The culmination of the events which have led to this particular moment in history has its roots in Pre-WWII America during the Great Depression. As a result of the Great Depression a tetonic shift in the temper and tone of the American government took place. That tone took the argument that government, in and of itself, was the chief regulator and arbitor of financial affairs, i.e. that only government could lift us out from the economic doldrums in which we found ourselves. This argument was further advanced under LBJ and his ‘Great Society’ thus ensuring a welfare, or socialist, state. The great ruse of socialism is that it is not capitalism. In point of fact, it is an extreme form of capitalism, or economic slavery, where all capital is centered and disseminated from the state.

The perniciousness of true socialism is that it rests in the beauracracy. A beauracracy is comprised of people who we call friends and relatives, which makes it so much harder to fight.

To end this post I leave you with a quote from Malcom Muggeridge, “It has become abundantly clear in the second half of the 20th century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and becomes extinct. Many…have envisaged the future in such terms, and now what they prophesied is upon us.”

It truly is a brave new world.

We are actuely aware that the size and scope of government was something that perplexed even our founding fathers, think Federalists vs. Jeffersonians. Although Jefferson abdicated his small government mentality upon his presidential win, it nonetheless seems to us that we need to get back to that small government mentality. We’re not talking about Republican or Democratic small or large government. Since whomever you choose it ends of turning out to be the same thing. The power and control of citizens over its government was abdicated a long time ago and it truly doesn’t matter how much you use the word “change” as it still feels much like the SAME!!

It is within this vein that we are set to launch the first political party that will be created by the people and for the people. As far as we are aware, this is the first political party to be created in an online and completely open format. We will use the Constitution as the basis for all party discussions. Each item and/or general party platform will be put up for a vote. (It is helpful to note that only US citizens, 18+, will be allowed to participate in the formation of the party.)

All discussions will be posted for the entire US and world to see. We insist on transparency, and not just as a political catch-phrase, as such we will not illicit lobbiests, attorneys, etc. with all work necessary for the party’s formation to be completed by volunteers, as was the tradition of our founders, many of whom paid with their blood. If however, there becomes a time when paid staff and/or there is a need for paid contractors, it will be set to a vote and a quarterly budget and cost analysis will be posted on the forum website and emailed to all registered users.

It is here that we begin upon a journey started by our founding fathers over 200 years ago and adapted to current times and via new communication mediums. To that end, I leave you with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Old Soviet-era jokes have become disturbingly applicable to the U.S.

by Oleg Atbashian

March 5, 2009

Oleg Atbashian, a writer and graphic artist from Ukraine, currently lives in New York. He is the creator of ThePeoplesCube.com, a satirical website where he writes under the name of Red Square.

There was a time in recent American history when certain Soviet jokes didn’t work in translation — not so much because of the language differences, but because of the lack of common sociopolitical context. But that is changing. As President Obama is preparing us for a great leap towards collectivism, I find myself recollecting forgotten political jokes I shared with comrades while living in the old country under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Gorbachev. (I was too young to remember the Khrushchev times, but I still remember the Khrushchev jokes.) I also noticed that the further America “advances” back to the Soviet model, the more translatable the old Soviet jokes become. Not all Soviet advancements have metastasized here yet, but we have four more glorious years to make it happen.

One of my favorite political jokes is this:

The six dialectical contradictions of socialism in the USSR:

There is full employment — yet no one is working.
No one is working — yet the factory quotas are fulfilled.
The factory quotas are fulfilled — yet the stores have nothing to sell.
The stores have nothing to sell — yet people got all the stuff at home.
People got all the stuff at home — yet everyone is complaining.
Everyone is complaining — yet the voting is always unanimous.

It reads like a poem — only instead of the rhythm of syllables and rhyming sounds, it’s the rhythm of logic and rhyming meanings. If I could replicate it, I might start a whole new genre of “contradictory six-liners.” It would be extremely difficult to keep it real and funny at the same time, but I’ll try anyway.

Dialectical contradictions are one of the pillars in Marxist philosophy, which states that contradictions eventually lead to a unity of opposites as the result of a struggle. This gave a convenient “scientific” excuse for the existence of contradictions in a socialist society, where opposites were nice and agreeable —unlike the wild and crazy opposites of capitalism that could never be reconciled. Hence the joke.

