Saturday, January 31, 2009

How Obama "Alinskyed" Voters (update 1)


Wow. I thought I had connected most of the dots regarding Obama over the past several months, but upon reading an article today that was written by John Perrazo on May 5, 2008 over at Front Page Magazine, I have a much clearer view of how Obama used Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" methods to get voters agitated enough to fall for his "hopey," "changey" asinine rhetoric.

My goal is to post the entire article and comment in between some of the paragraphs. But before I do that, I want to say that Sean Hannity saw Obama's charade right from the start. He called Obama out on all of his radical associations on his radio show. If it weren't for Hannity, I think that even more people would have been deluded and duped into voting for ObamaSCAM.

Lately, Hannity has expressed hope (the REAL kind, mind you...) that Obama's past radical associations won't affect his policies now that he is in the White House (fraudulently, I might add!). Sean, I hate to tell you that I sincerely doubt it. It would be like wishing that a zebra could eliminate its stripes. The following article will remove all doubt that Obama's radical views will be carried out. How sad and terrible for America!

If you are an American Idol fan, perhaps you saw the woman, Alexis Cohen, who was a return contestant on Thursday's broadcast. She claimed that she has "changed." Watch this video and you will see that the attitudes and "mannerisms" of her "roots" certainly come back in the end.

This is the way I view Obama. He may have hidden those Alinsky roots from the public during his campaign stops, but his roots are certainly coming out for all to see now that he thinks he's the 'king of the world.'

He is a fraud - just like Alexis Cohen who portrayed her "real self" at the first idol audition, but then returned as a "changed person" via her new found "Buddhist" religion. EVERYTHING about her "change" was fake! Her REAL persona came through in the end. So too, will Obama's. It just might take some people more time to realize how badly they have been scammed, defrauded, and duped into "believing" in this usurper.

Today, I am posting the entire article. My plan is to intersperse comments within the text as time allows over the weekend and on into next week. Please feel free to comment at anytime! In fact, if you wish to participate in my desire to intersperse commentary within this original post, just let me know in the comment section! I could REALLY USE THE HELP! This is going to be a huge project. Just copy and paste the section of the post you are commenting on in the comment section, then post your commentary about it. I will then copy and paste your commentary here within this original post as a "blogment" with your name and your own colored text!

Thanks, in advance, for anyone who is willing to help with this task!

Sincerely,

Christine

*******

Quote:


Democrats’ Platform for Revolution


By John PerazzoFrontPageMagazine.com Monday, May 05, 2008


Americans are well acquainted with presidential candidate Barack Obama’s legendary pledges to bring “change” to America’s political and social landscape. (For example, see here and here and here.) Indeed, “Change We Can Believe In” is the slogan that adorns the homepage of his campaign website and so many of the placards displayed by the supporters who attend his speaking engagements. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is also well practiced at issuing calls for change. Her “Change and Experience” ad campaign was but an outgrowth of her 1993 declaration, as First Lady, that “remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West.” Most Americans are unaware, however, that when Obama and Clinton speak of “change,” they mean change in the sense that a profoundly significant, though not widely known, individual -- Saul Alinsky -- outlined in his writings two generations ago.


Alinsky helped to establish the confrontational political tactics, which he termed “organizing,” that characterized the 1960s and have remained central to all subsequent revolutionary movements in the United States. Both Obama and Clinton are committed disciples of Alinsky’s very specific strategies for “social change.”

[Christine: No WONDER Obama was so indignant when Governor Sarah Palin poked some fun at his "community organizing" history. As everyone will see after reading this entire article, the "innocent sounding" words of "community organizer" is closer to being one of the sub-leaders of Al Capone's mob!]

Obama never met Alinsky personally; the latter died when Obama was a young boy. But Obama was trained by the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago and worked for an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi for the creation of “a more just and democratic society” is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method. As The Nation magazine puts it, “Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing.…” In fact, for several years Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method. Obama and his fellow agitators made demands for many things in the Eighties, including taxpayer-funded employment-training services, playground construction, after-school programs, and asbestos removal from neighborhood apartments. Journalist and bestselling author Richard Poe writes: “In 1985 [Obama] began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project. Later, he worked with ACORN and its offshoot Project Vote, both creations of the Alinsky network.” (In recent years, Poe notes, both of those organizations have run nationwide voter-mobilization drives marred by allegations of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams.) The Nation reports, “Today Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side.”

[Christine: "...both of those organizations have run nationwide voter-mobilization drives marred by allegations of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams." NO KIDDING!! We saw all of this first hand (at least - those of us who were watching Fox News Channel!)]

Hillary, for her part, actually got to know Alinsky personally. She was so impressed with Alinsky’s theories and tactics vis a vis social change, that during her senior year at Wellesley College she interviewed him and subsequently penned a 92-page thesis on his ideas. In the conclusion of that thesis, she wrote:


If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, [t]he result would be social revolution. Ironically, this is not a disjunctive projection if considered in the tradition of Western democratic theory. In the first chapter it was pointed out that Alinsky is regarded by many as the proponent of a dangerous socio/political philosophy. As such, he has been feared -- just as Eugene Debs or Walt Whitman or Martin Luther King has been feared, because each embraced the most radical of political faiths -- democracy.

