What Do Yale, Missou, Alinksy, Cloward-Piven and Obama's Organizing for Action Add Up To?
Ever since we learned about President Obama’s marination in the ideas of Saul Alinsky we’ve been frightening ourselves with a future defined by Obama’s fundamental transformation through community organizing. And we have seen the fruit of his politics in the outbreak of left-wing activism this fall with ludicrous outbreaks of snowflake fascism at Missouri State University and Yale.
I’ve read hints that the Black Autumn is funded in part by George Soros foundations and President Obama’s Organizing for Action. But who knows?
But here’s my take on all this. Liberals are setting themselves up for a fall with this protest politics, because they fundamentally misunderstand what they are doing.
The theory behind Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is the fantasy idea that the oppressed multitude ought to be led by educated leaders like Saul Alinsky. Same with the Cloward-Piven strategy, formulated by two left-wing sociologists in the 1960s. Yeah, these elitists say, we’re gonna lead the workers (or the oppressed du jour) against the powerful, you see if we don’t.
Now let us agree that when the poor rise up against the rich there is a certain justice in their action. After all, who can speak of their privations but the poor?
But it is a very different thing when the poor are led by elite youths, or funded by George Soros, or encouraged by government-paid diversity counselors and faculty. Are elite youths listening to the poor and amplifying their grievances? Or are they merely marching in search of celebrity, money, power, and the love of beautiful women using the poor as cannon fodder?
It ought to be obvious that the snowflake fascists are ruling-class supporters. Taught by government teachers and professors, lovingly recorded by Democratic operatives with by-lines, given a light touch by the justice system, these youngsters are nothing less than shock troops of the ruling class.
So when President Obama sics the demonstrators on us, when George Soros is funding them, when the sons of multimillionaire railroad executives are leading the “peaceful protests,” when college administrators are encouraging the demonstrators, then we are not witnessing the people protesting, we are looking at government in action, the ruling class enforcing its will through its regime supporters hoping for preferment.
We are talking about injustice, of the ruling class, by the ruling class, for the ruling class.
It is my theory that all government is injustice, because all government policy comes down to some action forced upon the people. If the ruling class decides that something must be done because the market isn’t doing it on its own, then its remedy is to use government to force the market to do it. The resulting benefits given to the ruling class’s deserving little darlings are unjust. And the taxes and regulations enforced upon the ruling class’s undeserving little suckers are also unjust.
We should be grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the greater good, says the ruling class. But the chances are that any new government program will create a head of rebellion among the undeserving little suckers. Like with Obamacare. Even the folks getting subsidized feel like suckers.
My guess is that the “contribute to the greater good” gambit only works in a real existential crisis, like right after 9/11, or after a hurricane, or after the start of World War III. Because: human genes.
The reality is that government programs create losers, victims of injustice. If you want to reduce injustice then you should think about how to reduce government. On this view the only ethical decision for a well-born youth eager for money, power, and the love of beautiful women would be to lead peaceful protests to reduce government on the likelihood that any reduction in government force would also reduce injustice.
It’s an absurd idea, I know. But it might work.
So I look at the Alinskyite organizings and protests of the Obama era -- the Yales, the Missous, the whole outbreak of snowflake fascism -- and chuckle to myself that these clowns are are creating regime opponents all over America.
Liberals teach their little snowflake students that politics equals marching to city hall in a peaceful protest, and that this community organizing is a high calling. But they are lying to the students and they are lying to themselves.
Politics is violence; it is imposing your will on other people. Politics is division; it divides people into us and them. Politics is a necessary evil; and you better remember, when you start down the political road with your organizing and your protests, that politics creates enemies.
And that’s why I think that Yale plus Missou plus Alinsky plus Cloward-Piven plus George Soros plus Organizing for Action adds up to a crap sandwich in 2016 -- for Democrats.
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also see his American Manifesto and get his Road to the Middle Class.