Then I moved to America, where wild and crazy opposites of capitalism were supposedly at their worst. Until recently, however, the only contradictions that struck me as irreconcilable were these:

Economic justice:

America is capitalist and greedy — yet half of the population is subsidized.
Half of the population is subsidized — yet they think they are victims.
They think they are victims — yet their representatives run the government.
Their representatives run the government — yet the poor keep getting poorer.
The poor keep getting poorer — yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
They have things that people in other countries only dream about — yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

Hollywood clichés:

Without capitalism there’d be no Hollywood — yet filmmakers hate capitalism.
Filmmakers hate capitalism — yet they sue for unauthorized copying of their movies.
They sue for unauthorized copying — yet on screen they teach us to share.
On screen they teach us to share — yet they keep their millions to themselves.
They keep their millions to themselves — yet they revel in stories of American misery and depravity.
They revel in stories of American misery and depravity — yet they blame the resulting anti-American sentiment on conservatism.
They blame the anti-American sentiment on conservatism — yet conservatism ensures the continuation of a system that makes Hollywood possible.

I never thought I would see socialist contradictions in America, let alone write about them. But somehow all attempts to organize life according to “progressive” principles always result in such contradictions. And in the areas where “progressives” have assumed positions of leadership — education, news media, or the entertainment industry — contradictions become “historically inevitable.”

If one were accidentally to open his eyes and compare the “progressive” narrative with facts on the ground, one might start asking questions. Why, for instance, if the war on terror breeds more terrorists, haven’t there been attacks on the U.S. soil since 2001? Why, if George W. Bush had removed our freedom of speech, was nobody ever arrested for saying anything? And if Obama has returned us our freedoms, why was a man harassed by police in Oklahoma for having an anti-Obama sign in his car? Why would anyone who supports free speech want to silence talk radio? And why is silencing the opposition called the “Fairness Doctrine”?

After the number of “caring,” bleeding-heart politicians in Washington reached a critical mass, it was only a matter of time before the government started ordering banks to help the poor by giving them risky home loans through community organizers. Which resulted in a bigger demand, which resulted in rising prices, which resulted in slimmer chances of repaying the loans, which resulted in more pressure on the banks, which resulted in repackaging of bad loans, which resulted in a collapse of the banks, which resulted in a recession, which resulted in many borrowers losing their jobs, which resulted in no further mortgage payments, which resulted in a financial disaster, which resulted in a worldwide crisis, with billions of poor people overseas — who had never seen a community organizer, nor applied for a bad loan — becoming even poorer than they had been before the “progressives” in the U.S. government decided to help the poor.

As if that were not enough, the same bleeding hearts are now trying to fix this by nationalizing the banks so that they can keep issuing risky loans through community organizers. In other words, to prevent the toast from landing buttered side down, they’re planning to butter the toast on both sides and hope that it will hover in mid-air. Which also seems like a sensible alternative energy initiative.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, there’s always the last resort of a liberal: blame capitalism. It’s always a win-win. Today government regulators may be blaming capitalism for the crisis caused by their dilettantish tampering with the economy, but who do you think they will credit after market forces resuscitate the economy?

Years ago, living in America made me feel as though I had traveled in a time machine from the past. But after the recent “revolutionary” changes have turned reality on its head — which is what “revolution” literally means — I’m getting an uneasy feeling I had come from your future.

As your comrade from the future, I also feel a social obligation to help my less advanced comrades in the American community, and prepare them for the transition to the glorious world of underground literature, half-whispered jokes, and the useful habit of looking over your shoulder. Don’t become a nation of cowards — but watch who might be listening.

Let’s start with these few.

People’s power:

Liberals believe they’re advancing people’s power — yet they don’t believe people can do anything right without their guidance.
People can’t do anything right — yet the government bureaucracy can do everything.
The government bureaucracy can do everything — yet liberals don’t like it when the government takes control of their lives.
Liberals don’t like it when the government takes control of their lives — yet they vote for programs that increase people’s dependency on the government.
They vote for programs that increase people’s dependency on the government — yet they believe they’re advancing people’s power.

