by Diane Rufino, April 5, 2018

Saul Alinsky, the Godfather of the “Community-Organizing” movement and prophet of the progressive movement, wrote a book that many involved in grassroots politics are familiar with – RULES FOR RADICALS. With that book, he provided a guide for future community organizers to use in uniting and motivating low-income communities, or “Have-Nots,” in order for them to exert social, political, legal, and economic power. In other words, he outlined a plan to turn useless idiots into useful idiots for political purposes. The beauty of his plan is that the “Have-Not’s” are merely pawns; they are really not served in exchange for all their efforts. The ruse, and the promise, is that they will be. And they believe that for their efforts, their cause will be advanced. But the fact is that they are useful for only one purpose – to advance the goals of the progressive elites who need their political contributions to be successful. The ultimate purpose, of course, is the creation of a large, concentrated, socialist government with the power to control the lives of its citizens and the permanent control by the political elite. In fact, Alinsky’s Rules is based heavily on Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto – the grand plan for world conquest by communism. Marx outlined how to foment a political revolution among the lower classes of people.

If government (controlled by a progressive political elite) can control the lives of the people (or at least, a huge chunk of them), if it can control the information they are given, the way they think, the necessities they need to support themselves, and if it can remove from them the burden of education and personal responsibility and even the confines of a marriage to have and raise children, then it doesn’t have to worry about politics. In the government of Saul Alinsky, and in the government of the Progressives, political power is secured as long as people are controlled.

Therefore, the goal of the progressives, the socialists, the liberals (all those who seek a large aggressive government) is political security and the establishment of a permanent ruling class…  no more “red state” versus “blue state”; no more “Republican vs. Democrat.”  They seek the end of the Conservative movement. They seek the end of the country of our founding. They seek a fundamental transformation.

That goal is made clear by Alinsky in the very dedication he wrote in the forward to his book, which, by the way, has the full title “RULES FOR RADICALS: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.” He dedicated his work to Lucifer, the original “radical” and “community organizer.” The dedication reads: “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.”

By his own admission, Alinsky’s book is a scheme for transformation – transforming a system “as it is” to one that “is as it should be,” with the “should be” to be determined by progressives. Lucifer took a world modeled by God for good, with parameters established to enrich for goodness and for fruitful conduct and behavior, and by manipulating individuals and appealing to their worst tendencies, transformed that good and decent existence into one plagued with evil and mortal sin. Alinsky praises this radicalization and transformation as a good thing – one that should be modeled and replicated.  One would say that our country – founded on the notion of individual liberty and limited government, predicated on religion and morality in order to provide proper boundaries for acceptable conduct and personal responsibility – is as good a state as humanly and earthly possible and transformation will only destroy the inherent good and Godly in that system.

Which political party has become the party of the Progressive Movement…. The party of transformation?  It is, and has been for many years now, the Democratic Party.

Alinsky’s writings helped mold the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and ultimately, through her husband’s influence, Michelle Obama. Barack Obama studied RULES FOR RADICALS to become the community organizer that he was. His fruits paid off for his own election. How many times have we heard him use to phrase (in one form or another): “the world as it is and the world as it should be…”?  And Hillary Clinton was so enamored and motivated by the book that she characterized Alinsky as her mentor. She invited him to speak at her college, Wellesley College, and gave his introduction. In her college senior thesis, she chose to research and write a dissertation entitled “There is Only the Fight… An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.” As Jeannie DeAngelis wrote in her February 3, 2014 article in American Thinker: “That model may be the reason why, after Bill Clinton took office, nasty tactics, shifting blame, and truth-parsing became commonplace in American politics.”

Following in the footsteps of Marx, Alinsky applies a simple model in his scheme to organize the “Have-Nots” to achieve his ultimate goal of transforming America —  he focuses on their poverty and status while pointing to a government that has not done enough for them as the common enemy.

The first task of the community-organizer is that of agitating the “Have-Nots” (the useless idiots). Alinsky explains how to achieve that – by rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. The organizer must play on their sense of apathy – of accepting a situation that has done little for them. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.” Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from the streets, the impoverished communities, corner gangs, minority groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and other non-conformist type individuals.

Once the “Have-Nots” have organized, protested, and gone to the voting booth, the pay-off is abysmal. They are not served, but rather, they are put in a position to be controlled over and over again. They are treated to impressive sound bites and unrealistic promises, and perhaps given a free cell phone here and there, but in reality, they are politically enslaved.

Useless idiots are only useful for one purpose, and that’s at the ballot box. They serve no other meaningful purpose in society; they are a burden and merely pose problems. Useless idiots just want to be taken care of; the worst of them believe they are “entitled” to be taken care of.

Because of their lowly status and because of their tendency for dependency, useless idiots can be manipulated and manipulated they are – and have been. They’ve been manipulated since the end of the 1960’s. Again, they are useful for the ultimate transformation of our country.

I never understood the attraction of a socialist state to the individual, especially in this country, and to so many people. In a socialist state, individuals lose their rights, their freedoms, and their choices to the dictates of government.

