Virgil: Saul Alinsky on ‘Rules for Radicals’ and the 2020 Election
Editor’s note: Publius Vergilius Maro, the Roman poet known to
history as Virgil, died in 19 B.C. Saul
Alinsky, the American radical and inspiration to both Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama, died in 1972. However,
for both of these legendary historical
figures, their words, and their ideas, abide forever. So our Virgil had no trouble conducting this
shade-to-shade interview with Alinsky.
VIRGIL:
Saul, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
ALINSKY: I
was born in Chicago in 1909, and as a young man I worked for various communist
causes. Beginning in the late 1930s, I chose to focus my efforts on the
South Side of Chicago; I soon created the Industrial Areas Foundation to further my
work as a community organizer. My
organizing campaigns then spread, from coast to coast, from California to New
York. And along the way, I
wrote two books, Reveille for Radicals and Rules for
Radicals, which gained me an even larger following among young leftists.
For
instance, in 1968, a Wellesley College student, Hillary Rodham, wrote a 92-page senior thesis on me,
titled, “There Is Only the Fight . . .” Then,
more than a decade after my death in 1972, a recent graduate of Columbia
University, Barack Obama, came to Chicago to work in my organization.
Interestingly,
in 2007, the Washington Post profiled both Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, then running against each other for the
Democratic presidential nomination, viewing them through the prism of their
connection to me. The piece quoted progressive activist Marian Wright Edelman
as saying, “Both Hillary and Barack reflect that understanding of
community-organizing strategy. Both
just know how to leverage power.” And
of course, one of them was elected president, and the other came close. So as you can see: Even though I’m dead, I
rest in power.
VIRGIL:
Funny you mention death and the hereafter! In
your second book, Rules for Radicals, you include a dedication to …
Lucifer:
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.
Kinda radical!
BLOG EDITOR: BARACK OBAMA IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST DIVISIVE
POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. HERE’S WHY:
ALINSKY:
That’s me. Deal with it. As I always said, my goal was “to rub raw the
sores of discontent” and thereby force “action through agitation.” In fact, just last year, I was pleased to see that The
Guardian newspaper reported that the
British group Extinction Rebellion, which has staged disruptive protests all
over the world on climate change, cites me as an influence. As their co-founder said, “The
essential element here is disruption. Without
disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs.” And I think plenty of other groups follow my
teachings, even if they don’t give me credit. Not
bad for being dead these five decades!
In fact,
this year, 2020, I think it’s fair to say that you’ve seen a lot of my
influence. Maybe you could write an
epic poem about me, like The Aeneid that you wrote 2,000 years
ago. You could call it the The Alinsky-eid.
VIRGIL: I’ll
have to think about that. In the meantime, do you see your influence as seen
in, say, Portland? And Seattle? You were never known for violence in your
lifetime.
ALINSKY:
Yes, but the Radical has to be ready to meet the moment, on the terms that seem
appropriate for the moment. And
sometimes, that might mean, uh, liveliness. As I also wrote, the organizer must “fan the
latent hostilities.” I added that
he—okay, now, maybe, she or they—“must search out
controversy and issues, rather than avoid them.”
I must say, this pronoun stuff
is new to me, along with all this Cultural Marxism, but I do
try to keep up.
VIRGIL:
Speaking of keeping up, are you in favor of Antifa and its tactics?
ALINSKY: As
I wrote in 1946, “America was begun by its Radicals. America was built by its Radicals. The hope
and future of America lies with its Radicals.”
VIRGIL: Got
it. So what do you expect to
see happen in November 2020?
ALINSKY: As
I also wrote, the American people are forever divided between Revolutionaries
and Tories. Joe Biden might not be much of a Revolutionary, although maybe
Kamala Harris is a bit more of one; I loved it, this past June, when she said of the George
Floyd protests:
They’re not
going to stop. This is a movement. They’re not going to stop before
Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that on
both levels, that they’re not going to let up and they should not and we should
not.
That’s the
spirit of permanent revolution that we need!
In the
meantime, without a doubt, Trump is a Tory. Yes,
he’s different from the conservative stereotype in some ways, but still, he’s
a Republican. So I know which side my people will be on. And no matter what happens in the balloting
on November 3, I expect that the struggle will continue well past Election
Day—as Radicals and Revolutionaries take to the streets in greater numbers than
they have already. As you know,
since you’ve read my work, I laid out some principles, or rules, for this sort
of direct action.
VIRGIL: Yes.
In fact, I looked up your “Rules” and found that you
listed 13 of them. So let’s go
through these Rules, one by one.
ALINSKY:
Glad to.
