The Devil and the Democrats
The Fifth Column Lance Fairchok, Senior Writer
September 21, 2007
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When MoveOn.org ran its New York Times attack ad against General Petraeus prior to his congressional testimony, they did so with the full knowledge and consent of the Democratic leadership. During the hearing more than the usual level of partisan grandstanding and staged audience participation obscured the issue, as the Democrats attempted to discredit an honest soldier and a man of integrity, honor and rare intellect. An accurate synopsis of the entire circus would be, “We appreciate your service and sacrifice but you’re a liar and a willing shill for the President,” no matter that the President is the Commander in Chief whose orders the General is duty bound to obey.
This was, of course, homage to the MoveOn.org left and their Soros-led financiers and quite purposely reflected the vicious spirit of the Times ad. It was also an example of just who the Democrats now answer to, and what institutions they are willing to denigrate in their quest for political supremacy. Luckily, their transparent political theatrics did not sit well with many Americans and it will likely backfire.
Why would the Democrat leadership believe this ham-fisted propaganda tactic would be successful? For several reasons, this type of tactic has worked reliably as a means of influencing electorate perceptions in the past, and it follows that they believe the American people will buy it. With every political victory, this perception is reaffirmed by a sympathetic media and by a Republican party unprepared, unwilling or unable to retake the initiative and preempt Democrat propaganda. The left is ideologically committed to the tactics we witnessed during the Petraeus testimony. They are part of a methodology of below the belt political gamesmanship codified by self-described “rebel” Saul David Alinsky that has a long history of success.
Conservatives consistently succumb to what some call the “Alinsky Method” of power politics precisely because they find them distasteful, even abhorrent. Many believe that to respond in kind or to engage head-on means they would be “sinking into gutter politics.” Many simply cannot believe the Democrats are so cynical or ruthless, blinded by the comforting myth of bi-partisan compromise that the Democrats themselves perpetuate. Consequently, political attacks that should be anticipated are unplanned for, and outrageous falsehoods are unanswered. The initiative is conceded by inaction and responses are forever reactive, the weaker position in politics. Inaction allows the left to paint a picture of conservatives that does not reflect reality, and those popular perceptions, false as they are, carry the day.
How then will we prevail if we do not understand our opponent? If conservatives wish to counter “progressive” activists and propagandists they must understand the foundational assumptions that motivate and inspire the latter’s’ actions. Not only do conservatives need to know the methods of the left, but also how the doctrines they claim were designed to help the disadvantaged so easily metastize into entitlement and corruption.
So who was this Saul Alinsky and what is the “Alinsky Method”?
Let us start with Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton as many people have only heard of Mr. Alinsky in the context of Hillary’s senior college paper. Hillary’s paper written at the elite girls school, Wellesley College, “There is only the Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model,” is an example of undergraduate hero worship, not hard to imagine coming from a naive but intelligent and privileged undergrad in 1969. After meeting and interviewing a forceful personality such as Mr. Alinsky, a man that embodied all the social justice aspirations and cultural delusions of the 1960s, it would have been hard to understand if she had not come away smitten. Indeed, his skill with flattery was as legend as was his skill at intimidation, and after he offered Hillary a job, she could not help but become an ardent admirer. Today, the ideological affinity runs deep; even a cursory examination of her public language reveals it. Hillary is in many ways the embodiment of Alinsky’s legacy.
In her paper, young Hillary presents Alinsky’s political philosophy as the virtuous American model of social conscience, a cultural inheritance from great American revolutionaries such as Thomas Paine and John Adams. This is the rhetorical flourish of Alinsky reflected through the pen of an acolyte, and an example of how he enthralled many of the campus left with stirring images of the noble moral radical. His organizational skills and his intuitive understanding of human nature made him a formidable opponent who took devilish joy in tweaking the nose of business and government, “the haves” as he called them.
To be fair, Alinsky cared deeply about the poor and disadvantaged. He did good things for many in the early days of his activism, particularly in Chicago. Yet, his accomplishments on behalf of the underprivileged were often fleeting. He was shamelessly self-aggrandizing, a dedicated salesman of himself, which is obvious in his books and interviews. Called the father of “progressive grassroots organizing,” Alinsky’s rhetoric was Marxist and rooted in the pre-World War II labor movement, when socialism had not yet taken on the negative connotations of the Cold War. He later tapped into the anti-war jargon and political themes prevalent in the 1960s and finding it a perfect fit, rode it until his death. The reverence he elicits from the left is very real, and Rules for Radicals is recommended reading for labor unions, the National Education Association, every major university and, of course, Code Pink and MoveOn.org.
