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College Acquaintance: Young Obama Was Pure Marxist Socialist

For future reference, this is a partial transcript and then a full transcript of a two-part youtube recording. I think this was Steve Marlzberg's radio show on Feb 15, 2010, with John C. Drew, who knew Obama from Occidental College.

PART 1 (partial transcript)
College Acquaintance: Young Obama Was Pure Marxist Socialist: 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wCl57cL274&feature=related
uploaded feb 17 2010   by martysoffice

Starting at 02:36
Marlzberg: 
...so it's Christmas time 1980, 
your then girlfriend attends classes at Occidental with Obama, 
You graduated from Occidental, You all get together around the Christmas time, 
you go out to dinner,
You come back to the house, Obama drives up with his Pakistani roommate, 
a guy named Mohammed Hassan Chandoo, 
and that's important because we're going to mention him later, 
about HIS recollection of all this, But, by the way, I should mention that 
Ronald Kessler of NewsMax did a fine job of bringing all 
this to light. So, whats it like? 
You're sitting around, there's young Barack Obama...
By the way, he wasn't BARACK Obama then, what was he? Barry? 

Drew:
No, no, he told me to call him Barry at the time. 

Marlzberg: 
OK, So there's Barry Obama, and... 
tell me why you believe that 
he was a Marxist back then? 

Drew:
OK, well my most vivid memory is how INSISTENT he was  
in arguing a Marxist / Leninist point of view. 
I was arguing a more moderate Marxist view that just said
that even though a lot of Marxist ideas were correct, 
it was implausible that we would ever see a revolution 
led by the working class to overthrow the elite. 
And Obama did NOT buy that AT ALL. 
He made a very principled, dedicated, impassioned argument 
that in fact, a REAL revolution was coming.  
And in a sense, we should all get on board and prepare ourselves 
physically and emotionally for that revolution. 

Marlzberg: 
OK, And he believed the people would rise up, and it would be the workers 
who would overthrow those in charge, and those with wealth.  Now did he 
consider... Did you sense, that he, even back then, 
that he believed, or he had reason to believe, that
he would be a part of this revolution? 

Drew:
Oh that was ASSUMED. We assumed 
there was going to be this huge revolution, that 
after it was over, WE would be the guys on top. You know,
We would be the guys making....

Marlzberg: 
OK, but that's you guys collectively, 
but did you 
sense from HIM, 
the narcissism that I see today, was 
he speaking as one of the people, in your view, that 
was either going to pull it off, help pull it off, or 
emerge from it all?

Drew:
I thought he... I didn't think he saw himself  as a leader of that effort,
The way I look at it, I was kind of a young 
peace-loving Bill Ayers of Occidental College, 
by the time I went back there, and I think he saw himself 
maybe more in a secondary role.  
He didn't strike me as that ambitious or that studious at the time. 

Marlzberg: 
yea, and so, OK, he wasn't ambitious at the time. 
But the revolution, that he saw coming, this fit in with some other remarks you
made, about the United States, where you say that you believe that Obama perceived
America as the ENEMY. In what sense? 

Drew:
He DEFINITELY saw America as the enemy. 
He believed that the ruling elite had rigged our economic system
so that it CAUSED people to be poor. 
And it was immoral, and it was wrong, and the only 
way you could tip things back so we all 
could enjoy a more prosperous lifestyle, 
was to redistribute the wealth. 

Marlzberg: 
Redistribute... So he used that term back then? or something of that nature?

Drew:
Well that was the gist of being a Marxist at the time.
And the thing I remember most vividly is when I would contradict him
and say that wasn't in the cards, it didn't slow him down.

Marlzberg: 
It didn't slow him down.  We're talking to Doctor John C. Drew, 
who is a grant writing consultant now 
in Laguna Niguel, California, knew Barack Obama, and 
had occasion to sit down with him back in 1980, 
when Obama was at Occidental College, and John
Drew, who was a Marxist at the time, believes 
that Obama was a Marxist. 

Marlzberg: 
He also, also in addition to... by the way, before I get to the Soviet Union...
Did he believe that the problem was... you say he viewed America as the enemy, 
for the reasons you stated...
Did he get racial? in any sense? 
Was it because, you know, America treats its poor poorly, or 
its bottom class poorly? 
Was there a racial inference? or a racial specifics at all?

Drew:
Well that's the funny thing... 
that I'm still trying to work out in my mind, 
because I have to say truthfully that I
did not see in the young Barack Obama 
any hatred of white people. 
I didn't notice any racial animosity in 
what he was doing. My sense in this 
is that he was a PURE Marxist Socialist. 
And I didn't see him thinking in terms of race.
And so I just think thats surprising 
given what he wrote in Dreams of my Father. 
But it never once occurred to me that he had
any animosity 
towards whites. 

Marlzberg: 
Right, because in Dreams of my Father, he DID express that animosity. 