Bush and the media:

The media said Bush was dumb — yet he won over two intelligent Democrats.
He won over two intelligent Democrats — yet the media said his ratings were hopeless.
The media said his ratings were hopeless — yet the 2004 electoral map was red.
The 2004 electoral map was red — yet the media said his policies failed.
The media said his policies failed — yet the economy grew and the war was won.
The economy grew and the war was won — yet the media said we needed “change.”

Public education:

Liberals have been in charge of education for 50 years — yet education is out of control.
Education is out of control — yet liberal teaching methods prevail.
Liberal teaching methods prevail — yet public schools are failing.
Public schools are failing — yet their funding keeps growing.
Their funding keeps growing — yet public schools are always underfunded.
Public schools are always underfunded — yet private schools yield better results for less.
Private schools yield better results for less — yet public education is the only way out of the crisis.

Foreign radicals*:

Foreign radicals hate America — yet they’re all wearing American blue jeans.
They’re all wearing American blue jeans — yet they disdain American culture.
They disdain American culture — yet they play American music, movies, and video games.
They play American music, movies, and video games — yet they call Americans uncivilized.
They call Americans uncivilized — yet they expect Americans to defend their civilization.
They expect Americans to defend their civilization — yet they think American capitalism is outdated.
They think American capitalism is outdated — yet most of their countries require American handouts.

(* Some Democrat politicians have similar opinions about their redneck constituents — yet they won’t shut up about how proud they are to have their mandate.)

Liberals and taxes:

Liberals want to help the poor — yet they won’t give money to charities.
They won’t give money to charities — yet they’d like the government to become a gigantic charity.
They’d like the government to become a gigantic charity — yet the money has to be taken from people by force.
The money has to be taken from people by force — yet they call it welfare.
They call it welfare — yet higher taxes make everyone poorer.
Higher taxes make everyone poorer — yet liberals find ways not to pay taxes.
Liberals find ways not to pay taxes — yet they get to be chosen to run the government.

Liberals and the CIA:

The CIA is a reactionary institution — yet its agents always leak information that helps liberals politically.
CIA agents always leak information that helps liberals politically — yet liberals say the CIA is clueless.
Liberals say the CIA is clueless — yet in their movies the CIA is running the world.
In their movies the CIA is running the world — yet they tell us that better intelligence could have prevented the war.
Better intelligence could have prevented the war — yet “enhanced interrogations” of captured terrorists must not be allowed.

Love and marriage:

Sex differences are the result of social conditioning — yet homosexuality is biological.
Homosexuality is biological — yet everybody is encouraged to experiment with it.
Everybody is encouraged to experiment with it — yet venereal diseases are treated at the taxpayers’ expense.
Venereal diseases are treated at the taxpayers’ expense — yet taxpayers have no right to impose standards since there are no moral absolutes.
There are no moral absolutes — yet gay marriage is an absolute must.
Gay marriage is an absolute must — yet family is an antiquated tool of bourgeois oppression.

How to Lock Your Car and Why
I locked my car — as I walked away I heard my car door unlock I went
back and locked my car again three times. I looked around and there
were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store.
When I looked straight at them they did not unlock my car again.
How to lock your car safely -
While traveling, my son stopped at a roadside park. He came out to his
car less than 4-5 minutes later and found someone had gotten into his
car, and stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator
briefcase…..you name it…
He called the police and since there were no signs of his car being
broken into - the police told him that there is a device that robbers
are using now to clone your security code when you lock your doors on
your car using your key-chain locking device..
They sit a distance away and watch for their next victim. They know
you are going inside of the store, restaurant, or bathroom and have a
few minutes to steal and run. The police officer said to manually lock
your car door-by hitting the lock button inside the car, that way if
there is someone siting in a parking lot watching for their next
victim it will not be you.
When you hit the lock button on your car upon exiting…it does not
send the security code, but if you walk away and use the door lock on
your key chain - it sends the code through the airwaves where it can
be stolen. Something totally new to us…and real.
Be aware of this and please pass this note on…look how many times we
all lock our doors with our remote…just to be sure we remembered to
them….and bingo someone has our code…and whatever was in the
car…can be stolen.
Snopes Approved.Please share with everyone you know… Good
information!!!

