People on the left have often appeared to excuse Muslim acts of terror saying things such as “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” At the same time, the left has seemingly become more anti-Israel and anti-American. It seems as if it is a contradiction that people on the left, who supposedly have gay rights, women’s rights, and separation of church and state as their core values, would so often side with a group that goes against all these main principles.
One of the areas where radical Muslims and the left have found common ground is in their hatred of western style culture -- America and Israel, in particular. In their view, America and Israel are the true evil in the world. Both groups speak of America and Israel in such a way as to create caricatures of exploitation and colonialism.
Radical Muslims refer to America as the Big Satan and to Israel as the Little Satan. Radical leftists spell America with a K or three Ks to illustrate its supposed racism. Both groups seem to enjoy burning American flags. The leftist dominated United Nations is quick to condemn Israel and Zionism, in particular, as racism but at the same time will appoint countries such as Syria to head groups on human rights! American intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky have been rabidly anti-American and anti-Israeli.
It is even worse in the case of education because an entirely new generation is trained in the illogical and self destructive hatred of America and Israel. Noam Chomsky teaches college kids that “The Arab-Islamic world has a long history of democracy. It's regularly crushed by western force”. Clearly kids in Chomsky’s classrooms don’t hear about the women who get stoned to death for adultery. Nor do they hear about the fate of a person who dares commit the horrible offense of changing his religion from Islam to Christianity.
Directly in the Muslim world, the indoctrination of children begins at younger ages and is more violent but the methods are essentially the same. Young children are not taught facts. They are shown maps of the Middle East where Israel doesn’t even exist – not in the present, past or future. Children are given textbooks claiming that some Jews were transformed into pigs and apes. They are told to read excerpts from the known forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which claims that Jewish people are intent on world domination. In some cases, young children are trained in suicide bombing!
Both of these radical groups want to create mindless foot soldiers who are ready to do battle on their behalf. The training of the foot soldiers begins at a young age -- But what of the battle itself? What are the plans and how is this battle to be fought?
One of the leftist heroes is community organizer Saul Alinsky. In ‘Rules for Radicals’, Alinsky laid out his battle plan. In comparing Alinsky’s rhetoric with that coming out of the radical Muslim world there are startling similarities. Both leftist and Muslim radicals rely on deception. Alinsky said “Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.” In the Koran it says “War is deception”.
Alinsky said "In the beginning the organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems." This is exactly what the left is doing today in the flotilla that is going to Gaza. Both the Muslims and the left know that Israel cannot let ships pass through uninspected to the Gaza strip because of past and current weapons smuggling. The people heading out on this flotilla are following Alinsky’s statement to the letter! In this case, acting in unison, both radical groups are forcing Israel into a public high profile action meant to make it look cruel and violent. By sending out the flotilla in this way, they put Israel in a no-win situation. This is exactly what Alinsky meant when he said “create the issues or problems”.
In the Koran, it says “The necessities justify the forbidden.” Alinsky said about means and ends:
“’Does the end justify the means?’ is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been, ‘Does this particular end justify this particular means?’”
The Koran forbids certain actions but allows for exceptions in cases where there is a perceived threat to Islam or where Muslim goals can be achieved. The fact that these exceptions are open to interpretation means that there is basically nothing forbidden in the Koran which is why radical Muslims can justify suicide bombers and the targeting of innocents. Alinsky said “In war, the end justifies almost any means”.
Both radical Islam and radical leftists use fear and intimidation to keep both their friends and their enemies in line. Alinsky said “It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.” He also said "Society has good reason to fear the Radical … He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous ... Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives." The Koran says “slay the Pagans wherever ye find them”, and "Fight those who believe not in Allah”.
The result of these policies of intimidation in the Muslim world is that those peaceful loving Muslims that we keep hearing so much about are never heard from. They have been intimidated into silence. Similarly, people in the western world have been intimidated into silence or at best, feeling they have to rationalize their views. While threats of death are the methods in the radical Muslim world, in the west the threat is more subtle. Out of control political correctness has caused people to become afraid to speak about common sense issues while the radical and the insane become more normalized.