Alinsky’s tactics for community organizing would inspire two Columbia University sociologists, Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven to write their now-infamous article “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” In that article, Cloward and Piven articulated a strategy – now known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” – which seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, in particular welfare and other entitlement programs (“the welfare crisis:). The inability to meet these demands – required, in most part (according to the article) by the ghetto communities and poor African-Americans – would push the United States into crisis and economic collapse and ultimately usher in a social state – one that would have to be established if it was to be able to effectively meet the demands of the people.  The one particular demand that Cloward and Piven wrote about in their article was the demand of a guaranteed income level. There would need to be major economic reform at the national level to provide this new program of direct income redistribution.  This major transformation of the government – from one that leaves the individual free to exercise their rights to pursue opportunities to one that smothers the individual in their free exercise of rights in order to “take care of certain individuals” – is a good thing, and a necessary thing, according to Cloward and Piven.

One can see how Saul Alinsky’s RULES for mobilizing the “Have-Nots” has motivated and has inspired the Columbia sociologists into advancing their “Strategy” for transforming this country into a social state.

By the way, both the Saul Alinsky book and the Cloward-Piven strategy were written to empower and advance the Democratic Party and to secure a Democratic-controlled government.

Now, there is incorrect information being circulated on the internet about “the 8 levels of government control needed to establish a social state” and that information being attributed to Alinsky and his book.  I’ve actually seen where it is attributed to Cloward and Piven as well. While the information is not addressed in RULES FOR RADICALS, nor in the article addressed above, these levels are nonetheless worth addressing.

These 8 levels, according to the unfounded articles, are those that a government would need in order to establish an effective social (socialist) state. I am discussing them below because they actually make a lot of sense. Each level makes it harder for individuals to break free from the unhealthy dependency on government and makes it easier for government to control the people, especially the young. While there is no actual source cited for the origin of these levels of control, several are actually implicated in Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto and many are mentioned expressly in the Cloward-Piven Strategy. With respect to controlling people for the purposes of manipulating them, Alinsky addresses at least two as being necessary.

The levels of control of which I am referring are:

(1)  Healthcare – A government that controls the people’s healthcare controls the people themselves

(2)  Poverty – people in poverty are easiest to control; hence, it is most beneficial for government to pursue policies that increase the level of poverty or keep individuals and their offspring in poverty

(3)  Debt – government will increase the national debt to unsustainable levels because then it can continue to tax heavily (and to increase taxation; to burden property). Taxation produces more poverty or at least, prevents many from improving their financial situation

(4)  Gun Control – disarming the people allows the government to establish a police state, if need be

(5)  Welfare – welfare allows government to take control of every aspect of a recipient’s life – food, housing, choices, even decisions to marry or to pursue education. Government will never get rid of welfare programs if its goal is socialism

(6)  Education – government needs to take control of what its youth learns…  what they read, what they listen to, and what things mean; it needs to use the education system as a means to indoctrinate its citizens.

(7)  Religion – a belief in God needs to be removed from schools, government, the marketplace, and the public square. A socialist government substitutes itself for the role of God.  A moral, religious people will always question the legitimate role of government and so it must minimize this faction.

(8)  Class Warfare government needs to divide its people into poor and wealthy — the “have’s” and the “have-not’s.”  It also needs to divide people along racial lines – characterizing one group as “victims” and the other as “oppressors” (or as “beneficiaries”). This way it is easier to demonize the wealthy, the empowered, the benefitted classes and therefore, to take from them — their money (through taxation – to benefit the poor), and their positions (through “diversity”-enrichment programs). It is easier to re-engineer society by creating division, hatred, and distrust.

Looking at this list, the federal government has achieved every one of these levels of control – EXCEPT gun control. Is it any wonder that the left is pursuing it at such a rabid level lately?  Is it any wonder that it uses every tragedy to attack the Second Amendment?

If government, in fact, must undertake massive economic reforms to deal with the tremendous burden of our dependent classes (those taking advantage of welfare and other social programs, or using them as a way of life), including the unsustainable burden of immigration, subjugation and control of the American people is the natural consequence. Total control requires people to be unarmed – unable to physically revolt against their government.

Think seriously about the information I’ve written in this article. We are talking about the potential transformation of the country we love. If you are a “useless idiot,” I implore you to resist being manipulated by those who really care little for you and certainly for your improved status. After all, if your position is improved too much, you cannot be controlled and therefore are of no use to them. I also implore you to get angry at the left (the Progressives, the liberals, the Democrats) for characterizing you this way and manipulating you for their purposes. Get angry and take charge of your life, proving to everyone (most importantly, to yourself and your loved ones) that you are a vital part of a society and a country that values every individual and protects their rights to live free), not one that just wants to control him or her and thus limit those rights.

Become involved; become engaged; become educated and informed. Seek out the truth, for the truth will set you free.

This is your home – the United States of America.. The “Home of the Free.”  This is, or will be, the home of your children. This is, or will be, the home of your grandchildren. Help preserve it.  Don’t allow this current generation, and maybe the next, to be the last ones to enjoy the freedoms we’ve come to be known for.

References:

Lonestarliberty, “What is Happening in America: Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals,” May 17, 2017.  Referenced at:  http://lonestarliberty.net/alinskys-rules-radicals/

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty,” The Nation, May 2, 1966.  Referenced at:  https://www.commondreams.org/news/2010/03/24/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty

The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx) –  http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/tenplanks.html