions his experience there. He refuses to answer questions about Columbia and New York — which, in this media age, serves only to raise more of them. Why not release his Columbia transcript? Why has
his senior essay gone missing? [....]
Voters and the media are now exercising due diligence before Election Day, and they are meeting resistance from Mr. Obama in checking his past. Earlier this year, the AP tracked down Mr. Obama’s New York-era roommate, “Sadik,” in Seattle after the campaign refused to reveal his name. Sohale Siddiqi, his real name, confirmed Mr. Obama’s account that he turned serious in New York and “stopped getting high.” “We were both very lost,” Mr. Siddiqi said. “We were both alienated, although he might not put it that way. He arrived disheveled and without a place to stay.” For some reason the Obama camp wanted this to stay out of public view.
What can be said with some certainty is that Mr. Obama lived off campus while at Columbia in 1981-83 and made few friends. Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him.
http://countusout.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/obama-covers-his-tracks/
bookmark
Yeah, I know. But, nothing to see. Move along...
Obama has said that he attended socialist conferences during his time in New York. Probably the “socialist scholars conference” which presumably consists of academics performing “direct actions” to sabatoge each others committees and whatnot. www.socialistscholars.org
” Boudin, of course, had been on the run since 1970 from the Manhattan townhouse explosion “
After Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were convicted of murder for their roles in the armored car robbery- Ayers and Dohrn adopted their child-now 28 or 30.
BTW-Obama keeps saying his kids were at the same school as the Ayer’s kids.
Obama’s daughters are 6 and 8.
Ayers kids are 28 and 30.
Hellooo, anyone in the MSM ???
The New Republic had a long article about Obama’s community organizing last month-” Creation Myth “ by John B. Judis
” Obama had worked briefly as an organizer in Harlem,”
Some other choice quotes-
In a video this spring,
Obama stated that community organizing
is “something I carry with me when I think about politics today—
obviously at a different level and in a different place, but the same principles still apply.”
“Barack is not a politician first and foremost,” Michelle Obama has said.
“He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.”
I don’t think there is any doubt that he went there, it’s about what he did there and the work he did. Was he just sending papers in (or someone for him) did he take any of Ayers classes (was he a teacher there at that time) or what his theis/papers said.
Ransby has also been a community activist. She got her graduate degrees at the University of Michigan. (Ayers attended U of Michigan, too)
In 2002 -- Ransby moderated a panel which included Obama and Ayers
Ransby is Associate Professor, Gender and Women's Studies, African American Studies, and History Director, Gender and Women's Studies Program at Univ. Ill /Chicago
Earlier this year Ransby (and others) wrote a letter to the editors of the Chicago Tribune, defending Ayers
“My name is Sekou Mgobogi Abdullah Odinga. I am a Muslim and a POW. I was born in Queens, N.Y., on June 17, 1944. I was raised in a family of nine — Father, Mother, three brothers, and three sisters. I was kicked out of school in the tenth grade for defending myself against an attack by a teacher...
http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/bla1.html
...Sekou Odinga is imprisoned for actions carried out in the fight for Black Liberation. He is also a New Afrikan POW. In 1965 Sekou joined the Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU), founded by Malcolm X. After Malcolm’s death the OAAU was not going in the direction he wanted and in 1967 he was looking at the BPP. In early 1968 he helped build the Bronx BPP. On January 17, 1969 the police killed two Black Panthers, and a fellow NY Panther, who was in police custody, was brutally beaten. Sekou was informed police were searching for him in connection with a police shooting. Rather than face possible death as many of his comrades had in custody, Sekou joined the Black underground with the BLA. He remained underground partaking in revolutionary clandestine activity for 12 years until his capture. Upon being captured he was charged with 6 counts of attempted murder of police, among a litany of other charges that included the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison and expropriation of an armored truck. He is serving consecutive 25 life state time and a 40 year federal sentence. Currently in Lompoc, CA, Sekou is continually harassed by prison administration with mail and visiting regulations.
(just another victim of racism...sarc.)
Yes, it is definitely a wow.
Most articles say that the weathermen dispersed in the 70s, but even wiki shows a connection between Ayers and one or more of the brinks perps, which robbery occurred in ‘81, shortly after NObama arrived in NYC.
And here is the wiki article on the robbery- and in another irony, one of the brinks guards who was victimized in the robbery, died on 9/11. (The same day as Ayers’ unrepentant comments were published in the NYT.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinks_robbery_(1981)
What tangled webs we weave, huh?
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/1.html
AMBUSH: THE BRINKS ROBBERY OF 1981
on page 15-
Chesa’s father, David Gilbert, who drove one of the getaway vehicles in the bloody hold-up, is serving a 75-year-to-life sentence in Attica prison and will be eligible for parole himself in 2056. Gilbert has never cooperated with authorities in the investigation of the crime, which netted Boudin and friends $1.6 million in cash.
Chesa was later raised by comrades Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and recently graduated from college. “If there is anything any of us could do to go back and change history, we would,” he said recently to reporters.
It’s pretty incredible that no one can find any secondary info on the Teflon Con while he was at Columbia.
No year book pictures. No classmates stepping up. No gushing professors to sing his praise.
Hell, maybe he bought his Columbia degree online somewhere.
Did they also live near each other ?
