Obama Saw First Corporate Job as "Working For The Enemy"

Can we call him a communist yet? :2wave:

Mentor as a child a radical revolutionary communist? (Frank Marshall Davis) Check

Mentor in college a radical racist Marxist professor? (Derrick Bell) Check

His political mentors all radical Socialists, Marxists, Domestic Terrorists, and otherwise Chicago thug felons? (Ayers, Wright, Flaegger, Dohrn, ect ect ect) Check Check Check Check

Somehow we're supposed to believe that Obama loves Capitalism because liberals keep telling us he does. ("You didn't build that")

York: Obama saw corporate job as working for the enemy | WashingtonExaminer.com

Obama spent very little time in business, but he did have a job at a company called Business International for about a year after he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. The book contains new details about the future president’s brief stint in corporate America.

Obama was a low-level editor in Reference Services, working on reports describing economic conditions in various foreign countries. By all accounts, he disliked the work, not just because it was pedestrian and boring, but because it was in business.

“He calls it working for the enemy,” Obama’s mother, Ann, wrote after a phone conversation with her son, “because some of the reports are written for commercial firms that want to invest in [Third World] countries.”

“Obama wrote a letter to his former girlfriend, Alex McNear, during that period, the last he would write to her. As in his telephone conversation with his mother, he expressed a distaste for the corporate world. He wrote Alex on Business International stationery, but crossed out the logo on the envelope and scribbled in his own address on West 114th Street.”

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I don't suppose it occurred to you that Obama thought such a thing not because it was working "for business," but rather because it was working for a business that was doing something he didn't like?

Maybe it didn't occur to you. Maybe in your world one must either "support business" or "oppose business."

Deuce said:

I don't suppose it occurred to you that Obama thought such a thing not because it was working "for business," but rather because it was working for a business that was doing something he didn't like?

Maybe it didn't occur to you. Maybe in your world one must either "support business" or "oppose business."

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Well reading the link which quotes Obama from "Dreams from My Father" it sure doesn't sound that way. It doesn't sound like Obama had anything special against that particular business. It sounds like he really does have a problem with capitalism.
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Yet as Obama told it in "Dreams from My Father," he sometimes felt tempted to sell out during his time at Business International. After getting a promotion, Obama wrote, "I had my own office, my own secretary, money in the bank. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors -- see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in hand -- and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve."

jerry7 said:

Well reading the link which quotes Obama from "Dreams from My Father" it sure doesn't sound that way. It doesn't sound like Obama had anything special against that particular business. It sounds like he really does have a problem with capitalism.
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Yet as Obama told it in "Dreams from My Father," he sometimes felt tempted to sell out during his time at Business International. After getting a promotion, Obama wrote, "I had my own office, my own secretary, money in the bank. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors -- see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in hand -- and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve."

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Another quote that doesn't support the argument. His goal was to go into public service. That doesn't imply that he felt there was something wrong with people who chose a different path.

AdamT said:

Another quote that doesn't support the argument. His goal was to go into public service. That doesn't imply that he felt there was something wrong with people who chose a different path.

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"He calls it working for the enemy". Pretty much says it all.

jerry7 said:

"He calls it working for the enemy". Pretty much says it all.

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It's rather impossible to know what he meant by that from the quoted text. Why would he object to companies investing in third world countries? What were the investments? Were they building desalinization plants to bring potable water to the masses? Were they working to cure malaria? I'm guessing not. The reasonable inference is that these were companies doing things that he thought were morally objectionable.

I used to be a Marxist. Now I am not. True story with the tat to prove it.

People change from their youthful ideals.

Have you ever worked in the corporate world Bronson? If so, were you like "gosh I just really love being a part of this thriving capitalist marketplace!" all the time...

