TO be a Closet Liberal vs a Reluctant Conservative Is NOT BEING CONSERVATIVE....
Socially Liberal, Fiscal Conservative is a PUSH....
December 27, 2015
Paging Melville's Ghost: The Top Swindle of 2015
Herman Melville's Confidence-Man is
a classic novel about serial swindles by sundry charlatans on a
Mississippi riverboat (complete with scenes that take place in Rush
Limbaugh's hometown of Cape Girardeau).
Now's the time to reread Melville. This was the Year of the Swindle. Melville's Confidence-Man depicts all the chicanery of cultural and political discourse in the U.S. today. Consider the money quotes from Melville's book alongside the biggest con games played this year. (Spoiler – it's not Trump.)
Show Us Your Good Side So We Can Screw You Over
'who in thunder are you?' 'A cosmopolitan, a catholic man; who, being such, ties himself to no narrow tailor or teacher, but federates, in heart as in costumes, something of the various gallantries of men under various suns.' (pg. 177)
Think of the middle-American everyman, someone with strong moral values but struggling. Let's call him John. He wants his country to be moral and God-fearing, but he also might need a helping hand from the government despite all his efforts to take care of his family without asking for handouts. He's the one person nobody cares about in politics. Democrats think he's a homophobic bigot, and Republicans don't consider him a "job creator."
Think of how much John got screwed this year. On New Year's Day, the suicide of Leelah Alcorn roused Dan Savage out of his slimy lair and energized a movement to help youths with gender identity issues. John doesn't want teenage boys who want to be girls to throw themselves under trucks, so John supported trans politics in theory. Then by the end of the year, John saw Bruce Jenner in a Betty Grable dancing suit on Vanity Fair, invading every corner of the media world until nobody had a choice but to applaud "Caitlyn" or be publicly admonished and shamed.
Then came a rash of legal actions like Houston's HERO bill, forcing cities to allow transgender people into the bathrooms of the opposite sex, and even threatening to fine school districts that would not allow male adolescents unfettered access to naked girls in changing rooms.
It's not just trans issues. Whether it was immigration, Islamophobia, gay marriage, campus rape, racial diversity, or the environment, a similar pattern played out ad nauseam in 2015. John reacts with compassion and concern when he sees suffering. He trusted authorities who told him:
[1] If he stands behind amnesty for immigrants, he won't see any negative consequences, and instead, he'll be helping needy refugees like a good Christian.
[2] If he looks past alarming stories about Islamic terrorism and shows tolerance to Muslims, no harm will come to society.
[3] If he salutes gay marriage, the tumult gay debates caused will subside, and gay people will find happiness on their own without making personal demands on John.
[4] If he rallies behind efforts to combat sexual assault on college campuses, he can trust the authorities to use expanded investigative powers and streamlined due process without abusing their position and persecuting innocent people.
[5] If he acknowledges that black lives matter and racism is wrong, he will contribute to good-faith efforts to heal his country from past injustices and will see an increase in harmony and goodwill among races rather than strife and turmoil.
[6] If he cares about good stewardship of the natural world God has given man, he can trust authorities to pursue anti-pollution policies.
John trusts people. And it's exactly people like John whom con men target, as happened in 2015.
'whether I flatter myself that I can in any way dupe you, or impose upon you, or pass myself off upon you for what I am not, I, as an honest man, answer that I have neither the inclination nor the power to do aught of the kind.' (pg. 148)
John saw lawless drifters and traffickers stream across the border and feed a burgeoning under-the-table employment system.
John watched as Muslim communities responded to goodwill from their neighbors by fostering hateful rhetoric and sheltering cold-blooded killers who wrought terror on Texas, California, and other states.
John discovered that gays had no intention of quietly withdrawing from debates after winning "marriage equality," and in fact gays have gone wild filing complaints against John's friends, suing the cities and schools in John's area, and overwhelming all of John's favorite TV stations and cinemas with filth that becomes ever more pornographic yet ever more boring.
John sees that the colleges around him are charging higher tuitions. Colleges are concentrating less on studies and more on controlling young people's sexuality and erecting a shadow police state with gender equality investigators who restrict free speech and due process.
The more John supports racial equality, the more aggressive the people of color around him become and the more stressful the stories about mass protests in inner cities and on campuses turn.
Lastly, John finds that those who combat pollution waste much of their funding on global projects with questionable evidence and vague, unquantifiable goals.
'The pick-pocket, too, loves to have his fellow-creatures round him.' (pg. 183)
John got swindled. If he decides to say to Hell with everyone and vote for Trump, I can't blame him. (I wish he'd vote for Cruz, but by now John probably won't trust anyone in government on anything.)
