The Cloward-Piven Strategy, Saul Alinsky, and Their Influence on Obama

Flopping Aces ^ | 07-30-11 | Warren Beatty

[Starman417]

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was published in The Nation in 1966. The strategy was developed by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, professors at Columbia University in NYC. Piven was married to Cloward. They wrote an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," advocating increased enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse that system and force reforms, leading to a guaranteed annual income. This political strategy has been referred to as the "Cloward-Piven strategy."

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving). In their 1966 article, "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands. The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book, "Rules for Radicals." When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.

From Kurt Nimmo at Infowars.com, we learn: It is a mistake to believe the Cloward-Piven Strategy is scheme cooked up by academic Marxists of "New Left." In fact, "the destruction of capitalism in America is a meticulous plan on the part of the global elite to consolidate power and destroy all opposition." It has nothing to do with liberating the proletariat, but rather subjecting them to "world-socialism, scientifically planned and directed" and devised to transform the planet into a high-tech prison gulag."

Saul Alinsky and his Book

Saul Alinsky is probably the best-known "community organizer" in the country today. Even though he died in 1972, he is still remembered for his book, Rules For Radicals," published in 1971. In it he wrote, "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. 'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

From Noam Cohen at The New York Times, we learn, "The disruption of the town hall meetings has many Alinsky trademarks: using spectacle to make up for lack of numbers; targeting an individual to make a large point; and trying to use ridicule to persuade the undecided."

Here are some excerpts from "Rules for Radicals."

• Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical: One of our greatest revolutionary heroes was Francis Marion of South Carolina, who became immortalized in American history as "the Swamp Fox." Marion was a revolutionary guerrilla. British General Cornwallis and the regular British Army found their plans and operations harried and disorganized by Marion's guerrilla tactics. Cornwallis was very critical of Marion's tactics.
• Don't worry if they call you names: The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a "dangerous enemy."
• The first step: The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community 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.
• Being on TV can be empowering: A man, in a demonstration at City Hall, might find himself confronting the mayor and saying, "Mr. Mayor, we have had it up to here and we are not going to take it any more." Television cameramen put their microphones in front of him and ask, “What is your name, sir?”
• Find a single person to focus your energies on: It should be borne in mind that the target is always trying to shift responsibility to get out of being the target. There is a constant squirming and moving and strategy - purposeful, and malicious at times.
• Do not ignore the lower-middle class: They are a fearful people, who feel threatened from all sides: the nightmare of pending retirement and old age with a Social Security decimated by inflation; the shadow of unemployment from a slumping economy, with blacks, already fearsome because the cultures conflict, threatening job competition; the high cost of long-term illness; and finally with mortgages outstanding, they dread the possibility of property devaluation from non-whites moving into the neighborhood.

It should also be noted that Mr. Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Influence on Obama

Alinsky is considered to be the founder of modern community organizing in America. Alinsky's teachings influenced Obama early in his career as a community organizer on the far South Side of Chicago. Obama worked for Gerald Kellman's Developing Communities Project where he learned and taught Alinsky's methods for community organizing.

By following this link, you will see a chart that puts Obama at the epicenter of an incestuous stew of American radical leftism. Not only are his connections significant, they practically define who he is. Taken together, they constitute a who's who of the American radical left, and guiding all is the Cloward-Piven strategy.

In Breaking the System, David Horowitz and Liz Blane explain how Obama is using the Cloward-Piven Strategy to continuously manufacture crises of which he can take advantage, and to advance his agenda. Obama's plan, "...is the product of a calculated strategy by the radical Left to subvert America's free-enterprise system and to turn the country's citizens into wards of an always-growing state whose ultimate objective is to engineer American lives. Specifically, Obama's policies reflect the strategy developed by two leftist professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, in the mid-1960s to manufacture crises that will fracture our social and cultural institutions and pave the way for a socialist redistribution of wealth and control over every aspect of individual endeavor.

[Baynative]

Bring it all down, man!

It isn't to hard to understand why Obama is a failure in his office as president. He has spent his whole life waging war against "the man" and now that he is the man he has no idea what to do.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I have yet to hear anybody in the MSM talk about the strong influence that Saul Alinsky has had on Obama’s life.