VIRGIL:
Number One: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you
have.”
ALINSKY:
That’s a good one, because you want to keep the enemy guessing. Just on September 17, I saw this headline in Breitbart: “Soros-Backed
Coalition Preparing for Post-Election Day Chaos—‘We’re Going to Fight Like
Hell.’”
VIRGIL: You
read Breitbart?
ALINSKY:
Sure. As I said, if you’re going
to outthink, and out-psych, the enemy, you have to know what the enemy is
thinking. So when we throw around
the name of George Soros, we are sure that Soros evokes fears on the right,
because he has, after all, donated at least $32 billion to left-wing causes. So you get, you know, right-wing memes such
as the Eye of Soros, and all that, straight from
Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Now the truth is that, just as
Sauron was defeated in the Tolkien story, so, too, Soros has been defeated,
many times, including in the U.S. in 2016. And
yet if right-wingers are afraid of him, good. Hell,
Soros has even spooked Fox News into censoring Newt
Gingrich when he mentioned Soros’s name. So if
Republicans are spooked by a phantom menace, well, good—let them be spooked.
VIRGIL: Oh
my, you’re being pretty candid.
ALINSKY:
Actually, you don’t know whether or not I’m lying to you, because the need to
tell the truth to imperialists such as yourself—you were, after all, a tool of
the Emperor Augustus Caesar—is hardly a part of the Revolutionary credo. But I like talking, so continue.
VIRGIL:
Hmmm, all right then. Let’s go to
Number Two: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
ALINSKY:
Fortunately, we have lots of expertise, and not just in the streets. We have lawyers, and we have money. And crazy as it might seem, every time I look
around, I see a new seven-figure front group—I mean group—dedicated
to undermining Trump. Just on the 17th, I read about a group
that I’d never heard of, American Oversight, which has gotten all the files and
e-mails from the U.S. Postal Service, especially as they relate to that
fascist, Louis DeJoy. Conveniently
enough, all the information ended up with the Washington Post. I’m sure more dope will come spilling out
soon.
So you see,
we have the streets—and we also have the suites. We have Al Sharpton and Soros, together, on
the same side. Actually, I saw a little
bit of that high-low alliance when I was alive, when Marshall Field, the
Chicago department-store magnate, funded my early work, but I never thought I’d
see this much overclass money flowing to the underclass—I wish I’d lived longer
to really enjoy it.
VIRGIL: Ah,
yes, Saul, you did come to enjoy life, didn’t you? After all, you passed away
in Carmel, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Not bad!
ALINSKY: My
mission was to afflict the comfortable. I
never said that I, myself, should be afflicted. I worked hard for my comfort. But that’s enough about how I practiced my
life—let’s get back to what I preached.
VIRGIL: Got it. Here’s Number Three: “Whenever possible go
outside the expertise of the enemy.”
ALINSKY:
That one’s interesting, because our legal armada has clearly bested Trump in
the courtrooms.
To cite just
one of many examples in this election year, Biden and the Democrats have gone
to court and just gotten the Green Party knocked off the ballot in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. What does that mean? It means no more situations such as in 2000, and 2016, when Green Party candidates
siphoned off popular votes, and thus electoral votes, in key states for the
Democrats. Now it looks like the Green Party will be on the ballot in only
about half the states, most of which aren’t in contention this November. So
good work, legal comrades!
Furthermore,
at the same time, our media partners have launched a campaign to persuade
people that the Green Party is in the pocket of Putin—and it’s working! The Greens are always on the defensive now.
Meanwhile,
the crypto-Republican effort to get Kanye West on the ballot has been pitiful;
as of now, he’s only on the ballot in five states. The Republicans were obviously hoping to get
West on the ballot in more states, so as to steal away black votes from Biden,
but it’s not happening.
Yet even as
Republicans were failing to bolster fringe parties that might drain away votes
from Biden, they weren’t paying attention to the fringe party positioned to
drain away votes from Trump.
VIRGIL: What party is that?
ALINSKY: The
Libertarian Party, of course. For
most libertarian voters, their second choice is the Republican Party, so it
makes a difference whether the L.P. is on the ballot, or not. And in fact, the Libertarian Party is on
the ballot in 45 states, with hopes to
get on the ballot in all 50 this year. That
has to hurt Trump.
VIRGIL: Number Four is “Make
the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
ALINSKY:
This is a good one, because it shows how important it is to pay attention
to everything. That
is, all the fine print that goes into the rulebook. Let me illustrate: Back in
2011, President Obama signed Executive Order 13583,
aimed at “Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote
Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.” As he put it in that EO—I love reading about
left-wing victories:
I am directing executive
departments and agencies to develop and implement a more comprehensive,
integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion as a key component
of their human resources strategies.
