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(Vanity) Alinsky meets Orwell, or, The Audacity Archipelago
grey_whiskers ^ | 05-26-2009 | grey_whiskers

Posted on 05/26/2009 4:33:16 AM PDT by grey_whiskers

A common meme on conservative sites is the assertion that Obama and his minions are "Alinskyites." (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "Alinsky" is not the Chicago version of "Lewinsky.") Saul Alinsky was a political agitator (read: Socialist / Communist) who was interested in subverting American culture, and who decided that the most effective way to do this was to usurp the levers of power within the system. He wrote, along the way, a book entitled Rules for Radicals, which was a guidebook of strategy and tactics for the communist infiltrator community organizer.

The book is famous for two things. First, the introductinon, which contained the following quote:

"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."

And you thought Communis--er, Community Organizers were irreligious!

Second, the list of rules inside the book. One of the most famous ones is rule #11, which begins:

"Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. "

You can see how this has been attempted with various figures on the Right, including Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. The attack on Limbaugh failed for a few reasons. Rush was already well-known and loved by millions ("Hey! Someone on the radio who thinks like me!"); he refused to be frozen, as exhibited when the despicable Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (CrotchetyOldMan - NV) tried to pin Limbaugh as someone who attacked our troops. Rush took the formal letter of rebuke from the US Senate and auctioned it off, promising to give the proceeds to help the troops -- and to cap it off, challenged the Democrats in the Senate to match the bid. The best the left has been able to do to Limbaugh has been to demonize him among the ranks of their fatuous talking-point followers. Sarah Palin has taken several good hits, due to her being set up by RINO advisors within the McCain Presidential campaign, and her loyalty to the ticket to "stay on message". But her natural cheer, confidence, and personal morality make it pretty hard for scurrilious dirt to stick. ("Oh my God, your daughter is pregnant out of wedlock!" Yes, and neither Ted Kennedy nor Bill Clinton has been able to get much traction out of it. "Oh my God! Someone ELSE bought your family $150,000 worth of clothes for the campaign!" Yes, and then we hear of Obama's $100/lb steak dinners. Go take your faux outrage elsewhere.)

Or look at Carrie Prejean. She was asked a "gotcha" question on homosexual marriage by a self-aggrandizing, perverted twit. (What is a queer man doing judging a woman's bathing suit competition anyway? He is not a fit judge of female beauty by definition.) Her response was to defend traditional morality -- and moreover, to give the exact response that a known liberal (Barack "The Messiah" Obama) did! And yet she was denied the pageant crown, almost lost her state title, pilloried, smeared, called a stupid c*nt and a b*tch -- all by the self-proclaimed forces of "love" and "tolerance".

Unfortunately for Mr. Pink Hair Walrus, there is a core of chivalry in America, of people who are more than willing to defend a woman against knaves; the more so if she is a beauty queen, instead of a mere drag queen.

But this last example shows that there is a larger goal to the "freeze it, personalize it, polarize it" than just the individual examples. First, is it not clear, that, given the rash of de facto regulations on speech, that silencing of political enemies is the real aim? How many times have you yourself -- with co-workers, or friends -- wanted to voice a thought which wasn't "PC" but had to hold it in, or pretend outrage you didn't feel, or been forced to pretend applause for something you didn't approve of? All for the fear of being the next target.

However, this fear of being the next target has another useful feature. Not only are people afraid to voice their very thoughts (the essence of a participatory government, a Free Republic), but the very concept of "hate speech" or "intolerance" acts as a protective buffer around the members of the annointed: for if you express disagreement with them, why, there can be no such thing as honest disagreement. Your very disputation is prima facie evidence of your own secret hate: hate hidden so well, even you cannot recognize it, but easily seen by the discerning given the proper examination of your words and attitudes.

Can anyone say "Crimethink"?




"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. " -- George Orwell

And if it is not -- please read the following passage from Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago, concerning a Moscow meeting of the Communist Party(*):

“Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter. . . . Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.

“That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”

(*) borrowed from here.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; History; Society
KEYWORDS: alinsky; carrieprejean; communism; obama; orwell; policialcorrectness; saulalinsky; socialism; whiskersvanity
Cheers!
1 posted on 05/26/2009 4:33:17 AM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: G8 Diplomat; Tax-chick; SunkenCiv; neverdem; LucyT; snarks_when_bored
Fresh birdcage liner (paper not included).

Cheers!

2 posted on 05/26/2009 4:39:01 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

July 4. Washington, DC Mall. Bring your poster.

I already have an FBI file. I’ll volunteer to be the first one to stop applauding . . . because I never started applauding in the first place.

We fight against darkness in high places. And we carry the light with us to expose that darkness for what it is.

WOLVERINE.
FUBO.


3 posted on 05/26/2009 4:52:04 AM PDT by HighlyOpinionated (Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann in 2012. With Liz Cheney as Secretary of State.)
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To: grey_whiskers
The quote from Solzhenitsyn is quite revealing, and can easily be applied to our current situations regarding global warming and the current political situation.

To the left, conservatives are already non-entities. and our opinion means nothing. But let a leftie stray off message (Horowitz comes first to mind) and the long knives are out to completely ostracize him.

4 posted on 05/26/2009 4:56:35 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: grey_whiskers; Fred Nerks; ETL; null and void; pissant; george76; PhilDragoo; Candor7; ...
"...is it not clear, that, given the rash of de facto regulations on speech, that silencing of political enemies is the real aim? How many times have you yourself -- with co-workers, or friends -- wanted to voice a thought which wasn't "PC" but had to hold it in, or pretend outrage you didn't feel, or been forced to pretend applause for something you didn't approve of? All for the fear of being the next target.

However, this fear of being the next target has another useful feature. Not only are people afraid to voice their very thoughts (the essence of a participatory government, a Free Republic), but the very concept of "hate speech" or "intolerance" acts as a protective buffer around the members of the annointed: for if you express disagreement with them..."

5 posted on 05/26/2009 6:51:24 AM PDT by LucyT
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To: LucyT

Obama’s Nazi Germany where we can expect Conservatives to be ordered to wear patches on their clothes along with Jews, Christians, gun owners and the list goes on.


6 posted on 05/26/2009 6:59:44 AM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: grey_whiskers
Nice essay. That's one of my favorite stories from Gulag; it's unforgettable.
7 posted on 05/26/2009 7:03:32 AM PDT by denydenydeny ("I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist"-Dr a)
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To: LucyT

2009 - When fiction became the future of our nation.


8 posted on 05/26/2009 7:15:25 AM PDT by IrishPennant (Obama: Succeeding Where Bin Laden Failed)
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To: LucyT

Been there...had that. As you know.


9 posted on 05/26/2009 8:08:38 AM PDT by Polarik
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To: grey_whiskers

Nice article! The reign of the Communist Organizer is like a loooong, 4-year nightmare....puts my ten-page paper on Saudi Arabia that’s due in a week in perspective!


10 posted on 05/26/2009 10:03:58 AM PDT by G8 Diplomat (I'm learning Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashtu, and Russian so someday you won't have to)
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To: LucyT

this is obama’s tactics in a nutshell. Look at his nominee for scotus. She was not even nominated for 10 minutes and his thugs had a whole racist talking points set up to stop anyone from denying her.


11 posted on 05/26/2009 2:27:59 PM PDT by OafOfOffice (Constitution is not neutral.It was designed to take the government off the backs of people-Douglas)
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To: grey_whiskers

The notion of being politically incorrect or hate speech is simply in direct opposition to the First Amendment. IMHO, there’s eventually going to be a reckoning between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.


12 posted on 05/28/2009 10:18:03 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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