John C. Drew

Trish and I were honored to attend the southern California premier of Trevor Loudon’s new movie, The Enemies Within at a special event hosted by the American Freedom Alliance on October 16, 2016 in Van Nuys, CA. This movie is the result of Louden’s long-career of carefully collecting available information regarding the ties that public officials in the U.S. have to the Communist party, Communist front groups, Jihadist hate groups, and nefarious institutions who oppose the Constitution and our way of life.

I think it always comes as a shock to people with little interest in politics and government (which, I suppose, is most of us) to realize that there are those among us who really do not care for the United States of America, wish it ill, and are eager to see it replaced by some larger, international world order run by efficient, hopefully benevolent bureaucrats. Even worse, many of the people who see the United States as an evil, exploitative, and dangerous country are happily serving at the highest levels of the federal government including my old friend and acquaintance, President Barack Obama.

I was quite honored to be among those who were selected by Loudon to share their testimony. As he informed me, I am the only one in the nation willing to verify that the young Barack Obama was looking forward to a Communist-style, potentially violent revolution. Although my recollections represent only a very tiny part of the puzzle, they have been featured in a number of prominent books including Glenn Beck’s Liars (2016), Jack Cashill’s Deconstructing Obama (2011), Stanley Kurtz’ Radical-In-Chief (2010), Paul Kengor’s Dupes (2010) and The Communist (2012), and Michael Savages’ Trickle Up Poverty (2010).

For my part, I shared my story regarding but it was like to be a young man, committed to Marxist philosophy, who was not so secretly rooting for the victory of the U.S.S.R. and China at the height of the Cold War. My story, I suppose, would not be in the slightest bit spectacular or interesting except for the fact that the young Barack Obama was among my circle of friends between 1980 and 1981. While he was attending Occidental College in Los Angeles, I got to know him closely enough to identify him as a fervent supporter of a Communist-style revolution in the United States. I share this story in the movie. You can read it yourself in the first article I published on this topic in American Thinker, by clicking here.

What is most chilling to me, however, is that Loudon caught me in an off-hand moment talking about my attitude toward mass murder back when I was both an atheist and practicing Marxist intellectual. At a time when down-to-earth people are quick to criticize religious fanatics, I think too many of us underestimate the danger posed by Marxist atheists who can become a physical threat to others because of their potentially lethal mix of secular humanism, Utopian ideology and loose moral strictures. As I admitted during the filming of my interview, I can barely stand the thought of harming a fly – I would rather do a catch and release than kill it – and yet nothing in my consciousness would have prevented me from participating in mass murder as long as it was for the sake of the children or the common good.

The first time I saw myself on a movie screen sharing my earlier Marxist atheist views, I scared myself. I recognized my potential for great evil, cloaked in a matter-of-fact utilitarianism.

As an ex-Communist, I recognize I was enveloped in an exceedingly dangerous and dysfunctional ideology, a tempting perspective which has – in real life – lead to nothing but misery for those who implement it. The all encompassing, consuming nature of my Marxist idealism was so great that I remember the exact time and place when I realized I was no longer a Marxist or a Communist; I was walking down the hallway beneath McGraw Hall at Cornell University in September of 1983, after a bizarre argument with my out-of-touch, Marxist-friendly thesis adviser.

My conversion story was the result of my own exposure to Christian mysticism (largely the Quakers) and my own research into the causes of poverty and the origins of the American welfare state.

For my part, I can vouch for Trevor Loudon’s extraordinarily detailed scholarship and commitment to the truth. He got my story right. I can also report that the movie has dramatically improved since I first saw the rough cuts. It is a high-quality, professional, hour and a half production which has benefited from tight editing, striking graphics, stirring music and convincing sound effects.

I think The Enemies Within is a movie that is well-worth seeing on your own or with friends and family. I urge you to purchase it now, prior to election day, at Trevor Loudon’s movie website by clicking on this link.