The rise of Trump has intrigued many people not so much because he reveals anything about the left, but rather because of what he reveals about the sense of betrayal people like John feel about the promises made by the Republican Party.
'As for Intelligence Offices, I've lived in the East, and know 'em. Swindling concerns kept by low-born cynics, under a fawning exterior wreaking their cynic malice upon mankind.' (pg. 153)
How many times have we been told to trust the "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" crowd? The story goes like this: the future of the movement lies in the natural constituents of Reason magazine, the mythical hordes of young people who admire Mary Cheney and want free-market economic policies without church ladies telling them what to do.
A few conservatives in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Washington control the right-wing media. It seems that every week this cadre unveils another aerobically cross-trained, elite-educated, and telegenic spokesperson, describing the optimistic future that ostensibly awaits us if only we could stop caring about traditional family structures, chastity, and the sanctity of life.
If it isn't S.E. Cupp nagging us to support gay adoption, it's another well-groomed editor spryly coming out as gay. Soon stories that sound too churchy get spiked all over town.
'To the devil with your principles! Bad sign when a man begins to talk of his principles.' (pg. 152)
We're supposed to trust the direction they want to take conservatism, because they are, to quote Taylor Swift, "livin' in a big ol' city," and all we'll ever be is "mean." The message is the same: If you fake it, victory will come. Just pretend you are okay with sodomy and abortion, and this time it will work; all those fiscally-conservative-but-socially-liberal people who've been holding out will rush into the arms of the conservative movement, and singing angels will descend from the heavens.
Perhaps nobody embodied this call for trust, and won our trust, more than Paul Ryan. And we all saw how that budget bill turned out – the biggest "achievement" in his early months as the supposed "Tea Party favorite" speaker of the House. It turns out that conservatives who will cut family activists loose on an issue like gay adoption find it easy and natural to betray fiscal and social conservatives in one swoop. The swindlers who sell us libertarianism by vowing we can get ahead by not offending feminists or gays…end up not wanting to offend poor people, social justice warriors, or anybody who likes government benefits. Which means the fiscal right ends up under the same bus that ran over the social right. Even if those libertarians are "livin' in a big ol' city," all they'll ever be is mean, too.
'I have confidence in nature? I? I say again there is nothing I am more suspicious of.' (pg. 142).
Young people who cry out for gay marriage also want free cell phones. They want to buy iPods instead of making payments to Fannie Mae. Pro-choice and pro-gay marriage positions win purveyors social approval with no sacrifice. People who want a quick fix of political chic by jumping on such bandwagons are rarely going to switch gears when it comes to "small government" to endorse a classical Republican model of low taxes and reduced entitlements.
They want high taxes on other people and heightened entitlements for themselves. This deflection of concern and sacrifice coupled with a need for easy social standing is largely why they don't care about the unborn, God's commandments against sin, or the right of children to a mother and father.
'That's your Confession of Faith is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray, which do you think are most, knaves or fools?' (pg. 142)
Conservatives who want to lose big should keep channeling Paul Ryan and follow advice from pretty faces like Stacey Dash.
During my years as a pro-family activist, the vastness of the socially conservative, and especially Christian, population really surprised me. Many of them, though, are poor and distrust corporate elites. This "fiscally liberal but socially conservative" set composes the bulk of the Republican constituency but constantly gets sacrificed.
When my travails at Cal State Northridge blew up, for instance, four different petitions were started by other people who supported me: the liberal Change.org, and the conservative ActRight, CitizenGo, and LifeSiteNews. A total of 12,738 signatures were collected from people calling on Cal State University to drop its charges of anti-gay "retaliation" against me over a conference I organized at the Reagan Library.
My case at Northridge gave me a glimpse into what was really going on. I was on blacklists by both GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. A clique of activists including New York City professor Claire Potter had sought for years to make trouble for me at my job. Yet despite their influence with elites, their constituents never materialized. No groundswell of petitioners came forward supporting the Title IX investigator against me, and even liberal outlets like Huffington Post and Daily Sundial ended up implicitly favoring me.
Con games depend on illusions and bluffs. It is an illusion that free-market social liberals have a mass of people who agree with them. The election of 2016 will be, I think, a time of falling masks and bluffs being called. When alerted to the ruses and deceits to which they've been subjected, people like John may feel exhilarated and empowered, or consumed with blind, destructive rage. Trump is not the problem or even a symptom. He's just the whistleblower on a sinking steamboat. I wish Melville could rise from the grave and advise us what we should do next.