[Christine: I had always wondered how Hillary Clinton could have embraced Obama after the hard fought battles in the primary. I naively thought that she was much more "moderate" than Obama. Boy, was I wrong! She is just as much a student of Alinsky's teachings as Obama has been! I wonder if the PUMAs (Party Unity My A**) know this now?]


During her senior year, Hillary was offered a job by Alinsky but chose instead to enroll at Yale Law School. Alinsky’s teachings, however, would remain close to her heart throughout her adult life. According to a Washington Post report, “As first lady, Clinton occasionally lent her name to projects endorsed by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the Alinsky group that had offered her a job in 1968. She raised money and attended two events organized by the Washington Interfaith Network, an IAF affiliate.”

Given the huge intellectual debt that both Democrat presidential candidates owe to Saul Alinsky, it is vital for all American voters to understand precisely who he was and what he taught. As you read this, you will hear in his words the echo of many familiar, outspoken leftist agitators for “change.”

[Christine: Oh YES! You mean "leftist agitators" like Code Pink and the crazies pictured in Zombietime's Hall of Shame? (Warning - offensive words and male and female nudity at that link.)]

Though Alinsky is generally viewed as a member of the political Left, and rightfully so, his legacy is more methodological than ideological. He identified a set of very specific rules that ordinary citizens could follow, and tactics that ordinary citizens could employ, as a means of gaining public power.

Alinsky was born to Russian-Jewish parents in Chicago in 1909. He studied criminology as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, during which time he became friendly with Al Capone and his mobsters. Ryan Lizza, senior editor of The New Republic, offers a glimpse into Alinsky’s personality: “Charming and self-absorbed, Alinsky would entertain friends with stories—some true, many embellished—from his mob days for decades afterward. He was profane, outspoken, and narcissistic, always the center of attention despite his tweedy, academic look, and thick, horn-rimmed glasses.”

[Hmmm..."charming and self-absorbed," "entertain friends with stories - some true, many embellished," "was outspoken, and narcissistic, always the center of attention.." Sound like Obama or what? P.S. Is Obama profane, too?]
According to Lizza:


Alinsky was deeply influenced by the great social science insight of his times, one developed by his professors at Chicago: that the pathologies of the urban poor were not hereditary but environmental. This idea, that people could change their lives by changing their surroundings, led him to take an obscure social science phrase—“the community organization”—and turn it into, in the words of Alinsky biographer Sanford Horwitt, “something controversial, important, even romantic.” His starting point was a near-fascination with John L. Lewis, the great labor leader and founder of the CIO. What if, Alinsky wondered, the same hardheaded tactics used by unions could be applied to the relationship between citizens and public officials?


After completing his graduate work in criminology, [Christine: Criminology?? Have you seen the Feb. 2, 2009 edition of The Globe - "What Obama's Hiding From America?"] Alinsky went on to develop what are known today as the Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power. In the late 1930s he earned a reputation as a master organizer of the poor when he organized the “Back of the Yards” area in Chicago, an industrial and residential neighborhood on the Southwest Side of the city, so named because it is near the site of the former Union Stockyards; this area had been made famous in Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle. In 1940, Alinsky established the aforementioned Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), through which he and his staff helped “organize” communities not only in Chicago but throughout the United States. IAF remains an active entity to this day. Its national headquarters are located in Chicago, and it has affiliates in the District of Columbia, 21 separate states, and three foreign countries (Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom).

In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a euphemism for “revolution”—a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America’s social and economic structure. The goal is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted—a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation. [Christine: Wow! Sounds just like Obama's strategy...imagine that??] Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that status quo’s complete collapse—to be followed by the erection of an entirely new and different system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal “changes” are needed. [Christine: "the lead of charismatic radical organizers?" Sounds like "The One" to me! ...the "Aura of confidence and vision?"....don't make me BARF...oh wait...that's the acronym for the "bad bank" Obama and his cronies want to set up. Yeah...I trust them...NOT!]

As Alinsky put it: “A reformation means that the masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. [Christine: Ha ha ha ha!! "They don't know what will work" - sounds JUST LIKE the StimuWASTE Bill that Obama wants to enforce onto the people!] They won’t act for change but won’t strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution.”[1]“[W]e are concerned,” Alinsky elaborated, “with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which men have the chance to live by the values that give meaning to life. We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world…This means revolution.”[2] [Christine: Trouble is, Obama Pork-a-palooza WON'T CREATE JOBS!]

But Alinsky’s brand of revolution was not characterized by dramatic, sweeping, overnight transformations of social institutions. As Richard Poe puts it,

Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.” [Oh...I see. Churches with hate preachers like Jeremiah "not God bless America...God d*** America!"]

Alinsky advised organizers and their disciples to quietly, subtly gain influence within the decision-making ranks of these institutions, and to introduce changes from that platform. This was precisely the tactic of “infiltration” advocated by Lenin and Stalin.[3] [Christine: See that? "...the tactic of "infiltration" advocated by" two communist dictators!]

