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A Short Synopsis of Alinsky's Books
SAUL D. ALINSKY
Teaching Obama
The issues we seek to raise transcend party identifications and electoral contests. David Horowitz & Richard Poe from their book
Every American interested in the health of the two-party system has reason to fear
the Shadow Party. Ordinary Democrats who have been disenfranchised by the
seizure of their party's apparatus have reason to fear it most.
Sources
This information is taken as a public service largely from The Case Against Barack Obama by David Freddoso, Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi, and The Shadow Party by David Horowitz and Richard Poe. There is much more in these books than the sampling shown below and more people should read them if they plan to have their grandchildren live in a free nation.
General Background
From Freddoso's book: "...Saul Alinsky was a communist organizer who fought to bring jobs and government services to Chicago neighborhoods until his death in 1972. Alinsky's disciples - the very organizers who had worked with the man himself - were the ones who hired Obama as a community organizer in 1988. Obama has... participated in training hundreds of others, including ACORN administrators and operatives, in Alinsky's methods. Obama would later say that 'his years as an organizer gave him the best education of his life.'
"The immensity of Alinsky's influence in Democratic politics is demonstrated by his influence in the lives of two top Democratic candidates for president this year. Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis on Alinsky, and he personally offered her a job as she graduated from Wellesley." [The other, of course, is Obama.]
From Corsi's book: "Alinsky defined community organization tactics for several generations of American leftists, going back to his early efforts to organize Chicago's Back of the Yards meatpacking neighborhood in the 1930s. Alinsky died in 1972, more than a decade before Obama moved to Chicago to learn his methods. Still, Alinsky's impact on Obama is clear. We need look no farther than Alinsky to find out where Obama got his mantra for 'change.' Long before Obama came on the scene, Alinsky became famous for making 'change' his credo. For some three decades before Obama was born, Alinsky had been defining the political meaning of 'change' for those radicals he was calling forth in his classic 1971 book, Reveille for Radicals.
"'Change,' for Alinsky, invoked radical socialism and meant the redistribution of wealth. [For] Obama [it] means the same, but by hiding the reference he avoids having to be explicit about the radical goal behind the theme."
Some Key Alinsky Code Words
Change - Eliminating the free enterprise system and replacing it with socialism, and peacefully overthrowing the present government and replacing it with communism.
Community Organizer - One who (1) agitates by identifying and magnifying the real or imagined failings of the establishment as they supposedly apply to the target group, (2) organizes the target group into a political force, and (3) turns that force into "change".
Alinski Philosophy
"Alinsky opens his groundbreaking book, Rules for Radicals with this disturbing dedication:
Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), 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. [Bear in mind that Alinsky was not very good with mythology - Lucifer was the name given to Venus before the sun rose at dawn. It was confused with Zorastrianism's dualism. In any case, Alinsky was actually referring to Satan, the mythological father of lies - although it is doubtful that Alinsky believed in Satan.]"This dedication would be purged from some subsequent editions so that Alinsky's ideas could be spread more easily among clergymen.
"Alinsky, who founded the Industrial Areas Foundation to train young radicals, endorsed popular education, in which organizers persuade members of the community from different backgrounds (though generally members of the lower classes) to realize common problems and to embrace the organizers' answers to these problems.
"Alinsky compares the "community organizer's" role to that of a labor organizer:
He has taken a group of apathetic workers; he has fanned their resentments and hostilities by a number of means... Most important ha has demonstrated that something can be done, and its effectiveness and success... Through action, persuasion, and communication the organizer makes it clear that organization will give them power, the ability, the strength, the force to be able to do something about these particular problems. It is then that the bad scene begins to break up into specific issues."Having stirred up dissatisfaction among the lower class regarding their situation, organizers manipulate the mutual self-interest of varied and oft-opposed groups in order to put pressure on the authorities and thus change the community's situation. The key is to Agitate, Aggravate, Educate, and then Organize. With a delicate understanding of psychology and human nature, Alinsky discusses at length how to prod members of a community toward the organizer's desired course of action while making them think they came up with the ideas themselves.
"Alinsky has a very fluid understanding of ethics that... explains his reliance on intimidation and stirring of discontent as tactics for radical action. He claims that 'in war, the ends justify almost any means' and that 'in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind'. He writes that 'the Radical may resort to the sword but when he does is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.
"Morality is merely 'rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest'.
"Integrity is not necessary to activism, but the appearance of integrity is important. 'All effective action requires a passport of morality... 'moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action, whether to justify a selection or the use of means or ends... Power is not what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have'.