Translated,
that means providing funding for all the equity and social justice programs
that right-wingers hate so much. And
yet here’s the funny thing: The federal government has been funding all these
programs for the better part of a decade, when Republicans had control of Congress,
and, as well, including most of the Trump presidency. And yet
Republicans never noticed!
VIRGIL: Ah,
yes, this issue of funding for “anti-racism” education blew up only in the last
few weeks, mostly thanks to whistle-blowing by a smart young conservative, Chris
Rufo.
ALINSKY: But
the fact that the issue has blown up only recently means, again, that all this
was going on, unnoticed, for the past three-and-a-half years! During that time, how many millions of
dollars went into the war chests of the left? So
the Trump people were, in effect, operating according to the Obama playbook—
fattening up all my allies, and those blockheads didn’t even know it!
VIRGIL: But
they’ve stopped it now.
ALINSKY:
Maybe. On September 4, Trump’s
director of the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum ordering
federal agencies to “cease and desist” from funding “divisive, un-American
propaganda training sessions.” Heh heh. A
bit late for these right-wingers to notice.
Yet still,
even now, Trump has not issued an
Executive Order repealing Obama’s Executive Order. So what will happen when
some bureaucrat somewhere keeps funding the same anti-racism curricula? Will the Trump people be on their toes? Will they have the legal standing, and the
mojo, to stop career civil servants—what you might call the
Deep State—from doing what they wish? There are rules and laws and procedures
concerning how funding works, contracts and so forth, and it’s obvious that the
left has a handle on how to move these levers of power and funding—and the
right doesn’t. So we’ll have to see if anything is truly, actually, defunded,
at least anytime soon. My bet is “no.”
VIRGIL: Hmmm. Here’s Number Five of your Rules: “Ridicule
is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to
counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to
your advantage.”
ALINSKY: One
word: Trump. Two words: Stephen
Colbert. Three words: Saturday
Night Live. Four words: Orange Man Bad Hitler. Five
words: The rest of the memes.
VIRGIL:
Okay, but the anti-Trump onslaught is so relentless and, frankly, so not funny,
that I wonder if it’s working. Sounds
like these leftists are just preaching, with little actual humor, to the
choir—a choir that never liked Trump anyway.
ALINSKY: Yes, you might be right about that, but I’ll
jump ahead to Number Six of my Rules: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” My people enjoy bashing Trump. So let ’em have their fun.
VIRGIL: Okay, but then there’s
Rule Seven, which states, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
ALINSKY:
Yes, and in that same paragraph, I added that the Radical must be “constantly
inventing new and better tactics.” So
there’s a challenge there. I
think you’ll see a lot more creativity in the next few months, as we take the
Trump people by surprise.
VIRGIL: Like
what?
ALINSKY:
Well, look, just on Friday night, the 18th, when the news broke that Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, thousands of people converged on
the steps of the Supreme Court building in D.C. to light candles, say prayers,
and otherwise mourn her passing. There was a bit too much sacredness and
religion there for my taste, but the show of force was only potential force—it
was entirely peaceful. See? The activist left can surprise people. And in
the meantime, I see that both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are saying that “nothing is
off the table,” action-wise. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in their meetings!
I think I’d like a lot of what I’d be hearing.
Of course,
the next protest could be, uh, livelier, as Michael Moore is calling for–I read that,
too, in Breitbart. We’ll just have to see. Stay tuned, as they say, because you
never know what will happen. That’s how you stay fresh.
VIRGIL: Yes,
I was just reading in Breitbart about how “blue check” tweeters were threatening violence if Trump and Mitch
McConnell try to fill Ginsburg’s seat.
ALINSKY: See? We contain
multitudes—always something new! Keep ’em guessing! Look, even when I was
active in life, there was always more than one game to be played. It wasn’t as
if the poor people in Chicago who I was working with didn’t have the right to
vote—they did. But I gave them another venue for power, namely, taking it to
the streets. It was a dual-track thing: political action, and direct action. We
could see both in re: Ginsburg.
VIRGIL: Now to Rule Eight:
“Keep the pressure on.”
ALINSKY: As
the Romans said, Res Ipsa Loquitur—“The thing speaks for itself.”
VIRGIL: Got
it. Now to Nine: “The threat
is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
ALINSKY: Ask
yourself: How many Republicans have caved because they’re afraid of being
called a name by the New York Times? Or because they fear being ostracized from
polite society, especially in Washington, DC? Many,
that’s how many. In particular, how many
Republican judges turn liberal as they spend more time on the bench, especially
inside the Washington Beltway? That’s the effect of keeping the pressure on.
