The Authoritarian Radicals: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge

Social Science Research network ^ | September 1, 2008 | Stephen F. Diamond Santa Clara University - School of Law

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Abstract:

    
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a $160 million dollar reform effort in the Chicago public school system led by, among others, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. An analysis of the Challenge suggests that an authoritarian form of politics shared by Ayers and Obama was a critical part of the reform effort. This form of authoritarian radicalism has its roots in the American New Left and Black Power movements. The paper contrasts the authoritarian and anti-union approach of the Challenge with a democratic alternative.

Keywords: Law, poliitics, education, Obama, Ayers, Annenberg Challenge

JEL Classifications: None

Working Paper Series

Date posted: September 02, 2008 ; Last revised: September 17, 2008

[unspun]

The Post American World of Barack Obama

The Post American World, by Fareed Zakaria

...connecting the dots to show Barack Obama's long-standing,
continuously developing, anti-American alliances...

Barack Obama & the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

Listen to this Interview of James Simpson, by Sandy Rios, Tuesday 9/30 - WYLL 1160AM, Chicago, IL
From http://www.culturecampaign.com/culturecorner.aspx

Simpson documents his research in his article, providing Web links. He provides a rough flow chart.

"CHANGE"

Further corroboration on Obama & The Cloward-Piven Strategy:

Obama, Voter Fraud & Mortgage Meltdown, by James H. Walsh, former federal prosecutor.

On Barack Obama's Marxist connections in Chicago

Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of [Marxist] Socialist 'New Party' In 1996

On Alice Palmer, the South Side's Marxist State Senator, Who Hand Picked Barack Obama to Succeed Her

More on Obama's Marxist alliance with Radical Islamists:

Barack Obama campaigning with taxpayers' money for Raila Odinga, Marxist & pro-Islamist, despotic leader in Kenya

Barack Obama & Khalid Al-Mansour (old Black Panther comrade of Ayers & Dohrn and likely of Alice Palmer) who raised funds to get Obama into Harvard

And then there are... Herbert and Marion Sandler, the Pritzkers, and the "loose lips" of Charles Schumer and Harry Reid (and Henry Paulson is not above suspicion, with his control-freak power play and Goldman Sachs cronyism).

Get these articles and pictures out to everyone you know (or anything even more informative that comes up) -- voters, media, officials and staff of both parties, everyone. We have time if we act now.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Link to Blog with more:

The Authoritarian Radicals: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge

************************EXCERPT*************************

INTRODUCTION

As the complete records of the $160 million dollar six-year long Chicago Annenberg Challenge project are liberated and analyzed in coming weeks, it makes sense to ask just what was the Challenge, or CAC, all about.

Fortunately, prior to the release of the official records of the CAC held at the University of Illinois I was able to analyze board minutes, financial records and annual reports of the CAC provided to me by Brown University. I have posted them here for others to review.

After all, the CAC was the first chance for Barack Obama to take on a serious executive role in a controversial political environment. And the Challenge failed, badly.

Most of the criticism of the longstanding relationship between Bill Ayers, who founded the CAC, and Barack Obama is, unfortunately, coming from the conservative side of the political spectrum. That is natural enough – they want their candidate, John McCain, to win and they know that any association between Ayers and Obama is toxic because of Ayers background as a terrorist.

But silence on this issue from the left is rather puzzling – well, not exactly silence. Critics of the Ayers-Obama alliance whether on the right or, like me, on the left, are actually subject to loud and constant attack.

Of course, those on the attack whether high brows like E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, or Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic, or the mobs mobilized a la the Sandinistas or Hugo Chavez by the Obama campaign to attack a Chicago radio talk show host and guest, ignore the facts. So as far as advancing the debate is concerned they might as well be silent.

The left, however, should be particularly concerned about what it is that brought Obama and Ayers together in the same movement some 20 years ago, because there is very little about that movement that can be called progressive or democratic. In fact, it was a bureaucratic and potentially authoritarian movement to control the public school system in the city of Chicago against the Chicago Teachers’ Union, the Chicago School Board and the Mayor’s office, in particular, Mayor Daley, in the mid-1990s.

WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?