“coincidence that Obama and Ayers were on the Columbia campus together”
...Sekou Odinga
It’s starting to look like he was hanging with the weathermen/BLA crowd, to which he was indoctrinated through the teachings of “Frank”.
JESUS was a carpenter! Not a rabble rouser.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2098460/posts
We write to voice our support for our colleague, Bill Ayers, who was the target yesterday of Jonah Goldberg’s mean-spirited muckraking journalism.
Goldberg asks why Bill Ayers is allowed to have a job as a college professor, despite his leftist views and political activities from some forty years ago? The answer is simple.
Professor Ayers has degrees from University of Michigan and Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Over the past twenty plus years he has earned the reputation of a cutting edge scholar of education, and made major contributions to our understanding of schools and the institutions impacting children.
Ayers has authored, co-authored or edited 14 books and dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters, some of them award-winning. His books have received praise from the likes of Jonathan Kozol, Studs Turkel and Scott Turow.
He has been invited to lecture around the country and internationally on pedagogy, curriculum, the politics of education, and the small schools strategy for educational excellence. He has served on numerous university and community-based committees.
During the McCarthy era of the 1950s one could be fired simply for the hint of left of center views or association with people who held those views. Perhaps Mr. Goldberg is nostalgic for an earlier time. We are not.
Sincerely,
Barbara Ransby, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, UIC
----
Barbara Ransby is a historian, writer, and longtime political activist. Ransby has published dozens of articles and essays in popular and scholarly venues. She is most notably the author of an award-winning biography of civil rights activist Ella Baker, entitled Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, (University of North Carolina, 2003). Barbara is currently working on two major research projects: a study of African American feminist organizations in the 1970s, and a political biography of Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson. She serves on the editorial board of the London-based journal, Race and Class, and a number of non-profit civic and media organizations.
Professor Ransby received a BA in History from Columbia University and an MA and PhD in History from the University of Michigan.
http://www.uic.edu/depts/wsweb/people/core/ransby_barbara/ransby_barbara.htm
bttt
Is this when Obama worked for a state PIRG? Was it NYPIRG? I have first hand experience with the PIRGs in roughly that time period. The staff people were extremely left wing radical functionaries. basd on my experience, I would find it hard to respect anyone who was a PIRG staffer.
Thank you timestax.
Yep, i had dealings with NYPIRG people in Buffalo in the 70s, and they were cutting edge leftist. Thinking back on it now, i am quite sure that one of the SUNY buffalo professors who taught in the “Left Wing” dept was affiliated with a Buffalo cell.
Obama’s “community organizing” in NYC was after his stint at BIC where he embellished his duties. He worked for a Nader organization with training provided by that organization earning less than $10,000/year(teaching University students to recycle) and this was mentioned on the long thread. Forgive my moment of CRS (can’t remember s***) today but bvw would probably remember the intials of the group. I’ve been googling various items for the past three days and becoming frustrated with the number of articles which are disappearing! I still want to know why Madelyn Dunham had a 30 minute tightly controlled interview with David Mendell in 2004 and hasn’t agreed to any interviews since then! IMO severe osteoporosis and cataracts don’t stop someone from talking unless the handlers became upset when she said she was a Reublican!
You got it, so perhaps we can thank Nader for the training he provided so Obama could teach University students how to recycle things like their coffee cups! Thanks! Couldn’t remember the initials for the life of me!
More than recycling, PIRG is first and foremost against nuclear power. That is Nader’s pet issue.
Well done.
thanks
I haven’t followed the Obama/ PIRG thing closely but if Obama or the MSMhas said it was just about recycling, they are lying. PIRG was super anti-nuclear power. The state PIRGs parrotted the agenda Nader set with his Nat PIRG/ DCPIRG
Obama specifically mentioned the recycling which is why I put it in. I will check my bookmarks to find the specific quote and article if it hasn’t disappeared yet! The reason it stuck in mind is because when Obama was interviewed after his AA selection to President of the Harvard Law Review he mentioned the two jobs he had in NYC which he claimed enabled him to pay off the loans for his 2nd year at Occidental plus his two years at Columbia. The job with BIC paid $15,000/yr which he left to take the job with PIRG for slightly less than $10,000
Old yearbooks ARE usually a good source of information about someone. WHY ALL THE SECRECY ABOUT THE MAJOR PORTION OF OBAMA’S RESUME - the mysterious “community” organizing?
What community, what KIND of organizing, does anyone genuinely reputable REMEMBER this memorable guy? Yearbooks anyone?
Wasn’t it NYPIRG who forced the never full powering and then dismantling of Shoreham? Now Long Islanders pay extremely high electric bills. Was Obama involved?
May miracles never cease! I actually found an article still intact and as you say more embellishment from Obama as the title of the article states!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
quotes:
After about a year, he was hired by the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit organization that promotes consumer, environmental and government reform. He became a full-time organizer at City College in Harlem, paid slightly less than $10,000 a year to mobilize student volunteers.
Mr. Obama says he spent three months “trying to convince minority students at City College about the importance of recycling” — a description that surprised some former colleagues. They said that more “bread-and-butter issues” like mass transit, higher education, tuition and financial aid were more likely the emphasis at City College.
btw, it's no surprise about Madelyn - what else would she be but conservative...someone had to go to work every day and pay the bills, while her husband hung around with Davis and her daughter - the less said the better.
So, I spend much time taking screenshots and making up a slideshow that you can instantly see, no need for spoken words.
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