For
instance, when Linda Greenhouse was the Supreme Court reporter for the Times,
always pushing the justices to move left, they used to joke about the
“Greenhouse Effect,” as in, at least some of the Republican appointees wouldn’t
want to antagonize her, so they’d vote liberal. Yet the truth is, Linda didn’t have any real
power, other than a word or two—and words don’t break bones—and yet words were
enough. That is, it was enough to bluff many conservatives.
VIRGIL: This one, Rule Ten, is
similar to Rule Eight: “The major premise for tactics is the development of
operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
ALINSKY:
Yes, but it helps to have a coordinated operation, so that the
pressure never lets up. I’ll
bet the Biden people, the Democratic Party, and the left have a dozen war rooms
in Washington alone, always making sure that Trump and the Republicans are
feeling the pressure.
VIRGIL: That takes money.
ALINSKY: Yes, and we’ve got
plenty. As I said, there’s always a new NGO—the Center for this, the Democracy
Alliance for that—being funded by some Trump-hating fatcat. Little do they
know…
VIRGIL:
What’s that? Know what?
ALINSKY: Uh,
nothing. Let’s keep going. My Number Eleven is, “If you push a negative
hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter-side; this is based
on the principle that every positive has its negative.” And that means, we must realize that
the real action is your opponent’s reaction. So keep probing and pushing! And be ready, if something breaks, to pick up
the pieces.
VIRGIL: Okay, and Number Twelve
is, “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Alinsky:
That means have a plan for what to do when you win. And I’ll admit: When I think of Biden, I
worry about that one. Of course, Harris…
VIRGIL:
Lastly, we come to Number Thirteen: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize
it, and polarize it.”
ALINSKY:
That’s easy. Trump. For the next two months, he’s all we need. And if the election turns into a mess, as we
all think it will, then Trump’ll be the rallying cry for the left—the man the
left loves to hate.
VIRGIL: Of
course, Trump has plenty of supporters, too.
ALINSKY:
That’s true. So we could see some
pretty wild times, as we prepare to storm the Winter Palace—oops, I mean, surround the White
House.
VIRGIL: Wild times, indeed.
ALINSKY:
We’re ready. Are you?
The Alinsky-ization of Brett Kavanaugh
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/the_alinskyization_of_brett_kavanaugh.html
By Rich Logis
Republicans and conservatives are fond of
referencing Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky, but how many have read
his body of work? I've always referred to Alinsky's secular agitator
bible, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals,
as the sequel to The Communist Manifesto. Published in
1972, shortly before Alinsky's death, Rules was a
significant part of President Obama's and Hillary Clinton's political
upbringings – although he more influenced Obama, who followed in Alinsky's
community organizing footsteps in Chicago in the '80s.
Alinsky's thirteen rules are
effective. The first step to challenging them is actually
recognizing them.
Here's how Democrats and the DMIC (Democrat Media
Industrial Complex) Alinsky-ized Brett Kavanaugh, in the lead up to, during,
and after his U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
1: "Power is not only what you have
but what the enemy thinks you have."
Outnumbered 51-49, Senate Democrats know that the
arithmetic isn't on their side. If the Democrats and Republicans
each hold court along party lines, Kavanaugh is our next justice, thanks to the
nuclear option employed by Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell last year to get
Justice Neil Gorsuch confirmed.
But a two-senator lead means the tie-breaking
voter, Vice President Mike Pence, had better be on call when the roll call vote
to confirm Kavanaugh is held. Democrats undoubtedly consider
Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, of Maine and Alaska,
respectively, to be free agents, particularly over Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh
was relentlessly questioned by Democrats over abortion; the goal was to create doubt
that Collins and Murkowski would vote to confirm him. If uncertainty
exists, it's unlikely that Democrats from states President Trump won in 2016
will cross the aisle. If Democrats somehow secure 51 nays, we'll
have the modern-day version of Borked: Kavanaughed.
2. "Never go outside the expertise of your
people."
Alinsky wrote in Rules that
"the issue is never the issue." The reason the Democrats
were obsessed with the documents withheld by the president has nothing to do
with the documents; it has to do with the fact that the Democrats on the
Committee on the Judiciary were unwilling to have substantive legal
discussions. Why? Simple: because Kavanaugh would have
made the Democrats – several of whom are trained attorneys – look like
first-day law school students. Having authored 307 opinions, from
2,700 cases, during his 12 years as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of
Appeals, along with dozens of speeches to law schools and legal groups,
Kavanaugh's jurisprudence bona fides are not only rock solid, but also very
public. There is zero we don't know about Kavanaugh's interpretive
approach and acumen.
