Saul Alinsky – Community Organizer and God Father of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Socialist State of America
One of the most influential Americans in the twentieth century was a man named Saul Alinsky. He was a genius at organizing local communities with the goal of helping the poor. While we should always want to help the poor, Alinsky’s way of helping the poor was not to teach them how to improve their lives by hard work but to teach them how to take from others who have worked hard to improve their lives. He believed that crime and poverty were caused by capitalism rather than “characterism” by which I mean taking personal responsibility for our own lives.
In 1971, Alinsky published his book entitled, Rules for Radicals. Alinsky’s book was a handbook for radicals on how to change America from a capitalistic system that rewards hard work to a socialistic system of taking from those who have earned their blessings and giving their hard-earned money to those who have not earned it. This is called the re-distribution of wealth. Alinsky begins his book with these words:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
It is thought that Alinsky taught eight areas of control of people’s lives that are necessary for the Have-Nots to take from the Haves. These are:
- Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.
- Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible because poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing them everything to live.
- Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
- Gun control – Remove the ability of them to defend themselves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.
- Welfare – take control of every aspect of their lives (food, housing, and income).
- Education – take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what people learn in school.
- Religion – remove the belief in God from the government and the schools.
- Class warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.
Alinsky gave the following rules of “power tactics” for radical socialists.
RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why they avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
RULE 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.)
RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different than any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
About Saul Alinsky the Person
Saul Alinsky was born in Chicago in 1909 to Russian Jewish immigrant Orthodox parents. He rebelled against his parents Orthodoxy and considered himself to be an agnostic.
Alinsky graduated from the University of Chicago and became involved in organizing labor movements. He soon found his purpose and effectiveness in organizing local communities, first in poor areas in the south side of Chicago and then in various cities across the U.S. Because of his success, all “community organizers” have followed his example and writings in their own efforts to organize the masses of Have-Nots to take from the Haves.
It is clear from their policies and practices, that Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have been greatly influenced by Alinsky. In fact, Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Saul Alinsky. Her thesis was entitled, “An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”
Two months before his death in 1972, Playboy Magazine interviewed Alinsky about his views of death and the hereafter. Alinsky said that “if there was an afterlife, he would prefer to go to hell so he could organize all the have-nots in hell who are short of virtue. They are my kind of people.” (Playboy Magazine, March 1972)