Both radical Islam and radical leftists fear the power of the individual while glorifying death and martyrdom. Alinsky said “The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.” He also said “Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.” A Taliban spokesman said “There are thousands of youth who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to living.” Muslim children are taught to give their life for a greater power and rewards in heaven. Leftists are taught to give their lives for their utopian paradise.
Both radical Islam and radical leftists have contempt for the average person. They have contempt for both their enemies AND their friends. People are looked on as beings that need to be led, not as people who are capable of finding their own way. The Koran says “Believers! Do not ask questions about things which if made plain and declared to you, may vex you, causing you trouble." They are told to accept everything that is spoon-fed to them on faith and to not seek answers or to even ask questions!
Alinsky said about the average person: “Their lives have been 90 per cent unfulfilled dreams. To escape their frustration they grasp at a last hope that their children will get that college education and realize those unfulfilled dreams. They are a fearful people who feel threatened from all sides.” Alinsky also felt that a “target” was needed to inspire the emotion needed to get people organized. Radical Muslims have that target in Israel, America and the west. Leftists in the United States rely on class warfare and tend to pick out a ‘Darth Vader’ like embodiment of evil. Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Dick Cheney, Haliburton and Walmart (corporations are often cast as the ‘Darth Vader of the day’) have all been targeted for attack.
Alinsky said “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent… He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises”. In the case of Alinsky and the left, they have to tear down and discredit the free market in order to build something back in their own image. Therefore, their policies are destructive. In the case of radical Islam, in order to use the people’s dissatisfaction and discontent, they have to keep the Palestinians in a state of poverty in order to use them for propaganda value. The Arab and Muslim world could have easily absorbed Palestinian refugees but that would have taken away their most important leverage tool.
Radical Muslims and radical leftists have many differences but they also have a lot in common.
Showing posts with label Saul Alinsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saul Alinsky. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Common Sense And So Called Gay Marriage During Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Month
What is gay marriage? A marriage consists of a wife (the woman) and a husband (the man). Can one person be a wife one day and a husband the next day? Is it decided at the time of this marriage that one person will be always be the husband and the other the wife? Or are the concepts of husband and wife to be thrown away like so many other outdated and useless old concepts?
Two people of the same sex committing their lives to each other constitutes a friendship, not a marriage. People often ask why it has to be that way. If two people love each other why shouldn’t they have the right to get married? The fact is, if two people of the same sex want to have a ceremony and dedicate their lives to each other, they can call it a marriage and no one will come and knock on their doors to stop them. The United States is a tolerant country and Americans are a tolerant people who accept the fact that people are different.
But people want same sex marriage to be recognized by the law and this means that other people have to accept the idea that a man can marry a man or a woman can marry a woman which to most people, on the face of it, is ridiculous. There is a difference with identifying your own relationship as a marriage and forcing other people to abide by that classification.
Liberals on the left and libertarians on the right may ask why the government should be in the marriage business anyway? Andrew Napolitano of Fox news said government should not try to stand in the way of a marriage between two people. So in his mind, as long as a marriage is between two people, it doesn’t matter if they are of the same sex.
If that is the case, why does the definition of marriage have to stop at two people? In fact, in this day and age, when a husband and wife often both have to work, why not have a husband and two wives? Instead of sending kids to get day care by strangers or hiring a nanny, the kids can have two legitimate mothers. One mother can work and the other can take care of the children.
Changing the definition of marriage can be rationalized in many different ways. At some point, if it is to have any meaning, it has to have a definition. Every relationship between individuals does not constitute a marriage.
Some people look at same sex marriage as a civil rights issue. This is incorrect as well. There are no separate rules for straight people vs. gay people. Every man has the right to marry every woman and every woman has the right to marry every man. It is not as if one group has one set of rules and another group has a different set of rules. If a man doesn’t want to marry a woman, he doesn’t have to do so. No one in society is forced to get married.
That marriage exists between a man and a woman is a self evident truth that most people, whether they want to admit it or not, know instinctively to be true. All the rationalizations and twisting of logic and the calling of people who feel that same sex marriage is a ludicrous idea ‘Homophobes’ does not change this reality.
