David Horowitz On Saul Alinsky
The David Horowitz Freedom Center and Discover the Networks have another brain child: a blog titled NewsReal. On their About Page, its purpose is explained:
NewsReal tells who the day’s newsmakers on the political Left really are – exposing their track-records, their worldviews, their key affiliations, and their agendas.
Sunday, Horowitz wrote a post titled, Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me. Glenn Beck is on vacation this week, but David Horowitz has been invited to be on his show on August 24th to discuss Saul Alinsky. As he reviews and re-reads Alinsky in preparation for the interview, Horowitz has decided to do a series of blog posts on Alinsky. This series should provide invaluable insight and understanding.
The first post deals solely with the dedication of Rules for Radicals.
“Lest we forget, an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical:” (Pause there for second. Now continue): “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.”
So Alinsky begins by telling readers what a radical is. He is not a reformer of the system but its would-be destroyer. This is something that in my experience conservatives have a very hard time understanding….They assume that radicals can’t really want to destroy a society that is democratic and liberal and has brought wealth and prosperity to so many. Oh yes they can….
Until conservatives begin to understand exactly what drives radicals and how dishonest they are — dishonest in the their core — it is going to be very hard to defend the system that is under attack. For radicals the noble end — creating a new heaven on earth — justifies any means. And if one actually believed it was possible to create heaven on earth, would he not willingly destroy any system hitherto created by human beings?
Having gone to college during a time when radicals wreaked havoc and destruction nation-wide, I am not at all skeptical of his assertions, but emphatically agree with his words. This is precisely what so many on the right and even those who would not consider themselves conservatives, have failed to grasp. They are under the illusion that the Left has different ideas about which policies will work in this country, but they still do not think the Left would be so foolish as to burn the village down to accomplish their goals. They don’t realize that burning the village down is the goal.
I highly recommend his post in its entirety. Horowitz incisively enlarges on the comparison of Satan to radicals. I look forward to the rest of the series.
UPDATE: Part II is now up: Hell on Earth.
As Alinsky himself puts it they are seeking to answer the question “Why am I here?” — a question which traditional religions attempt to answer but whose answers radicals scorn. Modern radicalism is a secular religion and its hunger for meaning, and hope and change cannot be satisfied by anything less than grandiose, totalizing schemes to transform the world. To bring up their failures, the enormities they are guilty of, the crimes committed in the name of their religion is to strike a blow at hope itself, which is why they cannot and will not hear it.
One kind of hell or another is what radicalism — progressivism — has in fact achieved since the beginning of the modern age when it conducted the first genocide during the French Revolution.
UPDATE: As Horowitz continues the series, I will update to link to his posts and quote excerpts. Note the theme of destruction of opponents.
Part III: Boring From Within: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me
Conservatives think of war as a metaphor when applied to politics. For radicals the war is real. That is why partisans of the left set out to destroy their opponents, not just refute their arguments. It is also why they never speak the truth. Deception for them is a military tactic in a war that is designed to elminate their opponents….
Alinsky’s book could be called Machiavellian Rules for Radicals, because it is all about deception, about keeping others in the dark about your intentions until it is too late. Alinsky even acknowledges Machiavelli as his model: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.” These are the famous lines that Michelle Obama made in her own Democratic Convention speech.
Part IV: To Have And Have Not: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me
For Alinsky and his Machiavellian radicals politics is war. No matter what they say publicly or pretend to be, they are at war….
Because politics is a war for radicals they perceive opponents of their causes as enemies on a battlefield and set out to destroy them by demonizing and discrediting them….Glenn Beck…Sarah Palin is another conservative they consider extremely dangerous and therefore have set out to destroy, personally. The list is as long as there are conservative leaders….
…“In this book,” Alinsky explains, “we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people.” (p.3) Power has to be “seized” because the Haves will defend what they have (and thus deprive the Have-Nots of what they want). That is why radicals are organized for war.
This myth of the Haves and the Have-Nots is the radical version of the religious division of the world into Good and Evil. If all deprivations and all the social misery in the world are attributable to the greed and selfishness of one group — the Haves — radicals would have a righteous cause. But it happens to be false, and the radicals’ claim to be fighting in the cause of justice a lie. It is the precise lie with which Marx begins the Communist Manifesto….
Part V: Post-modern leftism: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me, Part V
Saul Alinsky came of age in the 1930s as a Communist fellow-traveler…but his real social milieu was the world of the Chicago mobsters to whom he was drawn professionally as a sociologist….