As Communist International General Secretary Georgi Dimitroff told the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935:


Comrades, you remember the ancient tale of the capture of Troy. Troy was inaccessible to the armies attacking her, thanks to her impregnable walls. And the attacking army, after suffering many sacrifices, was unable to achieve victory until, with the aid of the famous Trojan horse, it managed to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy’s camp.[4]

[Christine: Yeah but...Obama is turning out to be more like the "Trojan Ninny." Even Amadinejad sees him as weak already!]
Alinsky’s revolution promised that by changing the structure of society’s institutions, it would rid the world of such vices as socio-pathology and criminality. Arguing that these vices were caused not by personal character flaws but rather by external societal influences, Alinsky’s worldview was thoroughly steeped in the socialist left’s collectivist, class-based doctrine of economic determinism. “The radical’s affection for people is not lessened,” said Alinsky, “...when masses of them demonstrate a capacity for brutality, selfishness, hate, greed, avarice, and disloyalty. It is not the people who must be judged but the circumstances that made them that way.”[5] [Christine: Sounds just like Satan's excuses...doesn't it? How creepy...] Chief among these circumstances, he said, were “the larcenous pressures of a materialistic society.”[6]

To counter that materialism, Alinsky favored a socialist alternative. He characterized his noble radical (read: “revolutionary”) as a social reformer who “places human rights far above property rights”; who favors “universal, free public education”; who “insists on full employment for economic security” but stipulates also that people’s tasks should “be such as to satisfy the creative desires within all men”; who “will fight conservatives” everywhere; and who “will fight privilege and power, whether it be inherited or acquired,” and “whether it be political or financial or organized creed.”[7] Alinsky maintained that radicals, finding themselves “adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism,”[8] sought “to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization.”[9] “They hope for a future,” he said, “where the means of production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful.”[10] In short, they wanted socialism.

In 1946, Alinsky wrote Reveille for Radicals, his first major book about the principles and tactics of “community organizing,” otherwise known as agitating for revolution. Twenty-five years later he authored Rules for Radicals, which expanded upon his earlier work. His writings, and the tactics outlined therein, have had a profound influence on all “social change” and “social justice” movements of recent decades.

Alinksy’s objective, which he clearly stated in Rules for Radicals, was to “present an arrangement of certain facts and general concepts of change, a step toward a science of revolution.”[11] The Prince, he elaborated, “was written by Macchiavelli for the Haves on how to hold onto power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”[12]

If radicals were to be in the vanguard of the movement to transfer power from the Haves and the Have-Nots, Alinsky’s first order of business was to define precisely what a radical was. He approached this task by first distinguishing between liberals and radicals. Alinsky had no patience for those he called the liberals of his day—people who were content to talk about the changes they wanted, but were unwilling to actively work for those changes. Rather, he favored “radicals” who were prepared to take bold, decisive action designed to transform society, even if that transformation could be achieved only slowly and incrementally. Wrote Alinsky:


Liberals fear power or its application.… They talk glibly of people lifting themselves by their own bootstraps but fail to realize that nothing can be lifted except through power…Radicals precipitate the social crisis by action—by using power…Liberals protest; radicals rebel. Liberals become indignant; radicals become fighting mad and go into action. Liberals do not modify their personal lives[,] and what they give to a cause is a small part of their lives; radicals give themselves to the cause. Liberals give and take oral arguments; radicals give and take the hard, dirty, bitter way of life.[13]


If the purpose of radicalism is to bring about social transmutation, the radical must be prepared to make a persuasive case for why such change is urgently necessary. Alinsky’s conviction that American society needed a dramatic overhaul was founded on his belief that the status quo was intolerably miserable for most people. For one thing, Alinsky saw the United States as a nation rife with economic injustice. “The people of America live as they can,” he wrote. “Many of them are pent up in one-room crumbling shacks and a few live in penthouses...The Haves smell toilet water, the Have-Nots smell just plain toilet.”[14] Lamenting the “wide disparity of wealth, privilege, and opportunity” he saw in America, Alinsky impugned the country’s “materialistic values and standards.”[15] “We know that man must cease worshipping the god of gold and the monster of materialism,” he said.[16]

Profound economic injustice was by no means America’s only shortcoming, as Alinsky saw things. Lamenting the nation’s “rather confused and demoralized ideology,”[17] he further identified “unemployment,” “decay,” “disease,” “crime,” “distrust,” “bigotry,” “disorganization,” and “demoralization” as inevitable by-products of life in capitalist America.[18] Such a state of affairs, he said, made life for a majority of Americans nothing more than an exercise in drudgery. “At the end of the week,” said Alinsky of the average American, “he comes out of the hell of monotony with a paycheck and goes home to a second round of monotony…. Monday morning he is back on the assembly line.… That, on the whole, is his life. A routine in which he rots. The dreariest, drabbest, grayest outlook that one can have. Simply a future of utter despair.”[19] “People hunger for drama and adventure, for a breath of life in a dreary, drab existence,” he expanded.[20]

According to Alinsky, this unhappy existence exerted a profoundly negative influence on the American character. Alinsky perceived most Americans as people who were governed by their prejudices, and who thus felt great antipathy toward a majority of their fellow countrymen -- particularly those of different racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds. “[M]ost people,” he said, “like just a few people, and either do not actively care for or actively dislike most of the ‘other’ people.”[21]