At the heart of the movement to legalize same sex marriage is something far more insidious than the idea that two people of the same sex should be allowed to get married. Same sex marriage is an attack on the institutions, traditions and stability of the country.
Aldous Huxley, in his forward to a “Brave New World” wrote the following:
“In a few years, marriage licenses will be sold like dog licenses, good for a period of twelve months, with no law against changing dogs or keeping more than one animal at a time. As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator … will do well to encourage that freedom … it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.”
In the classic novel “Brave New World”, history and traditions are wiped out. Classic works of literature are eliminated. The only thing that matters is stimulation of the senses where promiscuity is encouraged and rewarded. Thus this conversation from the book:
Lenina: “Somehow… I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately.”
Fanny: “But one’s got to make the effort … After all, every one belongs to every one else.”
We are constantly hearing from the left about how we need to think less of ourselves and sacrifice more for others. They never talk about the successful traditions of the past. They don’t talk about religion or God. The left seems to have an inherent hatred for all religious and time tested traditions. Gay marriage is their perfect vehicle to diminish these traditions.
For a dictatorship to thrive, all the traditions that came before must be discredited. One of the most important traditions in any civilized society is the idea of the family. By blurring the most basic, common sense idea – that marriage is between a man and a woman, you are opening up the door to making everything subjective. Some things ARE black or white with no gray in between.
Barack Obama mentor and left wing agitator/community organizer Saul Alinsky understood this all too well when he said: "An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.”
At some point people have to make a stand for reality and truth. Some things are so obvious that there is no rational argument to be made. The left has made people question their own gut instincts. A country is more than a group of people living within defined boundaries. A country is defined by ideas and values. When a dictator wants control of a country he must attack it at its foundation. Make a country mean nothing, make it stand for nothing, and there is nothing left to fight to preserve – nothing to stand in the way of the would-be dictator because nothing is left worth defending.
When you walk into a corporate building in the month of June, you are likely to see a sign that says the following:
“XYZ Company is proud to celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender month.”
Is XYZ Company proud to celebrate this or is it afraid NOT to celebrate it? At the risk of attracting the wrath of all the compassionate people out there, if you’re going to celebrate Transgender month, how about a celebration for schizophrenia? Where is the month celebrating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? How about signs in the corporate lobby saying “XYZ Company is proud to celebrate Bipolar Manic-depressive month”?
We have become a society of people that enjoy the thrill of a 3-D movie but can’t name any Supreme Court justices. We are a society of people that know all the contestants on American Idol but can’t name the current Vice President (of course many people who DO know who the Vice President is often wish they were part of the group that didn’t). In short, this is a society made up of people who have become gullible to the stimulus around them provided by the left. They have been told to be tolerant and non-judgmental. By the way, every time people use their brains they are being judgmental so when people tell you to stop being judgmental they are basically telling you to stop thinking. We are getting closer and closer to Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
Is same sex marriage an important enough issue to debate and legislate? Is it even worth writing about while so many really dangerous things are happening? People were asked to tolerate differences, and most agreed that it was the right thing to do. But toleration is not celebration.
The United States is a country of individual rights and individual responsibilities. Though many have tried to pervert what the framers of the constitution meant, their main idea was that human rights come from our Creator, not from other people. In other words, the founding of this country had a religious and moral beginning and it is that idea that has been the backbone of the country’s success. That success will not continue if we abandon those principles.
Two people of the same sex committing their lives to each other constitutes a friendship, not a marriage. People often ask why it has to be that way. If two people love each other why shouldn’t they have the right to get married? The fact is, if two people of the same sex want to have a ceremony and dedicate their lives to each other, they can call it a marriage and no one will come and knock on their doors to stop them. The United States is a tolerant country and Americans are a tolerant people who accept the fact that people are different.
But people want same sex marriage to be recognized by the law and this means that other people have to accept the idea that a man can marry a man or a woman can marry a woman which to most people, on the face of it, is ridiculous. There is a difference with identifying your own relationship as a marriage and forcing other people to abide by that classification.