3. "Whenever possible go outside the expertise
of the enemy."
I suspect that this rule guided The New York
Times' and Associated Press's show-me-the-woman-and-I'll-show-you-the-crime
expedition two months ago for the work emails of Kavanaugh's wife, Ashley, who
was hired earlier this year as town manager of Chevy Chase, Md. The
Times requested any emails that contained the words "gun,"
"abortion," "federalist" or
"gay." Perhaps the Times believed that Mrs. Kavanaugh was
fond of attending The Federalist Society lectures about concealed carrying
lesbians who believe that abortion is creepy. The Times' request was
a big dud; 85 pages of emails later, and, I'm sure,
much to the newspaper's chagrin, nothing incriminating, and nothing about guns,
abortion, gays, or federalists was discovered. The AP requested all
of her work emails but hasn't yet reported on its findings.
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book
of rules."
Though there weren't explicit questions about
Kavanaugh's Catholic faith, he noted his work with Catholic
Charities. This rule was the basis for California senator Cuckoo
Kamala Harris's lie that Kavanaugh called birth control
abortion-inducing drugs (have you noticed how often I've already written about
abortion?). And here's the ACLU's predictable fear-mongering that
Kavanaugh would usher in a theocratic oligarchy. In fairness, I'm
not angry at the ACLU, because voting is a lot like any decision or purchase:
it's done based on fear or greed.
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent
weapon."
Kavanaugh has been in Washington for decades;
he's what many of us would call an "establishment"
figure. This has provided an opportunity for the DMIC toattack his establishment
"elitism," which President Trump swore to reject by draining the
swamp. The median household income of Kavanugh's ZIP code is $12,000
a month, his house cost $1.2 million to purchase, and Kavanaugh racked up tens
of thousands of dollars in credit debt to buy Washington Nationals season
tickets. As coach of one of his daughters' basketball teams, his
moniker is "Coach K." If the nickname Coach K doesn't
smack of elitism, I don't know what does. The DMIC showed no qualms in portraying Kavanaugh
as an out-of-touch Beltway insider. Oh, yeah, and people will die if he's confirmed.
6. "A good tactic is one your people
enjoy."
Democrats know that most of their voters are out
for blood, and a "good tactic" was to inextricably link Kavanaugh to
President Trump, an "unindicted co-conspirator," according to Harris and
Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal, due to the plea deal of Trump's former
personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
In the old days, Democrats weren't quite as
politically loony as they currently are and were definitely more
likable. Unlikability is a good tactic for the Democrats; the
temperament of a justice is important, and the more unlikeable Democrats were
in their questioning, the better the chances Kavanaugh would lose his
cool. But alas, he kept his cool, especially during Harris's
entrapping questionsabout
possible conversations he had with Trump's lawyer's firm regarding the Mueller
investigation. The Democrats tried to force Kavanaugh into the role
of de facto spokesman for the president, but he was ready for them.
7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes
a drag."
I didn't watch every second of the hearings, but
I watched more than 75 percent, and Democrats said Trump's name dozens of
times. New Jersey senator Cory Booker handled Trump fatigue by
putting on a theatrical production worthy of Broadway: Booker, whose claim
to fame was interrogating
Mike Pompeo about sodomy during his secretary of state confirmation
hearings, dared his Republican
colleagues to expel him from the Senate. As was expected, President
George W. Bush's name popped up. Kavanaugh worked for Bush, and the
implication is that Kavanaugh has always been associated with illegitimate
presidents.
8. "Keep the pressure on."
This is one of the easier rules to follow,
because specifics aren't necessary. Attorneys who litigate before
the Supreme Court know to expect random barrages of questions, and the Democrats
kept up the pressure by interrupting Kavanaugh dozens of times, not including
the interruptions from protesters. The interruptions failed in
knocking Kavanaugh off his game – same for the objections to the
hearings, coordinated by
Democrats.
9. "The threat is usually more terrifying
than the thing itself."
If I had to pick one rule sold the hardest by
Democrats, it's this one. The "threats" posed by Kavanaugh
sound a lot like the threats posed by Robert Bork, nominated by President
Reagan in 1982. Said Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy:
Bork's America is a land
in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at
segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in
midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution[.]
Of course, had Bork been confirmed, none of those
things would have occurred. But that wasn't important; it was the
"what if?" threat of those things. In Kavanaugh's case,
workers will have zero rights, felons will own machine guns, and women will be
forced into back-alley abortions and die.
10. "The major premise for tactics is the
development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the
opposition."