The “Alinsky Method” or “Alinsky Model” is a technique of organizing and manipulating group dynamics to specific ends, which Alinsky started in Chicago in the late 30s and around the country in the ensuing decades until his death in 1972. Alinsky developed and successfully used organizational tactics and focused agitation in conflicts with government and big business. He taught how to analyze grievances in the context of who could alleviate them or who could be blamed for them, and then targeted those leaders for manipulation. Inequities in community services, employment and equal rights distilled down to the perpetual conflict between the “haves” and the “have nots”. For Alinsky it was Marx’s dialectic tension between the proletariat and bourgeoisie with an American face. By playing the community with the grievance against the “haves” in government and business, Alinsky often won concessions that would help the aggrieved in the short term. He understood the importance of clear concise messages and of co-opting the press with staged drama. He specialized in below the belt dirty tricks to put pressure on his targets. Much of what Alinsky worked for depended on young student activists, much like Hillary Clinton, to be the grass roots organizers.
How did he convince young idealistic students that rough, even vicious political tactics, demagogic slogans, propaganda and the outright dishonesty that often typified Alinsky’s methods were correct? He simply altered their ethical assumptions with “education and training.” In his book, “Rules for Radicals,” he instructs the would-be “community organizer” on the foundational ethics behind his tactics with Machiavellian-blue collar candor. The “rules of the ethics of means and ends” contains these gems:
“That perennial Question, “Does the end justify the means?” is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been, “Does this particular end justify this (sic) particular means?”
“The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.”
“In war, the end justifies almost any means.”
“Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.”
“The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluation of means.”
“Success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.”
“The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.”
“Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”
“You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.” -- Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pgs 24 - 36
In these few sentences he introduced a cleverly constructed relativism that reinforces his ethical construct, a sort of “to the righteous go the spoils” approach that fits perfectly with the theme of “have-nots” taking power from the “haves.” The moral justification is preeminent, constantly pointed to and reaffirmed with examples. Yet, in the context of a moral struggle these “ethical rules” are a transparent dissembling of “the ends justify the means,” a repackaging of the ancient “exitus acta probat,” the “the outcome justifies the deed.” It is an ethical framework that is as old as the first despot, yet perfectly post-modern, and disturbingly nihilist. This may explain why it is so easily accepted by today’s left. “Ethical standards must be elastic to stretch with the times,” Alinsky said, and stretch them he did. Alinsky was not a philosopher as some lionize him. He was a bar room tactician and a political knife fighter; he designed his ethical instruction to shape his followers to his vision. One passage in “Rules for Radicals” illustrates his ethical acrobatics in the 1930s Chicago slums quite well.
“An example occurred in the early days of Back of the Yards, the first community that I attempted to organize. This neighborhood was utterly demoralized. The people had no confidence in themselves or in their neighbors or in their cause. So we staged a cinch fight. One of the major problems in the Back of the Yards in those days was an extraordinarily high rate of infant mortality. Some years earlier, the neighborhood had had the services of the Infant Welfare Society medical clinics. But about ten or fifteen years before I came to the neighborhood the Infant Welfare Society had been expelled because tales were spread that its personnel was disseminating birth-control information. The churches therefore drove out these “agents of sin.” But soon the people were desperately in need of infant medical services. They had forgotten that they themselves had expelled the Infant Welfare Society from the Back of the Yards community.
After checking it out, I found out that all we had to do to get Infant Welfare Society medical services back into the neighborhood was ask for it. However, I kept this information to myself. We called an emergency meeting, recommended we go in committee to the society’s offices and demand medical services. Our strategy was to prevent the officials from saying anything; to start banging on the desk and demanding that we get the services, never permitting them to interrupt us or make any statement. The only time we would let them talk was after we got through. With this careful indoctrination, we stormed into the Infant Welfare Society downtown, identified ourselves and began a tirade consisting of militant demands, refusing to permit them to say anything. All the time the poor woman was desperately trying to say “Why of course you can have it. We’ll start immediately.” But she never had a chance to say anything and finally we ended up in a storm of “And we will not take ‘No’ for an answer!” At which point she said, “Well, I’ve been trying to tell you…” and I cut in, demanding, “Is it yes or is it no?” She said, “Well of course it’s yes.” I said, “That’s all we wanted to know.” And we stormed out of the place. All the way back to the Back of the Yards, you could hear the members of the committee saying, “Well, that’s the way to get things done: you just tell them off and don’t give them a chance to say anything. If we could do this with just a few people that we have in the organization right now, just imagine what we can get when we a have a big organization.” (I suggest that before critics look upon this as “trickery” they reflect on the discussion of means and ends.) -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pgs 114, 115
The Infant Welfare Society, by all accounts was doing important work to alleviate a terrible societal problem. Yet to Alinsky it was merely a tool to aid in constructing his organization. This charity was, one assumes, funded and staffed by a sufficient number of “haves” that they were therefore fair game for manipulation in a larger deception. This kind of set-up tactic is common today as distasteful as it is; one sees it constantly in congressional hearings, television interviews, newspaper articles and political debates. To believe that Code Pink demonstrators in the General Petraeus hearings erupted in shouted slogans from spontaneous anti-war emotion, slogans that mirrored the MoveOn ad and the Democrat talking points would be beyond naive. It was political theater right out of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. If you cannot prevent the General from speaking, you can certainly make him look bad by association with negative images. In this case, it was with little old ladies in pink bunny ears wrestling with police officers. The goal was to distract the observer from the substance of his comments. “Our strategy was to prevent the officials from saying anything; to start banging on the desk and demanding that we get the services, never permitting them to interrupt us or make any statement.” If the General had anything in his record they could have used against him, they would have. Nevertheless, if they cannot discredit with fact, they will use fiction. Ethically, fact and fiction are in the “Alinsky Method” interchangeable, see “the discussion on means and ends.” “Does this particular end justify this (sic) particular means?” The political tactics developed under such moral guidelines are simple, nasty and dishonest, but effective if not immediately confronted. Here Alinsky has additional guidance for the radical organizer called the rules of “power tactics:”
“Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat.
