Harry C. Alford, co-founder and president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, created a national sensation during a February 25 interview (see video below) in which he accused President Barack Obama of acting like former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and said the president’s executive orders are “tyrannical” and a violation of the Constitution. Moreover, he added, Obama’s economic policies are “borderline communist.” The video went viral after being posted on a number of sites on March 1.
Alford expanded on those remarks in subsequent interviews, including an interview on March 4 with Andrea Tantaros of Fox News and pjmedia.com (see video below), in which he charged that President Obama “wants government in everything and anything.”
“He made a fool out of me — and a lot of other people.”
Alford said he now regrets supporting Obama’s presidential bid in 2008. He allowed himself to be swept up with the candidate’s rhetoric of hope, the media hype, and racial solidarity. “He made a fool out of me — and a lot of other people,” says Alford.
In the impromptu February 25 video that went viral, Alford responded to a question about President Obama’s increasing tendency to circumvent Congress and legislate by executive orders. “An executive order cannot trump the Constitution!” Alford responded emphatically. “Now, if he thinks he’s Joe Stalin or somebody, let him try, but an executive order doesn’t trump the Constitution! I mean, this guy’s tyrannical, don’t you think?”
When asked about Obama’s performance and policies concerning the economy, Alford didn’t hold back. He said:
He doesn’t have a clue. He’s never had a business. He’s never had a real job. He doesn’t understand how it all works…. He’s bad, he’s bad. And I supported him the first time around because I had hopes, because he’s black. Shame on me!
The interviewer then asked him why he supported Obama in 2008 after he had already tipped his hand regarding his socialist leaning with his “redistributing the wealth” comments to Joe the Plumber. Alford replied:
I kind of ignored it. I said, well, maybe he’s just talking. [But] he was serious, real serious. And it is truly — if you read the Communist Manifesto, that’s that philosophy. He’s not Adam Smith. He does not believe in capitalism the way our Founding Fathers did. He’s very social — and it’s getting borderline communist.
In his March 4 interview, Andrea Tantaros asked him to explain how he, a highly educated, successful businessman had been so completely fooled by Obama. “The guy is a shrewd politician with a good ground game and shrewd team,” he said, paying homage to Obama’s political skills. But then he confessed to having succumbed to what he said was the “tribal” instinct:
[It was] the timing, the aura of history, that America could have a black president. From slavery to Jim Crow to now we can hold the highest office in the land. People had to do it — they went for it, including myself. I saw a black president, and that’s wrong.
“He wants government in anything and everything”
Tantaros mentioned Obama’s own favorable references to socialism in his autobiography and asked Alford what he thinks Barack Obama believes in. He responded:
He believes in government controlling the lives of the people in that country — namely the United States. He wants government in anything and everything. He wants it in your health insurance. He wants it in your job. He wants it in your lifestyle, your culture. He wants to take away your guns, which is a constitutionally protected right. He doesn’t care about a budget. I’ve never known a president who didn’t care about a budget. How do you run the richest country in the world without a budget? You can’t even run a shoe shine stand without a budget.
Tantaros then asked Alford if he believes that Obama’s socialist direction is really due to being clueless and ignorant, or does Obama truly have ulterior motives and realize full well where he is taking us. Alford responded:
He’s got some plans he won’t discuss. He wants to take us some place we’ve never been before, and it’s a place we shouldn’t go. He’s scary.
Alford said Obama is enthralled with the socialist countries of Europe and wants to remake us in their image, to make us more like France, pointing out that the president is a disciple of Marxist revolutionary Saul Alinsky.
Have his daring and outspoken challenges to the Obama administration caused Alford any backlash from his NBCC members? On the contrary, he says his members are supportive and the NBCC is growing. “When people get scared, they go to church,” he said. “When business get scared, they join the Chamber.” And Obama’s policies are causing all businesses, including black-owned businesses, to get very scared.
Alford is not the only nationally prominent black leader to break ranks recently and publicly criticize the direction President Obama’s leadership is taking our country. As we reported, President Obama received an unexpected earful at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 7. The keynote speaker was Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University’s Children’s Center and the founder of the Carson Scholars Fund scholarship program for disadvantaged and at-risk kids. He is also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award. Dr. Carson, who is black, pointedly criticized ObamaCare’s imposition of government between doctor and patient, and denounced the political correctness “bullies” that are trying to stifle genuine debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMS3NH8VMIU
Photo of President Barack Obama: AP Images
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