| (Copyright) by Curtis Dahlgren (Stephenson, Michigan) |
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| “Despite what some in the press may say, we who are proud to call ourselves ‘conservative’ are not a minority of a minority party; we are part of the great majority of Americans of both major parties and of most of the independents as well.” — Ronald Reagan (1977) I SAID I was going to write some more about gasoline prices this week, but I received a free copy of “Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution” from David Horowitz, so I want to review it — and seriously recommend it! A few excerpts: In 1969, the year that publishers reissued Alinsky’s first book, Reveille for Radicals, a Wellesly undergraduate named Hillary Rodham submitted her 92-page senior thesis on Alinsky’s theories . . . The title of Hillary’s thesis was ‘There Is Only the Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.’ In this title she had singled out the single most important Alinsky contribution to the radical cause — his embrace of political nihilism. I’ve written well-over a thousand pages for RenewAmerica, and many many pages about the hippie-nihilists of the sixties (1860s Russia). The Latin word “nil” was a contraction of the word for ‘nothing.’ The Russian nihilists believed in nothing but the accumulation of power for power’s sake. Sound familiar yet? More Horowitz: Alinsky came of age in the 1930s and was drawn to the world of Chicago gangsters, whom he encountered professionally as a sociologist. He sought out and became a social intimate of the Al Capone mob and of Capone enforcer Frank Nitti who took the reins when Capone was sent to prison for tax evasion in 1931. Later Alinsky said, ‘[Nitti] took me under his wing. I called him the Professor and I became his student’. . .. In his view, criminality was not a character problem but a result of the social environment, in particular the system of private property and individual rights, which radicals like him were determined to change… In the 1969 ‘Afterward’ to his book… he explained his attitude in these words: ‘Communism itself is irrelevant. The issue is whether they are on our side . . . he never questioned the Marxist view of society and human nature, or its goal of a utopian future… Alinsky’s rules take “an agnostic view of means and ends.” For him, “the revolutionary’s purpose is to undermine the system and then see what happens.” That’s exactly what I have written about the 1860s Russian Nihilists who combined Darwinism with socialism and set the stage for the eventual Bolshevik Revolution over 50 years later. Some of the Nihilists maintained that things were not yet ripe for a rising of the masses… that before attempting to overthrow the existing social organization some idea should be formed as to the order of things which should take its place [but Tkatchev and others] explained that the object of the revolutionary party should be, not the preparation of revolution in general, but the realization of it at the earliest possible moment . . . In accordance with the fashionable doctrine of evolution, the reconstruction of society on the tabula rosa might be left, it was thought, to the spontaneous action of natural forces . . . — Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1910) www.RenewAmerica.com/columns/Dahlgren [search “nihilism,” “bolshevism”] Our own “sixties” hippies, who imitated the Nihilists right down to the hair style and grubby fashions, were also divided into two camps. One camp wanted to immediately blow-up government buildings. The other hippie camp included the disciples of Saul Alinsky, who had more subtle and patient tactics. Those hippies, and some of their younger admirers, have since wormed their way into positions of power in government and academia. This brings us to 2011 and the current rebels. Horowitz says, “As a former radical, I am constantly asked how radicals could hate America and why they would want to destroy a society that compared to others is tolerant, inclusive and open . . . The answer to this question is that radicals are not comparing America to other real-world societies. They are comparing America to the heaven on earth — the kingdom of social justice… they think they are building . . . “Unlike Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama never personally met Saul Alinsky. But as a young man, he became an adept practitioner of Alinsky’s methods. In 1986, at the age of 23 and only three years out of Columbia University, Obama was hired by the Alinsky team to organize residents on the South Side . . . “The group that Obama joined was part of a network that included the Gamaliel Foundation, a religious group that operated on Alinsky principles.” [This is one reason why I hinted that you may have to preach to your preacher.] SAUL ALINSKY’S RULES FOR RADICALS: “Alinsky is the Sun-Tzu for today’s radicals, his book a manual for their political war. As early as its dedicatory page, Alinsky provides revealing insight into the radical mind by praising Lucifer as the first rebel: “‘Lest we forget, an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… 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.” – from Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution by David Horowitz David Horowitz Freedom Center PO Bx 55089 Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964 [ www.frontpagemag.com ] Those