David Alinsky gloated: “I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”

Confirming that Obama was trained in Chicago by the Alinsky apparatus, David Alinsky wrote: “It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.”

Describing how the Democratic National Convention was a “perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style,” David Alinsky wrote: “All the elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd’s chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people.”

Indeed, the son has reason to boast that his father’s organizing techniques were so effectively used by a longshot candidate to climb the path to America’s highest office. The most significant part of Barack Obama’s education was not at Columbia University or Harvard Law School, but the years he spent being trained in the Saul Alinsky system for community organizing and then practicing what he learned.

Obama was trained by the Alinsky organization called Industrial Areas Foundation (founded by Alinsky in 1940), after which Obama taught workshops on the Alinsky method. Obama learned how to put together a new style presidential campaign that decisively defeated the Clinton machine plus the Republican Party in a dramatic one-two punch never before seen in politics.

Alinsky’s organization was based in Chicago, nestled under the protective wing of the Democratic political machine, but his reach extended all over the country from New York to California. Hillary Clinton wrote her Wellesley thesis on Alinsky, who then offered her a job (which she turned down to enroll in Yale Law School).

Americans who care about our nation and its future should study Saul Alinsky and what is known today as “the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power.” These were the lessons he taught his eager students. He died in 1972, but he left behind a cadre of community organizers who had been trained how to carry out the political strategies described in Alinsky’s frank and elegantly written book called Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (originally published by Random House in 1971).

The tone of this book and its obvious determination to change America are made clear by this dedication printed at the very beginning:

“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.”

Saul Alinsky’s worldview was that the United States is an oppressive and racist society where most people (the Have-Nots) are the victims of economic injustice with a future of despair. He wanted a radical change of America’s social and economic structure, and he planned to achieve that through creating public discontent and moral confusion. His goal was not to arrive at compromise or peaceful solution; his goal was to crush the Haves and transform society.

Alinsky developed concepts to achieve power through mass organization. Organizing was his word for revolution. His 1946 book, Reville for Radicals, had already made clear that he wanted to move the United States from capitalism to socialism, where the means of production would be owned by all the people (i.e., the government). A believer in economic determinism, he viewed unemployment, disease, crime and bigotry as byproducts of capitalism. So he called for massive change.

To achieve this, he sought local community organizers who projected confidence, vision and change. Barack Obama fit the profile. Alinsky didn’t want just talkers; he wanted radicals who were prepared to take bold action to organize the discontented, precipitate crises, grab power, and thereby transform society. He taught these radicals how to infiltrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties, gain influence in them, and then introduce change.

Chapter 1 of Rules for Radicals called The Purpose makes Alinsky’s goal very clear. His worldview is that mankind is divided into three parts: “the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.” His purpose is to teach the Have-Nots how to take power and money away from the Haves. “We are concerned,” he said, “with how to create mass organizations to seize power. . . . We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world. . . . This means revolution.”

“Change” is Alinsky’s favorite word, used on page after page. “I will argue,” he writes, “that man’s hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change.” Alinsky uses what he calls “general concepts of change” to move us toward “a science of revolution.” What he calls “change” means massive change in our socio-economic structure. What he calls “organizing” means pursuing confrontational political tactics. Alinsky teaches the Have-Nots to “hate the establishment of the Haves” because they have “power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve.” He claims that “justice, morality, law, and order, are mere words used by the Haves to justify and secure their status quo.” He proclaims that his aim is to teach the Have-Nots “how to organize for power: how to get it and to use it.”

Alinsky’s second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult moral dilemmas, and his “tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends” is: “you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.”

He doesn’t ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary. He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that “Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.” He reminds his trainees that “All effective actions require the passport of morality.”

Alinsky certainly doesn’t mean that all actions must be moral. He means that you decide what you want or need to do and then cloak your actions with the language of morality. Phrase your goals in “general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’” He reminds us that the Communists used words like “democracy” and “equality,” but they had no relation whatsoever to what Americans understand by those terms.

At the same time, Alinsky admonishes his organizers that they are conducting war, so there are no rules of fair play and there can be no compromise.

