The Radicals' Rules

The President spoke at Notre Dame today, and for those who may have missed it, you’ve seen it before. The greatest divider who has ever inhabited the White House continues to run plays from the only book he knows… Saul Alinsky’s classic Rules for Radicals.

Saul Alinsky was the original “community organizer”. Born in Chicago, he began actively “organizing” in the 1930s. Casting himself as the champion of the downtrodden and living a life committed to his quest for social justice, he worked tirelessly initially in the slums of Chicago, and later nationally. Alinsky’s vision of social justice was anti-government, anti-corporate and socialist. From The American Thinker, “In the Orwellian upside-down world of the Left, community organizers disorganize communities. That is the meaning of revolution, to overturn whatever exists today in the raw pursuit of one's own power.” While politically aligned with extreme left, Alinsky’s legacy is less ideological than methodological. He left behind a set of specific rules and guidelines for those who, in the name of the supposedly oppressed, seek power through revolution.

Alinsky formalized his methodologies for community organization in three books he wrote. The Industrial Areas Foundation Training Institute, known as the Alinksy School, backed initially by cash infusions from department store giant Marshall Fields, assured that the Alinsky tradition would thrive. The Alinsky School was the oracle for Barrack Obama’s early mentors in his Chicago organizing days, Mike Kruglik and Jerry Kellman. Other noted followers of the Alinsky way include Bill Ayers and Hillary Clinton. Clinton did her Wellesley thesis on Alinsky and was offerred a job by him after graduation. She opted for law school.

Profound economic injustice was by no means America’s only shortcoming, as Alinsky saw things. Lamenting the nation’s “rather confused and demoralized ideology,” he further identified “unemployment,” “decay,” “disease,” “crime,” “distrust,” “bigotry,” “disorganization,” and “demoralization” as inevitable by-products of life in capitalist America. Such a state of affairs, he said, made life for a majority of Americans nothing more than an exercise in drudgery. “At the end of the week,” said Alinsky of the average American, “he comes out of the hell of monotony with a paycheck and goes home to a second round of monotony…. Monday morning he is back on the assembly line.… That, on the whole, is his life. A routine in which he rots. The dreariest, drabbest, grayest outlook that one can have. Simply a future of utter despair.” People hunger for drama and adventure, for a breath of life in a dreary, drab existence,” he expanded.According to Alinsky, this unhappy existence exerted a profoundly negative influence on the American character. Alinsky perceived most Americans as people who were governed by their prejudices, and who thus felt great antipathy toward a majority of their fellow countrymen -- particularly those of different racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds. This might be familiar to some of us who got beyond change and hope in the last campaign. “Most people,” he said, “like just a few people, and either do not actively care for or actively dislike most of the ‘other’ people.”

As author Richard Poe puts it, “Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.” Alinsky advised organizers and their disciples to quietly, subtly gain influence within the decision-making ranks of these institutions, and to introduce changes from that platform. But it is not enough for the organizer to be in solidarity with the people. He must also, said Alinsky, cultivate unity against a clearly identifiable enemy; he must specifically name this foe, and “single out” precisely who is to blame for the “particular evil” that is the source of the people’s angst. In other words, there must be a face associated with the people’s discontent. That face, Alinsky taught, “must be a personification, not something general and abstract like a corporation or City Hall.” Rather, it should be an individual such as a CEO, a mayor, or a president.

According to John Perrazo at Front Page, “Having painted a verbal portrait of a thoroughly corrupt and melancholy American society, Alinsky was now prepared to argue that wholesale change of great magnitude was in order.” In his Rules for Radicals Alinsky taught that "truth is mutable and will change from time to time as necessary. “The organizer is in a true sense the highest level for which man can reach - to create, to be a ‘great creator’, to play God.”

Alinsky was a focused, determined, pragmatic and ruthless revolutionary. Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals:

"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.”

To the subject at hand, President Obama delivers the Commencement Speech at Notre Dame today. Rule number 12 for Alinsky is, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." This roughly translates to cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. A corollary to Rule 12 is to go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
The President in opening comments, as he did on the campaign trail for months for those willing to listen, as he has continued to do in office, focused on several targets and attempted to isolate and marginalize them using the straw man strategy he has honed to perfection. The President spent a significant portion of his speech on abortion. Before edifying us on the possibilities that exist to unite and resolve this conflict, in the spirit of unification, he made his requisite shout out to the greed mongers responsible for the economic crisis, chastised those who cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar and then offered this:

“The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved.

The question, then _ the question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?”