If Kavanaugh is confirmed, the Democrats will
have lost the battle, but they will consider the larger war still winnable –
especially considering that he's expected to be confirmed a month before the
midterm elections. It was quite apparent which Democrats were
thinking about running for president in 2020 (Harris and Booker) and which
weren't (Partrick Leahy of Vermont). Those positioning themselves
for a White House run will incorporate their self-aggrandizing
"resistance" to Kavanaugh into their campaigns.
11. "If you push a negative hard and deep
enough it will break through into its counterside."
In the case of Kavanaugh, this is a slight
overlap of Rule 1. Trump has gotten 60 federal judges confirmed, is
reforming the Supreme Court to how the Founders envisioned it, and has 100
pending federal judicial appointments. These realities are red-meat
selling points to Democrat voters: "Look at the havoc Trump has
wrought! We must prevent him from further
destruction!" Just how deep it will break into the counterside
remains to be seen, but desperation is all Democrats have left (although
projected demographics, if not engaged, don't bode well for America First).
12. "The price of a successful attack is a
constructive alternative."
To have a chance of winning long-term political
battles, there must be self-immolation and sacrificial lambs within the
Democratic Party ranks. Adaptation is key. This is
already underway, as evidenced by the rise of "democratic socialist"
primary winners nationwide. In America, Leninism has always been
implemented in creeping doses, until one day, it's mainstream. The
constructive alternative will continue to be the message that overt,
out-in-the-open socialism is necessary to prevent future
Brett Kavanaughs.
13. "Pick the target, freeze it,
personalize it, and polarize it."
In Clintonian fashion, the Democrats will
persist. Remember: Kavanaugh can't prove he's not racist, or that he won't vote to
send abortion battles back to the states, where they belonged in the first
place. The Democrats will continue to color Kavanaugh identically to
how we describe Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor: as an
untrustworthy judge who legislates from the bench.
My prediction: Kavanaugh will receive 54 votes to
confirm, with Collins and Murkowski unlikely to defect.
Rich Logis is host of The Rich Logis Show at TheRichLogisShow.com and author of the
upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat. He
can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.
Black Lives Matter: Marxist Hate
Dressed Up As Racial Justice
A new investigative report from the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Tue Sep 1, 2020
Editor's note: In this just-released report on Black Lives Matter,
author John Perazzo exposes the BLM movement as a racist, anti-Semitic,
anti-family and anti-capitalist attack on the very foundations of American
democracy.
Read the report below -
and order hard copies HERE.
BLM’s False Claims About the Police and White-on-Black Crime
Depicting America as a veritable cesspool of “state-sanctioned
violence and anti-Black racism,” BLM claims that blacks in the U.S. today are
routinely targeted for “extrajudicial killings … by police and vigilantes.” And
although this claim has been widely and passionately echoed by supporters of
BLM, it is in fact a monstrous lie, as has been demonstrated consistently by
decades of hard empirical evidence. Some examples:
A 2011 Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study reports
that between 2003 and 2009, whites accounted for 41% of all suspects known to
have been killed by police during that 7-year time frame. By contrast, blacks
and Hispanics accounted for 31.7% and 20.3%, respectively. It is also worth
noting that during this same period—when blacks were 31.7% of all suspects
killed by an officer—blacks accounted for about 38.5% of all arrests for
violent crimes, which are the types of crimes most likely to trigger
potentially deadly confrontations with police.
This trend has continued unabated during more recent years. In
2017, for example, blacks were just 23.6% of all people shot dead by police,
even though they were arrested for 37.5% of all violent crimes. The
following year, blacks were 26.3% of those fatally shot by police, even as they
were arrested for fully 37.4% of violent crimes.
In a 2018 working paper titled “An Empirical Analysis of
Racial Differences in Police Use of Force,” Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who
is African American, reported that: (a) police officers were 47% less
likely to discharge their weapon without first being attacked if the suspect
was black, than if the suspect was white, and (b) white officers were no more
likely to shoot unarmed blacks than unarmed whites.
A 2019 study published in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences shows that white officers are no more
likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot black civilians. “In fact,”
writes Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald, the study found
that “if there is a bias in police shootings after crime rates are taken into
account, it is against white civilians.” Specifically, Mac Donald adds, the
authors of the study compiled a database of 917 officer-involved fatal
shootings in 2015 and found that 55% of the victims were white, 27% were black,
and 19% were Hispanic.
Each and every year, without exception, whites who are shot
and killed by police officers in the U.S. far outnumber blacks and
Hispanics who meet that same fate. In 2017, for instance, 457 whites, 223
blacks, and 179 Hispanics were killed by police officers in the line of duty.