Recognizing the importance of words, Alinsky demands that his organizers use the word “power,” which he calls a word of force, vigor and simplicity. Power is what he wants — and he doesn’t want to be bothered with those who shrink from using this powerful word. He advises his followers not “to pander to those who have no stomach for straight language.”

In the chapter called The Education of an Organizer, Alinsky explains that he conducted “a special training school for organizers with a full-time, fifteen-month program.” It wasn’t an easy regimen, Alinsky warned; it “requires frequent long conferences on organizational problems, analysis of power patterns, communication, conflict tactics, the education and development of community leaders, and the methods of introduction of new issues.”

The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were ego (”reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to create, to be a ‘great creator,’ to play God”), curiosity (raising “questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern”), irreverence (”nothing is sacred”; the organizer “detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality”), imagination (”the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing”), a sense of humor (”the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule”), and an organized personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his actions only “as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.”

In the chapter on Communication, Alinsky teaches his organizers how to direct the thinking of his people while letting them think they are making their own decisions. The organizer should develop skills in the manipulative technique of asking “loaded questions designed to elicit particular responses and to steer the organization’s decision-making process in the direction which the organizer prefers.”

The chapter called In the Beginning describes how to train the community organizer in how to make himself acceptable to the Have-Nots in the local community. “From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.”

The organizer’s “biggest job is to give the people the feeling that they can do something.” The organizer’s job is “to build confidence and hope in the idea of organization and thus in the people themselves: to win limited victories, each of which will build confidence.” The organizer will learn that “Change comes from power, and power comes from organization.”

“The organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems,” and “organizations must be based on many issues.” The organizer “must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.” He can provoke class resentment by painting Wall Street as villains.

The organizer “begins his ‘trouble making’ by stirring up these angers, frustrations, and resentments, and highlighting specific issues or grievances that heighten controversy.” The organizer must remember that “Organizations need action as an individual needs oxygen. The cessation of action brings death to the organization.”

At the same time, “The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.’” Alinsky reminds his organizers that “To attempt to operate on a good-will rather than on a power basis would be to attempt something that the world has not yet experienced.”

Alinsky’s book is full of examples of issues and organizational victories from the decade of the 1960s (such as the Vietnam War, civil rights litigation, urban renewal, and campus riots) which are not meaningful to younger Americans today. However they emphasize his strategy that organizers must use current issues and “must be aware of the tremendous importance of understanding the part played by rationalization on a mass basis.”

In the chapter called Tactics, Alinsky reminds his trainees that power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” He lists some of his recommended tactics:

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

“Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions.” “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” “Multiple issues mean constant action and life” for the cause. (Obama never harps on one issue as Hillary did with health care. His platform is packed with grievances from “economic justice” to “reproductive justice” to “environmental justice.”)

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Alinsky’s advice was to “laugh at the enemy” to provoke “irrational anger.”

“A mass impression can be lasting and intimidating.” (Obama moved his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention to a football stadium and bused in 55,000 supporters.)

“Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.” “You can club them to death with their ‘book’ of rules and regulations.” That means, taunt them every time they appear to violate their own principles, which Alinsky believes everybody does frequently.

A leader may struggle toward a decision and weigh the merits and demerits of a situation, but he must convince the people that “their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels, and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil,” even though that is a lie because there is “really only a 10 percent difference.” Alinsky justifies this lie to achieve the transfer of power.

Alinsky describes some of his successful mass demonstrations:

Buying 100 tickets to a Rochester symphony concert for 100 blacks, feeding them lots of baked beans beforehand so that they had to get up and go to the restroom during the first musical selection. This created “a combination not only of noise but also of odor, what you might call natural stink bombs.” He reminded his readers that there is nothing illegal about needing to rush to the restroom.

Tying up all the restrooms at O’Hare Airport by having his demonstrators lock themselves in the toilet booths equipped with a book to read, and then staying there all day.

Dropping wads of chewing gum all over the walks on a college campus.

Paralyzing a bank by having 100 people show up at once with $5 or $10 to open a savings account (which they would then come back to close the following day). There is nothing illegal about this, but it created chaos for the bank. Alinsky called this “a middle-class guerrilla attack.”