Liberals on the left and libertarians on the right may ask why the government should be in the marriage business anyway? Andrew Napolitano of Fox news said government should not try to stand in the way of a marriage between two people. So in his mind, as long as a marriage is between two people, it doesn’t matter if they are of the same sex.
If that is the case, why does the definition of marriage have to stop at two people? In fact, in this day and age, when a husband and wife often both have to work, why not have a husband and two wives? Instead of sending kids to get day care by strangers or hiring a nanny, the kids can have two legitimate mothers. One mother can work and the other can take care of the children.
Changing the definition of marriage can be rationalized in many different ways. At some point, if it is to have any meaning, it has to have a definition. Every relationship between individuals does not constitute a marriage.
Some people look at same sex marriage as a civil rights issue. This is incorrect as well. There are no separate rules for straight people vs. gay people. Every man has the right to marry every woman and every woman has the right to marry every man. It is not as if one group has one set of rules and another group has a different set of rules. If a man doesn’t want to marry a woman, he doesn’t have to do so. No one in society is forced to get married.
That marriage exists between a man and a woman is a self evident truth that most people, whether they want to admit it or not, know instinctively to be true. All the rationalizations and twisting of logic and the calling of people who feel that same sex marriage is a ludicrous idea ‘Homophobes’ does not change this reality.
At the heart of the movement to legalize same sex marriage is something far more insidious than the idea that two people of the same sex should be allowed to get married. Same sex marriage is an attack on the institutions, traditions and stability of the country.
Aldous Huxley, in his forward to a “Brave New World” wrote the following:
“In a few years, marriage licenses will be sold like dog licenses, good for a period of twelve months, with no law against changing dogs or keeping more than one animal at a time. As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator … will do well to encourage that freedom … it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.”
In the classic novel “Brave New World”, history and traditions are wiped out. Classic works of literature are eliminated. The only thing that matters is stimulation of the senses where promiscuity is encouraged and rewarded. Thus this conversation from the book:
Lenina: “Somehow… I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately.”
Fanny: “But one’s got to make the effort … After all, every one belongs to every one else.”
We are constantly hearing from the left about how we need to think less of ourselves and sacrifice more for others. They never talk about the successful traditions of the past. They don’t talk about religion or God. The left seems to have an inherent hatred for all religious and time tested traditions. Gay marriage is their perfect vehicle to diminish these traditions.
For a dictatorship to thrive, all the traditions that came before must be discredited. One of the most important traditions in any civilized society is the idea of the family. By blurring the most basic, common sense idea – that marriage is between a man and a woman, you are opening up the door to making everything subjective. Some things ARE black or white with no gray in between.
Barack Obama mentor and left wing agitator/community organizer Saul Alinsky understood this all too well when he said: "An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.”
At some point people have to make a stand for reality and truth. Some things are so obvious that there is no rational argument to be made. The left has made people question their own gut instincts. A country is more than a group of people living within defined boundaries. A country is defined by ideas and values. When a dictator wants control of a country he must attack it at its foundation. Make a country mean nothing, make it stand for nothing, and there is nothing left to fight to preserve – nothing to stand in the way of the would-be dictator because nothing is left worth defending.
When you walk into a corporate building in the month of June, you are likely to see a sign that says the following:
“XYZ Company is proud to celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender month.”
Is XYZ Company proud to celebrate this or is it afraid NOT to celebrate it? At the risk of attracting the wrath of all the compassionate people out there, if you’re going to celebrate Transgender month, how about a celebration for schizophrenia? Where is the month celebrating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? How about signs in the corporate lobby saying “XYZ Company is proud to celebrate Bipolar Manic-depressive month”?
We have become a society of people that enjoy the thrill of a 3-D movie but can’t name any Supreme Court justices. We are a society of people that know all the contestants on American Idol but can’t name the current Vice President (of course many people who DO know who the Vice President is often wish they were part of the group that didn’t). In short, this is a society made up of people who have become gullible to the stimulus around them provided by the left. They have been told to be tolerant and non-judgmental. By the way, every time people use their brains they are being judgmental so when people tell you to stop being judgmental they are basically telling you to stop thinking. We are getting closer and closer to Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
Is same sex marriage an important enough issue to debate and legislate? Is it even worth writing about while so many really dangerous things are happening? People were asked to tolerate differences, and most agreed that it was the right thing to do. But toleration is not celebration.
