US Communist Leader: ‘Progressive Change Is Closer than We Think’

"....Barack Obama himself is almost certainly familiar with the Marxist analytical framework for understanding what moves history. He was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member. The typical white grandparents who raised him moved in communist circles after leaving Kansas for Mercer Island, WA and Honolulu. I doubt very much if Davis ever got very specific with young Barry on the complexities of dialectical materialism, the formal basis for communist theory. And because the president's college transcripts are a closely guarded secret, we cannot know if he took any courses on Marxist theory while at Occidental College and Columbia University. But he surely understands its basics.

"The Marxist theory of history teaches that it moves forward through a dialectical process, powered by conflict. Thesis -- an action or idea -- generates a reaction, its antithesis, which results in contradictions and conflict. The wise dialectical thinker understands that by heightening contradictions (or not letting a crisis go to waste, in the immortal words of Rahm Emanuel), the final outcome -- the synthesis -- can be shaped in radical directions. Among those who took this lesson was Saul Alinsky, for example, who wanted to "rub raw the resentments of the people" in order to hasten revolution through peaceful means, inspiring young Barack Obama to become a community organizer....."

The Dialectic of Obama

Saul Alinsky’s blueprint for how to “radicalize” the “middle class”:

“Wrap everything you do in morality if you want to fool the targets (the”middle class”) and get them on your side.

” .....Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”

While his ultimate goal was nothing less than the “radicalization of the middle class,” Alinsky stressed the importance of “learning to talk the language of those with whom one is trying to converse.”

“Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class,” he said, “accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict.

Start them easy, don’t scare them off.”

To appeal to the middle class, Alinsky continued, “goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’; ‘Of the Common Welfare’; ‘Pursuit of happiness’; or ‘Bread and Peace.’”

He suggested, for instance, that an effective organizer “discovers what their [the middle class’] definition of the police is, and their language [and] he discards the rhetoric that always says ‘pig’ [in reference to police].

Instead of hostile rejection he is seeking bridges of communication and unity over the gaps…. He will view with strategic sensitivity the nature of middle-class behavior with its hang-ups over rudeness or aggressive, insulting, profane actions. All this and more must be grasped and used to radicalize parts of the middle class.”

A related principle taught by Alinsky was that radical organizers must not only speak the language of the middle class, but that they also must dress their crusades in the vestments of morality.

“Moral rationalization,” he said, “is indispensable to all kinds of action, whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.” “All great leaders,” he added, “invoked ‘moral principles’ to cover naked self-interest in the clothing of ‘freedom,’ ‘equality of mankind,’ ‘a law higher than man-made law,’ and so on.”

In short: “All effective actions require the passport of morality.” ...” Continued here: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=d6e27ece-9798-4f01-a378-3f1405f69704 [snip]bttt

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