In 2018, the corresponding figures were 399 whites, 209 blacks, and 148
Hispanics. And in 2019, the totals were 370 whites, 235 blacks, and 158
Hispanics.
According to Heather Mac Donald: “The per capita rate of officers
being feloniously killed [by anyone] is 45 times higher than the rate at which
unarmed black males are killed by cops. And an officer’s chance of getting
killed by a black assailant is 18.5 times higher than the
chance of an unarmed black getting killed by a cop.”
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
in 2018 there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations
(excluding homicide) between black and white civilians in the United States.
Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90.4%, while whites
committed just 56,394 of them, or about 9.5%.
When white civilian offenders committed crimes of violence against
either whites or blacks in 2018, they targeted white victims approximately
97.3% of the time, and they went after black victims about 2.6% of the time. By
contrast, when black civilian offenders committed crimes of violence against
either whites or blacks during that same year, they targeted white victims 58%
of the time, and they went after black victims 42% of the time.
City Journal reports that according to Justice Department data,
blacks in 2018 were overrepresented among the perpetrators of offenses
classified as “hate crimes” by a whopping 50%—while whites were
underrepresented by 24%.
There is not even the slightest hint of anti-black racism anywhere in
these figures. But when BLMers are confronted with such incontrovertible facts,
they simply do not care. Indeed, they invariably react with the intellectual
equivalent of a collective yawn.
Saul Alinsky’s
Influence on BLM
At a Black Lives Matter conference in Cleveland on July 24, 2015,
BLM presented a workshop for radical agitators titled “There’s A Method To The
Movement: Examining Community Organizing Methods and Methodologies”. Those
in attendance were instructed in the tactics and philosophy of the late Saul Alinsky. Known
as the godfather of “community organizing”—a term that serves as a euphemism
for fomenting public discontent—Alinsky was a communist fellow traveler
who laid out a set of basic strategies designed to help leftist radicals
destroy their enemies and transform society into a socialist paradise.
If such radicals were to be successful in remaking society, said Alinsky,
they “must first rub raw the resentments of the people” by identifying a
particular “personification” of evil and “publicly attack[ing]” it as a
“dangerous enemy” of all that is decent. The chief “personification” in BLM’s
cross hairs today, of course, is the white police officer.
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” Alinsky
taught, asserting that the primary task of radicals is to cultivate, in
people’s hearts, a visceral revulsion to the mere sight of the target’s face.
“The organizer who forgets the significance of personal identification,” said Alinsky,
“will attempt to answer all objections on the basis of logic and merit. With
few exceptions this is a futile procedure.” That is why BLM and its apologists
invariably avoid addressing even the most glaring errors in the anti-police,
anti-white narratives they seek to advance, and why they turn a deaf ear to
anyone who tries to engage them with logic, reason, or empirical data.
Alinsky taught that in order to cast themselves as noble defenders of
high moral principles, radical activists should take pains to react
dramatically—with greatly exaggerated displays of “shock, horror, and moral
outrage”—whenever their targeted enemy errs, or can be depicted as having
erred, in any way at all. Thus, even though American police officers
annually have some 375 million civilian contacts in which they behave entirely
within the bounds of legality and ethics, BLM chooses to magnify—with
choreographed indignation—the significance of a tiny handful of questionable
cases, and to characterize those as emblems of supposedly widespread police
misconduct.
Alinsky advised radical activists to avoid the temptation to concede that
their opponents are not “100 percent devil,” or that they may possess certain
admirable qualities. Such concessions, he said, would “dilut[e] the impact of
the attack” and would thus amount to “political idiocy.” That is why we never
hear BLM praising the police for anything. Instead, it is 100% attack, 100% of
the time, against a 100% devil.
Given that the enemy is to be portrayed as the very personification of
evil—against whom the use of any and all tactics is fair game—Alinsky
taught that an effective radical activist should never give the appearance of
being satisfied with any compromise proposed by the opposition. After all, any
bargain with the “devil” is, by definition, morally tainted. The ultimate goal,
said Alinsky, is not to arrive at peaceful coexistence, but rather, to
completely “crush the opposition” by remaining vigilantly “dedicated to eternal
war.” “A war is not an intellectual debate,” Alinsky elaborated, “and in
the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.… When you have
war, it means that neither side can agree on anything…. [T]here can be no
compromise. It is life or death.” In perfect fidelity to these principles,
BLM’s foot soldiers make it quite clear that they are constantly aggrieved and
never satisfied.