I don't think so. Especially not in entry level positions. It's dull, pointless, work. Nobody is excited about like fighting for one pharmaceutical company to get a slightly better rate on the purchase of some software or nagging people to fill out their weekly hour logs or whatever boring nonsense. People do it because it pays, not because they love it. They gripe about it. Working in the corporate world isn't like working at a locally owned hardware store or something. Nobody loves the company they work for in the corporate world. You're working for a soul sucking machine. Everybody feels that way and everybody says it. That isn't a liberal/conservative thing, that's just life in the corporate world. It pays better than working for small, likeable, human, businesses for a reason.

jerry7 said:

Well reading the link which quotes Obama from "Dreams from My Father" it sure doesn't sound that way. It doesn't sound like Obama had anything special against that particular business. It sounds like he really does have a problem with capitalism.
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Yet as Obama told it in "Dreams from My Father," he sometimes felt tempted to sell out during his time at Business International. After getting a promotion, Obama wrote, "I had my own office, my own secretary, money in the bank. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors -- see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in hand -- and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve."

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Dreams from My Father has been deemed a work of fiction riddled with a few facts, not the other way around. No thinking-person these days relies on Dreams of My Father to tell the story of Barack Obama. It's a fools errand.....an account of is life that has been thoroughly debunked as hardly accurate.

teamosil said:

Have you ever worked in the corporate world Bronson? If so, were you like "gosh I just really love being a part of this thriving capitalist marketplace!" all the time...

I don't think so. Especially not in entry level positions. It's dull, pointless, work. Nobody is excited about like fighting for one pharmaceutical company to get a slightly better rate on the purchase of some software or nagging people to fill out their weekly hour logs or whatever boring nonsense. People do it because it pays, not because they love it. They gripe about it. Working in the corporate world isn't like working at a locally owned hardware store or something. Nobody loves the company they work for in the corporate world. You're working for a soul sucking machine. Everybody feels that way and everybody says it. That isn't a liberal/conservative thing, that's just life in the corporate world. It pays better than working for small, likeable, human, businesses for a reason.

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For some, yes.....but certainly not "all." You must be 25 years old and still green behind the ears. Hopefully one day you find your calling. It doesn't sound like you have much experience to base this broad generalization on.

AdamT said:

It's rather impossible to know what he meant by that from the quoted text. Why would he object to companies investing in third world countries? What were the investments? Were they building desalinization plants to bring potable water to the masses? Were they working to cure malaria? I'm guessing not. The reasonable inference is that these were companies doing things that he thought were morally objectionable.

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It's clear to me what he meant.

But for you it's different. You say "it's rather impossible to know" but then you go off giving your own interpretation to support your beloved Obama.

teamosil said:

Have you ever worked in the corporate world Bronson? If so, were you like "gosh I just really love being a part of this thriving capitalist marketplace!" all the time...

I don't think so. Especially not in entry level positions. It's dull, pointless, work. Nobody is excited about like fighting for one pharmaceutical company to get a slightly better rate on the purchase of some software or nagging people to fill out their weekly hour logs or whatever boring nonsense. People do it because it pays, not because they love it. They gripe about it. Working in the corporate world isn't like working at a locally owned hardware store or something. Nobody loves the company they work for in the corporate world. You're working for a soul sucking machine. Everybody feels that way and everybody says it. That isn't a liberal/conservative thing, that's just life in the corporate world. It pays better than working for small, likeable, human, businesses for a reason.

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I see your a liberal and from San Francisco, that's very telling.

Born Free said:

It's clear to me what he meant.

But for you it's different. You say "it's rather impossible to know" but then you go off giving your own interpretation to support your beloved Obama.

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Of course it's clear to you. If Obama said, "it looks like rain" you'd interpret it as an attack on big oil.

So far we have seen Obama's own book used to try to 'debunk' that he hates corporate america. Then claims that everyone hates 'starter' positions in corporate America, even though Obama said he had an office and a secretary, which is not a 'starter' position. Anything to defend their guy.

AdamT said:

Of course it's clear to you. If Obama said, "it looks like rain" you'd interpret it as an attack on big oil.

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I like the oil thing, have to remember that one. But in your case you said "it's rather impossible to know", then you go on to claim you do know, or at least your version of it.

Arbo said:

So far we have seen Obama's own book used to try to 'debunk' that he hates corporate america. Then claims that everyone hates 'starter' positions in corporate America, even though Obama said he had an office and a secretary, which is not a 'starter' position. Anything to defend their guy.

