Author Topic: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals  (Read 2891 times)

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Religious Dick

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A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« on: March 10, 2010, 08:18:48 PM »
A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals

Richard Hoste

March 10, 2010

Few Jewish radicals have had as much influence over American politics as Saul Alinsky (1909-1972).  Born to Russian Jewish immigrants, he graduated from the University of Chicago and then went on to become a community organizer, being one of the first to bring radical politics to Chicago?s Black ghettos.  Hilary Clinton wrote her senior thesis (PDF) at Wellesley College on Alinsky and his tactics, and he was a major influence on President Obama, who was trained as a community organizer in Chicago.

Alinsky was known more as a tactician than an ideologue.  His most famous book was Rules for Radicals, published a year before his death.  It?s still valuable reading today for its political insights and what it tells us about the transformation that has happened in America. 

To Alinsky, the world is divided into the Haves, the Have-Nots and the Have-a-little, Want Mores. 

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.

One thing that differentiates Alinsky?s thought from that of conventional leftists is his more sophisticated understanding of human nature.  To him, it isn?t rational to hope that one day people will behave morally based on altruistic motives.  Also, Alinsky didn?t believe that we?ll one day reach a utopia where all works of social justice have been done and people can live happily ever after.  Every political victory brings new problems, and conflict is a permanent feature of life.  Of course, you don?t tell the people you?re trying to organize that because they would lose the will to act. 



Another important part of human nature is our need to rationalize our actions.  Once a young radical has forced a corporation or government into a certain direction, expect that the establishment will invent moral reasons for why it acted the way it did.  Once again, getting people to do the right things for the wrong reasons with a moral gloss invented afterwards is the best we can hope for.  ?This is the low road to morality.  There is no other.?

When it comes to motivating people, an organizer must convince them that they?re 100% in the right.  Imagine if the Declaration of Independence started out by listing all the benefits of colonial rule and all the help that the Americans had gotten from the mother country in fighting the Indians.  It then went on to say that since objectively the case was 60% for revolution and 40% against, the colonialists had decided to break away.  In that case there would?ve been no revolution.  It?s vital that one have his side convinced of its own moral purity and the depravity of the enemy. 

One of Alinsky?s greatest insights is that change has to be cloaked in the language of tradition.  Liberals who burned the American flag were fools who were more interested in striking a posture for radicalism than actually changing the world.  Such actions were counterproductive and turned many Americans away from the left.  Let this be a lesson to any White nationalists that feel the need to periodically dress up as Nazis. 

Alinsky?s analysis of the white lower middle class, whom by the 1970s he hoped to radicalize, could?ve been written today.  He points out that they saw the unemployed as ?parasitical? and were turned off by the ?liberal, democratic, holier-than-thou position? of those above them.  Alinsky worried about demagogues moving them far to the right.  The same section could be published today and all you would have to do is replace the ?John Birch Society? and ?George Wallace? with ?Rush Limbaugh? and ?Glenn Beck.? While we may or may not be finally seeing the counterrevolution to the 60s in the Tea Party movement, we can at least be certain that Alinsky?s dream of the White masses swinging to the left is long dead. 

While shrewd and practical, Rules reveals that Alinsky was like all radical leftists a disturbed man.  He does little more than project his own misery when he talks about the pathologies of the American middle class and certainly doesn?t present any evidence for his claims.  His danger stemmed from the fact that he loved the process of liberal activism more than anything.

The chapter titled Tactics shows the shamelessness of Jewish radicals and those they organized.  To put pressure on a bank, Alinsky recommends getting a thousand or more people to paralyze the institution by each opening up a $5 or $10 savings accounts on the same day.  Part of the fun would be ?the general enjoyment of seeing the discomfiture and confusion on the part of the establishment.?  The bank would be ready to negotiate in order to be able to get back to business.

One time Alinsky almost did put this ?people power? to use was when he wanted to pressure a large department store.  He planned to bus 3,000 Blacks to the store and have them overwhelm the clerks as they shopped for shirts and underwear.  The business of any whites would be lost for that day.  Such a tactic is legal and there would?ve been nothing anyone could?ve done to stop it. Alinsky made sure that word of the plan leaked to the store and after that 186 positions opened up and ?for the first time, Blacks were on the sales floor and in executive training.?

Rules recounts a time the author suggested to a group of low class Blacks in Rochester, New York a way they could put pressure on the city. 