Like other post-modern leftists he understood that there was something deeply flawed in the Communist outlook, but like them he never really examined what those flaws might be…The Alinsky radical has one principle — to take power from the so-called Haves and give it to the so-called Have-nots. What this amounts to, we shall see, is a political nihilism…
Part VI: Means and Ends: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me
Alinsky’s biographer with the following anecdote about Alinsky’s advice to students wishing to protest the appearance on their campus of the first George Bush, before he became president because he was America’s representative to the UN during the Vietnam war…
“He told them…to go hear the speech dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and whenever Bush said something in defense of the Vietnam War, they should cheer and wave placards, reading ‘The K.K.K. supports Bush.’ And that is what the students did with very successful, attention-getting results.” (Let Them Call Me Rebel, pp. xv-xvi)
This anecdote tells you everything you really need to know about this mentor to Hillary Clinton and the Obamas, and the ACORN radicals….Because your purpose is to erase him and the system he is alleged to represent. Therefore pick the symbol of the greatest evil Americans — a small minority of Americans — were ever associated with, and use it to obliterate everything good they ever did in the service of your cause, which is to destroy the system which created them….every means is justified, as we shall. see. (To be continued…)
Part VI continued: Means and Ends Two: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me
David Horowitz continues with his analysis of Alinsky’s rationale of the means and ends, placing it within historical and moral context. This is a brief excerpt, please take the time to read his post in its entirety:
For anti-capitalist radicals — as indeed for zealots generally — the ends justify the means. It has ever been so — for the Jacobins, the Communists, the fascists and now the post-modern Alinsky/Obama left. And that is because of the very nature of those ends as radicals conceive them. A world without poverty, war, racism, or “sexism” is so noble, so perfect in contrast to everything that has preceded it — that it would be criminal not to deceive, lie, and even murder in order to advance or protect the cause. As Nietzsche once observed: “Idealism kills.”…
Rules for Radicals is about tactics in a war where the enemy is the “Haves” who are defending the status quo and all its manifold evils. It is a war that pits noble, planet-saving radicals against the entire social, moral and legal order. The radical goal is saving mankind, and the arguments of his critics are naturally that his means are unpatriotic, subversive, deceptive, violent, illegal and immoral.
Consequently, to brace his radical disciples against their opposition and supply them with self-justifying rationales, Alinsky devotes an entire chapter to the problem of “Means and Ends” — of how a radical can justify breaking the moral order in order to achieve radical ends (pp. 24 et seq). In his handling, there are 11 rules for radicals to explain how radical ends justify radical means. The chapter is explicitly an effort to answer those liberals who refuse to join the radical cause saying “I agree with your ends but not your means.”
Alinsky begins the chapter by telling us that the very question “does the end justify the means” as stated is “meaningless.” The real question is “does this particular end justify this particular means?”
The whole discourse about means and ends that follows, was made forty years earlier in 1938 in a famous (and far more intelligent) pamphlet by the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky….
Part VI (continued 2): The Nazi Option: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me
If conservatives defend the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, and oppose racial preferences, why not compare them to slave owners and call them “racists?” If they oppose disloyal, dishonest and violent radicals, it might be helpful to call them Nazis. If liberals or even other leftists who share your progressive goals, nonetheless don’t like your methods, how about referring to them as “objectively” fascist?
This was in fact the exact term Stalin used to denounce the Marxist critics of his policies during the Thirties before he put them in front of firing squads. Alinsky’s logic and strategy are the same.
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H/T: NewsReal Blog
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[1]
Well, I’ll start. Many will shy away from this issue because of its religious overtones. Say “satan” in a sentence and people’s eyes gloss over almost as quickly as if you say “Hitler” or “Stalin”.
But, this goes back to what conservatives understand about the nature of man, vs. the liberals wild appetites and depraved standard of justice.
For those who are curious, read Sowell’s thoughts on “constrained” (right) vs. “unconstrained” (left) worldviews, in his book “A Conflict of Visions”, and why the founders knew that human nature had to be constrained, and set up a government to do exactly that, because they knew deep down what human nature really is.
Contrast that with the insanity, false morality and license of the left, and the need to make someone else pay the consequences of those choices.
The Constrained and Unconstrained Visions
[2]
And this is why some of us on the right want to get it over with against the left.
Come on you lefties, stop lying, stop hiding, stop slandering, stop intimidating and straw-dogging, just hoist your black banners and your portraits of Marx, and Lenin, and come on out into the open and fight for undisputed mastery.
And it will be over quickly.
[3]
Alinsky arrogantly dedicated his book to Satan and Horowitz’ uses that to drive his points home.
[4]
Here’s an interview Peter Robinson did with Thomas Sowell in which he also discusses A Conflict of Visions. I’ve quoted from it numerous times.
The Point Of No Return
[5]
Yeah, but people say “Oh what, now you’re saying the Dems and the left are the devil?…whatever”….
Well, I won’t say it if you don’t like it, but you look around you, look at the results…
[6]
The left is evil
The left is Satanic
It is immoral to be a Democrat
I’ll say it
It’s true, why not say it…
[7]
The left is evil
The left is Satanic
It is immoral to be a Democrat
How much would you pay to see Palin write that on Facebook? I could just hear right now the ‘pop’, ‘pop’, ‘pop’ of lefties heads exploding.
