"....
Barack Obama himself is almost certainly familiar with the Marxist analytical framework for understanding what moves history. He was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member. The typical white grandparents who raised him moved in communist circles after leaving Kansas for Mercer Island, WA and Honolulu. I doubt very much if Davis ever got very specific with young Barry on the complexities of dialectical materialism, the formal basis for communist theory. And because the president's college transcripts are a closely guarded secret, we cannot know if he took any courses on Marxist theory while at Occidental College and Columbia University. But he surely understands its basics. "The Marxist theory of history teaches that it moves forward through a dialectical process, powered by conflict. Thesis -- an action or idea -- generates a reaction, its antithesis, which results in contradictions and conflict. The wise dialectical thinker understands that by heightening contradictions (or not letting a crisis go to waste, in the immortal words of Rahm Emanuel), the final outcome -- the synthesis -- can be shaped in radical directions. Among those who took this lesson was Saul Alinsky, for example, who wanted to "rub raw the resentments of the people" in order to hasten revolution through peaceful means, inspiring young Barack Obama to become a community organizer....."
The Dialectic of Obama