"...individual pathologies like delinquency and crime are the result of 'root causes' solvable by progressive, community-based, social action.
"[according to a fellow organizer] Obama was 'the undisputed master of agitation... With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the sources of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better."
Alinsky urged his followers to avoid overtly displaying hatred toward the middle class. Instead, he offered a narrative of condescension, viewing the middle class as lost, confused, aimless, and pitiable... "any attempt to disabuse them of their irrational religious beliefs should be avoided because it would be met with hostility... their insistence on good manners should be respected..."
Alinsky wrote to those organizers who sought to intimidate: Seeking such meaning in life, [the middle class turns] to and extreme chauvinism and [becomes] defenders of the "American" faith. Now they develop rationalizations for a life of futility and frustration. "It's the Red menace!" Now they are not only the most vociferous in their espousal of law and order, but ripe victims for such a demagogic George Wallace, the John Birch Society, and the Red-menace perennials.
...they cling to illusory fixed points - which are very real to them. Even conversation is charted toward fixing your position in the world: "I don't want to argue with you, just tell me what your flag means to you?... They use revealing adjectives such as "outside agitators" or "troublemakers"...
The "silent majority", now, are hurt, bitter, suspicious, feeling rejected and at bay. This sick condition in many ways is as explosive as the current race crisis. Their fears and frustrations at their helplessness are mounting to a point of political paranoia which can demonize people who turn to the law of survival in narrowest sense.
When Obama ran for the state senate, he wrote:
The right wing, the Christian right,has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral reponsibility.
From Corsi's book: "Alinsky advocated creating change through a set of carefully calculated power-politics tactics where the end always justified the means. In his Rules for Radicals, Alinsky sought to articulate his [methods] of 'community organization' for future generations of leftists. Alinsky taught practitioners of this methods the importance of raising the consciousness of the economically disadvantaged, who were typically also minorities. The goal was to stir the pain of economic suffering in order to create awareness in an economic underclass of its members' disadvantages. From there, the community organizer's job was to mobilize the discontent into political power.
"Alinsky's goal was to set in motion a peaceful revolution, using the ballot box, not bombs or bullets, to wrench power from the hands of capitalist elites and business leaders currently in charge. 'Change' was always Alinsky's code word for creating a socialist revolution, even if the [methods] meant radicals would cut their hair, put on business suits, and run for office. Alinsky taught organizers to hide their true intentions in the words they spoke. Denying the truth or just plain lying were both acceptable tactics, as long as the cause was advanced. He taught organizers to ridicule opponents when the arguments of [the opponents] could not be refuted by logic, evidence, or argument. In the streets, Alinsky had learned the old communist adage that derision would cause community audiences to laugh at their opponents, rather than listen to what their opponents were saying.
"Alinsky berated the street radicals of the civil rights movement, charging that the theatrics of their street protests and the physical danger inherent in calls to use violence undermined the cause...
"'Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class.' Alinsky wrote, That is where the power is. He taught the obvious: When more than three-fourths of our people from both the point of view of economics and of their self-identification are middle class, it is obvious that their action or inaction will determine the direction of change. Alinsky imagined that even if all low-income minorities could be organized together in one coalition, including blacks, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Appalachian poor whites, this coalition would fail because it would not be powerful enough to get significant, basic, needed changes. For Alinsky, the pragmatics of power meant radicals needed to realize the value of their middle-class experience, so they could stop rejecting their middle-class identity to build bridges of communication and unity over the gaps, generation, values.
"...Alinsky saw radicals such as himself and Obama as elitists by nature, in their assertion that the leftist social values they sought to pursue justified the use of tactics whose very nature was a lie. The last thing Alinsky wanted was for himself to be middle class. What he sought was to grab the power from the corporate and business elite he reviled. For Alinsky, the middle class was a pawn. As much as he disdained the middle class and wanted to overturn middle-class identity and values, Alinsky was smart enough to realize he could produce his desired 'change' only by convincing the middle class to side with him in its own destruction...
"Alinsky fashioned himself as modern-day Machiavelli comfortable in the latter's teaching that it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not to use it according to the necessity of the case. Alinsky wrote, To me ethics is doing what is best for the most.... Alinsky advised organizers to learn, 'the local legends, antidotes, values, idioms,' avoiding rhetoric foreign to the local culture, including worn-out words like white racist, fascist pig, and other radical terms that tend to identify the speaker as a nut. Instead, the Alinsky-trained organizer learned how to be honest by vocalizing discontent, to mobilize the community from within. The essential technique demanded learning how to listen carefully enough so the organizer could use the words and language of the community itself to move the community in the direction the organizer wanted to go.
