Join us on Wednesday, August 22nd for the Wendy
P. McCaw Reagan Ranch Roundtable featuring Dr. Paul
Kengor-author of the new book
The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis The Untold
Story of Barack Obama's Mentor.
Dr. Kengor is a bestselling author whose works
include Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated
Progressives for a Century; God and Ronald
Reagan; God and George W. Bush; God and
Hillary Clinton; and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and
the Fall of Communism. His articles regularly appear in
publications ranging from USA
TODAY to The New York Times, plus numerous
academic journals. A professor at Grove City College, Kengor is a
frequent commentator on television and radio. Kengor earned his
bachelor's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and
his master's from American University.
When: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 from noon to 1:30pm
Where: The Reagan Ranch Center (217 State Street)
Cost: $35/per person pre-pay
$45/per person at the door
FULL TIME STUDENTS FREE!
RSVP is required by phone only. Please call Amy at 888-872-1776
to reserve your spot by August 17th.
About The Communist
"I admire Russia for wiping out an economic system
which permitted a handful of rich to exploit and beat gold from the
millions of plain people. . . . As one who believes in freedom and
democracy for all, I honor the Red nation." -FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS,
1947
In his memoir, Barack Obama omits the full name of his mentor,
simply calling him "Frank." Now, the truth is out: Never has a
figure as deeply troubling and controversial as Frank Marshall
Davis had such an impact on the development of an American
president.
Although other radical influences on Obama, from Jeremiah Wright
to Bill Ayers, have been scrutinized, the public knows little about
Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, cited by
the Associated Press as an "important influence" on Obama, one whom
he "looked to" not merely for "advice on living" but as a "father"
figure.
While the Left has willingly dismissed Davis (with good reason),
here are the indisputable, eye-opening facts: Frank Marshall Davis
was a pro-Soviet, pro-Red China communist. His Communist Party USA
card number, revealed in FBI files, was CP #47544. He was a
prototype of the loyal Soviet patriot, so radical that the FBI
placed him on the federal government's Security Index. In the early
1950s, Davis opposed U.S. attempts to slow Stalin and Mao. He
favored Red Army takeovers of Central and Eastern Europe, and
communist control in Korea and Vietnam. Dutifully serving the
cause, he edited and wrote for communist newspapers in both Chicago
and Honolulu, courting contributors who were Soviet agents. In the
1970s, amid this dangerous political theater, Frank Marshall Davis
came into Barack Obama's life.
Aided by access to explosive declassified FBI files, Soviet
archives, and Davis's original newspaper columns, Paul Kengor
explores how Obama sought out Davis and how Davis found in Obama an
impressionable young man, one susceptible to Davis's worldview that
opposed American policy and traditional values while praising
communist regimes. Kengor sees remnants of this worldview in
Obama's early life and even, ultimately, his presidency.
Kengor charts with definitive accuracy the progression of
Davis's communist ideas from Chicago to Hawaii. He explores how
certain elements of the Obama administration's agenda reflect
Davis's columns advocating wealth redistribution, government
stimulus for "public works projects," taxpayer-funding of universal
health care, and nationalizing General Motors. Davis's writings
excoriated the "tentacles of big business," blasted Wall Street and
"greedy" millionaires, lambasted GOP tax cuts that "spare the
rich," attacked "excess profits" and oil companies, and perceived
the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his vision for the state-all
the while echoing Davis's often repeated mantra for
transformational and fundamental "change."
And yet, The Communist is not unsympathetic
to Davis, revealing him as something of a victim, an African-
American who suffered devastating racial persecution in the Jim
Crow era, steering this justly angered young man on a misguided
political track. That Davis supported violent and heartless
communist regimes over his own country is impossible to defend.
That he was a source of inspiration to President Barack Obama is
impossible to ignore.
Is Obama working to fulfill the dreams of Frank Marshall Davis?
That question has been impossible to answer, since Davis's writings
and relationship with Obama have either been deliberately obscured
or dismissed as irrelevant. With Paul Kengor's The
Communist, Americans can finally weigh the evidence and
decide for themselves.