The United States is a country of individual rights and individual responsibilities. Though many have tried to pervert what the framers of the constitution meant, their main idea was that human rights come from our Creator, not from other people. In other words, the founding of this country had a religious and moral beginning and it is that idea that has been the backbone of the country’s success. That success will not continue if we abandon those principles.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Neocons, Teabaggers and Chickenhawks - The Methods of Saul Alinsky and the Demonization of Political Opponents
Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” was published in 1971. Its methods have become synonymous with leftist political strategy. Even people who never read the book have been so ingrained by the techniques outlined within its pages that they use its methods without realizing it. Both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are admirers of Saul Alinsky.
A 21 year old Hillary Rodham was offered a job with the Alinsky Community Organizing group and later wrote her thesis on Alinsky. Obama’s early community organizing started when he was 24 years old in the Alinsky groups “Developing Communities Project (DCP)” and the “Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC)”.
In the first chapter of “Rules For Radicals” called “The Purpose”, Alinsky writes:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Who is supposed to have power in the United States? According to the Constitution, the people hold power and are governed by their consent. The government must answer to the people, not the people to the government. So who, exactly, does Alinsky want to take power from and who is supposed to get this power? This idea of “holding power” is always couched in terms such as the “Have-Nots” or the “Poor” but in reality it seeks to fundamentally change the government of the United States.
In speaking about the Constitution, Barack Obama said “It says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.” It would be easy to say that Obama lacks an understanding of the constitution but he probably understands it all too well. Trained in Alinsky tactics, Obama wants to change the power structure and will use the structure (the constitution and free markets) only insofar as it can be used to achieve his ends.
Alinsky said “All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.” So it is not just about creating new ideas, it is about discrediting the ones already in place, as Obama does when he criticizes the constitution. When people refer to the constitution as a “Living Document” they make the constitution “pliable”. A “pliable” constitution is easier to bend to the desires of those who wish to remodel it in such a way that the original intent is unrecognizable.
Ironically, according to Alinsky, it is the very idea of being a “radical” or a dangerous “enemy” to the status quo that gives the community organizer his credibility. Alinsky said that the “establishment” must fear the organizer and label him as “DANGEROUS”:
“for in that one word the establishment reveals its fear of the organizer, its fear that he represents a threat to its omnipotence. Now the organizer has his ‘birth certificate’ and can begin.”
And you silly people thought Obama didn’t have a birth certificate!
Alinsky understood that in order to gather a following, the organizer needed to inspire confidence to a core group. While Obama fights charges that he is not a radical and tries to minimize his associations with people such as Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, he revels in it at the same time, giving a nod and a wink to those who openly or secretly adhere to the same agenda. He also has the added benefit of ridiculing those who point out these things as being out of touch or conspiracy mongers.
In the chapter “Of Means and Ends”, Alinsky utters his “Rules of Ethics”. In the eleventh rule of ethics he states “goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, “Of the Common Welfare”. It’s easy to see his influence in current mindless clichés such as ‘the rich get richer while the poor get poorer’. Mostly in this chapter, Alinsky justifies any means if it leads to the desired end. He points out that morality is flexible, depending upon the time of occurrence, who commits a particular act, and how the act is sold or marketed. It is a war mentality, as he states in his third rule of ethics, “in war the end justifies any means”. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear Rahm Emanuel’s voice saying “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
Alinsky’s “power tactics” can be seen in almost everything the left does. For example, the fourth tactic is “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules”. Conservatives always moan about double standards. The reason that there are double standards is because conservatives have standards. It is impossible to always live up to high standards but the admirable part about having high standards is to try. Failing is not a crime but in the view of the left and of Alinsky, it is an opportunity. Therefore, if Bill Clinton has affairs or is accused of sexual harassment, it is a personal matter since he never had any standards to begin with, but a conservative such as Clarence Thomas is expected to walk on water or be viewed as a hypocrite.