"One of Alinsky's prize pupils was Hillary Clinton, whose 1969 senior thesis at Wellesley College was a 75-page salute to Alinsky...
"Alinsky defined the job of an organizer as to rub raw the resentments of the people of a community. When he asked new students why they wanted to organize, he shouted back at them at with a word-for-word answer: You want to organize for power."
From Horowitz' & Poe's book: "The Shadow Party is a network of private organizations that exercises a powerful and hidden influence over the Democratic Party, and through it, over American politics in general. It is not a political party per se, and it works outside the normal electoral system, in pursuance of goals that are not openly disclosed.
"The Shadow Party cannot afford to function as an ordinary political party. That would require making an honest, public appeal to voters, and this it cannot do, for its radical vision would offend most Americans. If Americans understood the intentions of the Shadow Party organizers, they would recoil in revulsion and reject its overtures. For these reasons, the Shadow Party network must proceed by stealth. It must (and does) use secretive, deceptive, and extra-constitutional means to achieve its objectives. It must infiltrate government bureaucracies, corrupt public officials, and manipulate the press. And it must conceal who and what it is.
"The Shadow Party does not confine itself to the Democratic Party. If it did, it would be less effective. A number of notable Republicans, among them Senator John McCain, have exchanged political favors with the Shadow Party. But the Democratic Party - because it is already a party to the left - is the focus of the Shadow Party's activities and its chosen instrument. The Shadow Party has not yet achieved its goal of federal power, but since the 2004 election, it has attained a degree of control over the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party in general, that is nearly complete.
"During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party - headed by a group of leftist billionaires - was able to contribute more than $300 million to the Democratic war chest, and, through its independent media campaigns, to effectively shape the Democrats' message. Despite their defeat at the polls, Shadow Party leaders were intoxicated by their achievement. On December 9, 2004, Eli Pariser, who headed the Shadow Party group MoveOn PAC, boasted to his members Now it's our party. We bought it, we own it. ...
"Radical organizer Saul Alinsky, an early mentor of Senator Hillary Clinton and of many Shadow Party operatives, identified for his disciples the path to power in American politics. Alinsky observed that radicals could achieve revolutionary change without majority support if they understood and exploited the rules of the game. This was the subject of his book, Rules for Radicals. The requirements for a radical power grab were a small core of disciplined activists pushing their agendas and a citizenry sufficiently in the dark about its purposes. In these circumstances, a radical minority could impose its will even on a great democracy such as the United States.
"Alinsky's theory was tested during the Vietnam War. As he predicted, a minority of radical activists succeeded in imposing its will on America, without achieving victory at the ballot box. The American people supported the war in Vietnam to its bitter end. Yet, after years of organized chaos on the home front, American leaders grew weary of the internal divisions and yielded to the forces of defeatism. Americans allowed the Left to prevail, not because Americans supported the left's agenda, but because the Left had a strategy and determination to succeed, while their opponents lacked either the understanding or the will to counter them." [Note that the same thing has been and is being tried as regards the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan.]
Some of the Alinsky Tactics
Discover the things that most concern the target group and sympathize with them. Tell them how they are being exploited and what can be done (in what amounts to a communistic way) to better situation. This tactic worked with racial minorities, lower classes, and gays. It is being applied to the middle class with results that are encouraging to the Alinsky operatives.
Lying is a preferred tactic provided that the lie is told first and repeated over and over again. People tend to believe what they hear first and develop a deepseated prejudice against anything that refutes the lie. This is especially true when emotion is used to fortify the lie. Tie the lie in with a deeply emotional story that villifies the opposition.
To avoid being caught in a lie, use ambiguous statements whenever possible. Most people will "fill in the void" mentally and accept that you are saying what they want to hear.
If caught in a lie, change the subject quickly or change the lie slightly by saying you meant something else.
If you are about to lose an argument or if you are about to be discovered in your lying, personally attack and ridicule your opponent while adopting a condescending attitude.
If the opposition might be able to justifiably accuse you of something, accuse them of it first. This puts them on defensive and alters the direction of the debate.
Never admit to a lie or to having been wrong about something.
If running for office, make promises that people want to hear during the campaign, and use excuses later if necessary to avoid keeping the promises - or claim that you never made the promises - use ambiguity as necessary.
If proposing radical change or radical legislation, be sure that you name it something that is popular and other than what it actually is.
Demonize key figures in the opposition (such as President Bush). This causes the opposition to doubt itself and America.