Alinsky advised the radical activist to be ever on guard against the
possibility that the enemy might someday propose “a constructive alternative”
aimed at resolving some particular conflict. “You cannot risk being trapped by
the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand,” said Alinsky,
for such a turn of events would have the effect of diffusing the righteous
indignation of the radical, whose very identity is inextricably woven into the
“struggle” for long-denied justice. If the perceived oppressor extends a hand
of friendship in an effort to end the conflict, the crusade of the radical is
jeopardized. This cannot be permitted, because “eternal war,” by definition,
must never end.
Alinsky also exhorted radical activists to be entirely unpredictable and
unmistakably willing—for the sake of their crusade—to plunge society at large
into chaos and anarchy. They must be prepared, Alinsky explained, to “go
into a state of complete confusion and draw [their] opponent into the vortex of
the same confusion.”
One way in which radicals and their disciples could signal their
preparedness for this possibility, Alinsky taught, was by staging loud,
angry, massive demonstrations denouncing their political adversaries. Such
events—like BLM’s signature protests and riots—can give onlookers the
impression that an already large movement is in the process of shifting into an
even higher gear. A “mass impression,” said Alinsky, can be lasting and
intimidating: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you
have.” “The threat,” he added, “is usually more terrifying than the thing
itself.” Putting it yet another way, Alinsky advised: “Wherever
possible, go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause
confusion, fear, and retreat.”
That is exactly what BLM seeks to cultivate in the hearts of its
adversaries
Patrisse Cullors, protégé of Eric Mann, spoke the truth when she
famously described herself and her fellow BLM co-founder, Alicia Garza, as
“trained Marxists” who are “super versed on ideological theories.” Among the
most significant of those theories are the teachings of Saul Alinsky,
whose call for relentless, uncompromising, “eternal war”—geared toward the
destruction of America and the creation of a Marxist utopia—is the spirit that
beats in the very heart of the BLM movement.
Support for BLM from President Obama and
the Demo-cratic Party
In August 2015, the Democratic National Committee approved a
resolution stating that “the DNC joins with Americans across the country
in affirming ‘Black Lives Matter’” and its quest to “condemn extrajudicial
killings of unarmed African American men, women and children.” “The American
Dream,” added the statement, “... is a nightmare for too many young people
stripped of their dignity under the vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow and White
Supremacy.”
On September 16, 2015, five BLM activists met at the White House
with President Barack Obama as well as senior advisor Valerie Jarrett
and other administration officials. For one of the activists, Brittany
Packnett, this was her seventh visit to the Obama White House. Afterward,
Packnett told reporters that the president had “offered us a lot of
encouragement,” “told us that even incremental changes were progress,” and
exhorted Packnett to “keep speaking truth to power.”
In October 2015, President Obama publicly articulated
his support for BLM’s agenda by saying: “I think the reason that the
organizers [of BLM] used the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they
were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter. Rather, what they were suggesting
was there is a specific problem that’s happening in the African-American
community that’s not happening in other communities. And that is a legitimate
issue that we’ve got to address.”
That same month, the DNC invited activists from BLM to
help organize and host a town hall forum where the Democratic Party’s
presidential candidates could discuss and debate matters related to racial
justice. In a letter addressed to BLM leaders, DNC chief executive officer Amy
Dacey wrote: “We believe that your organization would be an ideal host for a
presidential candidate forum—where all of the Democratic candidates can …
address racism in America.”
In a December 2015 interview on National Public Radio,
President Obama lauded BLM for shining “sunlight” on the lamentable fact
that “there’s no black family that hasn’t had a conversation around the kitchen
table about driving while black and being profiled or being stopped” by police.
In January 2016, BLM co-founder Alicia Garza was a special
guest of Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee at President Obama’s
final State of the Union address.
In February 2016, President Obama welcomed BLM leaders DeRay
McKesson and Brittany Packnett to a Black History Month event at the White
House. In the course of his remarks, Obama lauded the BLMers for their
“outstanding work” which was “making history as we speak” and would eventually
“take America to new heights.”
On July 10, 2016, President Obama likened BLM to the
abolition, suffrage, civil rights, and other landmark movements of yesteryear,
saying: “The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get
the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists
might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally
counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society,
could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the
union movement, the environmental movement, the antiwar movement during
Vietnam. And I think what you’re seeing now is part of that longstanding
tradition.”
On July 13, 2016—six days after a BLM supporter in Dallas had
shot and killed five police officers and wounded seven others—President
Obama hosted BLM leaders DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, and
Mica Grimm at a four-and-a-half-hour meeting at the White House. Also
invited were such notables as Al Sharpton and Attorney
General Loretta Lynch.
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