The fifth rule states “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Alinsky goes on to say “It is almost impossible to counter attack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition who then react to your advantage.” When the Tea Party rose to prominence in response to Obama’s radical agenda, the left came up with terms such as “tea bagger”. They thought themselves very clever in their use of that vulgar term. They have also shown fondness for the term “Neo-con”, giggling like 10 year old children when using that witty phrase. They use terms such as “Chicken Hawks” if a person who never served in the military should dare say that maybe military use is needed in a certain situation.
The thirteenth rule is “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The left constantly looks for the latest “boogeyman/boogeywoman”. The viciousness of the attacks on Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and many others all fall into this category. In this tactic, the left doesn’t seek to find truth -- They seek to create a living caricature of evil, incompetence and cruelty and they don’t care how cruel they are in slandering people who have families and loved ones as long as it serves the purpose of mitigating an effective voice of the right.
The dirty little secret about Alinsky and his approach to “change” is that he has contempt for the average person. In the thirteenth rule above, for example, Alinsky explains that a person or “target” is needed because it is difficult to get people organized and excited about a concept or policy. It’s almost as if he views people as children, who need a cartoon character to understand his point.
In fact, Alinsky says about average people:
“Their lives have been 90 per cent unfulfilled dreams. To escape their frustration they grasp at a last hope that their children will get that college education and realize those unfulfilled dreams. They are a fearful people who feel threatened from all sides.”
Alinsky shows his contempt for his own followers. When reading his book, you get a sense that he is out to manipulate people, not to inspire them.
Yet Alinsky does understand the need to inspire. His form of inspiration, however, does not appeal to the best in people, it appeals to their worst – their fears, their envy and their jealousies. It is inspiration by trickery. In order to inspire by trickery, a good salesperson is needed. Along comes Barack Obama and he is perfect for the job. In the chapter titled “Communication”, Alinsky states:
“the organizer will have a pretty good idea about what the community should be doing, and he will want to suggest, maneuver, and persuade the community toward that action. He will never seem to tell the community what to do. Instead he will use loaded questions. If possible, he will get someone in the audience to faint in order to accentuate his point.”
OK, I made the last one up but certainly Obama is Alinsky’s ideal communicator.
The founders of the United States didn’t base the constitution on trickery or manipulation. They created an idea that has survived and prospered based on the concept that people do not owe their existence to others and that they are responsible for their own happiness and well being. Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky is a recipe for agitation, not for prosperity and certainly not for morality. Anyone in a position of power who follows the teaching of Alinsky is someone who should not be in a position of power.
A 21 year old Hillary Rodham was offered a job with the Alinsky Community Organizing group and later wrote her thesis on Alinsky. Obama’s early community organizing started when he was 24 years old in the Alinsky groups “Developing Communities Project (DCP)” and the “Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC)”.
In the first chapter of “Rules For Radicals” called “The Purpose”, Alinsky writes:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Who is supposed to have power in the United States? According to the Constitution, the people hold power and are governed by their consent. The government must answer to the people, not the people to the government. So who, exactly, does Alinsky want to take power from and who is supposed to get this power? This idea of “holding power” is always couched in terms such as the “Have-Nots” or the “Poor” but in reality it seeks to fundamentally change the government of the United States.
In speaking about the Constitution, Barack Obama said “It says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.” It would be easy to say that Obama lacks an understanding of the constitution but he probably understands it all too well. Trained in Alinsky tactics, Obama wants to change the power structure and will use the structure (the constitution and free markets) only insofar as it can be used to achieve his ends.
Alinsky said “All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.” So it is not just about creating new ideas, it is about discrediting the ones already in place, as Obama does when he criticizes the constitution. When people refer to the constitution as a “Living Document” they make the constitution “pliable”. A “pliable” constitution is easier to bend to the desires of those who wish to remodel it in such a way that the original intent is unrecognizable.
Ironically, according to Alinsky, it is the very idea of being a “radical” or a dangerous “enemy” to the status quo that gives the community organizer his credibility. Alinsky said that the “establishment” must fear the organizer and label him as “DANGEROUS”:
“for in that one word the establishment reveals its fear of the organizer, its fear that he represents a threat to its omnipotence. Now the organizer has his ‘birth certificate’ and can begin.”
