Obama, Alinsky and the Marxist Left

Vincent Gioia
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 27 October 2008

The importance of this election to all Americans and the future of our country cannot
be over stated. The United States has never had the possibility of a virtual Marxist in
the oval office before. The Democrat Party has been taken over by the extreme left
wing to the extent that earlier Democrats like Harry Truman, John Kennedy and
Hubert Humphrey would not recognize it. The Wall Street Journal ran an article that
should scare everyone about what will happen if Obama is elected and Democrats
achieve a veto-proof majority in the Senate; it being a foregone conclusion that
Democrats will have a majority in the House.

"If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4
and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a
filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate
would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound
political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire
government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election
would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in
the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy,
Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the
media cheering it all on.

The nearby table shows [table not shown] the major bills that passed the House this
year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most
important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The
threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even
before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following
have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010.”

Saved by Filibuster: [Bills that were passed by the House in the 110th Congress but
were blocked in the Senate]

• Union Card Check

• Representation for District of Columbia
• Windfall Profit Tax on Oil Companies
• Renegotiation of Contracts in Bankruptcy
• Resurrection of the 'Fairness Doctrine'

It is fair to ask how we have gotten to the point where a charismatic Marxist is within
walking distance to the White House. The answer is that a perfect storm of socialism
has been developed by shrewd people behind the scene, a leftist news media and
careful long term planning. All major players are acolytes of communist Saul Alinsky
who taught his students the Rules for Radicals to take over the country by working
from within.

Saul Alinsky wrote two books where he described his organizational principles and
strategies: Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1971). Rules for
Radicals begins with a quote about Lucifer, written by Saul Alinsky: “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.”

In Rules for Radicals , Alinsky wrote: “Here I propose to present an arrangement of

certain facts and general concepts of change, a step toward a science of revolution”;
building on the tactical principles of Machiavelli: “The Prince was written by
Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals are written for the
Have-nots on how to take it away.”

Alinsky’s Rules are concerned with the acquisition of power: “my aim here is to
suggest how to organize for power: how to get it and how to use it.” This is not to be
done with assistance to the poor, or even by organizing the poor to demand
assistance: “Even if all the low-income parts of our population were organized ... it
would not be powerful enough to get significant, basic, needed changes.”

Alinsky advises the organizer to target the middle class, rather than the poor:
“Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America’s
white middle class. That is where the power is.”

Clearly Alinsky is interested in the middle class only because it is useful: “Our rebels
have contemptuously rejected the values and the way 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 middle class majority.”

Does this sound familiar? Obama is calling for “change” but the change Obama seeks
is right out of the Alinsky Rule book.

In his Rules for Radicals Alinsky defends belief that the end justifies the means: “to
say that corrupt the ends, is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and
principles ... the practical revolutionary will understand ... [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.”

Altogether, Alinsky provides eleven rules of the ethics of means and ends. They are
morally relativistic; the main one is that the Rules for Radicals “are therefore
concerned with how to win. In such a conflict, neither protagonist is concerned with
any value except victory. … “The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in
war the ends justifies almost any means.”
“There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a
founding father.”

Rules for Radicals teach the organizer that he must give a moral appearance (as
opposed to behaving morally): “All effective action requires the passport of morality.”

The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends states “that you do what you can with
what you have and clothe it with moral arguments ... Moral rationalization is
indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends
or means.”

Rules for Radicals provide the organizer with a strategy for community organization
that assumes an adversarial relationship between groups of people in which one
either dominates or is dominated.

“The first rule of power tactics is: power is not only what you have but what the
enemy thinks you have.”

“Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause
confusion, fear, and retreat.”

“Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They
can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to
Christianity.”

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack

ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

“The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself.”

“In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to
apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.”

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. One of the criteria for picking
the target is the target’s vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of
a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract. The
enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

Rules for Radicals stresses organizational power-collecting: “The ego of the organizer
is stronger and more monumental than the ego of the leader. The organizer is in a
true sense reaching for the highest level for which a man can reach — to create, to
be a ‘great creator’, to play God.”

Alinsky Thought Hillary Clinton was a terrific “organizer” and wanted her to become
his protégé. She and Bill Clinton have employed Alinsky’s tactics probably better than
anyone else, until Barack Obama came along.

