With the exception of the Real Housewives of Orange County & Beverly Hills, I’ve made a real effort to watch less T.V. and read more. (Okay, I watch Bethenny Ever After…too) Not-so-surprisingly, I’ve learned a lot more than I have from my reality t.v. trash. I’m always looking for new and different things to read-though I generally stay in the realm of politics and policy. I recently was at Barnes & Noble and saw the Summer Reading Table. In an attempt to take a trip down Memory Lane, I saw the book “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. Hmm…I thought, I never read that in high school.
My first thought was to turn the book over and read the back cover…
First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky’s impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to affect constructive social change and “know the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one”…Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.”
What the ….Intrigued by what high schoolers these days are learning, I purchased the book, even though I cringed at the thought of buying a book that both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were influenced by (Is that who convinced her to wear those hideous suits?????). I had no idea what that $14 would buy me…
Little did I know that the book would be full of offensive anti-Christian remarks, tips on how to destroy the middle class through fear and power and a How-To section on how to quietly start a revolution in our country. I figured I’d save you all the cash (and the brain seizure) so you could know what children are reading in school.
First and foremost, even before the prologue, the book references Lucifer in a dedicational quote,
“Lest we not forget at least in an over the shoulder acknowledgement to the very first radical…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” –Saul Alinsky.
The following headers are the corresponding chapters of this stroke-inducing book.
The Purpose: Alinsky references The Prince by Machiavelli for the ‘Haves’ on how to hold power. He said Rules for Radicals is for the ‘Have Nots’ on how to take it away
-He claims its “better to die on your feet than to live on your knees” and this means revolution.
-The General Welfare is always the top priority and Radicals need to have control
-Radicals must induce a moral revelation among the Haves–a paranoid fear.
Of Means and Ends
-“He who fears corruption, fears life” (p 25)
-Moral principles cover naked self-interest in the clothing of freedom
-“Means and ends goals must be phrased in terms like ‘Pursuit of Happiness’, ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ and “General Welfare” in order to be persuasive.
A Word About Words
-The idea of Power, must use it with conflict, cruelty and dishonesty; don’t strive to avoid force, conflict is NOT negative, “To know power and not fear it is essential to its’ constructive use and control (p 53).
-Compromise is a weakness and a betrayal of ideals
-The EGO of the organizer is more monumental than that of the leader of the HAVES; the EGO must be contagious.
The Education of an Organizer
-Alinsky details how he constructed a 15-month “organizer” program to teach people how to form a revolution. Members included Black Panthers and militant Indians; Alinksy also stresses the need for “on-the-job organizers” who will cause chaos in their own work place.
-Patience, Alinsky says, must be held when teaching the ‘unimaginative, limited students who are impatient, bored and inexcusably rude’.
-You must construct experiences for students
-Experiences of trying to educate organizers is nowhere near as successful as it needs to be as this process will take years.
Communication
-“Communication takes place when “they” understand what you’re trying to get across to them (p 81).
-People relate on common experiences…if you cannot find one that you relate on, CREATE one.
-Focus on the goal, manipulation, and wean the group away from the current status.
-Stay away from big issues that are complex; start small
-Secure absorption and understanding
In the Beginning
-“The job of the organizer is to manuever and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy’ (p 100)…Now the organizer has a “birth certificate” (ironic in the Barack Obama scenario, eh?) and can begin.
-If someone asks, ‘Who asked you to do this?’ or ‘Who told you to come here?’, answer, “You did!”
Tactics
-Never go outside the experiences of your people.
-Go outside the experience of your enemy, create confusion, chaos and finally their retreat.
-Remind them that they cannot live up to their own standards, just as “The Christian Church cannot live up to Christianity” (p 128).
-Remember that ridicule is a man’s most potent weapon, there is no retaliation.
-If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through.
-Alinsky encourages people to “paralyze the law” and evade responsibility.
-He uses an example of an event in a theater. He encourages 100 people to come to the event with extremely smelly clothes, body odors and food in their belongings. They won’t be breaking the law and therefore the police will be helpless (essentially, paralyzing the law) but the event will be cancelled and attention will be drawn to the drive of the group against middle-class institutions.
The Genesis of Tactic Proxy
–Establishes a difference between facts and history
-Introduces a nationwide organization, with a headquarters in Chicago or New York City
The Way Ahead
-“An organization for action upon white, middle class” (p 184)
-People must be reformed, become numb, bewildered, scared into silence
-Manifestation of a revolution in the corporate sector
-On college campuses (**Read One Party Classroom by David Horowitz for more information on how progressive ideology has been infiltrated into college campuses).
—-Are you mad yet??
That leaves us with ‘why?’. Why is this book a required summer reading book in public schools where the learning environment should be FACT-BASED and without bias? Why is this book targeted toward high school students who are often at a crossroads seeking independence and are that much more malleable? Why aren’t parents reading what their children are being forced to read in school? Why aren’t parents mad that this extremism has penetrated the school system, and so openly that it goes unnoticed? And coming from a liberals viewpoint (gasp!) how is this book even allowed in schools with its frequent references to God, Moses, and its’ citations of verses from The Bible? Is it because it is in a negative light, God and Christians as the enemy?
Bottom line: If you’d like your child to have the opportunity to become a radical revolutionary, enroll them in a Fulton County High School…they’ll be a radical before you know it….SERIOUSLY!
The Perspicacious Conservative 