nihilistic Alinskyites, past and present, part 2 (Copyright) by Curtis Dahlgren (Stephenson, Michigan) “Religion was to be replaced by the exact sciences, family life by free love, private property by collectivism… “ – Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 THEY CALL THEMSELVES “PROGRESSIVES.” THEY CALL THEMSELVES SECULAR. They don’t like to be called liberals. So, let’s just call them what they ARE: “over-the-hill-hippies.” And Nihilists. Communists. They talk about “taking back the nation” (so they can turn it over to what?). They talk about shutting down alternative news media. They don’t really mind having their patriotism questioned either; they’re secretly PROUD of their anti-Americanism. They don’t mind being the “vocal minority” either because they know that under totalitarianism the minority rules! And they wouldn’t know how to govern a nation. Centuries of technological progress would be stopped if not destroyed. I’ve alluded to this subject before, but a deeper look into the eyes of these aging hippies – who would have us be “more like Europe” and more like Castro’s island-of-misery (and Hugo’s Gulag on the north shore of the continent to our South) – is long overdue: “NIHILISM, the name commonly given to the Russian form of revolutionary Socialism, which had at first an academical character, and rapidly developed into an anarchist revolutionary movement.” [The following quotes are all from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition (1910), with my emphasis throughout.] “It originated in the early years of the reign of Alexander II, and the term was first used by Turgeniev in his celebrated novel, Fathers and Children, published in 1862 [three years after Darwin published Origin]. Among the students of the universities and the higher technical schools Turgeniev had noticed a new and strikingly original type – young men and women in slovenly attire, who called in question and ridiculed the generally received convictions [‘faith’] and respectable conventionalities [‘mores’] of social life, and talked of reorganizing society on strictly scientific principles. “They reversed the traditional order of things even in trivial matters of external appearance, the males allowing the hair to grow long and the female adepts cutting it short and adding sometimes the additional badge of blue spectacles. Their appearance, manners and conversation were apt to shock ordinary people, but to this they were profoundly indifferent, for they had raised themselves above the level of so-called public opinion, despised [‘Philistine’] respectability, and rather liked to scandalize people still under the influence of what they consider antiquated prejudices. “For aesthetic culture, sentimentalism and refinement of every kind they had a profound and undisguised contempt. Professing extreme utilitarianism and delighting in paradox, they were ready to declare that a shoemaker who distinguished himself in his craft was a greater man than a Shakespeare or a Goethe . . . “Thanks to Turgeniev, these young persons came to be known in common parlance as ‘Nihilists,’ though they never ceased to protest against the term as a calumnious nickname. According to their own account, they were simply earnest students who desired reasonable reforms, and the peculiarities in their appearance and manner arose simply from an excusable neglect of trivialities in view of graver interests. “In reality, whatever name we may apply to them, they were the extreme representatives of a curious moral awakening and an important intellectual movement among the Russian educated classes . . . “In material and [‘moral’] progress Russia had remained behind the other European nations, and the educated classes felt, after the humiliation of the Crimean War [ala Vietnam], that the reactionary regime of the emperor Nicholas must be replaced by a series of drastic [‘reforms’]. With the impulsiveness of youth and the recklessness of inexperience, the students went in this direction much farther than their elders, and their reforming zeal naturally took an academic, pseudo-scientific form. “Having learned the rudiments of [legal] positivism, they conceived the idea that Russia had outlived the religious and metaphysical stages of human development, and was ready to enter on the positivist stage [i.e., secular progressive]. She ought, therefore, to throw aside all religious and metaphysical conceptions [such as God], and to regulate her intellectual, social and political life by the pure light of natural science.” Does any of this sound familiar to you yet? The Britannica goes on to say: “Among the antiquated institutions which had to be abolished as obstructions to real progress, were religion, family life, private property, and centralized administration. “Religion was to be replaced by the exact sciences, family life by free love, private property by collectivism, and centralized administration by a federation of independent communes. “Such doctrines could not, of course, be preached openly under a paternal, [imperial] government, but the press censure had become so permeated with the prevailing spirit of enthusiastic liberalism, that they could be artfully disseminated under the disguise of literary criticism and fiction, and the public very soon learned the art of reading between the lines. “The work which had perhaps the greatest influence in popularizing the doctrines was a novel called Shto Dyelati? (‘What is to be done?’), written in prison by Tchernishevski, one of the academic leaders of the movement, and published with the sanction of the authorities. “In the winter of 1861-1862 a high official wrote to a friend who had been absent from Russia a few months: ‘If you returned now, you would be astonished at the progress which the opposition – one might say, the revolutionary party – has made . . .’ “Certainly the government was under the influence of the prevailing enthusiasm for [‘reform’] for it liberated all the serfs, endowed them with arable land, and… was preparing other important reforms in a similar spirit . . . [but] the well-intentioned, self-confident young people to whom the term Nihilists was applied were not reasonable. They wanted an immediate, thorough-going transformation of the existing order of things according to the most advanced socialistic principles, and in their youthful, reckless impatience they determined to undertake the work themselves, independently of and in opposition to the government. “As they had no means of seizing the central power, they adopted the method of endeavoring to bring about the desired political, social and economic changes by converting the masses to their views. They began, therefore, a propaganda among the working population of the towns and the rural population in the villages. “The propagandists were recruited chiefly from the faculty of physical science in the universities, from the Technological Institute, and from the medical schools, and a female contingent was supplied by the midwifery classes of the Medico-Surgical Academy . . . “Some disguised themselves as artisans or ordinary labourers and sought to convert their uneducated fellow-workmen in the industrial centers, whilst others settled in the villages as school-teachers, and endeavored to stir up disaffection among the recently emancipated peasantry by telling them that the tsar intended they should have all the land, and that his benevolent intentions had been frustrated by the selfish landed proprietors and the dishonest officials. “Landed proprietors and officials, it was suggested, should be got rid of, and then the peasants would have arable, pastoral and forest land in abundance, and would not have to pay any taxes. “To persons of a certain education the agitators sought to prove that the general economic situation was desperate, that it was the duty of every conscientious citizen to help the people in such a dilemma. ——————————————————————————— Reprinted with permission from: Renew America http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/220131 ——————————————————————————— |
| Those nihilistic Alinskyites, past and present, part 2 (Copyright) by Curtis Dahlgren (Stephenson, Michigan) |
|---|
| “Religion was to be replaced by the exact sciences, family life by free love, private property by collectivism… “ – Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910 THEY CALL THEMSELVES “PROGRESSIVES.” THEY CALL THEMSELVES SECULAR. They don’t like to be called liberals. So, let’s just call them what they ARE: “over-the-hill-hippies.” And Nihilists. Communists. They talk about “taking back the nation” (so they can turn it over to what?). They talk about shutting down alternative news media. They don’t really mind having their patriotism questioned either; they’re secretly PROUD of their anti-Americanism. They don’t mind being the “vocal minority” either because they know that under totalitarianism the minority rules! And they wouldn’t know how to govern a nation. Centuries of technological progress would be stopped if not destroyed. I’ve alluded to this subject before, but a deeper look into the eyes of these aging hippies – who would have us be “more like Europe” and more like Castro’s island-of-misery (and Hugo’s Gulag on the north shore of the continent to our South) – is long overdue: “NIHILISM, the name commonly given to the Russian form of revolutionary Socialism, which had at first an academical character, and rapidly developed into an anarchist revolutionary movement.” [The following quotes are all from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition (1910), with my emphasis throughout.] “It originated in the early years of the reign of Alexander II, and the term was first used by Turgeniev in his celebrated novel, Fathers and Children, published in 1862 [three years after Darwin published Origin]. Among the students of the universities and the higher technical schools Turgeniev had noticed a new and strikingly original type – young men and women in slovenly attire, who called in question and ridiculed the generally received convictions [‘faith’] and respectable conventionalities [‘mores’] of social life, and talked of reorganizing society on strictly scientific principles. “They reversed the traditional order of things even in trivial matters of external appearance, the males allowing the hair to grow long and the female adepts cutting it short and adding sometimes the additional badge of blue spectacles. Their appearance, manners and conversation were apt to shock ordinary people, but to this they were profoundly indifferent, for they had raised themselves above the level of so-called public opinion, despised [‘Philistine’] respectability, and rather liked to scandalize people still under the influence of what they consider antiquated prejudices. “For aesthetic