Obama has followed Alinsky’s Rules perfectly. Although Alinsky was an atheist,
Alinsky recognized the importance of church communities as springboards for
agitation and for demanding goods and services. Obama undertook his agitating work
in Chicago's South Side poor neighborhoods but he was not yet a church goer
although he did have an office in a Church. The people he intended to organize were
Church people who were serious church-goers. Many people asked where he went to
church. He evaded the question for a while but then decided to join a church.

Of course the selection of a church to join was important. He decided to join a huge
Black Nationalist Church with a pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who openly preached
“black" gospel. Rolling Stone Magazine had a story on Obama and his church,
entitled, Destiny's Child, which included this excerpt from one of Rev. Wright's
sermons (from an article by Kyle-Anne Schiver in American Thinker):

"Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he
intones. Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this
country is still run!" "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting
of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy
and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted
radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if
the ends justify the means! And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS
S**T!"

Obama has called Reverend Wright his spiritual mentor and still claims he is his
sounding board. Among some of the Black Nationalist signs hanging in this church are
a list of admonishments to black solidarity, called the "Black Value System," and a
sort of moral code calling for the "Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclass ness." This
doesn't sound like the Ten Commandments to me nor does this seem like any church
I am familiar with.

Let’s see how Obama follows Alinsky’s Rules to defeat John McCain and win the
election. Barack Obama mocks John McCain, while urging his followers to "get in their
face," these are tactics right out of Saul Alinsky's playbook: ridicule and agitation.
During a Las Vegas rally Obama joked about McCain for what he described as lauding
about "how as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he had oversight of
every part of the economy."

"Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job. Nice job,'" Obama said sarcastically;
"Where is he getting these lines? It's like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."

Alinsky advised community organizers like Obama to "laugh at the enemy" to provoke
"irrational anger." "Ridicule," he said, "is man's most potent weapon. It is almost
impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react
to your advantage." Obama speaks in a quiet voice and almost always wears a
business suit. Both are also borrowed from Alinsky's Rules. "Don't scare" the middle
class. Instead, look like them, talk like them, act like them.”

Alinsky taught his followers to work for radical change from the inside. Obama said in
his first memoir "like a spy behind enemy lines." He wrote it before entering politics,
while still working with Alinsky groups and training street agitators known as
"community organizers" for ACORN. In 1983 Obama wrote he became a community
organizer in ACORN because of "The need for change. Change in the White House,
where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds." Here are some
other examples of how well Obama follows the Alinsky Rules (from a Yahoo News
article).

"Rule: "Rub raw the resentments of the people; search out controversy and issues."
In the mortgage meltdown, for instance, Obama vows to prosecute "predatory
lenders" for "abusing" minority borrowers. He's also stoking class resentment by
painting Wall Street and other executives as villains.

Rule: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." In an ad to woo
Hispanic voters, Obama demonized Rush Limbaugh by falsely claiming he made racist
statements against immigrants.

Rule: "A mass impression can be lasting and intimidating." This explains why Obama
moved his acceptance speech to a football stadium and bussed in 85,000 supporters.
Alinsky's son was so impressed, he praised Obama for learning his father's "lesson
well."

Rule: "Multiple issues mean constant action and life" for the cause. This is why
Obama never harps on one issue, as Hillary did with health care. His platform is
packed with grievances from "economic justice" to "reproductive justice" to
"environmental justice.""

Obama is following almost perfectly the outline for socialist revolution written by the
founder of community organizing, Saul Alinsky. Not that Obama is altogether home
free, but he uses his war room effectively. After Sarah Palin ridiculed Obama’s
community organizing in one speech, Obama surrogates quickly claimed Palin was
bringing up the phrase as a racist code for "black."

Mention of “Community Organizing” is not racism, but racism is a code word used by
communists. McCain should make that point instead of legitimizing such radicalism, as
he did recently when he said, "I respect community organizers; and Senator Obama's
record there is outstanding" — which contradicted Sarah Palin in another example of
the incompetent McCain campaign.

Alinsky could never have dreamed a disciple would be in a battle for the most
powerful job in the world, let along have a good chance of winning. Nor would I have
believed so many Americans would fall for the socialist claptrap of Barack Obama.

Vincent Gioia is a retired patent attorney living in Palm Desert, California. His articles may
be read at www.vincentgioia.com and he may be contacted at gioia@gte.net.