Robert Oscar Lopez authored a book based loosely on Melville adaptations, called Melville Affair (warning: contains vulgarity). He can be followed on Twitter at @baptist4freedom, at English Manif, or on Soundcloud.
Melville, Herman. The Confidence-Man. 1857. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Now's the time to reread Melville. This was the Year of the Swindle. Melville's Confidence-Man depicts all the chicanery of cultural and political discourse in the U.S. today. Consider the money quotes from Melville's book alongside the biggest con games played this year. (Spoiler – it's not Trump.)
Show Us Your Good Side So We Can Screw You Over
'who in thunder are you?' 'A cosmopolitan, a catholic man; who, being such, ties himself to no narrow tailor or teacher, but federates, in heart as in costumes, something of the various gallantries of men under various suns.' (pg. 177)
Think of the middle-American everyman, someone with strong moral values but struggling. Let's call him John. He wants his country to be moral and God-fearing, but he also might need a helping hand from the government despite all his efforts to take care of his family without asking for handouts. He's the one person nobody cares about in politics. Democrats think he's a homophobic bigot, and Republicans don't consider him a "job creator."
Think of how much John got screwed this year. On New Year's Day, the suicide of Leelah Alcorn roused Dan Savage out of his slimy lair and energized a movement to help youths with gender identity issues. John doesn't want teenage boys who want to be girls to throw themselves under trucks, so John supported trans politics in theory. Then by the end of the year, John saw Bruce Jenner in a Betty Grable dancing suit on Vanity Fair, invading every corner of the media world until nobody had a choice but to applaud "Caitlyn" or be publicly admonished and shamed.
Then came a rash of legal actions like Houston's HERO bill, forcing cities to allow transgender people into the bathrooms of the opposite sex, and even threatening to fine school districts that would not allow male adolescents unfettered access to naked girls in changing rooms.
It's not just trans issues. Whether it was immigration, Islamophobia, gay marriage, campus rape, racial diversity, or the environment, a similar pattern played out ad nauseam in 2015. John reacts with compassion and concern when he sees suffering. He trusted authorities who told him:
[1] If he stands behind amnesty for immigrants, he won't see any negative consequences, and instead, he'll be helping needy refugees like a good Christian.
[2] If he looks past alarming stories about Islamic terrorism and shows tolerance to Muslims, no harm will come to society.
[3] If he salutes gay marriage, the tumult gay debates caused will subside, and gay people will find happiness on their own without making personal demands on John.
[4] If he rallies behind efforts to combat sexual assault on college campuses, he can trust the authorities to use expanded investigative powers and streamlined due process without abusing their position and persecuting innocent people.
[5] If he acknowledges that black lives matter and racism is wrong, he will contribute to good-faith efforts to heal his country from past injustices and will see an increase in harmony and goodwill among races rather than strife and turmoil.
[6] If he cares about good stewardship of the natural world God has given man, he can trust authorities to pursue anti-pollution policies.
John trusts people. And it's exactly people like John whom con men target, as happened in 2015.
'whether I flatter myself that I can in any way dupe you, or impose upon you, or pass myself off upon you for what I am not, I, as an honest man, answer that I have neither the inclination nor the power to do aught of the kind.' (pg. 148)
John saw lawless drifters and traffickers stream across the border and feed a burgeoning under-the-table employment system.
John watched as Muslim communities responded to goodwill from their neighbors by fostering hateful rhetoric and sheltering cold-blooded killers who wrought terror on Texas, California, and other states.
John discovered that gays had no intention of quietly withdrawing from debates after winning "marriage equality," and in fact gays have gone wild filing complaints against John's friends, suing the cities and schools in John's area, and overwhelming all of John's favorite TV stations and cinemas with filth that becomes ever more pornographic yet ever more boring.
John sees that the colleges around him are charging higher tuitions. Colleges are concentrating less on studies and more on controlling young people's sexuality and erecting a shadow police state with gender equality investigators who restrict free speech and due process.
The more John supports racial equality, the more aggressive the people of color around him become and the more stressful the stories about mass protests in inner cities and on campuses turn.
Lastly, John finds that those who combat pollution waste much of their funding on global projects with questionable evidence and vague, unquantifiable goals.
'The pick-pocket, too, loves to have his fellow-creatures round him.' (pg. 183)
John got swindled. If he decides to say to Hell with everyone and vote for Trump, I can't blame him. (I wish he'd vote for Cruz, but by now John probably won't trust anyone in government on anything.)
The rise of Trump has intrigued many people not so much because he reveals anything about the left, but rather because of what he reveals about the sense of betrayal people like John feel about the promises made by the Republican Party.