Use "education" to brainwash the children of the nation - the younger the children are, the better. Young children are much easier to influence than are older children.
Go after financial institutions to cause them to overextend by "helping the poor". Use the press as needed to make those institutions look like ogres that keep the wealth for themselves.
Use "peaceful" means including placing a man in a suit and having him run for high office. However, the ultimate goal is to overthrow the government.
Place people in key places who will influence policy and move the country to the left or to ruin.
Some Alinsky Quotes
[Alinsky worked with various groups and tailored his presentation according to the group with which he was currently working. These come from the website, www.brainyquote.com]
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
History is a relay of revolutions. There are "Haves", "Have Nots", "Have a Little-Want Mores", and "Do Nothings". The Haves-Nots will always strive to take the place of the Haves and will win. The Have-Nots then become the new Haves (often with a purge of the old Haves). This leads to new Have-Nots, and the cycle continues (often with the long-term effect of removing the best from the gene pool. The Soviet Union is a good example of this happening with their purges after each "revolution".)
Last guys don't finish nice. [The use of ACORN and others to subvert the voting process in favor of the left is a perfect example of this philosophy.]
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
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.
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.
The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.
More details on the following website: Obama's Alinksy Jujitsu
The Natural Born LeaderSome years ago a hiker in the foothills came upon a herd of goats and an old man who tended them. The hiker sat down to converse with the old man, and old man shared his lunch of goat cheese and goat milk while they watched the goats grazing. The hiker noticed that one goat was moving slowly to the east and the herd appeared to be following him. The hiker lost interest in the herd for a time, and when he looked back he saw that the herd had changed direction but the same goat was still in the lead.
"Why does the herd follow that particular goat?" the hiker asked the old man.
"Just watch for awhile," the old man answered, "The leader is the one we call B.O."
So the hiker watched as the herd started to move toward the south. B.O. looked behind him and then moved over so that he was in front of the herd once more. After a time, the herd started moving toward the west and again B.O. looked behind him and moved so that he was in front of the herd once more. A short time later, the herd began to veer toward the northwest and B.O. again looked looked behind him and moved to the front.
"He changes direction every time the herd does and moves in front of it!" the hiker exclaimed.
"Yes," the old man acknowledged.
"Why do you call him B.O.?" the hiker asked.
"Because," the old man said, "he stinks worse than the other goats. When the breeze blows his scent back toward the herd, the herd changes direction. When the breeze blows his scent away from the herd, the herd continues to move in the same direction."
"Why does B.O. want to be in front of the herd?" the hiker asked.
"B.O. is a natural born leader," the old man answered.
Last night (October 29) Barack Obama (B.O.) gave his half hour of advertising with the money he had promised he would not use. In the background was music carefully chosen to show his sincerity and humility while he looked impressive and told the latest lies that were designed to place himself in front of the majority of the herd. B.O. was still using change, Alinsky's buzz word, to gain the attention of the masses. True to Alinsky's teachings, B.O. was using stories filled with raw emotion to build a political force. Also, as Alinsky had taught, B.O. was using generalities devoid of reason to sway his followers.
Alinsky's followers are not encumbered by honor, integrity, or morality of any kind. In fact, those who have these things are considered inferior by the Alinsky elite. B.O. is probably the best example of this elite because he has mastered the art of oratory and appearing to be sincere.
Throughout his campaign, also true to Alinsky, B.O. has stated his supposed views in ambiguous words so that B.O. could see which way the herd was moving. Once the direction of movement was known, B.O. adjusted his supposed platform accordingly. Now with a few days left before the final day of voting, B.O. was telling the public his most successful lies (according to Alinsky, a man was a fool to tell the truth when a lie would better serve the immediate purpose - and promises were made to be broken). Unfortunately, B.O.'s latest list of promises will never be kept either due to being stupidly conceived or impossible to finance. Nevertheless, they were presented so well by B.O. that they will fool the gullible. Heaven help us if this purveyor of deception and prince of darkness ever becomes our leader.
As of the November 4, 2008, B.O. has become our leader. In January, the nation will be in the hands on three socialist ("shadow" communist) elites: B.O., Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. The communists who have almost completely taken over in our educational institutions, and the media, were the deciding factors as large numbers of brainwashed young people and media-deceived women were the major B.O. supporters. In effect, B.O. won through charm, subterfuge, and American ignorance.