Having painted a verbal portrait of a thoroughly corrupt and melancholy American society, Alinsky was now prepared to argue that wholesale change of great magnitude was in order. What was needed, he said, was a revolution in whose vanguard would be radicals committed to eliminating the “fundamental causes” of the nation’s problems,[22] and not content to merely deal with those problems’ “current manifestations”[23] or “end products.”[24] The goal of the radical, he explained, must be to bring about “the destruction of the roots of all fears, frustrations, and insecurity of man, whether they be material or spiritual”;[25] to purge the land of “the vast destructive forces which pervade the entire social scene”;[26] and to eliminate “those destructive forces from which issue wars,” forces such as “economic injustice, insecurity, unequal opportunities, prejudice, bigotry, imperialism, … and other nationalistic neuroses.”[27]

The objective of ridding the nation of the aforementioned vices dovetailed perfectly with Alinsky’s belief that all societal problems were interrelated. According to Alinsky, if segments of the population were beset by crime, unemployment, inadequate housing, malnourishment, disease, demoralization, racism, discrimination, or religious intolerance, it was impossible address, to any great effect, any particular one of those concerns in isolation. They “are simply parts of the whole picture,” he said. “They are not separate problems.”[28]

“[A]ll problems are related and they are all the progeny of certain fundamental causes,” Alinsky elaborated.[29] “Many apparently local problems are in reality malignant microcosms of vast conflicts, pressures, stresses, and strains of the entire social order.”[30] Thus “ultimate success in conquering these evils can be achieved only by victory over all evils.”[31] In other words, what was needed was a revolution, led by radicals, to literally turn society upside-down and inside-out.

Alinsky then proceeded to lay out the method by which radicals could achieve this goal by forming a host of “People’s Organizations” -- each with its own distinct name and mission, and each of which “thinks and acts in terms of social surgery and not cosmetic cover-ups.”[32]

These People’s Organizations were to be composed largely of discontented individuals who believed that society was replete with injustices that prevented them from being able to live satisfying lives. Such organizations, Alinsky advised, should not be imported from the outside into a community, but rather should be staffed by locals who, with some guidance from trained radical organizers, could set their own agendas.[33]

The installment of local leaders as the top-level officers of People’s Organizations helped give the organizations credibility and authenticity in the eyes of the community. This tactic closely paralleled the longtime Communist Party strategy of creating front organizations that ostensibly were led by non-communist fellow-travelers, but which were in fact controlled by Party members behind the scenes. As J. Edgar Hoover explained in his 1958 book Masters of Deceit: “To make a known Party member president of a front would immediately label it as ‘communist.’ But if a sympathizer can be installed, especially a man of prominence, such as an educator, minister, or scientist, the group can operate as an ‘independent’ organization.”[34]

Alinsky taught that the organizer’s first task was to make people feel that they were wise enough to diagnose their own problems, find their own solutions, and determine their own destinies. The organizer, said Alinsky, must exploit the fact that “[m]illions of people feel deep down in their hearts that there is no place for them, that they do not ‘count.’”[35] To exploit this state of affairs effectively, Alinsky explained, the organizer must employ such techniques as the artful use of “loaded questions designed to elicit particular responses and to steer the organization’s decision-making process in the direction which the organizer prefers.[36]“Is this manipulation?” asked Alinsky. “Certainly,” he answered instantly.[37]

But it was manipulation toward a desirable end: “If the common man had a chance to feel that he could direct his own efforts … that to a certain extent there was a destiny that he could do something about, that there was a dream that he could keep fighting for, then life would be wonderful living.”[38] In Alinsky’s calculus, the common man could achieve this renewed vitality of spirit via his membership and active participation in the People’s Organization.

Alinsky viewed as supremely important the role of the organizer, or master manipulator, whose guidance was responsible for setting the agendas of the People’s Organization. “The organizer,” Alinsky wrote, “is in a true sense reaching for the highest level for which man can reach -- to create, to be a ‘great creator,’ to play God.”[39]

Alinsky laid out a set of basic principles to guide the actions and decisions of radical organizers and the People’s Organizations they established. The organizer, he said, “must first rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act.”[40] The organizer’s function, he added, was “to agitate to the point of conflict”[41] and “to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.’”[42] “The word ‘enemy,’” said Alinsky, “is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people”;[43] i.e., to convince members of the community that he is so eager to advocate on their behalf, that he has willingly opened himself up to condemnation and derision. But it is not enough for the organizer to be in solidarity with the people. He must also, said Alinsky, cultivate unity against a clearly identifiable enemy; he must specifically name this foe, and “singl[e] out”[44] precisely who is to blame for the “particular evil” that is the source of the people’s angst.[45] In other words, there must be a face associated with the people’s discontent. That face, Alinsky taught, “must be a personification, not something general and abstract like a corporation or City Hall.”[46] Rather, it should be an individual such as a CEO, a mayor, or a president.