'As for Intelligence Offices, I've lived in the East, and know 'em. Swindling concerns kept by low-born cynics, under a fawning exterior wreaking their cynic malice upon mankind.' (pg. 153)
How many times have we been told to trust the "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" crowd? The story goes like this: the future of the movement lies in the natural constituents of Reason magazine, the mythical hordes of young people who admire Mary Cheney and want free-market economic policies without church ladies telling them what to do.
A few conservatives in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Washington control the right-wing media. It seems that every week this cadre unveils another aerobically cross-trained, elite-educated, and telegenic spokesperson, describing the optimistic future that ostensibly awaits us if only we could stop caring about traditional family structures, chastity, and the sanctity of life.
If it isn't S.E. Cupp nagging us to support gay adoption, it's another well-groomed editor spryly coming out as gay. Soon stories that sound too churchy get spiked all over town.
'To the devil with your principles! Bad sign when a man begins to talk of his principles.' (pg. 152)
We're supposed to trust the direction they want to take conservatism, because they are, to quote Taylor Swift, "livin' in a big ol' city," and all we'll ever be is "mean." The message is the same: If you fake it, victory will come. Just pretend you are okay with sodomy and abortion, and this time it will work; all those fiscally-conservative-but-socially-liberal people who've been holding out will rush into the arms of the conservative movement, and singing angels will descend from the heavens.
Perhaps nobody embodied this call for trust, and won our trust, more than Paul Ryan. And we all saw how that budget bill turned out – the biggest "achievement" in his early months as the supposed "Tea Party favorite" speaker of the House. It turns out that conservatives who will cut family activists loose on an issue like gay adoption find it easy and natural to betray fiscal and social conservatives in one swoop. The swindlers who sell us libertarianism by vowing we can get ahead by not offending feminists or gays…end up not wanting to offend poor people, social justice warriors, or anybody who likes government benefits. Which means the fiscal right ends up under the same bus that ran over the social right. Even if those libertarians are "livin' in a big ol' city," all they'll ever be is mean, too.
'I have confidence in nature? I? I say again there is nothing I am more suspicious of.' (pg. 142).
Young people who cry out for gay marriage also want free cell phones. They want to buy iPods instead of making payments to Fannie Mae. Pro-choice and pro-gay marriage positions win purveyors social approval with no sacrifice. People who want a quick fix of political chic by jumping on such bandwagons are rarely going to switch gears when it comes to "small government" to endorse a classical Republican model of low taxes and reduced entitlements.
They want high taxes on other people and heightened entitlements for themselves. This deflection of concern and sacrifice coupled with a need for easy social standing is largely why they don't care about the unborn, God's commandments against sin, or the right of children to a mother and father.
'That's your Confession of Faith is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray, which do you think are most, knaves or fools?' (pg. 142)
Conservatives who want to lose big should keep channeling Paul Ryan and follow advice from pretty faces like Stacey Dash.
During my years as a pro-family activist, the vastness of the socially conservative, and especially Christian, population really surprised me. Many of them, though, are poor and distrust corporate elites. This "fiscally liberal but socially conservative" set composes the bulk of the Republican constituency but constantly gets sacrificed.
When my travails at Cal State Northridge blew up, for instance, four different petitions were started by other people who supported me: the liberal Change.org, and the conservative ActRight, CitizenGo, and LifeSiteNews. A total of 12,738 signatures were collected from people calling on Cal State University to drop its charges of anti-gay "retaliation" against me over a conference I organized at the Reagan Library.
My case at Northridge gave me a glimpse into what was really going on. I was on blacklists by both GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. A clique of activists including New York City professor Claire Potter had sought for years to make trouble for me at my job. Yet despite their influence with elites, their constituents never materialized. No groundswell of petitioners came forward supporting the Title IX investigator against me, and even liberal outlets like Huffington Post and Daily Sundial ended up implicitly favoring me.
Con games depend on illusions and bluffs. It is an illusion that free-market social liberals have a mass of people who agree with them. The election of 2016 will be, I think, a time of falling masks and bluffs being called. When alerted to the ruses and deceits to which they've been subjected, people like John may feel exhilarated and empowered, or consumed with blind, destructive rage. Trump is not the problem or even a symptom. He's just the whistleblower on a sinking steamboat. I wish Melville could rise from the grave and advise us what we should do next.
Robert Oscar Lopez authored a book based loosely on Melville adaptations, called Melville Affair (warning: contains vulgarity). He can be followed on Twitter at @baptist4freedom, at English Manif, or on Soundcloud.