A SHORT SYNOPSIS OF ALINSKY'S BOOKS
Back to Saul D. Alinsky
Main Menu We have received our copies of Alinsky's two books which had been back-ordered. In Reveille for Radicals (first copyrighted in 1946) we see: Radicals want to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization. They hope for a future where the means of economic production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful. They feel that this minority control of production facilities is injurious to the large masses of people not only because of economic monopolies but because the political power inherent in this form of centralized economy does not augur well for an ever expanding democratic way of life.
This indicates several things. First, Alinsky did not understand that corporations were not supposed to be monopolies. They are supposed to be competitive with one another. When there is a monopoly or near-monopoly it is there only because we are not enforcing our laws against monopolies. Yet, throughout Alinsky's books he speaks only of monopolistic capitalism. Second, Alinsky was a socialist regardless of what he called himself because ownership of production by the people is socialistic/communistic by definition. A similar and more workable concept has been used by a number corporations which give special stock options to employees so that the employees become part owners of the corporation. However, in these instances, there are still managers who are educated and cognizant of business methods and can better steer the corporation than the less able employees (who usually do not want to do so). Furthermore, corporations are usually started by savvy entrepreneurs who would not have done so if they thought their efforts were to be hijacked by less-qualified others.
Alinsky goes on to say: Possessed of this sketch of a world to be, radicals find themselves adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism. In this there are two main currents - one called organized industry and the other organized labor. Radicals have been convinced that the current of organized industry leads directly to perdition, and they have little doubt but that the current of organized labor flows to the promised land.
Alinsky was an idealist - but not the usual kind of idealist. He was a pragmatic idealist who was very intelligent but, like most of us, limited in knowledge in many areas. He had studied Machiavelli and Marx, but he was not a Marxist. Instead, his philosophy might be called advanced Marxism. Along with his idealism, Alinsky had been exposed to conditions in Chicago slums for much of his life and he had friends who were Mafia leaders. This gave him a strong touch of cynicism. He was born in Chicago in 1909, and educated first in the streets of that city and then in its university. Graduate work at the University of Chicago in criminology introduced him to the Capone gang, and later to the Joliet State Prison, where he studied prison life.
Alinsky did many good things at the local level in Chicago, and at this level his general philosophy was good for America. For instance, he organized the poor to fight slum lords and bullying corporations. He founded Alinsky Ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power. From all this, you will note that his outlook in life is vastly different from that of a western American or even that of a any American who was not raised in the streets of cities like Chicago in the Capone years.
David Horowitz had parents who were Communists and he grew up as Communist. When he realized that he had been fooled, he changed sides and has become a strong advocate against Communism. He had this to say about Alinsky. "I understand better than most Alinsky's deep, deep hatred of America. A hate that ran so deep that he wrote a blueprint for tearing our nation down. And while I outgrew and repented my anti-Americanism and came to see how great and generous our country is, many agents of the radical left never grew up. In fact, today many of them are leaders in Congress and in our White House, all embracing Alinsky's Rules for Radicals - the roadmap for turning our nation upside down."
Rules for Radicals was originally given the title Rules for Revolution which David Horowitz considers a more accurate title for its contents. When Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals (first copyrighted in 1971 - one year before he died), he was careful to avoid any mention of concepts that could directly tie him to socialism or communism - although his methods were very similar in some ways to those of certain departments of the KGB. At that time, he was still the pragmatic idealist and he still had concepts that were very definitely his own.
Alinsky divided society into four classes. There were the Haves, the Have Nots, the Have a Little - Want Mores, and the Do Nothings. The Haves were those who had much and who dominated society. The Have Nots were those who were poor and lacking in nearly every way. The Have a Little - Want Mores were the middle class. The middle class were the ones who attempted to climb the social/economic ladder and some of them did great things. However, once these great things were done, the children of the doers usually became those who talked a lot, but were actually the "good men who did nothing". Thus we have the fourth class, the Do Nothings.
Alinsky believed that history was composed of cycles of alternating revolution and periods of complacency. The revolutions could be peaceful or violent and could be revolutions against various things. However, in each revolution there was friction and discomfort - even many deaths - and people should get used to this as a fact of life. Alinsky looked down upon those who wanted violent revolution and he believed that violence could always be avoided with the correct strategy and tactics. One of his key words was "compromise".
Alinsky believed that man's welfare is not separate from that of others. Envy will make the Have Nots the enemies of the Haves and the Have Nots will eventually steal the wealth of the Haves by one means or another. In effect, he said that the Haves must share the wealth or lose it. He stated This is the low road to morality. There is no other. [As a pragmatic idealist, Alinsky believed that mankind was driven only by self-interest.] Life is the story of means and ends, according to Alinsky. His morality or lack thereof (he did not believe in real morality from people) is encapsulated in his view when contemplating means and ends: Does this particular end justify this particular means? And in his statement The means-and-ends moralists or non-doers always wind up on their ends without any means. Almost always there is a grain of truth in what Alinsky says - but he brings a cynical slant to it that is definitely a slant rather than a complete truth.