[8]
I think Horowitz is writing for a conservative audience with this post. I don’t believe he is an observant Jew, but I’m not up on his present religious beliefs.
Alinsky did the dedication for shock value. Horowitz uses the shock value by listing Satan’s tactics in order to wake up conservatives to several things:
1. Destruction: The radicals’ goal of destroying our system of government and life.
2. Dishonesty: The radicals’ core of dishonesty–the end justifies any means. Rush has called Obama a serial liar. Horowitz uses the example of ACORN and election fraud in his post.
3. Deception: The radicals’ continual name changing (he says progressives is the most consistent) to hide their agenda.
4. Draw: The radicals’ mentality (you shall be as gods).
5. Dominion:
[9]
“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”
Edmund Burke
[10]
mpt, that I would love to see!
[11]
MFG, thanks for the quote from Burke.
[12]
Look, this knowledge that ‘man is flawed’ is why the Constitution was written the way it was. It was written to protect man from gaining dominion over man. It is the basic Judeo/Christian tenet. Rule by the best and brightest always leads to tyranny.
[13]
I agree, Bruce.
Those who perceive themselves as the “best and brightest” are the most arrogant and likely to run roughshod over others.
[14]
Most liberals are fundamentally stasists, in Postrel terms.
Virginia Postrel – Libertarian
They want a new system, yes, but one that is entrenched, immoveable, where human freedom is leached out of the system and citizens are reduced to cattle.
Most conservatives, ironically, are dynamists– they value liberty and justice above all, where the glory of the free human mind can take flight, and where each citizen stands on his own– not a servant of the government, and where the government cannot inhibit free action, movement, innovation, and thought.
The radical left wants to burn down the system we have now, but do not mistake it for dynamism. They have in mind the worst form of stasism– where none are free, all are equal, and the State is the permanent master of all.
[15]
Most conservatives, ironically, are dynamists aureliusx
Of course modern day ‘liberals’ stole that descriptive from free market types, we are the true liberals…..conservatives are all about personal freedom.
[16]
Cheggit
Who most resembles ‘Nazis’?
[17]
Oh, and let’s not forget this — the kingdom that the first radical “won” was hell.
Technically, he won nothing but a future sentence, and a vagabond existence until then.
So really, what did he win? Nothing, and lost everything.
Same with the left. They think they are on the verge of winning it all by getting their agenda thru, but the opposite is true, and I don’t mean seats in congress.
[18]
Well, I was quoting Horowitz’ understanding, although I agree with you.
[19]
Horowitz has posted the second part of the series. I’ve updated the post to include the link. He continues to discuss Alinsky and radicals in both political and spiritual terms. This was unexpected to me, but I like it, because in my opinion, it’s a vital tie to make.
[20]
It’s fun to watch libs yell when they get “Alinskyed.”
[21]
I’ve updated the post to include Parts III and IV. I’ll continue to update the series as he writes.
Note the theme of destruction of opponents.
[22]
A link to Part V has been added. Today Horowitz mentions Alinsky’s social ties to the Capone gang and the one principle of the Alinsky radical.
[23]
Before the election last fall, Dan McLaughlin wrote a lengthy series on the candidates. This part has links to the Alinsky-Obama connection.
POLITICS: The Integrity Gap, Part II of III: Sen. Barack Obama
The first post is the intro of this second part in his series.
These are the other posts within Part II. Links to each one over at the first link.
Obama’s Rootless Ambition looks at the influences that shaped Obama before he ran for office.
This is the one to read about Alinsky.
[24]
This is the pertinent paragraph with Dan’s embedded links:
There are four embedded links, including the asterisk as a separate one. All are still working for me today.
[25]
1. The first one is an IBD editiorial, titled:
Barack Obama’s Stealth Socialism
2. From TNR (this link is at the * above):
The Agitator
This column is very long (believe it or not, this is just a small excerpt), but it really goes to the heart of Obama’s training in politics and power.
[26]
3. The third link is to another of Dan’s posts written in September:
POLITICS: The Organizer-Based Community
This one has the photo of Obama teaching Alinsky. I think it was written before the Alinksy term “community organizer” was fully understood.
[27]
4. Links to another IBD editorial:
Obama’s Radical Roots And Rules
[28]
Those articles connect the dots. Once you start reading, you can easily see the Alinsky influence on Obama.
[29]
Today in Means and Ends: Alinsky, Beck, Satan and Me, Part VI, David Horowitz begins to discuss Alinksky’s means to accomplish his ends. I referred a while back to Alinksy’s “ethics” of means and ends. Here’s a brief Wiki post on them.