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SyndicateSaul, Barack, and Me, Part V
By Robert Ringer - Monday, January 11, 2010
By Robert Ringer
The Saul Alinsky who helped lay the foundation for the amorality of the soulless young lad who would one day lie and scheme his way into the most powerful office in the world comes through loud and clear in Rules for Radicals when he said, “We live in a world where ‘good’ is a value dependent on whether we want it.”
This is an important statement by Alinsky, because it opens the floodgates to interpret the term general welfare in any way one chooses. In other words, simply wanting something makes it right. If your desire is to play God and steal from those you deem to be rich and give the stolen loot to those you deem to be poor, so be it. If that’s what you want, it’s moral. Nice and simple.
This explains Alinsky’s willingness to anoint himself arbiter of right and wrong. Apparently borrowing from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Alinsky said:
Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.
On top are the Haves with power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve. Numerically the Haves have always been the fewest. The Haves want to keep things as they are and are opposed to change. …
On the bottom are the world’s Have-Nots. On the world scene they are by far the greatest in numbers. They are chained together by the common misery of poverty, rotten housing, disease, ignorance, political impotence, and despair; when they are employed their jobs pay the least and they are deprived in all areas basic to human growth. Caged by color, physical or political, they are barred from an opportunity to represent themselves in the politics of life. The Haves want to keep; the Have-Nots want to get. …
Between the Haves and Have-Nots are the Have-a-Little, Want Mores — the middle class. Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they become split personalities. … Generally, they seek the safe way, where they can profit by change and not risk losing the little they have. … Today in Western society and particularly in the United States they comprise the majority of our population.
In general, Alinsky was correct in his assessment, but he didn’t live to see a middle class that lives in half-million-dollar homes, eats out three nights a week, and vacations at luxury resorts. He died in 1972, long before the hippie movement had died out — a time when Bob Dylan’s mutterings were still taken seriously by pot-smoking longhairs desperately in search of a cause.
Deficits, a tidal wave of credit cards, cheap goodies from China, the dramatic expansion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and, above all, the technology explosion of the eighties and nineties gave the middle class a lifestyle that only the rich had enjoyed in the past. It’s pretty hard to get people excited about a revolution when they’re relaxing in the backyards of their suburban homes, grilling steaks on the barbecue, and watching the kids splash around in their ten-by-twenty-foot swimming pools.
Convincing these folks that they’re being exploited by “the rich” is a very tough sell. Other than the unhinged Muslim extremists — who had, and have, a whole different agenda — there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for revolution over the past twenty-five years.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to indefinitely hide what was, in reality, an invisible depression. Those pesky universal laws have a way of showing up when you least expect them, and when they finally did, false-prosperity addicts were ill prepared to deal with them.
In 2008, as economic reality began to set in and unravel the false-prosperity that the middle class had come to view as a right, it opened the door for the perfect Saul Alinsky disciple to rise from the down-and-dirty community organizing business on the mean streets of Chicago to the halls of power in the nation’s capitol.
To tens of millions of people who were witnessing the house-of-cards good life collapse before their very eyes, the word “change” was like a life preserver being thrown to a drowning man. No time to think about the kind of change this inexperienced, arrogant, silver-tongued young man was talking about. To the Have-a-Little, Want Mores, any kind of change was better than watching their addictive lifestyle slip away.
To paraphrase a longstanding Chicago Political Mafioso, Dirty Dick Durbin, BHO was the right man in the right place at the right time. And if you like redistribution-of-wealth revolutions, you’d be hard pressed to disagree with him.
Next: Saul Alinsky’s remarkable explanation of “the low road to morality.”
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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4 Responses to “Saul, Barack, and Me, Part V”
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Alinsky’s assessment is far from “generally correct.” The “economic status explains ideology” line is a self-serving myth of the Left.
The recent “panty bomber” comes from a very wealthy family. Ditto for Osama bin Laden. Ditto for many on the Left. Karl Marx, Lenin, George Soros, Michael Moore, John Corzine, the Kennedys, “you-pick-’em” in Hollywood, etc.
The “hardhats” and “silent majority” in the Nixon era, the “Moral Majority” of the 1980′s and the Tea Partiers now, are largely made up of working-class folks. The 60′s radicals were dominated by children of privilege.
The truly destitute are (not surprisingly) usually apolitical, being concerned with survival rather than leisure-time pursuits like political ideology.
Robert,
Sadly I think what has been missed is the elegant doublespeak – while “championing the poor” (who I think we all sympathize with), BHO and his gang of thieves have presided over the largest looting of the wealth of the “middle class” to the benefit of the “haves”.
Think about it for a moment, who has benefitted in the last year of this administration?? Insurance companies, the automotive unions, big banks, brokers, pharmaceutical and medical corporate interests, and no doubt their lawyers… all well heeled interests who have financially supported THEIR representatives in Washington for years, and this last year has been the big payoff/payback!!
While screaming about a crisis CREATED by failed management and policies of many of these same “institutions” (and our government/elected “representatives”), the wealth of GENERATIONS (past, present and FUTURE) of hard working Americans has been transferred in the form of “taxpayer supported” bailouts, handouts, pork dinners extrordinaire, and legislation that benefits ONLY the privileged few, NOT those “poor” (in fact you must consider that there are FAR more POOR barely scraping by, how have they benefitted?).