And you silly people thought Obama didn’t have a birth certificate!
Alinsky understood that in order to gather a following, the organizer needed to inspire confidence to a core group. While Obama fights charges that he is not a radical and tries to minimize his associations with people such as Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, he revels in it at the same time, giving a nod and a wink to those who openly or secretly adhere to the same agenda. He also has the added benefit of ridiculing those who point out these things as being out of touch or conspiracy mongers.
In the chapter “Of Means and Ends”, Alinsky utters his “Rules of Ethics”. In the eleventh rule of ethics he states “goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, “Of the Common Welfare”. It’s easy to see his influence in current mindless clichés such as ‘the rich get richer while the poor get poorer’. Mostly in this chapter, Alinsky justifies any means if it leads to the desired end. He points out that morality is flexible, depending upon the time of occurrence, who commits a particular act, and how the act is sold or marketed. It is a war mentality, as he states in his third rule of ethics, “in war the end justifies any means”. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear Rahm Emanuel’s voice saying “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
Alinsky’s “power tactics” can be seen in almost everything the left does. For example, the fourth tactic is “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules”. Conservatives always moan about double standards. The reason that there are double standards is because conservatives have standards. It is impossible to always live up to high standards but the admirable part about having high standards is to try. Failing is not a crime but in the view of the left and of Alinsky, it is an opportunity. Therefore, if Bill Clinton has affairs or is accused of sexual harassment, it is a personal matter since he never had any standards to begin with, but a conservative such as Clarence Thomas is expected to walk on water or be viewed as a hypocrite.
The fifth rule states “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Alinsky goes on to say “It is almost impossible to counter attack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition who then react to your advantage.” When the Tea Party rose to prominence in response to Obama’s radical agenda, the left came up with terms such as “tea bagger”. They thought themselves very clever in their use of that vulgar term. They have also shown fondness for the term “Neo-con”, giggling like 10 year old children when using that witty phrase. They use terms such as “Chicken Hawks” if a person who never served in the military should dare say that maybe military use is needed in a certain situation.
The thirteenth rule is “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The left constantly looks for the latest “boogeyman/boogeywoman”. The viciousness of the attacks on Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and many others all fall into this category. In this tactic, the left doesn’t seek to find truth -- They seek to create a living caricature of evil, incompetence and cruelty and they don’t care how cruel they are in slandering people who have families and loved ones as long as it serves the purpose of mitigating an effective voice of the right.
The dirty little secret about Alinsky and his approach to “change” is that he has contempt for the average person. In the thirteenth rule above, for example, Alinsky explains that a person or “target” is needed because it is difficult to get people organized and excited about a concept or policy. It’s almost as if he views people as children, who need a cartoon character to understand his point.
In fact, Alinsky says about average people:
“Their lives have been 90 per cent unfulfilled dreams. To escape their frustration they grasp at a last hope that their children will get that college education and realize those unfulfilled dreams. They are a fearful people who feel threatened from all sides.”
Alinsky shows his contempt for his own followers. When reading his book, you get a sense that he is out to manipulate people, not to inspire them.
Yet Alinsky does understand the need to inspire. His form of inspiration, however, does not appeal to the best in people, it appeals to their worst – their fears, their envy and their jealousies. It is inspiration by trickery. In order to inspire by trickery, a good salesperson is needed. Along comes Barack Obama and he is perfect for the job. In the chapter titled “Communication”, Alinsky states:
“the organizer will have a pretty good idea about what the community should be doing, and he will want to suggest, maneuver, and persuade the community toward that action. He will never seem to tell the community what to do. Instead he will use loaded questions. If possible, he will get someone in the audience to faint in order to accentuate his point.”
OK, I made the last one up but certainly Obama is Alinsky’s ideal communicator.
The founders of the United States didn’t base the constitution on trickery or manipulation. They created an idea that has survived and prospered based on the concept that people do not owe their existence to others and that they are responsible for their own happiness and well being. Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky is a recipe for agitation, not for prosperity and certainly not for morality. Anyone in a position of power who follows the teaching of Alinsky is someone who should not be in a position of power.
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