Tag Archives: Saul Alinsky

THE NEW YORK TIMES ON DAVOS

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 2 comments

The World Economic Forum is once again in cession in the posh town of Davos, Switzerland.  Today’s New York Times covers the conference with a story under the headline At Davos, a Big Issue Is the Have-Lots vs. the Have-Not.  The headline is right out of Alinsky, including the hyphens.

Believe it or not, I did not come here today to find fault with the New York Times.  I came to talk about bias; it’s just that taking examples from the Times was the easy way out.  Bias is the most insidious bias when it is subtle.  It is also very effective because from any given source it is usually incessant. Let’s examine this sentence taken from the Davos article.

“[The income gap now is] debated openly in areas where the primacy of laissez-faire capitalism used to be taken for granted and where talk of inequality used to be derided as class warfare.”  (emphasis mine)

“Laissez-faire” is from the French where it means ‘let it happen’.  In economics it has come to mean that level of market freedom  which is free-wheeling, devoid of any meaningful regulation, a little bit reckless.  Later in the same sentence we read ‘used to be derided as class warfare’.  Removing the subtleties what we get are the notions that free-wheeling unregulated markets with minimal regulation are  the essence (primacy) of capitalism and that there is general agreement that pitting the poor against the rich is not an act of class warfare (used to deride).  Of course, there is no such agreement.

And what about that word ‘inequality’ in there.  In the context of the broad subject at hand it carries with it the connotation of unfairness.

The phrasing of a sentence in that manner comes easily to a liberally minded journalist and he would disclaim any bias in it.  But you saw it.  Or did you?  I told you it was subtle.

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Posted in Opinion, Political philosophy

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USELESS IDIOTS

Posted on November 18, 2011 | 2 comments

Saul Alinsky is dead.  So is Occupy Wall Street.  Or if it’s not dead it is in the throes of dying.  Alinsky taught revolution as a three act play.  Act I is to gain respect.  That does not happen by defecating on police cars and shutting down subway stations at rush hour.

In the first couple of weeks of OWS, the movement was seen as counterpoint to the Tea Party.  It may have even been intended as such by its founders, whomever they may be.  There were people with honest gripes about the lack of jobs, crony capitalism, ill conceived bailouts, and stimulus that didn’t stimulate.  However, given the obsession of the OWS leadership with democracy and endless “General Assemblies” the movement never found a unified direction.  You can’t steer a ship with a hundred rudders in the hands of a hundred helmsmen each with a different idea of which direction forward is.

Gradually the cross section of ordinary Americans who really did want jobs and better government withdrew.  They left the tent cities to the shower-less and the anarchists whose idea of social justice is – why make it if you can just take it?  This is exactly the type of behavior Saul Alinsky sought to correct.  Without effective leadership they are proving to be no more than a band of useless idiots.

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Posted in Opinion, Political polemics

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OCCUPY WALL STREET, GRASS ROOTS OR ORGANIZED FROM THE START?

Posted on October 7, 2011 | 1 comment

Both sides of the media are reporting that the movement known as Occupy Wall Street is a serendipitous event, something that just sprung up naturally from a garden of discontent.  But did it?

On September 17, 2011 a few students sat on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan and called their little protest group Days of Rage (DoR).  Supposedly this was the genesis of the larger movement now known as Occupy Wall Street (OWS).  If OWS was a spontaneous outgrowth from DoR how do you account for the fact that occupywallst.org was registered as a website domain on July 14, 2011, a full two months prior to the first day of the Wall St Days of Rage sit in ?

OWS appears to be a well planned fully orchestrated program in response to the Tea Party.  Make no mistake, OWS is a national operation.  Just days into the launch at the Brooklyn Bridge nearly 900 local community organizations from Florida to the State of Washington are up and running with event dates and websites.

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Locations of OWS operations

A long list of supporters was posted on the website at www.occupywallst.org on Oct 4th but the page appears to have been taken down.  The SEIU and a NY Local of the American Federation of Teachers were among a list of ten to 15 unions.  MoveOn.org was one of the well known names on the longer list of advocacy groups behind the movement.

OWS is developing as a mirror image of the Tea Party, well dressed non-violent, heavily middle class and united behind a cause.  The Tea Party argues for less intrusive government and for getting federal spending under control.  The Tea Party is a force moving the country to the right.  OWS demonstrates against the rich, against the banks and against the financial foundations of capitalism.  OWS is a force that would move the country to the left.  At this nascent stage they appear to have a great deal of popular support, particularly from the middle class.

Socialist leaders have long known that a large and satisfied middle class is the greatest obstacle to gaining control in a democratic nation as prosperous as the U.S.  As long as the middle class is content with their status they will reject the appropriation and redistribution of their assets that socialism requires, supposedly for the common good.  One answer is force, i.e. violent revolution.  The other, and far better answer, is to foment unrest, build anger to the point where there is widespread dissatisfaction within the middle class.  And then present free markets as the cause and socialism as the cure.  The voters will do the rest.

Anger requires a target.  The rich, the banks and Wall Street suit the bill perfectly.  The rich are a defenseless minority that engender very little sympathy.  All that’s needed is a strong community organizer to set them up as the target, someone with some clout, someone with a bully pulpit.  Enter stage left – Barack Obama.

Saul Alinsky taught that socialism’s path to power is like a three act play.

Act I is join the crowd, gain respect, gain acceptance and legitimacy.
Barack Obama has done that.

Act II is the development of anger and the spreading of discontent to enroll as many supporters as possible for Act III.
By intent or not, Barack Obama is doing that.

Act III is the final wresting of control of the government from the establishment.
Barack Obama won’t be doing that, but it’s not for lack of trying.

There is no way to know the President’s real goal, but if it is the establishment of a socialist state he’s doing everything just right; and that includes Occupy Wall Street.

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Posted in Economy, Opinion, Political philosophy, Political polemics

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DEMOCRAT’S REMORSE

Posted on August 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Garden variety Democrats are beginning to say in public what they have privately felt for quite some time. Barack Obama is failing as president. The thought that Hillary would have been a better choice is widespread. I wonder.

Hillary certainly outshines Obama on foreign policy matters but the plummeting of Obama’s star is tied to issues here at home. His bumbling abroad was of concern to conservatives but mostly taken in stride by Democrats. The two candidate’s agendas at home were much the same – government run health care, Cap & Trade, Card Check, more industry regulation and enhanced “entitlements”.

Nancy Pelosi would still have been running the house and Harry Reid would still be running the Senate. Instead of a president experienced in the application of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, we would have a president who wrote her doctoral thesis on the author and the teachings outlined in his book. There is a difference, but does it matter? The 60’s radicals would still be in control of all three of the branches of government that run the show.

And then there is the big question; would Hillary have been elected? Obama won handily and always held the lead, but a month or so before election day, the pollsters reported the race was getting close. It’s a safe assumption to say there was greater passion to elect the first black man to the presidency than the first woman. And Hillary didn’t have the slogan Hope and Change. The power of that theme cannot be underestimated. Intentionally vague, it was a blank check for fulfillment of your hopes and dreams whatever they may be.

Blaming the leader and not the system is as routine an act for the Left as breakfast in the morning. Eventually a point is reached where blaming the opposition is just not credible. The only reason Communism didn’t work in Russia was that Lenin and Stalin were corrupt and ineffective. Socialism works. It just has to be done right. That’s the unshakable belief.

Barack Obama did not initiate the decline of America that is taking place. But he is presiding over the culmination. Sometimes a disease has to get really serious before we will submit to the cure. In that sense, Obama may have done the country a service.

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