Alinsky summarized it this way: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…. [T]here is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks.”[47]He held that the organizer’s task was to cultivate in people’s hearts a negative, visceral emotional response to the face of the enemy. “The organizer who forgets the significance of personal identification,” said Alinsky, “will attempt to answer all objections on the basis of logic and merit. With few exceptions this is a futile procedure.”[48]

Alinsky also advised organizers to focus their attention on a small number of selected, strategic targets. Spreading an organization’s passions too thinly was a recipe for certain failure, he warned.[49]

Alinsky advised the radical activist to avoid the temptation to concede that his opponent was not “100 per cent devil,” or that he possessed certain admirable qualities such as being “a good churchgoing man, generous to charity, and a good husband.” Such qualifying remarks, Alinsky said, “dilut[e] the impact of the attack” and amount to sheer “political idiocy.”[50]

Alinsky stressed the need for organizers to convince their followers that the chasm between the enemy and the members of the People’s Organization was vast and unbridgeable. “Before men can act,” he said, “an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels, and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil.”[51] Alinsky advised this course of action even though he well understood that the organizer “knows that when the time comes for negotiations it is really only a 10 percent difference.”[52] But in Alinsky’s brand of social warfare, the ends (in this case, the transfer of power) justify virtually whatever means are required (in this case, lying).[53]

Winning was all that mattered in Alinsky’s strategic calculus: “The morality of a means depends on whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.”[54] “The man of action … thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action,” Alinsky added. “He asks only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”[55] For Alinsky, all morality was relative: “The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent on the political position of those sitting in judgment.”[56]

Given that the enemy was to be portrayed as the very personification of evil, against whom any and all methods were fair game, Alinsky taught that an effective organizer should never give the appearance of being fully satisfied as a result of having resolved any particular conflict via compromise. Any compromise with the “devil” is, after all, by definition morally tainted and thus inadequate. Consequently, while the organizer may acknowledge that he is pleased by the compromise as a small step in the right direction, he must make it absolutely clear that there is still a long way to go, and that many grievances still remain unaddressed. The ultimate goal, said Alinsky, is not to arrive at compromise or peaceful coexistence, but rather to “crush the opposition,” bit by bit.[57] “A People’s Organization is dedicated to eternal war,” said Alinsky. “… A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.… When you have war, it means that neither side can agree on anything…. In our war against the social menaces of mankind there can be no compromise. It is life or death.”[58]

Alinsky warned the organizer to be ever on guard against the possibility that the enemy might unexpectedly offer him “a constructive alternative” aimed at resolving the conflict. Said Alinsky, “You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying, ‘You’re right -- we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.’”[59] Such capitulation by the enemy would have the effect of diffusing the righteous indignation of the People’s Organization, whose very identity is inextricably woven into the fight for long-denied justice; i.e., whose struggle and identity are synonymous. If the perceived oppressor surrenders or extends a hand of friendship in an effort to end the conflict, the crusade of the People’s Organization is jeopardized. This cannot be permitted. Eternal war, by definition, must never end.

A real-life expression of this mindset was voiced by one Charles Brown, a former member of Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that opposed U.S. sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime prior to the 2003 American-led invasion that deposed the Iraqi dictator. “To be perfectly frank,” Brown reflected, “we were less concerned with the suffering of the Iraqi people than we were in maintaining our moral challenge to U.S. foreign policy. We did not agitate for an end to sanctions for purely humanitarian reasons; it was more important to us to maintain our moral challenge to ‘violent’ U.S. foreign policy, regardless of what happened in Iraq. For example, had we been truly interested in alleviating the suffering in Iraq, we might have considered pushing for an expanded Oil-for-Food program. Nothing could have interested us less.”

While Alinsky endorsed ruthlessness in waging war against the enemy, he was nonetheless mindful that certain approaches were more likely to win the hearts and minds of the people whose support would be crucial to the organizers’ ultimate victory. Above all, he taught that in order to succeed, the organizer and his People’s Organization needed to target their message toward the middle class. “Mankind,” said Alinsky, “has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.”[60] He explained that in America, the Have-a-Little, Want-Mores (i.e., members of the middle class) were the most numerous and therefore of the utmost importance.[61] Said Alinsky: “Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they [the middle class] become split personalities… Thermopolitically they are tepid and rooted in inertia. Today in Western society and particularly in the United States they comprise the majority of our population.”[62]

Alinsky stressed that organizers and their followers needed to take care, when first unveiling their particular crusade for “change,” not to alienate the middle class with any type of crude language, defiant demeanor, or menacing appearance that suggested radicalism or a disrespect for middle class mores and traditions. For this very reason, he disliked the hippies and counterculture activists of the 1960s. As Richard Poe puts it: “Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”

While his ultimate goal was nothing less than the “radicalization of the middle class,” Alinsky stressed the importance of “learning to talk the language of those with whom one is trying to converse.”[63] “Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class,” he said, “accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity, and conflict. Start them easy, don’t scare them off.”[64]

To appeal to the middle class, Alinsky continued, “goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’; ‘Of the Common Welfare’; ‘Pursuit of happiness’; or ‘Bread and Peace.’”[65] He suggested, for instance, that an effective organizer “discovers what their [the middle class’] definition of the police is, and their language -- [and] he discards the rhetoric that always says ‘pig’ [in reference to police]. Instead of hostile rejection he is seeking bridges of communication and unity over the gaps…. He will view with strategic sensitivity the nature of middle-class behavior with its hang-ups over rudeness or aggressive, insulting, profane actions. All this and more must be grasped and used to radicalize parts of the middle class.”[66]

A related principle taught by Alinsky was that radical organizers must not only speak the language of the middle class, but that they also must dress their crusades in the vestments of morality. “Moral rationalization,” he said, “is indispensable to all kinds of action, whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”[67] “All great leaders,” he added, “invoked ‘moral principles’ to cover naked self-interest in the clothing of ‘freedom,’ ‘equality of mankind,’ ‘a law higher than man-made law,’ and so on.” In short: “All effective actions require the passport of morality.”[68]

