As a member of the middle class Alinsky so despises for its “dreary, drab existence” (p. 121), I must apologize that the past month’s events involving my dismal life with my dull family and uninspired community crowded out the excitement of distilling Alinsky’s political genius for PJ Media readers. I’ll try not to let that happen again — after all, with the former counterrevolutionaries now in power going Animal Farm on us, we are set to be the next crop of political revolutionaries.
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As we wrap up Alinsky’s masterwork, let’s consider several layers:
1) The political situation prior to 1975;
2) The application of Alinsky’s philosophy by his disciples now relishing their status as Haves;
3) The potential for conservatives to co-opt Alinsky tactics to fight the new oppressors.
Chapter Six, “In the Beginning,” is key to understanding how the community organizer’s effectiveness is built on fomenting discontent:
If the organizer begins with an affirmation of his love for people, he promptly turns everyone off. If, on the other hand, he begins with a denunciation of exploiting employers, slum landlords, police shakedowns gouging merchants, he is inside their experience and they accept him. (p. 98)
The organizer’s job is to … agitate, introduce ideas, get people pregnant with hope and a desire for change. (p. 103)
Hope and change, anyone?
From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of [what Alinsky calls] “the army.” (p. 113)
Here is the difference between past presidents and our first national community organizer-in-chief. Think ACORN. Think Organizing for America. A mobilization of masses of people religiously dedicated to doing the commander’s bidding.
The term “community organizer,” like so many leftist terms, is a typical bit of Orwellian doublespeak:
The first step in community organization is community disorganization. … The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community. … He must search out the controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. (pp. 116-117)
In the beginning, the organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems:
People hunger for drama and adventure, for a breath of life in a dreary, drab existence. … It is a desperate search for personal identity — to let other people know that at least you are alive. … When the organizer approaches [someone living in a tenement] part of what begins to be communicated is that through the organization and its power he will get his birth certificate for life, that he will become known, that things will change … Television cameramen put their microphones in front of him and ask, “What is your name, sir?” … Nobody ever asked him his name before. (p. 121)
Moving from Alinsky theory (chapters two and three) into practical application (chapters four through seven) is a bit like sliding down a rabbit hole. There is that sense of a world disconnected from what has gone before. Yes, history repeats itself. Yes, there was FDR with his massive government programs and LBJ with his War on Poverty. But never have we had at the helm an organizer-in-chief who’s lived, breathed, and dreamed the Alinsky Way.
You’ve got it. You’ve finally said it. “Take the gloves off!”
Just that it’s too late.
Thanks anyway.
check this out:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/doj_hires_bloggers_as_propagan.html
I think I see where today’s radicals are not following Alinsky:
Today’s radicals have only scorn for the middle class tea partiers. They should drop some of their rough and tumble ways (like calling them teabaggers) — the better to cozy up and convert us poor suckers incrementally to their more enlightened way of thinking.
Here I am providing the logical reasoning and direction today’s radicals lack due to the low quality of their education. But I think they are too emotion based to follow my suggestion. Today’s radical foot soldiers, as evidenced by the liberal trolls infesting all right wing political blogs, feel too much hatred for their political enemies to even try to cozy up to us poor suckers. If they were only feeling Alinsky’s contempt for the middle class then maybe they could fool us.
Reckon any of this will ever get noticed by the MSM? Me either.
Music Video: No Rules for Radicals
Hey pelaut – Get out of the way!
Purple and red state Americans prefer to think the best of people. One might be a political opponent, but their heart is assumed to be in the right place. This rather optimistic view of our fellow human beings may often even be right. Saul Alinsky and his ilk take advantage of this attitude. He exhorted his fellow radicals to lie—-but in a charming and polite manner. They should always have a bright smile on their face before putting the knife in the back of the enemy. Guilt tripping is another effective tool. Combining the latter with charm and deceit is a lethal brew. This is how Barack Obama captured the presidency.
I have been following some the “mobies” who are useing Alinsky’s tactics against conservatives, and I think i’ts working beyond their wildest dreams. The left has the conservative blogs twisted in knots. Sarah Palin supporters turning against her for supporting John McCain. Tea Party factions fighting with each other. What to dt? I’t's a zoo!
Its never too late!! MSM is a party to all this, so don’t expect anything from them and you won’t be disappointed. Publicus is alive and well so keep it coming. We are winning and will continue to every time we find and disclose the truth. Freedom is worth it. Go Republicans!!
Thank you for these articles.
I wouldn’t have the patience to read the totalitarians’ manual.
See ? As soon as the half-dictator lost the elections, he came back with the speech against the banks (strong enough to sink Wall Street).
He hopes he can rally the “masses” against another straw-man.
He has yet to understand that this is America and there are no “masses” but only individuals.
Re Chapter 7, tactic #4, making your enemy live up to his own rulebook, I suggest the following theme to push: GOVERNMENT GREED. Rub everybody’s face in this at every opportunity.
It has the advantage of being the literal truth. As everyone can now see, government is a gaping maw of unlimited avarice and never thinks for a moment of living within its means. For it to accuse the private sector (us) of greed is like a pickpocket pointing at somebody else and shouting, “Stop, thief!”
