Monthly Book Recommendation: July 2019
Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic for Realistic Radicals , by Saul Alinsky Part 2
This is a continuation of a book review that exemplifies the ideology of the American left, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. It is important to note that regardless of reader assent or dissent, this book is pivotal in understanding the workings of Leftist tactics, strategies, and philosophy in America and abroad. Author Saul Alinsky gave tribute to the greatest deceiver of all, Lucifer, on his dedication page in a blatant acknowledgment that Alinsky’s own rules to manipulate human-kind came from the ultimate source of evil. Last month, the focus was on the ideological thought that came from Saul Alinsky’s teachings, primarily those of promoting violence, implementing schmear tactics, and creating an illusion that socialism is successful. This month’s article on Rules for Radicals focuses on prominent Alinsky protegés influenced by his philosophy outlined in the previous book review.
One of Alinsky’s most fervent students was former First Lady and Democratic Presidential Nominee, Hillary Clinton. Clinton entered college at Wellesley as a Goldwater Republican with conservative values she was raised on as a child. Eventually, she was introduced to Alinsky’s philosophy, even inviting Alinsky to speak at Wellesley College in 1969 about community organization, which provided an opportunity for Clinton and Alinsky to spread his message for revolutionary upheaval. Clinton even wrote her senior thesis on Alinsky’s tactics on community organizing and wrote: “Alinsky’s conclusion that the ‘ventilation’ of hostilities is healthy in certain situations is valid.” This mimics the statements from various individuals in the Clinton and Obama administrations that advocated violence against conservatives during the 2016 elections. In one example, Congresswoman Maxine Waters called upon her liberal supporters to fight against conservatives and stated:
“If you see anybody from that (Trump’s) cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. You push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Her reasoning being thus:
“You really don’t know the Bible. God is on our side. On the side of the children. On the side of what’s right. On the side of what’s honorable.”
This is a typical tactic from the Alinsky playbook which states that in order to make a change, a leader “must assume that his cause is 100 percent positive and the opposition 100 percent negative.” In Maxine Waters’ case, she invokes the Almighty, the architect of pure love and justice to push an agenda using tactics inspired by Satan, the originator of hate and destruction.
In a similar fashion, Hillary Clinton also utilized this strategy in her “basket of deplorables” speech on the campaign trail on September 9th, 2016. She labeled most Trump supporters as bigots, sexists, homophobic, xenophobic, and etc. implicating that her own supporters were open-minded, fair, equal, and just. This and other Alinsky methods can be found in the campaign and personality of Hillary Clinton. Ultimately, the tactics laid out by Alinsky failed to catapult the Clintons back into the White House as the Clintons continue to blame others for their own failures, another classic Alinsky tactic.
Another Alinsky student is none other than former President Barack Obama. After Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago using the Alinsky model taught over a decade earlier in the same city. According to a National Review Column after the 2008 presidential election, there were images posted on President Obama’s campaign website from his time as a community organizer showing him “in a classroom teaching students Alinskian methods.” The image, shown below, has the words “Relationships Built on Self Interests” along with different public entities with money flowing to the mayor.
This may seem irrelevant, but one of Alinsky’s major arguments is to get people interested in something that will directly affect them. Alinsky states in Rules for Radicals: “To question the force of self-interest that pervades all areas of political life is to refuse to see man as he is, to see him only as we would like him to be.” Of course, President Obama didn’t explicitly state he was a follower of Alinsky like Hillary Clinton did, but his language and actions reflected the propaganda taught by Alinsky when Obama worked as a community organizer and later on in various scandals throughout the Obama Administration.
Although Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is almost 50 years old, we are seeing its “rules” being used in full force to seize control of politics, economics, immigration, national security, and public education and higher ed. Using Alinsky’s rules, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton obtained low income and minority votes, unsuspecting citizens, and well-intentioned but otherwise uninformed voters, to gain an immense amount of power to endanger American freedoms and liberties in the 1990s and again in the 2010s.
Conservatives must note that Alinsky’s utopia of a socialist nation shows no sign of stopping, especially in light of recent movements involving Antifa. As stated by President Abraham Lincoln, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” The work of Saul Alinsky and all attempts to fulfill these goals by the radical left will destroy America from the inside-out, causing decay of prized American values and effectively ending the Pax Americana.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html
Alinsky, Saul David. Rules for Radicals a Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York: Random House, 1971.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/want-to-understand-hillary-clinton-read-saul-alinsky
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/06/25/maxine_waters_god_is_on_our_side.html
https://blogs.chicagotribune.com/files/hillaryclintonthesis-ocr.pdf
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