This tactic of framing one’s objectives in the rhetoric of morality precisely paralleled a communist device for deception known as “Aesopian language,” which J. Edgar Hoover described as follows:


“Nearly everyone is familiar with the fables of Aesop…. Often the point of the story is not directly stated but must be inferred by the reader. This is a ‘roundabout’ presentation. Lenin and his associates before 1917, while living in exile, made frequent use of ‘Aesopianism.’ Much of their propaganda was written in a ‘roundabout’ and elusive style to pass severe Czarist censorship. They desired revolution but could not say so. They had to resort to hints, theoretical discussions, even substituting words, which, through fooling the censor, were understood by the ‘initiated,’ that is, individuals trained in [Communist] Party terminology….

“The word ‘democracy’ is one of the communists’ favorite Aesopian terms. They say they favor democracy, that communism will bring the fullest democracy in the history of mankind. But, to the communists, democracy does not mean free speech, free elections, or the right of minorities to exist. Democracy means the domination of the communist state, the complete supremacy of the Party. The greater the communist control, the more ‘democracy.’ ‘Full democracy,’ to the communist, will come only when all noncommunist opposition is liquidated.

“Such expressions as ‘democracy,’ ‘equality,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘justice’ are merely the Party’s Aesopian devices to impress noncommunists. Communists … clothe themselves with everything good, noble, and inspiring to exploit those ideals to their own advantage.”[69]


But Alinsky understood that there was a flip side to his strategy of speaking the palatable language of the middle class and the reassuring parlance of morality. Specifically, he said that organizers must be entirely unpredictable and unmistakably willing -- for the sake of the moral principles in whose name they claim to act -- to watch society descend into utter chaos and anarchy. He stated that they must be prepared, if necessary, to “go into a state of complete confusion and draw [their] opponent into the vortex of the same confusion.”[70]

One way in which organizers and their disciples can broadcast their preparedness for this possibility is by staging loud, defiant, massive protest rallies expressing deep rage and discontent over one particular injustice or another. Such demonstrations can give onlookers the impression that a mass movement is preparing to shift into high gear, and that its present (already formidable) size is but a fraction of what it eventually will become. “A mass impression,” said Alinsky, “can be lasting and intimidating…. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”[71] “The threat,” he added, “is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”[72] “If your organization is small in numbers,” said Alinsky, “… conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more than it does.”[73]

“Wherever possible,” Alinsky counseled, “go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.”[74] Marching mobs of chanting demonstrators accomplishes this objective. The average observer’s reaction to such a display is of a dual nature: First he is afraid. But he also recalls the organizer’s initial articulation of middle-class ideals and morals. Thus he convinces himself that the People’s Organization is surely composed of reasonable people who actually hold values similar to his own, and who seek resolutions that will be beneficial to both sides. This thought process causes him to proffer -- in hopes of appeasing the angry mobs -- concessions and admissions of guilt, which the organizer in turn exploits to gain still greater moral leverage and to extort further concessions.

In Alinsky’s view, action was more often the catalyst for revolutionary fervor than vice versa. He deemed it essential for the organizer to get people to act first (e.g., participate in a demonstration) and rationalize their actions later. “Get them to move in the right direction first,” said Alinsky. “They’ll explain to themselves later why they moved in that direction.”[75]

Among the most vital tenets of Alinsky’s method were the following:


· “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more live up to their own rules than the Christian Church can live up to Christianity.”[76]


· “No organization, including organized religion, can live up to the letter of its own book. You can club them to death with their ‘book’ of rules and regulations.”[77]


· “Practically all people live in a world of contradictions. They espouse a morality which they do not practice.… This dilemma can and should be fully utilized by the organizer in getting individuals and groups involved in a People’s Organization. It is a very definite Achilles’ heel even in the most materialistic person. Caught in the trap of his own contradictions, that person will find it difficult to show satisfactory cause to both the organizer and himself as to why he should not join and participate in the organization. He will be driven either to participation or else to a public and private admission of his own lack of faith in democracy and man.”[78]


We have seen this phenomenon played out many times in recent years. For instance, a case of police brutality against black New Yorker Abner Louima in 1997 was cited repeatedly by critics of the police as emblematic of a widespread pattern of abuse aimed at nonwhite minorities. Similarly, the misconduct of a handful of American soldiers at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 was portrayed as part of a much larger pattern that had been approved by the highest levels of the U.S. government. And on the battlefields of the Middle East, any American military initiative that has inadvertently killed innocent civilians has been cited by opponents of the war as evidence that U.S. troops are maniacal, bloodthirsty killers. In each of the foregoing examples, the allegedly hypocritical American authorities were accused of having violated their own “book of rules” (rules that are supposed to govern the conduct of the police or the military).