Alinsky stated that action must always be for the good of mankind even when it conflicts with one's own interests. If this seems at odds with his view of human morality, then perhaps the following with explain this supposed paradox. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life... The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe's "conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action"; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind. The choice must always be for the latter. Action is for mass salvation and not for the individual's personal salvation. He who sacrifices the mass good for his personal conscience has a peculiar conception of "personal salvation"; he doesn't care enough for people to be "corrupted" for them.
Alinsky understood little of American views of history even though he had a shallow understanding of the actions in history. He states: The Declaration of Independence, as a declaration of war, had to be what it was, a 100 percent statement of the justice of the cause of the colonists and a 100 percent denunciation of the role of the British government as evil and unjust. Our cause had to be all shining and justice, allied with the angels; theirs had to be all evil, tied to the Devil; in no war has the enemy or the cause ever been gray. Therefore, from one point of view the omission was justified; from the other, it was deliberate deceit. Actually, the Declaration was just that. It was written to explain why we were breaking off from the British empire - not written to weigh the virtues of continuing upon a course in which we were the unrepresented pawns of King George. Nor were all the grievances against the British Empire listed lest the document become too long. This is typical of the slant that Alinsky's cynicism placed upon America and the nature of the propaganda that is featured today in most of our schools - where are our children are brainwashed to want change of a certain nature.
Alinsky had some rules pertaining to the ethics of means and ends. They will be given and explained briefly.
1. One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue. Here Alinsky means that when the chips are down, a person will not care what means he uses to bail himself out, and that there are shades of gray as to the means considered, according to the degree of danger to the person's interests.
1A. The parallel rule to number one: One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's distance from the scene of the conflict. This is one of the arguments that peaceniks use about war - those who declare it are usually far from the conflict itself. Of course, there are times when war is preferable now to having a greater conflict later or to becoming slaves of the aggressor.
2. The judgement of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgement. This rule seems to be self explanatory. Alinsky stated that the Declaration of Independence to us is a glorious document and an affirmation of human rights - but to the British it was statement notorious for its deceit by omission.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
4. Judgement must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point. Alinsky uses the examples of our position on the freedom of the high seas at the time of the War of 1812, contrasted to our 1962 blockage of Cuba or our alliance the Soviet Union in WWII.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa. When we have more choices, we can choose means that are more "ethical" than we otherwise could.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluation of means.
7. Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgement of history leans heavily upon the outcome of success or failure. It spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.
8. The morality of the means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory. Alinsky uses the dropping of the bomb on Japan as an example. He felt that at the time the defeat of Japan was an absolute certainty which triggered a moral debate of the issue. However, he mentions that the state of the world at that time was much different than it is today.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", "Of the Common Welfare", "Pursuit of Happiness"," or "Bread and Peace".
There is another statement of Alinsky's that should be considered something of a rule: All effective actions require the passport of morality. This is, according to Alinsky, most effective when we refer to higher laws from God.
Alinsky's idealism seeps out in the following paragraph that he wrote: The organizer, the revolutionist, the activist or call him what you will, who is committed to a free and open society is in that commitment anchored to a complex of high values, These values include the basic morals of organized religions; their base is the preciousness of human life. These values include freedom, equality, justice, peace, the right to dissent, the values that were the banners of hope and yearning to all revolutions of men... They include the values in our own bill of rights... Means and ends are so qualitatively interrelated that the true question has never been the proverbial one, "Does the end justify the means?", but always has been "Does the particular end justify the particular means?"
Alinsky was aware that certain words have lost their true meaning because of their use in unpopular contexts. He says of the word "power", the corruption of "power" is not in power but in ourselves... Power is the very essence, the dynamo of life. It is the power of the heart pumping... Power is an essential life force always in operation, either changing the world or opposing change. Power, or organized energy, may be a man-killing explosive or a life-saving drug. The power of a gun may be used to enforce slavery, or to achieve freedom.
There are some words of Alinsky's that tell of his inner beliefs regarding self-interest. With one breath we point out that we are utterly opposed to communism, but that we love the Russian people (loving people is in keeping with the tenets of our civilization). What we hate is the atheism and the suppression of the individual that we attribute as characteristics substantiating the "immorality" of communism. On this we base our powerful opposition. We do not admit the actual fact: our own self-interest...
