Bill Moyers and Saul Alinsky who?

Both names ring a bell.  Bill Moyers, author of this piece of garbage, sounded familiar.  Saul Alinsky we’ve written about before here at The Patriot Perspective.  Saul Alinsky has had somewhat of a resurgence in recent years as people began to take note of the institutions and movements he created in his lifetime and with his writing, specifically, “Rules for Radicals” – a primer on how to organize revolutionary movements and dedicated to Satan.

Alinsky’s book has several bullet points, designed along the lines of Machiavelli’s The Prince (but Mac wrote his book for different reasons).  Unlike Mac, who may well have written the entirety of the Prince and the Discourses as satire or criticism of rulers of the time, Alinsky’s book is out-and-out revolutionary.  Taken without the context of his life and deeds as an organizer, what he wrote could also be parody; but sadly, it is not.

From Alinsky’s tactics section:

1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.

3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….”

8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”

11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.”

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.  In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”

From his “purpose”:

“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.” p.10

Now, Bill Moyers, whose name seemed familiar, I had to go look up.  That’s where I was reminded that Moyers used to work for PBS, and worked for LBJ as press secretary.

"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." -- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House"

Y’know, that racist guy who instituted social programs to make voters dependent on his party.

The Alinsky that those of us not on the left know is the one that ex-communist-revolutionary David Horowitz’s Discover the Networks outlines:

The ultimate goal, said Alinsky, is not to arrive at compromise or peaceful coexistence, but rather to “crush the opposition,” bit by bit.[57] “A People’s Organization is dedicated to eternal war,” said Alinsky. “… A war is not an intellectual debate, 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…. In our war against the social menaces of mankind there can be no compromise. It is life or death.”[58]

Alinsky is every bit the bad guy the right portrays him to be.  He was a community agitator pushing for destruction of the current system, replacement with a dictatorship which would be every bit as much “of the people” as Lenin and Stalin were, and ultimately, so he said, replacement with utopian communism.  Of course, that’s never worked in the history of mankind, but what’s to stop them from trying to transmute dog shit into gold by waving their copy of Das Kapital around?

Bill Moyer’s piece, titled “Saul Alinsky, Who?” is a vapid, useful idiot’s defense of Alinsky, combined with idiotic accusations against the right (and all those who oppose Alinsky – mostly critical of Gingrich, but Moyers mostly directs his insults at “the crowd”):

In the case of Saul Alinsky, most of the crowd knows nothing about the target except that they’re supposed to hate him. And why not? There’s the strange foreign name — obviously an alien. One of them. And a socialist at that. What’s a socialist? Don’t know — but Obama’s one, isn’t he? Barack Hussein Obama, Saul Alinsky — bingo! Two peas in a pod, and a sinister, subversive pod at that.

Moyers, if you weren’t the product of decades of mindless condescension to people smarter than you (that is to say… everyone), the whole post would’ve consisted of Boxxy:

But since he really means it, time to Fisk this motha out.

Much of the crowd knows plenty about Saul Alinsky.  Remember there was this guy with a TV show on CNN and then on FOX who talked about Alinsky quite a bit:

And there are folks who’ve done entire seminars on Alinsky’s book.  Alinsky’s quite well known.  We on the non-left know quite a bit about him.

There’s the strange foreign name — obviously an alien. One of them.

Really, Moyers?  It’s a different name.  So what?  So are Ayaan Hirsi, Wafa Sultan, Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Dinesh D’Souza, and Ayn Rand.  Those are all somewhat peculiar sounding names.  Moyers’ accusation of xenophobia is a trite attempt to blast the right for xenophobia and racism – the right isn’t xenophobic or racist.  The left, however…

The comments echo Moyers’ ignorance:

As one can at least assume from his name, Alinsky was Jewish, not Israeli, Jewish American, making him the perfect right wing boogeyman.

Yep… the “Jewish part” is what really makes them go bonkers

Moyers continues:

And a socialist at that. What’s a socialist? Don’t know –

Yes, do know, Moyers.  A socialist advocates state control or coercion of the means of capital, including increased control over the people.  They advocate expanded government.  We could get into different brands of socialism, how they ultimately reduce the individual to one of “the people” to be ruled by the socialist party leaders, etc., but I’ll let this guy summarize it in a sentence and then move on:

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

– Winston Churchill

but Obama’s one, isn’t he? Barack Hussein Obama, Saul Alinsky — bingo! Two peas in a pod, and a sinister, subversive pod at that.

Yes, Obama’s a socialist.  He favors socialist policies.  Newsweek even said we’re all socialists.  Obama could say he’s a Gummi Bear from Gummi Glen, but judging by his actions and the lack of bouncing and Gummiberry juice at the White House, he’s not a Gummi Bear.  His actions certainly support him being a socialist, though.

Not pictured: Barack Obama.

Two peas in a sinister subversive plot?  Uh… they kind of admit it.  Alinsky admitted outright what his goals were, he just dressed them up a bit.  And Obama was trained and then became a teacher of Alinsky method:

Obama was trained by the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago and worked for an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi for the creation of ‘a more just and democratic society’ is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method. As The Nation magazine puts it, ‘Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing…’  In fact, for several years Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method.

So, yes.  But not because they have names that aren’t simple, bland, WASPy American names.  Like Bill.

Y’know, the bomb planting terrorist type guy?  …In whose living room Obama started his campaign.