Melville, Herman. The Confidence-Man. 1857. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Qualification - YOU MUST BE A SUCKER
an ACQUISITION of POWER via "I have it better than them...oh my" ...
I must help!
Making the PERFORMERS feeling guilty because of their success...while ALLOWING victims a free pass in life....
ALTRUISM is a trick back for the weak...and the weak minded...
NO MORE than an acquisition of power.....Altruism - a Ruse
Success breeds Self Esteem.....
 | ||||
| Charity breeds Contempt |
Prophetic Cartoon on Socialism...circa 1940's
Charity breeds contempt...
Hillary Clinton's 1969
Political Science Thesis ("There is Only the Fight") refers to an
earlier version of Alinsky’s training manual. "In 1946,” she wrote, "Alinsky's first book, Reveille for Radicals, was published." Training an army of world servers |
From Marx to Alinsky
Conspiracies- Past & Present
Background information "Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing
to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute
to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." --Letter from
L. DAVID ALINSKY, son of Neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky
Obama helped fund 'Alinsky Academy':
"The Woods Fund, a nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director from 1999 to December 2002, provided startup funding and later capital to the Midwest Academy.... Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside
William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization.... 'Midwest describes itself as 'one of the nation's oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change.'... Midwest teaches Alinsky tactics
of community organizing."
Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky:
"True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties....
Many leftists view Hillary
as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some
issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to
do and say whatever it takes to gain power.
"Obama is also an Alinskyite....
Obama spent years teaching workshops on
the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project.... Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer."
(By Richard Poe, 11-27-07) Opening page - Dedication
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical:
from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment
and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom —
Lucifer.”
Prologue"The Revolutionary force today has two targets, moral as well as material. Its young protagonists are one moment reminiscent
of the idealistic early Christians, yet they also urge violence and cry, 'Burn the system down!' They have no illusions about the system, but plenty of illusions about the way to change our world. It is to this point that I have written this book."
1. The Purpose
In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace.... "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.' This means revolution."
p.3
"Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting
political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing." p.6
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all
evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists.
From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10
"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...."pp.10-11
Notes on Saul Alinsky and Neo-Marxism:
Alinsky's tactics were based, not on Stalin's revolutionary violence, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci's transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.
Like Alinsky, Mikhail Gorbachev followed Gramsci, not Lenin. In fact, Gramsci aroused Stalins's wrath by suggesting that Lenin's revolutionary plan wouldn't work in the West.
Instead the primary assault would be on Biblical absolutes
and Christian values, which must be crushed as a social force before the new face of Communism could rise and flourish. Malachi Martin gave us a progress report:
"By 1985, the influence
of traditional Christian philosophy in the West was weak and negligible....
Gramsci's master strategy was now feasible. Humanly speaking, it was no longer too tall an order to strip large majorities
of men and women in the West of those last vestiges that remained to them of Christianity's transcendent God."
2. Of Means and Ends Forget moral or ethical considerations]
"The end is what you want, the means is how you
get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means,
only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody."p.24
"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be...."
pp.25-26
"The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." p.29
"The seventh rule...
is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics...."
p.34
"The tenth rule...
is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments....
It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances
at any given time... Who, and how many will support the action?... If weapons
are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means
determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you
will move quickly or slowly..." p.36
Notes: Apparently,
Michelle Obama referred to these words during her Democratic
National Convention speech:
"She said, 'Barack
stood up that day,' talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods,
'and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked
about 'The world as it is' and 'The world as it should
be…' And, 'All of us driven by a simple belief that the world
as it is just won't do – that we have an obligation to, fight
for the world as it should be."
Do you wonder who -- or whose
values -- should determine what "the world... should be?"
4. The Education of
the Organizer
"To the organizer, imagination... is
the dynamism that starts and sustains him in his whole life of action as
an organizer. It ignites and feeds the force that drives him to organize
for change....
"The organizer knows that the real action
is in the reaction of the opposition. To realistically appraise and anticipate
the probable reactions of the enemy, he must be able to identify with them,
too, in his imagination, and foresee their reactions to his actions....
"The organizers searching with a free and open mind
void of certainty,
hating dogma, finds laughter not just a way to maintain his sanity
but also a key to understanding life."pp.74-75
"...the organizer must be able to split himself
into two parts -- one part in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue
to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while
the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that it really
is only a 10 percent difference." p.78
"...the organizer is constantly creating new
out of the old. He knows that all new ideas arise from conflict;
[See
Dialectic Process]
that every time man as had a new idea it has been a challenge to the sacred
ideas of the past and the present and inevitably a conflict has raged."
p.79
5. Communication
[Notice the emphasis
on conflict, dialogue, relationships, etc. Team "service" is essential
to building strong relationships through "common involvements"]
"And
so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being
left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is
probed by questions.... Is this manipulation? Certainly...."
p.88
"One of the factors that changes what you can and
can't communicate is relationships. There are sensitive areas that one
does not touch until there is a strong personal relationship based on
common involvements.