Alinsky taught that in order to most effectively cast themselves as defenders of moral principals and human decency, organizers must react with “shock, horror, and moral outrage” whenever their targeted enemy in any way misspeaks or fails to live up to his “book of rules.”[79]

Moreover, said Alinsky, whenever possible the organizer must deride his enemy and dismiss him as someone unworthy of being taken seriously because he is either intellectually deficient or morally bankrupt. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength,” said Alinsky.[80] He advised organizers to “laugh at the enemy” in an effort to provoke “an irrational anger.”[81] “Ridicule,” said Alinsky, “is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”[82]

According to Alinsky, it was vital that organizers focus on multiple crusades and multiple approaches. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag,” he wrote. “Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time … New issues and crises are always developing…”[83] “Keep the pressure on,” he continued, “with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”[84]

Toward this end, Alinksy advised organizers to be sure that they always kept more than one “fight in the bank.” In other words, organizers should keep a stockpile of comparatively small crusades which they are already prepared to conduct, and to which they can instantly turn their attention after having won a major victory of some type. These “fights in the bank” serve the dual purpose of keeping the organization’s momentum going, while not allowing its major crusade to get “stale” from excessive public exposure.[85]

A People’s Organization, said Alinsky, can build a wide-based membership only if it focuses on multiple issues (e.g., civil rights, civil liberties, welfare, rent, urban renewal, the environment, etc.) “Multiple issues mean constant action and life,” Alinsky wrote.[86]

One example of such an organization today is the International Action Center (IAC), founded by Ramsey Clark and staffed by members of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. To broadcast the notion of American evil as widely as possible, IAC has created numerous “faces” for itself, each one serving as a unique portal through which the organization can reach a portion of the public. But in the final analysis, there is no difference between any of these nominally distinct groups, among which are International ANSWER, the Korea Truth Commission, No Draft No Way, Troops Out Now, Activist San Diego, the People’s Video Network, the Mumia Mobilization Office, the New York Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the National People’s Campaign, the Association of Mexican American Workers, Leftbooks, the Rosa Parks Day headquarters, and the People’s Rights Fund. These groups are concerned with such varied issues as racism, the Iraq War, American war crimes, the military draft, Cuban spies, the allegedly wrongful incarceration of a convicted cop-killer, the Arab-Israeli conflict, poor working conditions, immigrant rights, “vigilante” hate groups, poverty, civil rights violations, economic inequality, and globalization. And for the most part, all of these groups are composed of the very same people.

Alinsky cautioned organizers to judiciously choose to initiate only those battles which they stood a very good chance of winning. “The organizer’s job,” he said, “is to begin to build confidence and hope in the idea of organization and thus in the people themselves: to win limited victories, each of which will build confidence and the feeling that ‘if we can do so much with what we have now, just think what we will be able to do when we get big and strong.’ It is almost like taking a prize-fighter up the road to the championship -- you have to very carefully and selectively pick his opponents, knowing full well that certain defeats would be demoralizing and end his career.”[87]

Alinsky also taught that in some cases the mission of the People’s Organization could be aided if the organizer was able to get himself arrested and thereafter exploit the publicity he derived from the arrest. “Jailing the revolutionary leaders and their followers,” Alinsky said, “… strengthens immeasurably the position of the leaders with their people by surrounding the jailed leadership with an aura of martyrdom; it deepens the identification of the leadership with their people.” It shows, he said, “that their leadership cares so much for them, and is so sincerely committed to the issue, that it is willing to suffer imprisonment for the cause.”[88] But Alinsky stipulated that organizers should seek to be jailed only for a short duration (from one day to two months); longer terms of incarceration, he said, have a tendency to fall from public consciousness and to be forgotten.[89]

During the 1960s Alinsky was an enormously influential force in American life. As Richard Poe reports: “When President Johnson launched his War on Poverty in 1964, Alinsky allies infiltrated the program, steering federal money into Alinsky projects. In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy allied himself with union leader Cesar Chavez, an Alinsky disciple. Chavez had worked ten years for Alinsky, beginning in 1952. Kennedy soon drifted into Alinsky's circle. After race riots shook Rochester, New York, Alinsky descended on the city and began pressuring Eastman-Kodak to hire more blacks. Kennedy supported Alinsky's shakedown.”

Though Alinsky died in 1972, his legacy has lived on as a staple of leftist method, a veritable blueprint for revolution -- to which both Democratic presidential candidates, who are his disciples and protégés, refer euphemistically as “change.”


