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December 9, 2008
Ruling by a Radical
At the end of October, I wrote here about the interview Barack Obama gave back in 2001 in which he said the American Constitution was flawed because it only provided for “negative liberty” – which I suggest is what genuine freedom consists of – as opposed to what the state should do for individuals, or “positive rights” as this is known, which I suggest amounts to state control of individual behaviour. He regretted the fact that the civil rights movement had
a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.
I commented that, since Obama recognised that the Supreme Court was unlikely to redraft the constitution, his stated aim was to bring about some kind of undermining of its values at street level:
As has been pointed out on this blog and in numerous investigations published on the net, ‘community organising’ is straight out of the Alinsky/ Gramsci Marxist playbook – a means of radicalising the proletariat so that it takes power and overturns the values of the society. Instead of the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court, America is about to get a new constitution written by the thugs of ACORN.
Alinsky was the Marxist thinker who preached cultural revolution from the grass roots up through community organisation, and whose thinking permeates ACORN and other community groups that in the past were associated with or funded by Obama – now the nation’s First Community Organiser. Now look at the latest email Camp Obama has sent to the 13 million-plus names on its database of supporters:
Exactly one month ago, you made history by giving all Americans a real opportunity for change. Now it's time to start preparing and working for change in our communities. On December 13th and 14th, supporters are coming together in every part of the country to reflect on what we've accomplished and plan the future of this movement. Your ideas and feedback will be collected and used to guide this movement in the months and years ahead. Join your friends and neighbors – sign up to host or attend a Change is Coming house meeting near you.Since the election, the challenges we face -- and our responsibility to take action – have only gotten more urgent.
You can connect with fellow supporters, make progress on the issues you care about, and help shape the future of your community and our country.Learn what you can do now to support President-elect Obama's agenda for change and continue to make a difference in your community. Take the first important step by hosting or attending a Change is Coming house meeting. Sign up right now: http://my.barackobama.com/changeiscoming
To get our country back on track, it will take all of us working together. Barack and Joe have a clear agenda and an unprecedented opportunity for change. But they can't do it alone. Will you join us at a house meeting and help plan the next steps for this movement?
As President, Barack Obama is counting on you to organize in your neighborhood and continue this movement. This guide will provide you with all the tools and resources you need to host a successful Change Is Coming house meeting. At your event you will:
• Get to know others in your area who are ready to work for change.
• Determine the issues most important to your group.
• Plan how you can reach out to your local representatives and media to ensure your voices are heard.
• Get started bringing change right away by planning a service event before the Inauguration.
It is up to each one of us to take the fate of our country into our hands. Use this guide to start planning your own Change is Coming event.
Alinsky, who believed that the revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception with its proponents cultivating an image of centrism and pragmatism, set out in Rules for Radicals how capitalism would be overthrown by the mobilisation of the masses and the whipping up of their discontent. As I noted here, the strategy revolved around creating apparently moderate local organisations that would be manipulated by community organisers – effectively deniable political agitators -- to foment grievance and dissent.
Apparently oblivious – like so many – to the implications of all this, the Washington Post has told us breathlessly that health policy is to be shaped by harnessing the campaign supporters’ database – despite a few, er, legal pitfalls.
“This is the beginning of the reinvention of what the presidency in the 21st century could be,’ said Simon Rosenberg, president of the center-left think tank NDN. ‘This will reinvent the relationship of the president to the American people in a way we probably haven't seen since FDR’s use of radio in the 1930s.”
Since those whose input is to be tapped, however, are Obama’s supporters, this “reinvention of the relationship to the American people” will effectively exclude from helping shape the policy of their country the 47 per cent of the people of that country who did not vote for Obama.
A couple of other stories have started waking up to this. Bloomberg has noted that the email list would also give Obama the ability to pressurise Congress.
“When President Obama says, "21 members of Congress are standing in the way of my health plan", one out of 10 voting Americans start to go to work on those members of Congress', said Democratic consultant Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, the first to make widespread use of the Internet to raise money and organize supporters.
It’s called Ruling by a Radical.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Melanie Phillips is the author of the powerful and frightening “Londonistan” which can be purchased here, and she blogs at The Spectator.
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