Dear Barbara,
I’ve written a long reply to your article, TWICE – and it was not posted. I’ve decided to post it on my blog – hopefully it will work this time. The link to my entry is the following:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2010/01/alinsky-rules-can-we-use-them-against.html
Sincerely,
Hyphenated American
Radical Americans?
Radical? people in America. Sorry, older citizens have to chuckle when we read about all the paranoia by the right these days. Man, you dudes should have been around in the 64-74 years. You would have passed out just reading about it back then.
My opinion? I think things are relatively quiet on the american “revolutionary” front these days. Yes, there is still a black panther party (so I have heard) and there may be a march or two every few years. But I would say the real action is in the Muslim/Mideast side of the house these days. Hey, you could attend a t-party demo for an inkling of what it was like (in reverse of course) and take some photos !!
I am not saying not to check under your bed or your neighbor/s garage for a commie (be sure to ask the bill payers permission, if he is a right winger you could be shot on sight), but please be prepared to give up after a neighborhood or two. Things are relatively quiet these days, trust me.
you’d think the “O”bum-a would not be so obvious about it. or as bad at the execution. the guy is lazy.
great essay Barbara
Squealer the pig “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” – George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5
Logic in education…in 1975 I was an education student taking a class in curriculum change. We were assigned to present a course to be introduced into the high school curriculum, and explain why it would be of value. I chose a course in Logic. Didn’t really get to present it very well; the other students laughed and mocked the idea, and the professor let them. The NEA didn’t have to try very hard, mocking reason and logic was already in the culture.
– we don’t need no stinkin’ Rules!
“Man, you dudes should have been around in the 64-74 years. You would have passed out just reading about it back then.
My opinion? I think things are relatively quiet on the american “revolutionary” front these days.”
Those revolutionaries from the 60′s and 70′s, as do today’s generation of revolutionaries, put on suits and “quietly” infiltrated “the system”.
The method changed. The ideology and goals did not.
You are certainly correct. These rules have been applied by so many, for so long that only now in retrospect, does it become clear what has occured.
Remember the grossly obvious hatred expressed and the vitriole spoken at just the mere mention of the name George W. Bush? Remember how guys like UN Ambassador John Bolton, were ostracized? Do you see how Sarah Palin has been attacked? The hatred and vitriole is spewed by only just a few, you know by folks like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards, Barack Obama, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold, Diane Feinstein, and then there was just a few others, you know… Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnel, Cher, Barbara Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, Jon Stewart…I just can’t go on listing them. You get the point.
The infiltration that Alinsky called for, is complete. It permeates every aspect of our lives. That is the propagandist’s hope, the organizer’s dream, and the Progressive’s mission. The mission is accomplished. The nation is now formed into just what they have desired. They have a say in what we eat, what we drink, what religions are acceptable, and what should be taught to our children at all grade levels. They have input into what is broadcast on TV, they have control of the news and radio and want to control the internet. They no longer ask our opinion, or seek our direction. They dictate what legislation will be presented, discussed and approved, and then through their benevolence, what benefits we shall receive.
Furthermore, our unalienable rights are now seen merely as rights bestowed upon us by a benificent government and our Constitution is no longer seen as a static and foundational document from which we all are governed but, as a living document which should evolve and therefore can be interpreted as needs dictate.
This degree of control is defined as Totalitarianism. Our Nation is no longer a Democratic Republic but it has slowly been transformed into a Totalitarian Democracy. This transformation has ocurred right before our very eyes and it has been propogated by the very people whom we have elected.
It may seem impossible. You may not want to believe it has happened, particularly here in our own country. This is the stuff we have read about ocurring in third world countries. This is the stuff we have even fought wars to prevent. This is also the stuff our Founding Fathers said would happen and warned us against, should we fail to maitain a watchful eye.
Am I saying Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel and Eric Holder are all part of it? Yes, that is what I am saying. These folks have been schooled in Saul Alinsky. They have studued him and have modeled their political actions on his radical theories. They are successfully implementing their Progressive agenda and “Fundamentally Transforming America”, by utilizing the subtle yet apparently, very effective Rules for Radicals.
Fortunately, we are now waking up to what has been quietly developing over decades. We are only now realizing that our Nation is at the crux of the Progressive movement and that we must somehow gain it all back. The question of how we are to do this must be asked and answered. When answered, we must rise up, speak out and replace everyone that does not adhere to, or uphold the principles of our Democratic Republic form of governance. We must exercise our right to vote, but we must also be ever vigilant and watchful of those whom we elect. Those elected must represent us and not their party leadership. They must adhere to our Nation’s values of fairness and equality and the priciples of representative governance and no longer the priciples of pseudo-anarchist, anti-war era, liberal-progressive thinkers like Saul Alinski.
They are splitting the Republican party. The word “RINO” was invented by the left. And boy are they running with it. John McCain is a perfect example. Sarah Palin is being blasted by conservatives and Malkin/Beck/Levin?ect who hate McCain. This is a trap. McCain is the only US senater who is genually looking out for our troops, and they love him for it. We need John McCain.