The starting point was a 1987 strike by the Chicago Teachers’ Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and AFL-CIO. Teachers’ strikes are always very controversial as teachers perform a vital public service. In Chicago, unfortunately, there was a very frayed relationship at the time between the teachers and the city. There were deep fiscal problems as well as the city was transitioning away from a manufacturing center to a services dominated urban environment.

In the wake of that strike, a coalition of business, community and education reformers emerged to form a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, ABCs.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from link at post #3:

**********************EXCERPT***********************

In fact, one of the few, if only, black community groups to support the LSC’s was the Developing Communities Project (DCP), whose Executive Director at the time was Barack Obama.

The DCP was very vocal and up front about pushing for school reform, according to press reports.

So the LSC reform was pushed by Hispanic community activists angered by a recent strike, Barack Obama’s DCP, elite business groups looking to solve the school system’s fiscal crisis, and Bill Ayers who saw the LSC’s as the fulfillment of a dream for radical school restructuring.

The LSC’s were put into place in 1988 and conducted elections every two years thereafter. Hundreds of principals were duly fired or resigned but student achievement languished. Naturally, apathy began to set in. Moves were afoot to gut the LSC’s and re-centralize power in the hands of the Mayor’s office. The business sector support for the LSC’s was waning.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks....time for more eyes to see this detail.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Maybe something new in here.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The first of several threads :

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

America waits with baited breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.

Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.

Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.

But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

FR Thread:

Obama, Voter Fraud & Mortgage Meltdown

***************************EXCERPT*************************

Posted on Mon 22 Sep 2008 09:30:05 AM PDT by DFG

"I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work." — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

The excuse parroted by most newsmedia for failing to give Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a full vetting, such as they are doing with Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, is that “after 20 months of campaigning and debate,” all is known about the senator. Wrong!

For instance, how many voters know that Obama, during his four-year tenure in Chicago as a community organizer, worked as a trainer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — the infamous ACORN, whose affiliate, Project Vote, is known for voter fraud — the same ACORN from which a mighty mortgage mess has grown.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"An analysis of the Challenge suggests that an authoritarian form of politics shared by Ayers and Obama was a critical part of the reform effort. This form of authoritarian radicalism has its roots in the American New Left and Black Power movements. The paper contrasts the authoritarian and anti-union approach of the Challenge with a democratic alternative. "

The author should explore the Richard Hofstadter angle. Along with the roots of the Authoritarian Personality type. Obama was abandoned by his natural father and has an exaggerated and grandiose idea of authority for himself over others, as a compensation.

[SE Mom]

Thanks Ern- Steve Diamond along with Stanley Kurtz has done really superior work on this mess. Bookmark for finding my reading glasses ;)

[madinmadtown]

Thanks for the post. It seems strange to me that Mayor Daley has been so supportive of Ayers and Obama. I may not agree with his Machine politics, but one thing I do believe is that he does not suffer failure well. Now whether he sees Ayers and Obama as people in his circle who he doesn't want to fail or whether they have funneled money over the years to some of his pet projects, I certainly don't have the insight to know. I do believe, though, that he is does feel responsible for his city. He should never be regarded as a fool in any way...which is why his support for Ayers and Obama is so surprising...because they seem to have played him for a fool.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

News...FR Thread:

New Ad Hammers Obama for Association with Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist - Video

[Dick Bachert]

We’ve seen this all before:
Here are the lyrics, and a link. Learn quickly lest you be scourged, and beheaded:
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i12/Gunkadink/?action=view&current=Obamaleader_0001.flv

Obama wants to be our fearless leader,
to his great name we sing in endless praise.
Our nation he says he would change for us forever,
to him we now our faithful voices raise.
Our land was sick, we need the great Barack Obama,
he brought to us his wondrous healing power.

The great Barack will be our wondrous savior,
he’ll save us all in this our darkest hour.
Obama told us that he loves our greatest freedoms,
but that to last, all them he’ll have to take,
And then we’ll live in strife and constant servile bondage,
it seems his talk is only mostly fake. (1:38)

Before he came, we always had our weapons,
he took them first to keep his Brownshirts safe. (1:53)
Reeducation camps are really horrid places,
with “showers” and many hangings with the rope.
Of man’s kindness there simply are no outward traces
we’re forced to read “Audacity of Hope.” (2:24)

And so we march into that dark tomorrow,
without a thought of what that really means.
Our children soon will quickly come to loathe and hate us,
their former birthright we have pissed away.
And so the day you cast your vote for great Obama,
t’will be the day your liberties you’ll slay.