The only places you learn of such things is sites such as this, and some talk radio. Even some of the major talk show hosts don’t talk about the fact that Obama is an Alinskyite. It’s like we’re not supposed to know, yet Alinsky tactics have shaped Obama’s thinking. It’s a fair subject for discussion, but the MSM is afraid to talk about this.

[EGPWS]

He has spent his whole life waging war against "the man" and now that he is the man he has no idea what to do.

I have a suggestion for him...

[YankeeReb]

I have yet to hear anybody in the MSM talk about the strong influence that Saul Alinsky has had on Obama’s life.

The only places you learn of such things is sites such as this, and some talk radio. Even some of the major talk show hosts don’t talk about the fact that Obama is an Alinskyite. It’s like we’re not supposed to know, yet Alinsky tactics have shaped Obama’s thinking. It’s a fair subject for discussion, but the MSM is afraid to talk about this.

Don't forget most of the 0bama-lemmings in and outside of the MSM are only useful idiots. They don't believe their messiah is really a hard core Marxist. They just can't stand Conservatives and people who hold traditional values. They see this president as a perfect "in your face" anti-conservative.

[Baynative]

"... the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands."

What Cloward/Piven and Obama fail to articulate is: "What are those demands?"

This is the trouble with the radical left they are rebelling against anything and everything, but have no idea what the end product might be.

I read that back in the 70s when Obama's friends Wm. Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and their allies in the Weather Underground were plotting to kill American soldiers someone at one of their meetings asked what to expect when the entire system collapses and the government is overthrown.

"What will we do then?", was the question. It is written that the answer was along the lines of, "We'll have to rebuild it, but WE'LL be in charge"

[Dilbert San Diego]

And this should send a chill down all of our spines.

For whatever problems this country has, a collapse and a revolution of some kind would not result in any improvement.

It’s frightening to think of Bill Ayers and his boys in charge of re-building things after a collapse. Whatever would replace what we have now would not be an improvement.

[Baynative]

The folly of their idealism was that if there ever was a complete collapse, a powerful force would emerge that might well consist of former military commanders and international business conglomerates who would wipe the upstart anarchists out in short order.

This is also the failing of the world socialist dream held by Obama. If somehow it became possible to confiscate all wealth and distribute it evenly, the same people who are rich and creative now would have it all back in a few short years. It's because they have the ambition and intelligence that the others do not.

[jmacusa]

Yes, Obama is what he is because of the reasons you stated. He’s also a complete boob and an incompetent putz because he has never gotten his lazy ass out of bed before 11am his whole life and it shows.

[RitaOK]

It isn’t to hard to understand why Obama is a failure in his office as president. He has spent his whole life waging war against “the man” and now that he is the man he has no idea what to do. <<<<<

Probably the most accurate and to the letter statement yet!
Very nice. Thanks!

[Elendur]

and now that he is the man he has no idea what to do.
///
respectfully, i think he, and more especially, the people behind him, know EXACTLY what they are doing.

that is the whole point of this article, which i wish ALL Freepers would read !

and after reading, think about Obamacare (especially with single payer, which is inevitable, once companies start dumping people in 2014. (logical, it’s cheaper!),
and the 40 million on food stamps, extending unemployment to 99 weeks, and then doing EVERYTHING possible with the EPA, regulations, etc., to INCREASE unemployment,
the encouragement of illegal immigration, who often have MULTIPLE IDENTITIES, each of which collects free money.

...i would say Obama has been extraordinarilly successful !
once you understand what he is REALLY trying to do.

Cloward-Piven.

[Don@VB]

It is not just Obama. Hillary Clinton’s first job after law school was working for Alinsky.

[ronnie raygun]

We need an old fashion witch hunt! These American enemies are right out in front where we can see them. It is time we crush them like the filthy tenament roaches they really are

[justa-hairyape]

....advocating increased enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse that system and force reforms, leading to a guaranteed annual income.

Another disgusting leftist lie. Let me see if I got this straight. The purpose of the ideology is to overload the system with annual income requirements, so the system will collapse and produce annual incomes ? How can leftist be this dumb ?

[Free Vulcan]

I don’t see how the leftists could possibly make out at all. All their useless eaters would die, the creative people and producers would survive, we have governors with national guards and the ability to call up militias that would secede, and all the leftist shock troops would be marked for death with 300+ million guns in this country.