Otherwise the other party turns off and literally does not hear....
"Conversely, if you have a good relationship, he is very receptive.... For example,
I have always believed that birth control and abortion are personal rights
to be exercised by the individual. If, in my early days when I organized...
neighborhood in Chicago, which was 95 per cent Roman Catholic, I had tried to
communicate this, even through the experience of the residents, whose economic
plight was aggravated by large families, that would have been the end of my
relationship with the community. That instant I would have been stamped as an
enemy of the church and all communication would have ceased.
"Some years later, after establishing solid relationships, I was free to
talk about anything.... By then the argument was no longer limited to such
questions as, 'How much longer do you think the Catholic Church can hang on
to this archaic notion and still survive?' ...the subject and nature of the
discussion would have been unthinkable without that solid relationship."
pp.93-94
6. In the Beginning:
The Process of Power [Notice the compromise needed
to build the power base. Yet, since pragmatism has eroded all values, it's simply
a matter of ends justifying means. It's not unlike churches that attract
members through the world's entertainment -- then continue to soften or hide
Truth in order to keep them happy and lure more.]
"From
the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing
and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until
he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until
he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from
power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how
many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local
organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals."
"Change comes from power, and power comes from organization."
p.113
"The first step in community organization
is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization
is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be
disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change
means disorganization of the old and organization of the new."
p.116
Compare with this excerpts from “Group Decision
and Social Change” by Kurt Lewin:
"A
change toward a higher level of group performance is frequently short lived:
after a “shot in the arm”, group life soon returns to the previous level.
This indicates that it does not suffice to define the objective of a planned
change in group performance as the reaching of a different level. Permanency
of the new level, or permanency for a desired period, should be included in
the objective. A successful change includes therefore three aspects:
UNFREEZING
(if necessary) the present level...
MOVING to the new level .
. . and
FREEZING group life on the
new level."
"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....
"The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to
participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively
conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent
in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct,
for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of
conflict." p.117
"Process tells us how. Purpose
tells us why. But in reality, it is academic to draw a line between them, they
are part of a continuum.... Process is really purpose."
p.122
7. Tactics
"Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts
by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them.
... Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take
power away from the Haves." p.126
Always remember the first rule of power tactics (pps.127-134):
1. "Power is not only what you have, but what
the enemy thinks you have."
2. "Never go outside the expertise of your
people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people,
the result is confusion, fear and retreat.... [and] the collapse of communication.
3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise
of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
(This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided
by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book
of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own
rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition,
which then reacts to your advantage."
6. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."
7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes
a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited
time...."
8. "Keep the pressure on, with different
tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."
9. "The threat is usually more terrifying
than the thing itself."
10. "The major premise for tactics is the
development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition
that are essential for the success of the campaign."
11. "If you push a negative hard and deep
enough, it will break through into its counterside... every positive has
its negative."
12. "The price of a successful attack is a
constructive alternative."
13.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict
tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities.
One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'...
"...any
target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame
as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting]
arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your
attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible
by their support of the target...'
"One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one
side and all the devils on the other." (pps.127-134)
Saul Alinksky, Rules for
Radicals, Vintage Books, New York, 1989.
Additional Notes:
Alinsky's Rules for Radicals:
"Known as the 'father of modern American radicalism,' Saul D. Alinsky (1909-1972)
developed strategies and tactics that take the enormous, unfocused emotional
energy of grassroots groups and transform it into effective anti-government
and anti-corporate activism. ... Some of these rules are ruthless, but they
work."
Article by Phyllis Schalfly titled
"Alinski's
Rules: Must Reading In Obama Era," posted at
www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318470857908277
(2-2-09)
"Alinsky's second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult
moral dilemmas, and his 'tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends' is: 'you
do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.'
He doesn't ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary.
He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that 'Moral rationalization
is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or
the use of ends or means.'...
"The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were:
ego ("reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to
create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God"),
curiosity (raising "questions that agitate, that break through
the accepted pattern"),
irreverence ("nothing is sacred"; the organizer "detests dogma, defies
any finite definition of morality"),
imagination ("the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing"),
a
sense of humor ("the most potent weapons known to mankind are
satire and ridicule"), and an
organized
personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his
actions only "as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.'...