[Aquinasfan]

That photo should be its own thread. “The Post American World.” Sheesh.

[dixiechick2000]

Excellent post, unspun!

Thank you for spreading the word.

Thanks for the ping, Ernest!

Bump!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Ayers /Obama effort at running the Chicago Public Schools was such a failure that the Mayor wrested control of it from the Ayers and Obama group....

Reference is the document linked in this article.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Link:

Saturday, October 04, 2008
NY Times Confirms Ayers' Role in Obama Appointment as Chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge

********************EXCERPT*******************

I can easily understand why some readers may have become confused by the explosion of stories today on the Obama/Ayers relationship.

The partial story of the Ayers/Obama relationship told by the New York Times today is collapsing of its own weight but has likely added to the confusion. Since I am one of the "bloggers" referred to without an explanation in the Times' story I thought I would summarize the top ten highlights of the current state of play.  

It turns out as these ten key points confirm what I have argued all along - that Bill Ayers was responsible for the elevation of Obama to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge board and the New York Times reporting on this story actually supports my conclusion, though inadvertently.

1) The key question is whether Bill Ayers had a role in the selection of Barack Obama to become Chairman and President of the $160 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a multi year school reform effort started in 1995.

2) This is the key question because if it is true that Ayers played a role in Obama's selection it indicates that Ayers and Obama had a pre-existing relationship.

3) If Ayers and Obama did have a pre-existing relationship it undermines claims by the Obama Campaign that the relationship between Ayers, an authoritarian political figure who once engaged in bombings to implement his politics, was "tenuous" or "casual" and that Ayers was just a neighbor of Obama's in Hyde Park.

4) I believe that Obama and Ayers shared a similar world view with respect to education issues, at least. For example, during their time together running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge they supported funding for groups like the Small Schools Workshop and Local School Councils. These groups were criticized as engaging in "teacher bashing"  by union activists and as a "political threat" to school principals by Arnold Weber, a fellow Annenberg board member.

5) I have presented evidence here at Global Labor that Ayers did in fact play a direct and personal role in Obama's elevation to the CAC board. This evidence consists of letters exchanged at the time of these events between the national Annenberg Challenge led by Vartan Gregorian, the President of Brown University, and Bill Ayers, on the one hand, and between Gregorian and Adele Simmons, President of the MacArthur Foundation, an advisor to Ayers, on the other. 

Those letters state clearly that Ayers was actively engaged in the board selection process in November and December of 1994.

I described those letter to the Times when asked about this and provided them copies.

6) I also argued that these letters are consistent with the legal responsibility Ayers had as the representative of the recipient of the $50 million Annenberg Challenge grant.

7) According to the Obama campaign and now according to emails I have received from the New York Times, Ayers had "nothing" to do with the selection of Obama for the board Chairmanship. 

They claim that according to Deborah Leff and Patricia Graham that only Leff and Graham recruited and nominated Obama, respectively. However, in their published story the Times did not quote Leff to that effect. Neither did the Obama campaign in its statement on the matter. I have asked the Times for clarification.

8) If Leff and Graham current recollection is true then the written contemporaneous documentation I provided to the Times (letters to and from Vartan Gregorian and Ayers) appears to be contradicted and this leads to a very odd conclusion: that Leff, a lawyer, and Graham went around the back of the legal representative of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (Ayers) to recruit and nominate the CAC board Chairman (Obama).

Why would they have done that? In fact, I do not think they did.,

[unspun]

This paper is devastating — for those who read it.

[madinmadtown]

That was my point. It was a failure. They squandered an extraordinary amount of money. Mayor Daley would expect a return on any money spent in his city. So the fact that he has publicly spoken on their behalf is baffling.

[Old Sarge]

They used too many words - The Sheep will never read it, even if it’s posted above-fold on USAToday.