Sub Saul Alinsky for Marquis of QueensberryIn my new book, Fanning the Flames: How Saul Alinsky Taught the Radical Left to Use Ridicule, Slander and Intimidation to Silence Conservatives and Advance Its Radical Agenda (Birnham Woods Publishing, 2012), I show how today’s leftists use accusations of racism, white privilege, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and greed to silence conservatives and marginalize their viewpoints.(Peter Christopher Pappas via moonbattery.com)
Alinsky is the father of radical activism. His 1972 book, Rules for Radicals, codifies the revolutionary tactics he used to organize unions, minorities, and the poor to seize power from the “Haves” for redistribution to the “Have-Nots.”
In 1984, George Orwell said that totalitarian governments seek to make dissenting modes of thought impossible. This is precisely what today’s left-wing radicals attempt to do through the routine use of Alinsky’s tactics.
Few of today’s leftists know who Alinsky was or what he represented. Fewer still have read Rules or his prior book, Reveille for Radicals. Yet today union organizers, gay marriage activists, black civil rights agitators, radical feminists, and open-border’s advocates employ his tactics to the letter. They do so because those tactics have, through decades of practiced use, become part of the leftist DNA. The left-wing agitator doesn’t need to read Saul Alinsky’s Rules because those rules have been absorbed into the radical agitation machine like water is absorbed into a root.
In Fanning the Flames, I emphasize Alinsky’s oft-repeated instruction to radicals to use any means necessary to achieve their radical ends. “The only question the radical asks of a particular means,” Alinsky said, is “will it work.” My book illustrates through myriad real world examples how deeply today’s left has taken this instruction to heart.
To read more about the book, including its Table of Contents and Introduction, please visit the website.
Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• AlinskyDefeater's Blog
• Rules for Radicals at amazon.com
