http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=136561Those fighting for immigration reform have a "friend" in the White House, declared a socialist activist who is an ally and recent adviser to President Obama.
"Yes, we got a friend in the White House," stated Cornel West, an extremist race-relations professor at Princeton University. West was speaking at last week's Rally for Immigration Reform Now in Washington, D.C.
Continued West: "But sometimes you got to put pressure on your friend. You've got to remind him of what he said. You've got to remind him that the campaign is one thing and the governing is something else."
West told a crowd reported at tens of thousands that he comes from "a people who didn't come here voluntarily. Oh yeah. I come from a people that came on the slave ships. I come from a people who have been lynched in the South and degraded in the North."
"But I bring the message to say that I love you, too," he added. "I am here with you, too. We gonna fight for justice. ... Immigration reform now!"
Video of the brief, but passionate speech can be seen below:
Obama named West, whom he has called a personal friend, to the Black Advisory Council of his presidential campaign. West was a key point man between Obama's campaign and the black community.
West, a socialist activist, served as an adviser on Farrakhan's Million Man March and is a self-described personal friend of the Nation of Islam leader. West authored two books on race with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was at the center of a recent controversy in which Obama criticized Gates' treatment by police outside his home after a report of a burglary.
Obama adviser: Amnesty to ensure 'progressive' rule
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority. In exchange for his vote on the healthcare bill, Obama reiterated that pledge last week to Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, sponsor of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Bill, which seeks to document up to 12 million illegal immigrants inside the U.S.
As WND reported a recent adviser to President Obama whose union group is among the most frequent visitors to the White House declared granting citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants would expand the "progressive" electorate and help ensure a "progressive" governing coalition for the long term.
That recent adviser, Eliseo Medina, international executive vice-president of Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, was referring specifically to Gutierrez's bill.
"We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters," stated Medina, speaking at a June 2009 Washington conference for America's Future Now!
Medina said that during the presidential election in November 2008, Latinos and immigrants "voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up."
"Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting?" Medina asked. "We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle."
The SEIU is closely linked to the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. SEIU President Andrew Stern was the most frequently logged White House visitor, according to an official list released in October.
Medina and the SEIU are top supporters of Gutierrez's comprehensive immigration reform bill.
During the most recent presidential campaign, Medina and Gutierrez served on Obama's National Latino Advisory Council. Also on the council was Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., the co-sponsor of Gutierrez's immigration reform bill. Medina was a chief lobbyist credited with a change in the longstanding policy of the AFL-CIO, the largest union federation in the U.S. The union reversed its stance against illegal immigration in February 2000, instead calling for new amnesty for millions of illegals.
The New Zeal blog documented how Medina was honored in 2004 by Chicago's Democratic Socialists of America for his "vital role in the AFL-CIO's reassessment of its immigration policy." That same year, Medina became a DSA honorary chairman.
The DSA also supported Gutierrez's 1998 bid for Congress. In the mid-1990s, Gutierrez served on the board of Illinois Public Action alongside a number of DSA members, including Obama health-care advisor Quentin Young.
'Racist American empire'
It was West, meanwhile, who introduced Obama at a 2007 Harlem fundraiser attended by about 1,500 people that served as Obama's first foray into Harlem after announcing his Democratic presidential candidacy.
As WND reported, West introduced Obama on stage at the fundraiser after first railing against the "racist" criminal-justice system of the "American empire."
A scan of YouTube clips found West introducing Obama at the fundraiser while stating the "American empire is in such a deep crisis" and slamming the "racist criminal-justice system" and "disgraceful schools in our city."
"He is my brother and my companion and comrade," said West of Obama.
WND found a video that shows Obama taking the stage just after West's introduction, expressing his gratitude to West, calling him "not only a genius, a public intellectual, a preacher, an oracle ... he's also a loving person."
Obama asked the audience for a round of applause for West.
From a young age, West proclaimed he admired "the sincere black militancy of Malcolm X, the defiant rage of the Black Panther Party … and the livid black (liberation) theology of James Cone."
Cone's theology spawned Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial pastor for 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ. West was a strong defender of Wright when the pastor's extreme remarks became national news during the presidential campaign.
In 1995, West signed a letter published as an ad in the New York Times that voiced support for cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther.
In 2002, West further signed a "Statement of Conscience" crafted by Not In Our Name, a project of C. Clark Kissinger's Revolutionary Communist Party. He then endorsed the World Can't Wait campaign, a Revolutionary Communist Party project seeking to organize "people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration."
After branding the U.S. a "racist patriarchal" nation in his book "Race Matters," West wrote, "White America has been historically weak-willed in ensuring racial justice and has continued to resist fully accepting the humanity of blacks."
Also in that book, West claimed the 9/11 attacks gave white Americans a glimpse of what it means to be a black person in the U.S. – feeling "unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence and hatred" for who they are.
"Since 9/11," West wrote, "the whole nation has the blues, when before it was just black people."
Topic: Immigration radicals claim 'friend' in White House (Read 478 times)