Moyers again:

Saul Alinsky was a proud, self-professed radical. Just look at the titles of two of his books – Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals. But a communist or socialist he was not.

Alinsky himself stated that though he worked with Communists for years, he never officially joined; nor did he join any groups he founded.  So card-carrying Communist or Socialist, no.  But communist or socialist, out to destroy and redistribute the means of capital, to take from the Haves, mobilize the Have-a-Little Want-More middle class and the Have-Nots against them, absolutely.

While Alinsky endorsed ruthlessness in waging war against the enemy, he was nonetheless mindful that certain approaches were more likely to win the hearts and minds of the people whose support would be crucial to the organizers’ ultimate victory. Above all, he taught that in order to succeed, the organizer and his People’s Organization needed to target their message toward the middle class. “Mankind,” said Alinsky, “has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.”[60] He explained that in America, the Have-a-Little, Want-Mores (i.e., members of the middle class) were the most numerous and therefore of the utmost importance.[61] Said Alinsky: “Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they [the middle class] become split personalities… Thermopolitically they are tepid and rooted in inertia. Today in Western society and particularly in the United States they comprise the majority of our population.”[62]

Alinsky stressed that organizers and their followers needed to take care, when first unveiling their particular crusade for “change,” not to alienate the middle class with any type of crude language, defiant demeanor, or menacing appearance that suggested radicalism or a disrespect for middle class mores and traditions. For this very reason, he disliked the hippies and counterculture activists of the 1960s. As Richard Poe puts it: “Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”

In his book Radical in Chief, Stanley Kurtz describes Alinsky as “a cross between a democratic socialist and a communist fellow traveler.” But Alinsky carefully avoiding drawing any attention to that fact. Writes Kurtz:

“He was smart enough to avoid Marxist language in public…. Instead of calling for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, Alinsky and his followers talk about ‘confronting power.’ Instead of advocating socialist revolution, they demand ‘radical social change.’ Instead of demanding attacks on capitalists, they go after ‘targets’ or ‘enemies.'”

Furthermore:

To counter that materialism, Alinsky favored a socialist alternative. He characterized his noble radical (read: “revolutionary”) as a social reformer who “places human rights far above property rights”; who favors “universal, free public education”; who “insists on full employment for economic security” but stipulates also that people’s tasks should “be such as to satisfy the creative desires within all men”; who “will fight conservatives” everywhere; and who “will fight privilege and power, whether it be inherited or acquired,” and “whether it be political or financial or organized creed.”[7] Alinsky maintained that radicals, finding themselves “adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism,”[8] sought “to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization.”[9]  “They hope for a future,” he said, “where the means of production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful.”[10] In short, they wanted socialism.

Moyers concludes, directing much of his diatribe at Newt when he’s not busy insulting everyone not on the left:

Alinsky died, suddenly, in1972. At the time, he was planning to mount a campaign to organize white, middle class Americans into a national movement for progressive change, a movement he vowed to take into the halls of Congress and — his words — “the boardrooms of the mega-corporations.”

Maybe that’s why Newt Gingrich has been slandering Alinsky’s name. Maybe he’s afraid, afraid that the very white folks he’s been rousing to frenzy will discover who Saul Alinsky was — a patriot in a long line of patriots, who scorned the malignant narcissism of duplicitous politicians and taught everyday Americans to think for themselves and fight together for a better life. That’s the American way, and any good historian would know it.

Yeah, sure.  He’s a patriot.  A “patriot” who started organizing by organizing a scamming racket skipping out on checks and hanging out with gangsters.  A patriot who motivates those who want to improve their lives by directing them to rage against those with capital and those who’ve earned their wealth.  A patriot whose objectives were to tear down, not to build – and never to allow anyone to build:

Alinsky warned the organizer to be on guard against the possibility that the enemy might offer him “a constructive alternative” aimed at resolving the conflict. Said Alinsky, “You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying, ‘You’re right — we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.’”[59]  Such capitulation by the enemy would have the effect of diffusing the righteous indignation of the People’s Organization, whose very identity is inextricably woven into the fight for long-denied justice; i.e., whose struggle and identity are synonymous. If the perceived oppressor surrenders or extends a hand of friendship in an effort to end the conflict, the crusade of the People’s Organization is jeopardized. This cannot be permitted. Eternal war, by definition, must never end.

This is where it fails, as every socialist leftist revolutionary movement does.  The problem is that there is no such thing as “the masses” or “the people”.  There are individual citizens.  There is no “big business” there are individual citizens.  There also is no “middle class”, “lower class” or “upper class”.

Individual citizens who do care about the future of their country, their fellow citizens, and ultimately the world, are often those who have bettered their lives.  Those who have done something for themselves and want to do for others.

As an example, Mr. Tod’s Pie Factory and his struggle to make his business successful is not the story of a “have not” taking from the “haves” or a “have-a-little” shoving “have-nots” down to make himself a “have”.  It’s a man with a business who wants to improve his life, improve his business, improve what he’s built.  Along the way, he hires other people on their way up (or catches them on their way down), and he helps out big evil megacorporations like Alinsky and Moyers would like to destroy… to help out his community by representing something they like.  He makes things better, and he does so by making a product people want to buy at a price they want, improving his own lot in life and enjoying his passion for baking and making people happy all the while simultaneously helping everyone around him by engaging in successful commerce.

Alinsky and Moyers would smash the windows of his bakery.