The geniuses in Washington have passed every bill that hands TAXPAYER money (meaning the proceeds of EVERY hard working American that can’t afford a fancy tax attorney and ACTUALLY pays taxes, unlike the average political/corporate crony) to these big interests so they don’t lose from their bad bets. Everyone else has to tighten their belts (if they still have pants after the meltdown), but the big money interests have skated through, paying out bonuses and profiting on “free money”.
This last year has not been “Robin Hood robbing from the rich to give to the poor”, but rather a “different class of criminal” (ref to
“the Joker”) who has, while drunk with power and with NO accountability made sure that every campaign contribution and crony has been paid many times over on the backs of the American public, and America’s future.
The one shining hope is that it has been SO blatant that even the blindest can see it…
While your series on the “history” of the radical rhetoric is enlightening, I hope you will look beyond the rhetoric to the reality, THAT is where the high ground lies. People don’t like being ripped off (even the “haves” wish to avoid it!), and THAT is the message that needs to be broadcast.
The town of Washington (and every other seat of government in this once great country) needs to be relieved of the “different class of criminal” by vote or pitchfork – THAT is change we all can believe in, if we just see the truth.
Historically speaking, I believe EVERY revolution begins when the privileged few become so jaded and arrogant that they become abusive of those who just wish to “get along” (anyone remember “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”??)… I don’t know that this time can possibly be any different, but those of sound mind and stout heart MAY be able to turn it around – we must be certain our message is clear and not fall prey to the doublespeak…
Yes, I agree that Alinsky did not accurately foresee the future; However, my view why is different. Like many men before and after him—who were/are both good and bad— Saul failed to understand the muddle through theory.
America somehow muddled through. Call it want ever you like:The Invisible Depression, short-term gain, an artificial economy or just call it luck, but the result is the same. America somehow muddled through time and time again and people got to do what made them happy(i.e. buy the goodies and watch football.)
So lets cut to the chase and ask ourselves what happens when America is no longer able to muddle through? Lets say that you and I wake up one day sometime between 2010-2020 to a world that is collapsing with such uncontrolled ferociousness that nothing will stop it. Gone is the value of millions of 401ks and pensions. Zero is the value of Social Security. A pickup truck load of paper dollars won’t buy an 8oz bottle of water or a head of lettuce. In short, Saul Alinsky’s dream of the destruction of America comes true. What then? Will Saul Alinsky be just as wrong in his assumptions about what happens next, right after the collapse?
The answer is yes he will be. So will a lot of other men. Anybody who thinks that once the muddling through stops, then we will have a Gandhi like revolution—which was not bloodless by the way— and everything can be nonviolently worked out is living in more of a dream world than Saul Alinsky did.
Whom are these people that claim to know human nature? Currently, it is nonviolence that is worshiped. That will change. People will demand blood. Of course, right now most everyone is above that. “Violence?” they say, “why how could anyone think of such a thing?”
People don’t understand history. Saul didn’t understand. There will come a time when millions are not only demanding violence be done to the bankers (banksters), brokers (brokesters), and all the other gangsters which include the political elite and the entire United Oligarchy of America, but there will come a time when people who you thought could never hurt a fly will be dripping with blood.
There is a power cycle. There is a business cycle. In fact, there are many cycles. The cycle that most people seem to have forgotten is the violence cycle. Study your history. We are still in the passive part of the cycle.
Just as sure as the sun comes around full circle and rises, so will the mental posture of the masses shift and revolve back to violence as a means to an end.
By the way, as soon as I start to build confidence in men like Glenn Beck, they say something really ignorant. Today, Mr. Beck made the statement that we don’t need leaders we just need teachers and that’s how to solve America’s problems. I wonder if Mr. Beck has ever killed anybody or anything in his entire life? I wonder if he really understands violence at the true visceral level?
My favorite leader, Benjamin Franklin, was an Indian fighter. Violence was not what Mr. Franklin was best known for, and that’s one reason why he’s my favorite leader; However, Mr. Franklin’s judgement as a leader, a teacher, an inventor, a philosopher, and a violent man could be trusted even though it was not perfect, because, as a man, he was the entire package. That’s what we need more of today—not just teachers—but men who are the entire package. Franklin’s example is timeless.
WE NEED MEN AND WOMEN WHO CAN PICK UP THE TORCH THAT FRANKLIN LIT.
TO HELL WITH MEN LIKE SAUL ALINSKY.
Robert,
You wrote, “This is an important statement by Alinsky, because it opens the floodgates to interpret the term general welfare in any way one chooses. In other words, simply wanting something makes it right. If your desire is to play God and steal from those you deem to be rich and give the stolen loot to those you deem to be poor, so be it. If that’s what you want, it’s moral. Nice and simple.”
I myself would indeed like to play God, that is, if the only qualification for playing God, is receiving a majority of votes from an easily deceived electorate.
It would seem that divinity and omnipotence are no longer considered to be sui generis traits. These traits are now self-bestowed by the numerous self appointed, self-indulgent, and self delusional God-like human beings..also known as U.S. politicians and the angry tormented infallible malcontents who compose the philosophies on which these present hog at trough U.S. politicians base their socialistic actions and beliefs.
Socialism works. It just hasn’t been done correctly, or so the lost and misguided line of modern adherents to this failed political philosophy claim. Must we allow the slaughter of another 100 million human beings, as occurred in the 20th century by prior socialists, to prove that socialism in all of it’s various hydra-like forms, cannot and will never work.