Obama File 42 Obama's Socialist Neighbour, Jackie Grimshaw

New Zeal blog ^ | Oct 25, 2008 | Trevor Loudon

[Interesting Times]

Most big cities have them. An enclave where the radicals and leftists live, socialise and plan the subversion of their unsuspecting neighbours. Decades ago these often bordered industrial areas, now they tend to surround universities.

Barack Obama's Chicago neighbourhood, Hyde Park is such an enclave. The ultra liberal Democratic Party stronghold is the home to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett and lots and lots of socialists.


One such socialist is Jackie Grimshaw, Barack Obama's next door neighbour-on the not Tony Rezko side.

According to leftist blog Daily Kos

Obama's neighbor on the less famous side of his house is Jacky Grimshaw who ran Harold Washington's successful campaign for Mayor. Her husband Bill is a U. of Chicago prof. The Grimshaws sometimes baby sit the Obama girls. Jacky and Michelle Obama are very close.

Jackie Grimshaw served as a senior advisor director of intergovernmental affairs under Harold Washington. Bill Grimshaw, the author of Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931-1991 was also a political adviser to Washington.

The connection to Harold Washington is significant.

With backing from the Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Washington won the Chicago mayoralty in 1983. His victory inspired the young Obama's original move to Chicago.

According to PBS Online News Hour

JACKY GRIMSHAW, Barack Obama Next-Door Neighbor: One of the things that Harold started was going out to the community with the budget, listening to what people wanted in their communities, and then responding.

I think, you know, Barack coming in fresh out of school, seeing this kind of leadership, I think, helped to shape him in terms of people being empowered.

Like her late boss Harold Washington and her neighbour Barack Obama, Jackie Grimshaw also has close ties to DSA.

Every year Chicago DSA hosts an awards dinner named in honour of US socialist icons Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas.

Jackie Grimshaw and her colleague Heather Booth won the Debs-Thomas Award in 1987.


Grimshaw for her political work;

Jacquelyne D. Grimshaw

You have been a stalwart in the Chicago independent political movement for years, and firm in your belief that building coalitions will make changes and reform possible.

In both the 1983 and 1987 campaigns to elect and re-elect Mayor Harold Washington, you made your contribution by providing inspiring leadership in the victorious coalition.

For all this, the Norman Thomas - Eugene V. Debs Award is presented to you on this 9th day of May, 1987.

Booth for her radical educational activities.

Heather Booth

Through the Midwest Academy, you have inspired and trained thousands of new activists in the Citizen Action movement, the peace movement, and the women's movement.

You have reached across the generations to connect with and maintain the best traditions of the old radical movement while reaching out to upcoming student activists with a new vision and strategy for a better future...

After DSA leader Michael Darrington died in 1989 his name was added to the socialist honour roll.

The 1991 Eugene V. Debs - Norman Thomas - Michael Harrington Dinner was held at the Congress Hotel Chicago on Saturday, May 11, 1991. MC was Jackie Grimshaw.

The Chicago DSA's New Ground Archive Spring 1992 issue includes an article entitled "Heather Booth, Jackie Grimshaw and Michael Dyson Wow Crowd at the University of Chicago."

Michael Dyson is a leading DSA member and strong supporter of both Barack Obama and the Rev Jeremiah Wright.

Accrding to Chicago DSA's New Ground January 1999;

Some 200 people attended a panel presentation on "The Progressive Potential of Chicago City Politics" this last December 8th at the University of Chicago. The panelists included Jacquelyn Grimshaw, Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, Alderman Helen Shiller, Bernard Craighead, among others. The event was sponsored by the University of Chicago DSA Youth Section and the Hispanic Association for Cultural Expression and Recognition.

Jackie Grimshaw's links to Heather Booth are important.


The pair have served together on the board of the Chicago based Midwest Academy. Booth as chairman, Grimshaw as secretary/treasurer.

According a December 1998 Freedom Road Socialist Organisation document;

Probably the most well-known organizing method is Alinskyism, named after Saul Alinsky, a Chicago-born community organizer who helped set up the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council and later the Industrial Areas Foundation in the 1930s...The Mid-West Academy is a training center set up by members of DSA that draws heavily from Alinskyism.

Other Midwest board members included.

Paul Booth-A founder and former secretary/treasurer of the radical Students for a Democratic Society. With his wife Heather, in the 1970s, Paul Booth was a regular sponsor of the annual Debs-Thomas Dinner. Booth is a former President of Chicago’s Citizen Action Program, formed in 1969 by trainees from Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. He is now an assistant to alleged DSA member Gerald McEntee, president of the public employees union AFSCME-which has endorsed Obama.

Robert Creamer-Husband of the "DSA friendly" Chicago congresswoman Jan Schakowsky-a very loyal Obama supporter.