I suggested that we might buy one hundred seats for one of Rochester?s symphony concerts.  We would select a concert in which the music was relatively quiet.  The hundred Blacks who would be given the tickets would first be treated to a three-hour pre-concert dinner in the community, in which they would be fed nothing but baked beans, and lots of them; then the people would go to the symphony hall-with obvious consequences.  Imagine the scene when the action began! The concert would be over before the first movement! (If this be a Freudian slip-so be it!)

Once again, this is a completely legal tactic.  While a stink bomb will get you arrested, a fart can?t.  No law could possibly change that.  The city would?ve had its symphony destroyed until it gave in to whatever arbitrary demands the community organizer made.

Rules goes on to describe the threat of a different ?tactic involving bodily functions? which he used against the city of Chicago.  The plan was to put people on flights going into O?Hare airport and having them occupy the lavatories.  Then when people arrived they would be desperate to use the bathroom.  Alinsky planned to have people (Blacks, I assume) tie up all the stalls in the airport at the moment when the flights arrived.  While the city gave in before the tactic could be deployed, one can tell that the author wishes it would?ve gone through.

One can see children yelling at their parents, ?Mommy, I?ve got to go,? and desperate mothers surrendering, ?All right-well, do it.  Do it right here.?...The whole scene would become unbelievable and the laughter and ridicule would be nationwide.

Alinsky spends relatively few pages on his standard liberal references to his love for humanity and many more in enjoyment of sick imagined scenes like this.  It seems that it took both Jews and Blacks to create the modern PC state.  There needed to be an outgroup hostile to White society that was unusually intelligent and spiteful, and another which was uniquely deficient in intelligence and a sense of dignity.

Jared Taylor is fond of saying that for white nationalists to succeed they must show themselves to be better than their enemies.  It?s hard to see how one can read Rules and agree with that.  Blacks and their Jewish mentors have been able to get their way by being incredibly shameless and without any concern for self respect.  Blacks were and still are completely willing to use Whites? desire to avoid them as a political tool.  Such a thing is incomprehensible to the European mind.  Jewish radicals fantasized about the embarrassment White parents had over their children not being able to find a toilet, presumably picturing families hiding in corners as O?Hare airport was turned into a Liberian slum.

While I don?t think it?s desirable or possible for Whites to ever use such tactics, knowing about what ethnic competitors are capable of should make us more forgiving of the at least honorable methods Europeans used in centuries past to deal with their enemies.

Richard Hoste (email him) writes on race, immigration, political correctness and modern conservatism.  His articles have appeared at VDARE.com, The Occidental Observer, The Occidental Quarterly and TakiMag among other places.  His writes the HBD blog at Alternative Right, where he regularly reviews classic and modern works on these topics.

Permanent URL: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Hoste-Alinsky.html
I speak of civil, social man under law, and no other.
-Sir Edmund Burke

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2010, 12:11:28 AM »
Now I know why Obama attended Rev. Wrights "church" services for 20 years listening to all that un-American, un-Christian racist rant filled hate speech.

Michael Tee

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2010, 12:27:12 AM »
Saul Alinsky told Obama to attend Wright's church for 20 years and then dump him?

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2010, 12:36:36 AM »
Saul Alinsky told Obama to attend Wright's church for 20 years and then dump him?

Obama dumped Wright after he used him for as much as it was worth then tossed him in the trash like a used tampon. If you had voted for him he would have done you the same. He would have used your vote like toilet paper, wiped his ass with it and flushed it down the drain. Now in about 2-1/2 years he will come back looking for votes and beg the morons that voted for him the first time to vote him in again. He will use them like a snot rag and when he's done throw that rag to the curb and never look back. Of course he won't respect those people, how could he they are garbage to him?

Michael Tee

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2010, 12:39:22 AM »
I'm not arguing with anything you just said, but how do you figure any of this was due to the counsel of Saul Alinski?

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2010, 01:00:56 AM »
I'm not arguing with anything you just said, but how do you figure any of this was due to the counsel of Saul Alinski?

His approach and Obama's approach are so much alike that they both come off as sociopaths. The ends justify the means is about equal to not having remorse after killing somebody. These people are seriously mentally deranged.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2010, 04:42:17 PM »
You seem to be unclear as to what "The end justifies the means" actually means.

Often this is true: "Not going barefoot justifies paying $14.98 to the shoe store".
"Not being thirsty justifies paying 50 cents for a refreshing soft drink".
"Not feeling discomfort justifies taking a small amount of time to take a leak."

I suppose what it must mean is that that it is ALWAYS true. ANY action is justified by any goal. Few people agree with it when it is phrased that way.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2010, 05:10:39 PM »
You seem to be unclear as to what "The end justifies the means" actually means.

