Cooper Union

Another interesting tidbit from a cat named Radosh:

The question, then, is who is the real Obama? What will he do when he governs? Will he govern from the Center, using these same advisors and refusing to move the nation to the Left. But if his real views are those of the Chicago Obama, the man who made the now famous radio interview arguing for redistribution of wealth as a valid legislative goal, will he and the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress pass the most extreme legislative agenda that goes way beyond LBJ’s Great Society?

I frankly do not know which Obama will turn up. We will only learn that soon after his inauguration. I do not, however, hold any doubts as to what he once believed. Most people have not noticed this, but in a few interviews, Obama has said that in the 1980’s, he attended the Socialist Scholars Conferences held yearly at Cooper Union. That sounds like a scholarly assembly of intellectuals who approach their fields from a socialist perspective. Its innocuous name, however, is more than misleading.

I know this, because I was a founder of the original Socialist Scholars Conference, a group started in the 70’s by actual Marxist and socialist scholars, that discussed intellectual issues. The group held a few meetings, and it soon faded into oblivion. A decade later, its name was taken over by a new group that held meetings that were anything but scholarly. They were, in fact, an assembly of left-wing activists from extreme far Left to moderate Left, with panels galore on political issues and activism, without much scholarship of any kind being discussed. In 1983, for example, after my book on the Rosenberg case came out, they convened a panel to attack it from various perspectives- a panel to which I was not asked to participate or given any chance to answer the slanders presented to the audience. This was not an example of how scholars discuss serious and controversial works. There were also sessions attacking Israel, with no panels defending the Jewish state. I could continue, but the point is clear. I have often wondered which panels Obama attended, and what he got out of the meetings? No one has bothered to ask him.

Cooper Union was a big deal hangout in NYC back in the early 90s when I lived there. I was an organic Progressive and it was way to radical for me. Hmmm. I give this tidbit, on a scale of 1 to 3, three being unquestionably ducky, 1 Quack.