Engaging in proxy fights with corporations.

Alinsky reveals his total contempt for the Haves and their devotion to self interest. He says, “I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.”

When Alinsky approached the end of his Rules for Radicals and projected future strategies in the chapter entitled The Way Ahead, he laid out his plan to go after “America’s white middle class. That is where the power is.” They are the “Have-a-Little, Want Mores.”

Alinsky boasts that, “With rare exceptions, our activists and radicals are products of and rebels against our middle-class society. . . . Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class.”

Here is where Alinsky had trained his community organizers to adopt a “middle-class identity” and familiarity with their “values and problems” in order to organize his “own people.” Now, realizing “the priceless value of his middle-class experience,” they will “begin to dissect and examine that way of life as he never has before.” “Everything now has a different meaning and purpose.”

Alinsky instructs his trainees to “return to the suburban scene of your middle class with its variety of organizations from PTAs to League of Women Voters, consumer groups, churches, and clubs. The job is to search out the leaders in these various activities, identify their major issues, find areas of common agreement, and excite their imagination with tactics that can introduce drama and adventure into the tedium of middle class life.”

And a word of Alinsky caution: “Start them easy, don’t scare them off.” When Alinsky’s community organizer moves from organizing the “poor” to organizing the “middle class,” he “discards the rhetoric that always says ‘pig.’ . . . He will view with strategic sensitivity the nature of middle-class behavior with its hangups over rudeness or aggressive, insulting, profane actions. All this and more must be grasped and used to radicalize parts of the middle class.”

Community Organizing Continues

Will the Alinsky strategies that nominated and elected Barack Obama President of the United States be put on the back burner for four years, lying dormant until they are needed to reelect him in 2012? Not likely. Those strategies are available right now to push through the radical legislation and gigantic spending programs that he promised his followers.

The pro-Obama New York Times laid out the plan on its January 26 front page under the headline “Retooling a Grass-Roots Network To Serve a YouTube Presidency.” Obama’s staff has already started “transforming the YouTubing-Facebooking-Texting-Twittering grass-roots organization that put Mr. Obama in the White House into an instrument of government. That is something that Mr. Obama, who began his career as a community organizer, told aides was a top priority, even before he was elected.”

President Obama’s staff has created a group, headquartered in the offices of the Democratic National Committee, called “Organizing for America.” Its mission is to “redirect the campaign machinery into the service of broad changes in health care, environmental and fiscal policy. They envision an army of supporters talking, sending e-mail messages and texting to friends and neighbors as they try to mold public opinion.” Three days after Obama was sworn in as President, an announcement video was sent to 13 million people.

The Obama team understands very well that traditional methods of communicating with voters are being replaced by new channels built around social networking. In the 2008 campaign, liberals dominated conservatives by more than 10-to-1 on the Internet, and the Obama campaign exploited that advantage fully and profitably. This massive Internet advantage enabled Obama and leftists to raise ten times more money than conservatives over the Internet, and to create a climate of extreme bias in the media against conservative candidates. Sarah Palin was savaged on liberal blogs with little resistance from conservatives.

This 21st Century use of Internet technology and new-media communication was reflected in Obama’s truly incredible record of money-raising. He raised nearly $750 million for his presidential campaign. By contrast, in 2004, George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry together collected less than $650 million. For the general election, Obama had more than three times what John McCain had at his disposal, and Obama still had $30 million in the bank after the election.

Obama’s technology/Internet superiority continues. DailyKos.com, a liberal blog site, ranks 3,631 in daily traffic out of many millions of internet websites. This is far higher, often by a factor of 100, than conservative sites. Many other liberal websites also outrank conservative sites, such as Moveon.org, a website started a decade ago in defense of Clinton during his scandals.

Previous Presidents recorded and released a radio speech every Saturday morning, but Obama instead records a video speech, then posts it on the White House website and YouTube where it can be picked up and forwarded to millions of followers who weren’t listening to radio on Saturday mornings. His first speech was a sales talk for his $825 billion economic so-called stimulus package. By Sunday afternoon, more then 600,000 people had viewed it on YouTube.