We repeatedly get caught in this conflict between our professed moral principles and the real reasons why we do things - to wit, our self-interest. We are always able to mask those real reasons in words of beneficent goodness - freedom, justice, and so on. Such tears as appear in the fabric of this moral masquerade sometimes embarrasses us.
It is interesting that communists do not seem to concern themselves with these moral justifications for their acts of self-interest. In a way, this becomes embarrassing too; it makes us feel that they may be laughing at us as they struggle in the sea of world politics, stripped to their shorts, while we flop around fully dressed in our white tie and tails.
And yet with all this there is that wondrous quality of man that from time to time floods over the natural dams of survival and self-interest...
Alinsky says of his organizers: Organizers are not only essential to start and build an organization; they are also essential to keep it going. Maintaining interest and activity, keeping the group's goals strong and flexible at once, is a different operation but still organization... Alinsky has stated several times that once the organization's goals have been attained, the organizer must seek new goals to maintain interest - otherwise, there is complacency and the organization begins to fall apart.
...it becomes clear that the organizer begins to develop an abnormally large body of experience... He learns the local legends, anecdotes, values, idioms. He listens to small talk. He refrains from rhetoric foreign to the local culture... And yet the organizer must not try to fake it. He must be himself...
The qualities of an organizer:
1. Curiosity
2. Irreverence
3. Imagination
4. A sense of humor
5. A bit of a blurred vision of a better world
6. An organized personality
7. A well-integrated political schizoid - This one means that the organizer can further goals, policies, and supposed truths, while not believing in any of them.
8. Ego
9. A free and open mind, and political relativity - This one means that he becomes a flexible personality, knowing that nothing is certain - and able to come up with new ideas when faced with difficulties.
There is a difference, according to Alinsky, between a leader and an organizer. The leader goes on to build power to fulfill his desires, to hold and wield power for purposes both social and personal. He wants power for himself. The organizer finds his goal in the creation of power for others to use The organizer has achieved his purpose when the organization has developed to the point that it has leaders or other organizers within it who can carry on without the organizer.
According to Alinsky: With very rare exceptions, the right things are done for the wrong reasons. It is futile to demand that men do the right thing for the right reason - this is a fight with windmill. An organizer should know and accept that the right reason is only introduced as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved, although it may have been achieved for the wrong reason - therefore he should search for and use the wrong reasons to achieve the right goals. He should be able, with skill and calculation, to use irrationality in his attempts to progress toward a rational world.
The organizer must communicate in a manner that is within the experience of the listener. General theories become meaningful only when one has absorbed and understood the specific constituents and then related them back to a general concept. Unless this is done, the specifics become nothing more than a string of interesting anecdotes.
Alinsky states: Love and faith are not common companions. More commonly power and fear consort with faith. The Have Nots have a limited faith in the worth of their own judgements. They still look forward to the judgements of the Haves. They respect the strength of the upper class and they believe that the Haves are more intelligent, more competent, and endowed with "something special". Distance has a way of enhancing power, so that respect becomes tinged with reverence. The Haves are the authorities and thus the beneficiaries of various myths and legends that always develop around power. The Have Nots will believe them where they would be hesitant and uncertain about their own judgements. Power is not to be crossed; one must respect and obey. Power means strength, whereas love is a human frailty the people mistrust. It is a sad fact of life that power and fear are the fountainheads of faith.
The first step in community organization is community disorganization.All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.
The organization has to be used in every possible sense as an educational mechanism, but education is not propaganda. Real education is the means by which the membership will begin to make sense out of their relationship as individuals to the organization and to the world they live in, so that they can make informed and intelligent judgements. The stream of activities and programs of organizations provide a never-ending series of specific issues and situations that create a rich field for the learning process.
Fundamental tactics1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. Alinsky states: 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.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
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.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. This means that the opposition will eventually make a mistake that finishes them.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying "You're right - we don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us."
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. This means that you do not attack a large organization per se'. If you were to do so, you would get the bureaucratic run-around. So you choose a target and stay on it just like the democrats did with President Bush. Polarize means to demonize the target until its own organization is against it. Bear in mind that the target need not be the actual one responsible for your problem.
13a. The real action is in the enemy's reaction.
13b. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.
13c. Tactics, like organization, like life, require that you move with action.
It should be remembered that you can threaten the enemy and get away with it. You can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that is unforgivable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes an irrational anger.