You can't be too stupid to realize that the phrase means "taking any actions to achieve desired results, regardless of the legality or morality of the actions taken."
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

sirs

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2010, 05:23:05 PM »
BINGO
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2010, 06:45:04 PM »
You seem to be unclear as to what "The end justifies the means" actually means.

Often this is true: "Not going barefoot justifies paying $14.98 to the shoe store".
"Not being thirsty justifies paying 50 cents for a refreshing soft drink".
"Not feeling discomfort justifies taking a small amount of time to take a leak."

I suppose what it must mean is that that it is ALWAYS true. ANY action is justified by any goal. Few people agree with it when it is phrased that way.


You being a retired (retarded) educator I'm happy that you aren't responsible for teaching young minds any more, and if for some reason you are doing so please stop because you aren't doing the youngsters a good service. You and your mindset explains why we have so many morons running around America stinking up the place.

Michael Tee

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2010, 08:32:31 PM »
<<You being a retired (retarded) educator I'm happy that you aren't responsible for teaching young minds any more, and if for some reason you are doing so please stop because you aren't doing the youngsters a good service. You and your mindset explains why we have so many morons running around America stinking up the place.>>

That's gotta be the most unconsciously funny piece of writing seen on this board in years.  The product of a truly Orwellian educational system who believes all the "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" platitudes of the lunatic Far Right is criticizing a teacher who he fears may have actually tried to inject a little reality into his students' minds and may even have prepared them for (GASP!) critical thinking, a real threat to the American Way.

I guess in your mind a good education is equated to a production line that turns out flag-waving zombies who can be programmed to chant "We're No. 1" or "Love it or leave it" in response to simple hand cues from their teacher, talk show host or drill sergeant.

It's whoever taught YOU, Kramer, who ought to have been barred from teaching anyone who is not a canine in anything but obedience school.  If you are a representative sample of their teaching, the whole fucking bunch of them belong in teachers' jail.

sirs

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2010, 08:40:27 PM »
"Critical thinking"?   riiiiiiiiiight       ::)

----------------------------------------------

A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.

She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide -- a fancy chemical name for water. A couple of comedians were behind this ploy. But there is nothing funny about its implications. It is one of the grim and dangerous signs of our times.

This little episode revealed how conditioned we have become, responding like Pavlov's dog when we hear a certain sound-- in this case, the sound of some politically correct crusade.

People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.

Educational institutions created to pass on to the next generation the knowledge, experience and culture of the generations that went before them have instead been turned into indoctrination centers to promote whatever notions, fashions or ideologies happen to be in vogue among today's intelligentsia.

Many conservatives have protested against the specifics of the things with which students are being indoctrinated. But that is not where the most lasting harm is done. Many, if not most, of the leading conservatives of our times were on the left in their youth. These have included Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and the whole neoconservative movement.

The experiences of life can help people outgrow whatever they were indoctrinated with. What may persist, however, is the lazy habit of hearing one side of an issue and being galvanized into action without hearing the other side-- and, more fundamentally, not having developed any mental skills that would enable you to systematically test one set of beliefs against another.

It was once the proud declaration of many educators that "We are here to teach you how to think, not what to think." But far too many of our teachers and professors today are teaching their students what to think, about everything from global warming to the new trinity of "race, class and gender."

Even if all the conclusions with which they indoctrinate their students were 100 percent correct, that would still not be equipping students with the mental skills to weigh opposing views for themselves, in order to be prepared for new and unforeseeable issues that will arise over their lifetimes, after they leave the schools and colleges.

Many of today's "educators" not only supply students with conclusions, they promote the idea that students should spring into action because of these prepackaged conclusions-- in other words, vent their feelings and go galloping off on crusades, without either a knowledge of what is said by those on the other side or the intellectual discipline to know how to analyze opposing arguments.

When we see children in elementary schools out carrying signs in demonstrations, we are seeing the kind of mindless groupthink that causes adults to sign petitions they don't understand or-- worse yet-- follow leaders they don't understand, whether to the White House, the Kremlin or Jonestown.

A philosopher once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of one's own ignorance. That is the knowledge that too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach our young people.

It takes a certain amount of knowledge just to understand the extent of one's own ignorance. But our "educators" have given assignments to children who are not yet a decade old to write letters to members of Congress, or to Presidents, spouting off on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to medical care.

Will Rogers once said that it was not ignorance that was so bad but "all the things we know that ain't so." But our classroom indoctrinators are getting students to think that they know after hearing only one side of an issue.  It is artificial stupidity.