Given the recent kerfuffle over interrogation tactics, definitions of torture, the leaking of the identities of field interrogators, the refusal to declassify memos detailing the possible success of such techniques and the President’s willingness to consider releasing photos of actual interrogations, what is the soldier to make of his comparison with the lawyer? The President has made it clear he is at odds with the methods employed to keep pour country safe over the last eight years. He has sent a clear message that the saving of thousands of lives, by tactics which are used to train our own troops, is wrong and immoral; though it was not immoral for Democratic party leaders in 2002. Viewing the world through his political prism, he has given clear sign that he is of a mind to resolve this conflict between lawyers and soldiers, but it is unambiguous who will lose this contest as political leaders call for torture hearings. The spread of AIDS in the gay community is the result of one thing…promiscuity. The evangelical pastor views promiscuity as immoral. The gay activist views this behavior, assumedly, as acceptable. The evangelical pastor will never accept this behavior as moral. The evangelical pastor will, however, love the sinner while hating the sin. The pastor would not deny AIDS victims AIDS medications. He might ask that the AIDS activist honestly report that the use of condoms, allowing said continued promiscuous activity, has not diminished the AIDS epidemic here or in Africa. Abstinence has. There is no cure on the horizon for juvenile diabetes with embryonic stem cells, but that’s OK. There have been series of juvenile diabetes cases cured with use of their own or adult stem cells.

It is disingenuous to introduce these political footballs as indicators of our inability to engage in meaningful, vigorous debate and resolve conflicts in a common effort. For many who have not reached the postmodern evolutionary stage required for the pragmatic Alinsky acolyte, there remains, in some matters, truth. The President asks for us to join hands in a common effort. Unfortunately for conservatives, such an invitation always means the sacrifice of conservative principles. It never entails the limitation or modification of liberal dogma. The abortion issue, as discussed by President Obama, is framed as one in which there is disagreement, equal moral concern but nevertheless the opportunity for all to agree to a commitment to reduce the use of abortion.

For those of us who believe abortion is the killing of a child, this is not completely satisfactory but it something certainly worth striving for. Unfortunately, the President’s past and recent history make the sincerity of this proposition impossible to accept. President Obama, was unwilling to support the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, has supported all forms of abortion including partial birth abortion, and has named one of the most ardent abortion supporters in the country to head the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Secretary Sibelius, as Governor of Kansas, received thousands of dollars of questionably legal contributions from one of the most notorious partial birth abortionists in the country. In addition he has told Planned Parenthood that a priority for his administration will be passing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which will dramatically reduce existing regulations related to abortion, including limiting the ability of providers to object to participating in abortion services based on conscience.

Regarding the latter, today the President stated, “Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women." Awful big of the President to respect the conscience of pro-life health care workers and offer the possibility that he might consider a clause that accommodates such beliefs.

Who can blame the President for taking up the offer of Father Jenkins and the other useful idiots at Notre Dame to address a student body increasingly divorced from the University's suppossed Catholic heritage. Notre Dame long ago abandoned any of the underpinnings of a true Catholic University. The appearance of the President today continues the great Notre Dame tradition of undermining the Catholic faith by providing a national stage for yet another politician to instruct American Catholics and the Catholic Church on what it means to be Catholic. The President’s references to “Fr. Ted” and Cardinal Bernadin harkens back to a dark day twenty five years when a previous pro-abortion and Catholic politician, Mario Cuomo, appeared on the Notre Dame stage at the behest of Father Hesburgh. Then Governor Cuomo educated us all on the unique requirement for politicians, seemingly specifically Catholic politicians, to check their religious principles at the door in considering affairs of state. Gov. Cuomo also referenced Cardinal Bernadin and his seamless garment of social justice for the Catholic Church, a garment in which abortion was equal to issues related to homelessness, nuclear weapons, immigration and the death penalty.

The President used his speech today to attempt to isolate believers in the Catholic faith, who are by definition pro-life, as the irreconcilable element in the abortion conversation. The President knows that 54% of “Catholics” supported him in the election. He understands the seamless garment tradition of moral equivalence on “life” and social justice issues established by Cardinal Bernadin, formalized by Mario Cuomo at Notre Dame in 1984, and which has provided cover for too numerous to count Catholic politicians since. As far as the the Catholic Church goes, there is one mission, isolate and polarize. As Alinsky said, “The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent.” Bravo Mr. President. Saul Alinsky would be proud.

There is some hope for Catholics but the light is as dim as an Al Gore compact flourescent bulb. Nationally, USCCB policy stands in opposition to the Obama speech today. In addition 74 bishops came out in opposition to the Obama appearance at Notre Dame. The only hope for Catholics at Notre Dame is that Father Jenkins might develop the same enthusiasm for the Magesterium that he has for the most pro-abortion President in our history and the Vagina Monologues.

Quaere Verum