According to Alinsky, because a threat can be so potent if believed, it is best never to bluff. Remember that the threat is often more effective than the tactic itself. It is best to have at least two "stool pigeons" to leak the threat to the enemy. This will make him believe the threat and he may not know when the deed itself might happen.
Alinsky believed that the middle class was the correct one to target in the United States. This was where the power lay. B.O. knew this and that is why he focused upon the middle class in his campaign. [Our] activists and rebels on and off our college campuses - people who are committed to change - must make a complete turnabout. With rare exceptions our activists and radicals are products of and rebels against our middle class society. All rebels must attack the power states their society. Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and ways of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized, and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the big middle-class majority. Therefore, it is useless self-indulgence for an activist to put his past behind him. Instead, he should realize the priceless value of his middle-class experience. His middle-class identity, his familiarity with values and problems, are invaluable for organization of his "own people"...
Alinsky goes on to tell how his people can infiltrate and turn the campus rebels. He tells them regarding their targets: With a few exceptions, such as teachers, they have never gone beyond high school. They have been committed to the values of success, getting ahead, security, having their own home, auto, color TV, and friends. Their lives have been 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: the nightmare of pending retirement and old age with Social Security decimated by inflation... [This goes on and on, leaving out the good things and showing only gloom.]
Seeking some meaning in life, they turn to an extreme chauvinism and become defenders of the "American" faith. Now they even develop rationalizations for a life of futility and frustration...
Insecure in this fast-changing world, they cling to fixed illusory points [like religion and guns] - which are very real to them...
Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class, accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict. Start them off easy, don't scare them off. The opposition's reactions will provide the "education" or radicalization of the middle class. It does every time... The chance for organization for action on pollution, inflation, Vietnam, violence, race, taxes, and other issues is all about us. Tactics such as stock proxies and others are waiting to be hurled into the attack.
The revolution must manifest itself in the corporate sector by the corporations' realistic appraisal of conditions in the nation. The corporations must forget their nonsense about "private sectors". It is not just that government contracts and subsidies have long since blurred the line between public and private sectors, but that every American individual or corporation is public as well as private; public in that we are Americans and concerned about our national welfare...
The book ends with some very patriotic goals and ideals. Most of what Alinsky is asking for seems to be good for America. However, he is forcing his vision upon us with his organizers rather than educating us in a straightforward manner. He feels that we are too backward mentally to understand where we are and he tells his people the worst possible scenarios for us so that they will manipulate us like cattle. Furthermore, after looking at what he has to say, it would appear that his people, if undetected, could push us into anything. Alinsky was largely responsible for us losing the war in Vietnam and allowing communism to come one step farther in Southeast Asia. Now it appears than B.O. could help us lose the Middle East. Those who manipulate others from behind the scenes are not to be trusted. B.O. and others like him who have studied and used Alinsky's methods may well be using them against us - as has been evident with the extreme leftist Democrats.
Alinsky's ideas regarding the use of any means necessary to achieve an end can do nothing in our democratic republic but bring it down. The use of ACORN to destroy our economic system and create voter fraud (this happened in many states other than the 15 that were reported); the use of intimidation to prevent anyone from challenging B.O.; the placing of agents in the bureaucracy of Ohio like Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, who use their influence to aid in voter fraud; the placing of communist agents and owners in the media; the outright lies in debates that the communist owned media will not show the people; the blatant lies in campaign advertising repeated over and over again using money from the large campaign donations from socialist and communist billionaires, nations, and their front organizations; the unprincipled smearing of candidates of the opposition; and more - these things cannot be tolerated without the country becoming another communist dictatorship.
It seems that much of what Alinsky has said were read and taught by the KGB - and have been put to use against us. More people need to see what we are up against now - if possible, they should read Alinsky's books themselves. The one means of preventing unwanted manipulation of our lives is to expose the manipulator and his methods. B.O. has manipulated his way into the Presidency by using Alinsky's methods. Let us be sure that we learn how to prevent him from going farther.
See Psychopathic Personalities for more information.
The Forbidden Secrets Behind Obama
(Free Books for Community Organizers)For a free PDF copy of Alinsky's book, Reveille for Radicals, go to:
http://www.historyofsocialwork.org/1946_Alinsky/1946%20-%20Saul%20Alinsky%20-%20Reveille%20for%20Radicals.pdf.For a free PDF copy of Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, go to:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fservv89pn0aj.sn.sourcedns.com%2F~gbpprorg%2Fobama%2FRules_for_Radicals.pdf.For a list of PDF e-books that has similar books that are recommended for organizers go to:
http://www.e-bookspdf.org/download/about-the-reveille-for-radicals.html.
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