The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat.
The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their 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.
The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.
The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment.
The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.
The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. 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."
The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.” -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pgs 126 - 130
While Alinsky represented himself in his writings as a revolutionary, he was in practice very much like any brawling political figure of the day. He preached working within the system to dismantle its power structures, which he saw as responsible for society’s inequities. He was a realist who chose his fights, and was in private contemptuous of the idealistic people he so easily maneuvered. He was a populist, a hustler, an opportunist and a man with a substantial ego. His rhetoric was filled with images of the desperate conditions and mounting anger of whatever group he was fighting for whether is was the working class in the 40s or the middle class in the late 60s. In an interview with Playboy Magazine in 1972, he described his newest target for grass roots organizing; surprisingly, the white middle class, and dramatically described them:
“They're oppressed by taxation and inflation, poisoned by pollution, terrorized by urban crime, frightened by the new youth culture, baffled by the computerized world around them. They have worked all their lives to get their own little house in the suburbs, their color TV, their two cars, and now the good life seems to have turned to ashes in their mouths. Their personal lives are generally unfulfilling, their jobs unsatisfying, they've succumbed to tranquilizers and pep pills, they drown their anxieties in alcohol, they feel trapped in long-term endurance marriages or escape into guilt-ridden divorces. They're losing their kids and they're losing their dreams. They're alienated, depersonalized, without any feeling of participation in the political process, and they feel rejected and hopeless. Their utopia of status and security has become a tacky-tacky suburb, their split-levels have sprouted prison bars and their disillusionment is becoming terminal.”
Alinsky was perpetually seeking out disadvantaged communities to organize and was not above manufacturing them. After all, his methods do not work with people who feel in control of their lives, or are already “empowered.” Sometimes, you have to convince them of their own despair and victim-hood. At this Alinsky was a master. People are prone to feel sorry for themselves, to blame their woes on others, to find comfort in the delusion that whatever condition they find themselves in; it is just not their fault and they are powerless to change it. This human foible is a central tool in the power politics used by “rights” movements from the traditional civil rights groups to national healthcare advocates. Appeals to this emotion are in virtually every Democrat presidential candidate’s campaign rhetoric. The mantra reads like this: “tax cuts helped the rich not the little guy,” “corporations make money that should be yours,” “we will take from those damn rich and give you what you deserve,” “free health care is your right” and “you are a victim and we will bring you justice.” It is the “chicken in every pot” promise. As divorced from reality as this may be, it always strikes a chord, particularly in a society that has slowly but steadily been pushed away from its traditions of individual responsibility.
In the political battles in the run-up to the 2008 elections, the use of “Alinsky Method” tactics will be unrelenting. They will include manufactured scandals; push polls, planted press stories, personal attacks, intimidation and outright fraud. All supported “ethically” and justified with the rationale “this particular end justified this particular means,” which explains in part why it’s so common for Democrats to demonize conservatives. It is a moral struggle for the left and their unique morality comes from radical minds like Saul Alinsky’s.
Fortunately, the tools of power politics exist without any unifying vision of where they would lead except to power for the practitioner. Certainly, a variety of utopian visions can be found in today’s progressive, socialist and leftist circles, but not one effectively unites the disparate factions. There is however, a strain malevolent nihilism that can be found to a lesser or greater extent in them all. It is a destructive urge that seeks to undermine all that has come before: culture, history, religion, tradition, custom, honor, even morality. This is the voice of the post-modern devil that whispers in their ear, “there is no truth, there is no right and wrong, there is only power.” The Left's unspoken assumption is that who and what we are as a nation is flawed and what we have built must be knocked down. They take no pride in our miraculous successes, but instead wallow in recrimination at injustices that were done getting here. They believe they can do better. It is a monumental arrogance, and equally naive, all revolutionaries eventually discover it is easier to destroy than to build.
Not surprisingly, the authors of Alinsky hagiographies fail to point out that the help he gave to the downtrodden inevitably fed a larger more insidious ideological and political agenda. His vision of social justice has morphed in the years since his death, with radicals taking his methods to lengths he could not have imagined, for causes he would likely have despised. His ethics blurred the lines of right and wrong and modern Democrat political tactics are born of that moral equivalence. How can campaign promises, legislative compromises and policy statements be trusted when those that make them believe that, “The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluation of means.” The evidence is that they cannot be trusted and when power is more important than nation and truth, those that live by the “Alinsky Method” become the enemy of us all.
“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 say 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 he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, quotes