culture, sentimentalism and refinement of every kind they had a profound and undisguised contempt. Professing extreme utilitarianism and delighting in paradox, they were ready to declare that a shoemaker who distinguished himself in his craft was a greater man than a Shakespeare or a Goethe . . . “Thanks to Turgeniev, these young persons came to be known in common parlance as ‘Nihilists,’ though they never ceased to protest against the term as a calumnious nickname. According to their own account, they were simply earnest students who desired reasonable reforms, and the peculiarities in their appearance and manner arose simply from an excusable neglect of trivialities in view of graver interests. “In reality, whatever name we may apply to them, they were the extreme representatives of a curious moral awakening and an important intellectual movement among the Russian educated classes . . . “In material and [‘moral’] progress Russia had remained behind the other European nations, and the educated classes felt, after the humiliation of the Crimean War [ala Vietnam], that the reactionary regime of the emperor Nicholas must be replaced by a series of drastic [‘reforms’]. With the impulsiveness of youth and the recklessness of inexperience, the students went in this direction much farther than their elders, and their reforming zeal naturally took an academic, pseudo-scientific form. “Having learned the rudiments of [legal] positivism, they conceived the idea that Russia had outlived the religious and metaphysical stages of human development, and was ready to enter on the positivist stage [i.e., secular progressive]. She ought, therefore, to throw aside all religious and metaphysical conceptions [such as God], and to regulate her intellectual, social and political life by the pure light of natural science.” Does any of this sound familiar to you yet? The Britannica goes on to say: “Among the antiquated institutions which had to be abolished as obstructions to real progress, were religion, family life, private property, and centralized administration. “Religion was to be replaced by the exact sciences, family life by free love, private property by collectivism, and centralized administration by a federation of independent communes. “Such doctrines could not, of course, be preached openly under a paternal, [imperial] government, but the press censure had become so permeated with the prevailing spirit of enthusiastic liberalism, that they could be artfully disseminated under the disguise of literary criticism and fiction, and the public very soon learned the art of reading between the lines. “The work which had perhaps the greatest influence in popularizing the doctrines was a novel called Shto Dyelati? (‘What is to be done?’), written in prison by Tchernishevski, one of the academic leaders of the movement, and published with the sanction of the authorities. “In the winter of 1861-1862 a high official wrote to a friend who had been absent from Russia a few months: ‘If you returned now, you would be astonished at the progress which the opposition – one might say, the revolutionary party – has made . . .’ “Certainly the government was under the influence of the prevailing enthusiasm for [‘reform’] for it liberated all the serfs, endowed them with arable land, and… was preparing other important reforms in a similar spirit . . . [but] the well-intentioned, self-confident young people to whom the term Nihilists was applied were not reasonable. They wanted an immediate, thorough-going transformation of the existing order of things according to the most advanced socialistic principles, and in their youthful, reckless impatience they determined to undertake the work themselves, independently of and in opposition to the government. “As they had no means of seizing the central power, they adopted the method of endeavoring to bring about the desired political, social and economic changes by converting the masses to their views. They began, therefore, a propaganda among the working population of the towns and the rural population in the villages. “The propagandists were recruited chiefly from the faculty of physical science in the universities, from the Technological Institute, and from the medical schools, and a female contingent was supplied by the midwifery classes of the Medico-Surgical Academy . . . “Some disguised themselves as artisans or ordinary labourers and sought to convert their uneducated fellow-workmen in the industrial centers, whilst others settled in the villages as school-teachers, and endeavored to stir up disaffection among the recently emancipated peasantry by telling them that the tsar intended they should have all the land, and that his benevolent intentions had been frustrated by the selfish landed proprietors and the dishonest officials. “Landed proprietors and officials, it was suggested, should be got rid of, and then the peasants would have arable, pastoral and forest land in abundance, and would not have to pay any taxes. “To persons of a certain education the agitators sought to prove that the general economic situation was desperate, that it was the duty of every conscientious citizen to help the people in such a dilemma. ——————————————————————————— Reprinted with permission from: Renew America http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/220131 ——————————————————————————— |
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