Artificial Stupidity
« Last Edit: March 11, 2010, 08:55:45 PM by sirs »
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2010, 09:25:35 PM »
<<You being a retired (retarded) educator I'm happy that you aren't responsible for teaching young minds any more, and if for some reason you are doing so please stop because you aren't doing the youngsters a good service. You and your mindset explains why we have so many morons running around America stinking up the place.>>

That's gotta be the most unconsciously funny piece of writing seen on this board in years.  The product of a truly Orwellian educational system who believes all the "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" platitudes of the lunatic Far Right is criticizing a teacher who he fears may have actually tried to inject a little reality into his students' minds and may even have prepared them for (GASP!) critical thinking, a real threat to the American Way.

I guess in your mind a good education is equated to a production line that turns out flag-waving zombies who can be programmed to chant "We're No. 1" or "Love it or leave it" in response to simple hand cues from their teacher, talk show host or drill sergeant.

It's whoever taught YOU, Kramer, who ought to have been barred from teaching anyone who is not a canine in anything but obedience school.  If you are a representative sample of their teaching, the whole fucking bunch of them belong in teachers' jail.

Actually I believe people of your ilk are the ones that engage in brainwashing. It's you people that FORCE our children to chant praises to Obama. People like you that brainwash kids about the Global Warming hoax but you tell them it's real and we both know it's a lie. See the links below they are just like Nazi & USSR children during times of oppression in the 30's. The links below are liberal brainwashing not conservative brainwashing. When I went to school the last thing I was going to do was let someone brainwash me. I had a democrat history teach try that once and guess what, I have never ever voted for a Democrat in my life. Oh and I could list many more links but you aren't worth my time.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=111418

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110898

School Kids Taught to Praise Obama

Elementary School Indoctrination

http://www.breitbart.tv/change-has-come-new-video-shows-obama-themed-chant-at-nc-school/

http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/cult_of_obama_missouri_youths_militaristic_obama_chant/

Michael Tee

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2010, 10:14:33 PM »
Well, thanks for illlustrating precisely what I mean by an inability to think critically.  In a country of 300 million people, one or two elementary school teachers may have overreached in teaching kids an Obama song.  There is no widespread liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate elementary school children in this fashion and I defy you or anyone else to to produce any evidence of it.

Meantime in every school in the country, kids start off with a pledge of allegiance "to the flag" in which EVER SINCE THE 1950s they are forced to acknowledge the role of God in their country.  If that is not indoctrination, I don't know that the hell is.  It was not liberals who forced through the legislation adding God into the pledge of allegiance.  You can thank the conservative Republican Eisenhower administration for the "improvement."

I also don't know of any conspiracy to force Global Warming theories on schoolchildren either.  I stay out of GW debates simply because I don't know enough of the science involved but the only evidence I see here is that a lot of kids are warning their parents not to idle their car engines.  And quite frankly, that seems like a good idea to me.

Kramer

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Re: A Review of Saul Alinsky?s Rules for Radicals
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2010, 10:35:35 PM »
Well, thanks for illlustrating precisely what I mean by an inability to think critically.  In a country of 300 million people, one or two elementary school teachers may have overreached in teaching kids an Obama song.  There is no widespread liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate elementary school children in this fashion and I defy you or anyone else to to produce any evidence of it.

Meantime in every school in the country, kids start off with a pledge of allegiance "to the flag" in which EVER SINCE THE 1950s they are forced to acknowledge the role of God in their country.  If that is not indoctrination, I don't know that the hell is.  It was not liberals who forced through the legislation adding God into the pledge of allegiance.  You can thank the conservative Republican Eisenhower administration for the "improvement."

I also don't know of any conspiracy to force Global Warming theories on schoolchildren either.  I stay out of GW debates simply because I don't know enough of the science involved but the only evidence I see here is that a lot of kids are warning their parents not to idle their car engines.  And quite frankly, that seems like a good idea to me.


Undoubtedly you are either clueless, or spewing liberal talking points, or have your head buried in the sand but in today's world our children are brainwashed more than any previous time in our history. From Obama, to Homosexuality, sex, environment you name it our kids are being molded by liberalism all the while when asked simple questions like how many states are there, what is the capital of Rhode Isalnd or other easy questions they can't answer them. Even Obama thinks we have 57 states. Today we spend (waste) more money than ever undereducated our children. Sure we have teachers making $130,000 a year but our kids aren't getting a proper education! We have to import engineers from India because our kids are not being properly educated so don't act like you know more about this than me the proof and statistics are glaring -- all you have to do is open your eyes.