Drew:
Yea, a PROFOUND... like he tells that story of, 
the black guy that peels his own skin off, 

Marlzberg: 
Yea, 

Drew:
And.. But.. I saw no evidence of that in the young Barack Obama.

Marlzberg: 
OK, let me ask you 
about the comments regarding the Soviet Union. 
...
   [remainder of part 1 not transcribed since it was kind of boring. 
    Most interesting was he said NewsMax misquoted him on some Soviet Union topic]



PART 2 (full transcript)
College Acquaintance: Young Obama Was Pure Marxist Socialist: 2/2 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7OQDc6lLZo
Uploaded by martysoffice on Feb 17, 2010


Marlzberg: 
You talk about his friend Mohammed Hassan Chandoo, his roommate from Pakistan, 
his roommate at Occidental, ...I'll tell you about that in a second, but you say  
They drove up, they drove around in a BMW? 

Drew:
Oh yea, I remember, that was one of the funny points of that 
visit, is that Chandoo was VERY proud of that car. 
I mean it was VERY materialistic, and he was very proud of it, and  
he was kind of a quiet guy, he was more of an observer 
than a heavy participant in our debates, 
but you could see he took GREAT pride in that car. 

Drew:
And he and Barack Obama, they looked like a wealthy gay couple. 
That's what I thought of them when I first saw them. 
And my girlfriend had to tell me, kind of secretly on the side that they weren't gay. 
But they were VERY well dressed, just impeccable manners, great gentlemen, 
and I thought they were both multimillionaires. 

Marlzberg: 
Well where do you think? or where did you... or was it discussed at the time, 
between you and your girlfriend, like where did they 
get that kind of money? 

Drew:
You know, I don't... I just assumed he was born with it. 
I didn't really investigate it at the time

Marlzberg: 
No, OK, that's interesting, now...

Drew:
But, but, here's my explanation for why Obama was a charismatic big man on campus
when he was 
at Occidental, and why he was kind of a zero at Columbia University... 
And I think the money from Hassan dried up, 
and so he couldn't project that sort of charismatic image that he had at Oxy anymore. 

Marlzberg: 
Yea, well it would be interesting if we had any financial records 
from his college days, we would get a better picture of his, financial situations 
at the time.
Now one other thing, this guy Chandoo, the rich Pakistani, 
first he told NewsMax that he 
doesn't remember any such thing, but 
the problem with that is, he didn't even remember,
and he raised a LOT of money for Obama's presidency, over a hundred thousand dollars,
but he didn't even remember, until he was confronted with the proof
that he not only SAW Obama, at the White House,
at a Ramadan dinner last fall, he didn't remember
he said, "yea, I went, but I never saw the President"
well he didn't even remember that he shook HANDS with the president
in the receiving line until THAT was presented to him, so
I don't put much faith in his memory. 

Drew:
Well, one of the things I told Ron Kessler was that I'm just here
to tell the truth and... you know, I;d like to see Obama
not talk about how his Marxism is... that people accuse him of
being a Marxist because he shared his toys in kindergarten. 
The reason I think he is a Marxist, is because I saw it with my own eyes. 
And I think he needs to explain to the American people, 
what were the logical steps he 
took to get OUT of that Marxist Socialist perspective. 
And I don't think its fair for him to run from that, especially  
when so much ELSE in his life is consistent, all the way from 
Frank Marshall Davis, to Alice Palmer, to Bill Ayers, 
I mean, there's a very consistent...

Marlzberg: 
I'm with you on that, but what makes you think he ran from... what makes you think
he graduated from that thought process?  That philosophy?

Drew:
I don't think he HAS, personally. I think he's still a Socialist. 
I think that was his objective in pursuing the public option, 
I think that's what he was going for with the Sodomayor appointment, so I don't see 
him tacking to the center, the way some people are suggesting.
I see him as the kind of guy whose conscious will be bothered 
if he moves to the center.

Marlzberg: 
I'm with you. 

Marlzberg: 
Listen, Doc, it has been an eye opening pleasure. 
Do you have a website or anything you want to 
direct the people to? 

Drew:
Yea, probably the best thing to do is 
I've got a website called 
anonymousPoliticalScientist.blogspot.com

Marlzberg: 
We'll post that on my website, we'll make it easy 
for folks, you got that

Marlzberg: 
Doctor, I gotta go, I'm up against the clock, thank you
so much, Doctor John C. Drew.
He's a grant writing consultant in California these days, but he knew Barack Obama
for a short time anyway, 
enough to know, or to believe, that Obama was a PURE Marxist.
It's interesting to hear confirmation that Obama was a hard-core Marxist Socialist even back in 1980.
And personally, I would bet that his rich former roommate, Mohammed Hassan Chandoo, did not actually 'raise' $100,000 for Obama, but instead forged the paperwork to show it was raised from multiple sources, when actually it was a personal contribution to his friend that exceeded campaign finance laws.