"'The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems,' and 'organizations must be based on many issues.' The organizer 'must first rub raw the resentments
of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many
of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy
and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people
are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must
stir up dissatisfaction
and discontent.'"
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/alinsky.htm
Political Science Thesis ("There is Only the Fight") refers to an
earlier version of Alinsky’s training manual. "In 1946,” she wrote, "Alinsky's first book, Reveille for Radicals, was published." Training an army of world servers |
From Marx to Alinsky
Conspiracies- Past & Present
Background information "Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing
to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute
to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." --Letter from
L. DAVID ALINSKY, son of Neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky
Obama helped fund 'Alinsky Academy':
"The Woods Fund, a nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director from 1999 to December 2002, provided startup funding and later capital to the Midwest Academy.... Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside
William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization.... 'Midwest describes itself as 'one of the nation's oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change.'... Midwest teaches Alinsky tactics
of community organizing."
Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky:
"True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties....
Many leftists view Hillary
as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some
issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to
do and say whatever it takes to gain power.
"Obama is also an Alinskyite....
Obama spent years teaching workshops on
the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project.... Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer."
(By Richard Poe, 11-27-07) Opening page - Dedication
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical:
from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment
and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom —
Lucifer.”
Prologue"The Revolutionary force today has two targets, moral as well as material. Its young protagonists are one moment reminiscent
of the idealistic early Christians, yet they also urge violence and cry, 'Burn the system down!' They have no illusions about the system, but plenty of illusions about the way to change our world. It is to this point that I have written this book."
1. The Purpose
In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace.... "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.' This means revolution."
p.3
"Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting
political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing." p.6
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all
evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists.
From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10
"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...."pp.10-11
Notes on Saul Alinsky and Neo-Marxism:
Alinsky's tactics were based, not on Stalin's revolutionary violence, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci's transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.
Like Alinsky, Mikhail Gorbachev followed Gramsci, not Lenin. In fact, Gramsci aroused Stalins's wrath by suggesting that Lenin's revolutionary plan wouldn't work in the West.
Instead the primary assault would be on Biblical absolutes
and Christian values, which must be crushed as a social force before the new face of Communism could rise and flourish. Malachi Martin gave us a progress report:
"By 1985, the influence
of traditional Christian philosophy in the West was weak and negligible....
Gramsci's master strategy was now feasible. Humanly speaking, it was no longer too tall an order to strip large majorities
of men and women in the West of those last vestiges that remained to them of Christianity's transcendent God."
2. Of Means and Ends Forget moral or ethical considerations]
"The end is what you want, the means is how you
get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means,
only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody."p.24
"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be...."
pp.25-26
"The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." p.29
"The seventh rule...
is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics...."
p.34
"The tenth rule...
is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments....
It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances
at any given time... Who, and how many will support the action?... If weapons
are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means
determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you
will move quickly or slowly..." p.36
Notes: Apparently,
Michelle Obama referred to these words during her Democratic
National Convention speech:
"She said, 'Barack
stood up that day,' talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods,
'and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked
about 'The world as it is' and 'The world as it should
be…' And, 'All of us driven by a simple belief that the world
as it is just won't do – that we have an obligation to, fight
for the world as it should be."
Do you wonder who -- or whose
values -- should determine what "the world... should be?"
4. The Education of
the Organizer
"To the organizer, imagination... is
the dynamism that starts and sustains him in his whole life of action as
an organizer. It ignites and feeds the force that drives him to organize
for change....
"The organizer knows that the real action
is in the reaction of the opposition. To realistically appraise and anticipate
the probable reactions of the enemy, he must be able to identify with them,
too, in his imagination, and foresee their reactions to his actions....
"The organizers searching with a free and open mind
void of certainty,
hating dogma, finds laughter not just a way to maintain his sanity
but also a key to understanding life."pp.74-75
"...the organizer must be able to split himself
into two parts -- one part in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue
to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while
the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that it really
is only a 10 percent difference." p.78
"...the organizer is constantly creating new
out of the old. He knows that all new ideas arise from conflict;
[See
Dialectic Process]
that every time man as had a new idea it has been a challenge to the sacred
ideas of the past and the present and inevitably a conflict has raged."
p.79
5. Communication
[Notice the emphasis
on conflict, dialogue, relationships, etc. Team "service" is essential
to building strong relationships through "common involvements"]
"And
so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being
left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is
probed by questions.... Is this manipulation? Certainly...."
p.88
"One of the factors that changes what you can and
can't communicate is relationships. There are sensitive areas that one
does not touch until there is a strong personal relationship based on
common involvements.