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It was Obama's first major position in "Corporate America" and he only had it for a year. Otherwise he was running around Chicago doing this:

Stanley Kurtz Exposes Obama's War on the Suburbs: Ideological Key to Obama's Past, Present, and Future

Obama apologists want to pretend that Obama has all these negative views about Capitalism in a vacuum. He's a "Free Market" guy that Obama. He's such a swell preezy. He sits in a racist marxist church for 20 years, launches his political career in the home of domestic marxist terrorists, implored fellow students to "embrace the teachings of Derrick Bell", a radical racist communist, and was mentored by a radical marxist communist, but because liberals tell us that Obama isn't a radical marxist communist, we're not supposed to connect the dots.

This would be like finding out all of Bush's major influences throughout his life were members of the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK (Founded by Democrats to terrorize blacks and the political party founded on anti slavery and abolition, Republicans) Public Enemy Number 1, and the Ayran Brotherhood. Hysterically for 4 years now the MSM and Obamabots have been standing in front of the damning evidence waving their arms and shouting "Move along! Nothing to see here. Obey". Without a shred of evidence Obama and his supporters called Romney a felon but even with mountains of evidence and damning words out of his own mouth numerous times, we're not allowed to believe that Obama is a radical marxist ideologue.

4 years of Obama = 15% Real Unemployment and 5 more trillion in debt. If he loves Capitalism so much where are the jobs libs? No more excuses and blaming everyone else like 5 year olds. Where are the jobs, economic progress, prosperity, wealth creation, and innovation if Obama is such an amazing successful president who firmly believes in Capitalism.

AdamT said:

Another quote that doesn't support the argument. His goal was to go into public service. That doesn't imply that he felt there was something wrong with people who chose a different path.

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^ You often are the totally desperate partisan, aren't you? Obama having a "goal" of going "into public service" doesn't equate to most people as seeing corporations as "the enemy."

AdamT said:

Of course it's clear to you. If Obama said, "it looks like rain" you'd interpret it as an attack on big oil.

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^ Desperate strawman crap.

joko104 said:

^ You often are the totally desperate partisan, aren't you? Obama having a "goal" of going "into public service" doesn't equate to most people as seeing corporations as "the enemy."

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Obama didn't say that corporations are the enemy. So what's your point? Speaking of strawmen.... :roll:

AdamT said:

Obama didn't say that corporations are the enemy. So what's your point? Speaking of strawmen.... :roll:

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Despite what your mom told you, just because you make emotional statements doesn't mean they are true.

Obama was a low-level editor in Reference Services, working on reports describing economic conditions in various foreign countries. By all accounts, he disliked the work, not just because it was pedestrian and boring, but because it was in business.

“He calls it working for the enemy,” Obama’s mother, Ann, wrote after a phone conversation with her son, “because some of the reports are written for commercial firms that want to invest in [Third World] countries.”

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Disliked it because it was in business. Believed it was "the enemy". Too Obama, business is the enemy. No wonder we are at 15% Real Unemployment.

Born Free said:

I see your a liberal and from San Francisco, that's very telling.

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Liberals from San Francisco are amongst the most successful slice of our entire society kiddo. I know you think it is an insult, but that is just a reflection of your own sheltered and misinformed world view, not anything about us.

Glideslope said:

For some, yes.....but certainly not "all." You must be 25 years old and still green behind the ears. Hopefully one day you find your calling. It doesn't sound like you have much experience to base this broad generalization on.

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I'm quite sure I've had more experience with more corporate cultures than you have. For about 12 years I ran the professional services department at a software company. In that capacity I worked intensively with teams at literally 150-200 different fortune 500 companies. I would bet that I have had more exposure to a wider variety of corporate cultures than anybody you've ever met.

Why don't you focus on the topic we're discussing instead of irrelevant ad-hominem attacks?

teamosil said:

Liberals from San Francisco are amongst the most successful slice of our entire society kiddo.

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I find the hard working farmers in the middle of the country to be more successful, as I kinda like to eat food. I doubt much food making goes on in San Fran, and I'd imagine that sort of work is 'below' most people there.

Arbo said:

I find the hard working farmers in the middle of the country to be more successful, as I kinda like to eat food. I doubt much food making goes on in San Fran, and I'd imagine that sort of work is 'below' most people there.

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Actually, California produces twice as much agricultural output as the next highest state... But the notion that success is defined exclusively by agricultural output is bizarre to say the least.

Can you imagine if we were all judged by the things we wrote at the age of 22?

Everyone on this board would be screwed.