Lost 1995 Obama interview surfaces: the young 'civil rights lawyer' predicted the economic fall of America and--wait for it--decried racial politics

In 1995, The Crisis magazine interviewed Barack Obama for a two-page feature article on growing up as a mixed-race American.

The magazine was founded by the legendary W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP. In the nineties, it focused on civil rights and politics as it approached a century of publication.

In 1995, author Eric Clark interviewed the young Obama, who was labeled an author (he had just published Dreams from my Father) and a civil-rights lawyer. He had recently achieved some notoriety through his election to the post of President of Harvard Law Review.

CRISIS: Having lived abroad, in Indonesia, how do you think that helped shape your views on race?

OBAMA: It made me realize that racism was an extension of other abuses of power. Living there you learned people can find excuses other than race to oppress each other.

CRISIS: Will race relations get better?

OBAMA: Not in the short term. We're moving out of a period of American preeminence on the world economic stage. Global competition means increasing economic uncertainty for the majority of Americans, black and white. Unfortunately, politicians in this country find it convenient to define these problems in racial terms -- affirmative action, immigration and so on. It's always easier to organize people around tribe than around principle.

The entire interview can be read below (click to enlarge or here to view the original).


It's clear that Barack Obama has never believed in American exceptionalism. Consider his prediction that the American economy would soon be superseded by other countries. That belief betrays Obama's fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

Economics is not a zero-sum game. America has, within the last two centuries, raised the world out of the miasma of colonial technology into an era powered by computers, medical miracles and instantaneous global communications. America represents the most magnificent society ever seen on the planet, not because it's stealing food out of the mouths of the poor, but because it provides the most opportunities. And that structure is facilitated by the Constitution, despite its recent perversions and breaches by the Statist Democrats.

As for racial divisiveness, his statement that, "politicians in this country find it convenient to define these problems in racial terms" rings hollow.

You mean racial terms like this?

Just days ago, President Obama appeared in a "Vote 2010" video, distributed by his political action wing Organizing for America, which serves as a stark appeal to blacks and Latinos -- specifically -- for their votes in November.

This 1995 interview reinforces a couple of simple truths: Barack Obama has always been an economic illiterate as well as a hypocrite. The combination is dangerous.

Vote accordingly in 2010.