Otherwise the other party turns off and literally does not hear....
"Conversely, if you have a good relationship, he is very receptive.... For example,
I have always believed that birth control and abortion are personal rights
to be exercised by the individual. If, in my early days when I organized...
neighborhood in Chicago, which was 95 per cent Roman Catholic, I had tried to
communicate this, even through the experience of the residents, whose economic
plight was aggravated by large families, that would have been the end of my
relationship with the community. That instant I would have been stamped as an
enemy of the church and all communication would have ceased.
"Some years later, after establishing solid relationships, I was free to
talk about anything.... By then the argument was no longer limited to such
questions as, 'How much longer do you think the Catholic Church can hang on
to this archaic notion and still survive?' ...the subject and nature of the
discussion would have been unthinkable without that solid relationship."
pp.93-94
6. In the Beginning:
The Process of Power [Notice the compromise needed
to build the power base. Yet, since pragmatism has eroded all values, it's simply
a matter of ends justifying means. It's not unlike churches that attract
members through the world's entertainment -- then continue to soften or hide
Truth in order to keep them happy and lure more.]
"From
the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing
and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until
he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until
he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from
power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how
many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local
organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals."
"Change comes from power, and power comes from organization."
p.113
"The first step in community organization
is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization
is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be
disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change
means disorganization of the old and organization of the new."
p.116
Compare with this excerpts from “Group Decision
and Social Change” by Kurt Lewin:
"A
change toward a higher level of group performance is frequently short lived:
after a “shot in the arm”, group life soon returns to the previous level.
This indicates that it does not suffice to define the objective of a planned
change in group performance as the reaching of a different level. Permanency
of the new level, or permanency for a desired period, should be included in
the objective. A successful change includes therefore three aspects:
UNFREEZING
(if necessary) the present level...
MOVING to the new level .
. . and
FREEZING group life on the
new level."
"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....
"The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to
participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively
conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent
in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct,
for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of
conflict." p.117
"Process tells us how. Purpose
tells us why. But in reality, it is academic to draw a line between them, they
are part of a continuum.... Process is really purpose."
p.122
7. Tactics
"Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts
by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them.
... Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take
power away from the Haves." p.126
Always remember the first rule of power tactics (pps.127-134):
1. "Power is not only what you have, but what
the enemy thinks you have."
2. "Never go outside the expertise of your
people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people,
the result is confusion, fear and retreat.... [and] the collapse of communication.
3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise
of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
(This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided
by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book
of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own
rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition,
which then reacts to your advantage."
6. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."
7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes
a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited
time...."
8. "Keep the pressure on, with different
tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."
9. "The threat is usually more terrifying
than the thing itself."
10. "The major premise for tactics is the
development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition
that are essential for the success of the campaign."
11. "If you push a negative hard and deep
enough, it will break through into its counterside... every positive has
its negative."
12. "The price of a successful attack is a
constructive alternative."
13.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict
tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities.
One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'...
"...any
target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame
as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting]
arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your
attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible
by their support of the target...'
"One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one
side and all the devils on the other." (pps.127-134)
Saul Alinksky, Rules for
Radicals, Vintage Books, New York, 1989.
Additional Notes:
Alinsky's Rules for Radicals:
"Known as the 'father of modern American radicalism,' Saul D. Alinsky (1909-1972)
developed strategies and tactics that take the enormous, unfocused emotional
energy of grassroots groups and transform it into effective anti-government
and anti-corporate activism. ... Some of these rules are ruthless, but they
work."
Article by Phyllis Schalfly titled
"Alinski's
Rules: Must Reading In Obama Era," posted at
www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318470857908277
(2-2-09)
"Alinsky's second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult
moral dilemmas, and his 'tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends' is: 'you
do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.'
He doesn't ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary.
He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that 'Moral rationalization
is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or
the use of ends or means.'...
"The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were:
ego ("reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to
create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God"),
curiosity (raising "questions that agitate, that break through
the accepted pattern"),
irreverence ("nothing is sacred"; the organizer "detests dogma, defies
any finite definition of morality"),
imagination ("the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing"),
a
sense of humor ("the most potent weapons known to mankind are
satire and ridicule"), and an
organized
personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his
actions only "as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.'...
"'The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems,' and 'organizations must be based on many issues.' The organizer 'must first rub raw the resentments
of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many
of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy
and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people
are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must
stir up dissatisfaction
and discontent.'"
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/alinsky.htm
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