Jackie Kendall-also a Debs-Thomas award winner. Kendall knew Obama when he first worked in Chicago.

Nancy Shier-daughter of Chicago DSA leader, Midwest Academy tutor and regular Debs-Thomas Dinner MC, the late Carl Marx Shier

Heather Booth worked alongside Barack Obama when she directed field operations for Carol Moseley Braun's successful DSA/Communist Party backed Senate campaign in 1992.

Barack Obama of course is also an Alisnsky disciple and has ties to Midwest through the closely allied radical organisation ACORN.

Obama's ties to Jackie Grimshaw are more than neighbourly.

In May Grimshaw was named to represent Barack Obama on the Credentials Committee for the Illinois Democratic Delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The pair are also linked through the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago based Environmental group where Grimshaw serves as vice president for Policy, Transportation and Community Development

According to GOP.com

Over A Two-Year Period In The U.S. Senate, Obama Requested $3.2 Million In Earmarks For The Center For Neighborhood Technology.

For what return?

Former Employees From The Center For Neighborhood Technology "[Ben] Helphand and [Paul] Smith Have "Done Multiple Tours Of Duty In The Political Trenches-For Obama..." Executives And Board Members Of The Center For Neighborhood Technology Have Contributed $20,688 To Obama's Campaigns.

Cosy little world that Hyde Park socialist set.

[Interesting Times]

Trevor Loudon looks at another upstanding resident of Hyde Park...

[Interesting Times]

Ping.

[Interesting Times]

See also Young Communists Record Pro-Obama Song.

[ETL]

Trevor Loudon looks at another upstanding resident of Hyde Park...

"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at"-Bill Ayers, New York Times, September 11, 2001
Article: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

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Source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31617_Obama_Gave_Bill_Ayers_Book_a_Rave_Review/comments/#ctop

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From The Weekly Standard, 'Barack Obama's Lost Years', 08/11/2008:

"Ayers opposes trying even the most vicious juvenile murderers as adults. Beyond that, he'd like to see the prison system itself essentially abolished. Unsatisfied with mere reform, Ayers wants to address the deeper 'structural problems of the system.' Drawing explicitly on Michel Foucault, a French philosopher beloved of radical academics, Ayers argues that prisons artificially impose obedience and conformity on society, thereby creating a questionable distinction between the 'normal' and the 'deviant.' The unfortunate result, says Ayers, is to leave the bulk of us feeling smugly superior to society's prisoners. Home detention, Ayers believes, might someday be able to replace the prison. Ayers also makes a point of comparing America's prison system to the mass-detention of a generation of young blacks under South African Apartheid. Ayers's tone may be different, but the echoes of Jeremiah Wright's anti-prison rants are plain."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/386abhgm.asp?pg=2

[ETL]

See also Young Communists Record Pro-Obama Song.

Statement from Communist Party USA (CPUSA):

"The Communist Party USA views the 2008 elections as a tremendous opportunity to defeat the policies of the right-wing Republicans and to move our country in a new progressive direction.

The record turnout in the Democratic Presidential primary races shows that millions of voters, including millions of new voters, are using this election to bring about real change. We wholeheartedly agree with them."

http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/907/1/4/
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Saul Alinsky on "Change"...

From Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing:

"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."[2]

[2] Saul Alinsky, The Latter Rain
http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/alinski.htm
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[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[BlueStateBlues]

Ayers wants to kill rich people? Well, look at the neighborhood he lives in, it sure isn’t a slum. The University of Chicago oriented Hyde Park grows lots of crazies, leftists leaders seem to be born there.

[editor-surveyor]

This is irrelevant, he’s only running for President...

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. Socialist is a euphemism for Communist.

[R. Scott]

Wouldn’t it be nice if the MSM spread this around?

[Kackikat]

Seems like whole neighborhood is either socialist or communist...Oreilly had a reporter approach Ayers to question him as he came home the other day, and Ayers had on a black t-shirt with the communist 5 star pentagram on it..

[combat_boots]

Ayers wanted to kill his parents?

Ayers, the son of a CEO?

What, he wanted the $$$ sooner?

Like he knows the street.

[MeekOneGOP]

It Ain't Over Till It's Over

My take is that the MSM / Lamestream Media is out to suppress the GOP vote.

They are WAAAAAAYYYY overpolling Democraps in their polls, IGNORING factual stories negative for Obama and doing EVERYTHING they can to SMEAR McCain and especially PALIN with their lies.

I think this will blow up in their faces. When GOP voters see the tainted polls slanted to favor Socialist Obama, the GOP fence-sitters will crawl across broken glass to KEEP the Socialist Obama outta the White House !!!

Here in Texas, the first day of Early Voting set ALL TIME records for turnout. ALMOST DOUBLE the old record (up almost 80%) !!!!