[1] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage Books), March 1972 edition, p. xxii. (Original publication was in 1971.)
[2] Ibid., p.3.
[3] J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1958), p. 213.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (New York: Vintage Books), 1989, p. 90. (Original publication was in 1946.)
[6]Ibid., p.91.
[7] Ibid., pp. 16-17.
[8] Ibid., p. 26.
[9] Ibid., p. 25.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 7.
[12] Ibid., p. 3.
[13] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 21-22.
[14] Ibid., p. 4.
[15] Ibid., p. 92.
[16] Ibid., p. 40.
[17] Ibid., p. 92.
[18] Ibid., p. 45.
[19] Ibid., p. 43.
[20] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pp. 120-121.
[21] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 6-7.
[22] Ibid., p. 15.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid., p. 40.
[25] Ibid., p. 16.
[26] Ibid., p. 60.
[27] Ibid., p. 25.
[28] Ibid., p. 57.
[29] Ibid., p. 59.
[30] Ibid., p. 60.
[31] Ibid., pp. 59-60.
[32] Ibid., p. 133.
[33] Ibid., pp. 48, 64.
[34] J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit, p. 90.
[35] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 44.
[36] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 91. Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 104.
[37] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 92.
[38] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 43.
[39] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 61.
[40] Ibid., pp. 116-117.
[41] Ibid., p. 117.
[42] Ibid., p. 100.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid., p. 130.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid., p. 133.
[47] Ibid., pp. 130-131.
[48] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 125.
[49] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 151.
[50] Ibid., p. 134.
[51] Ibid., p. 78.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid., p. 29.
[54] Ibid., p. 34.
[55] Ibid., p. 24.
[56] Ibid., p. 26.
[57] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 150.
[58] Ibid., pp. 133-134.
[59] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 130.
[60] Ibid., p. 18.
[61] Ibid., pp. 18-20.
[62] Ibid., p. 19.
[63] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 93.
[64] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 195.
[65] Ibid., p. 45.
[66] Ibid., p. 186.
[67] Ibid., p. 43.
[68] Ibid., pp. 43-44.
[69] J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit, pp. 101-102.
[70] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 150-151.
[71] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 127.
[72] Ibid., p. 129.
[73] Ibid., p. 126.
[74] Ibid., p. 127.
[75] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 169-170.
[76] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 128.
[77] Ibid., p. 152.
[78] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 93-94.
[79] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 130.
[80] Ibid., p. 136.
[81] Ibid., p. 138.
[82] Ibid., p. 128.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, pp. 151-152.
[86] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pp. 76-78, 120.
[87] Ibid., p. 114.
[88] Ibid., p. 155.
[89] Ibid., p. 156.
John Perazzo is the Managing Editor of DiscoverTheNetworks and is the author of The Myths That Divide Us: How Lies Have Poisoned American Race Relations. For more information on his book, click here. E-mail him at wsbooks25@hotmail.com /quote




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Congress Sued


OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
Congress sued to remove
prez from White House
'Defendants had to ensure
the Constitution is upheld'

Posted: January 31, 2009
12:00 am Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A new lawsuit is challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to be president, and this one targets Congress as a defendant for its "failure" to uphold the constitutional demand to make sure Obama qualified before approving the Electoral College vote that actually designated him as the occupant of the Oval Office.

The new case raises many of the same arguments as dozens of other cases that have flooded into courtrooms around the nation since the November election.

It is being brought on behalf of Charles F. Kerchner Jr., Lowell T. Patterson, Darrell James Lenormand and Donald H. Nelson Jr. and names as defendants Barack Hussein Obama II, the U.S., Congress, the Senate, House of Representatives and former Vice President Dick Cheney along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 193,000 others and sign up now!

As WND has reported, dozens of lawsuits have been filed over Obama's eligibility to assume the office of the president. Many have been dismissed while others remain pending.

The cases, in various ways, have alleged Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the legal challenges have alleged Obama was not born in Hawaii, as he insists, but in Kenya. Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Several details of Obama's past have added twists to the question of his eligibility and citizenship, including his family's move to Indonesia when he was a child, his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens and conflicting reports from Obama's family about his place of birth.

Perhaps the most perplexing detail, however, has been Obama's refusal to allow the public release of a signed "vault" copy of his original birth certificate.
The new case was launched in New Jersey, and focuses on the alleged failure in Congress to follow the Constitution.

That document, the lawsuit states, "provides that Congress must fully qualify the candidate 'elected' by the Electoral College Electors."
In provides, the lawsuit said, "If the president-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the vice president elect shall act as president until a president shall have qualified."

"There existed significant public doubt and grievances from plaintiffs and other concerned Americans regarding Obama's eligibility to be president and defendants had the sworn duty to protect and preserve the Constitution and specifically under the 20th Amendment, Section 3, a Constitutional obligation to confirm whether Obama, once the electors elected him, was qualified."

"Congress is the elected representative of the American people and the people speak and act through them," the lawsuit said.

The defendants "violated" the 20th Amendment by failing to assure that Obama meets the eligibility requirements," the lawsuit said.

In the Russian publication Pravda, commentator Mark S. McGrew addressed the subject:
"The United States Congress is required, under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, to count the Electoral College votes for president and vice president, ask if any member of Congress objects to the count and hear that Congressman's objection. This is under Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 15, 'Upon such reading of any such certificate of paper, the president of the Senate shall call for objections, if any,'" he wrote.
Several of the cases – including those brought by Orly Taitz, Cort Wrotnowski, Leo Donofrio and Philip Berg, already have been heard in conference at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has failed to have a hearing on any of the merits involved.

Taitz, in fact, is requesting information from the Supreme Court about a meeting eight of its justices held with Obama, a defendant in her case, before the justices reviewed the issues of the case in a private conference.

Several of the cases not scheduled for hearings at the Supreme Court still remain active at lower court levels, from which emergency requests to the high court were launched.

"I know that Mr. Obama is not a constitutionally qualified natural born citizen and is ineligible to assume the office of president of the United States," Berg said in a statement on his ObamaCrimes.com website.
"Obama knows he is not 'natural born' as he knows where he was born and he knows he was adopted in Indonesia; Obama is an attorney, Harvard Law grad who taught Constitutional law; Obama knows his candidacy is the largest 'hoax' attempted on the citizens of the United States in over 200 years; Obama places our Constitution in a 'crisis' situation; and Obama is in a situation where he can be blackmailed by leaders around the world who know Obama is not qualified," Berg's statement continued.

Go to WND for a partial list of pending cases. I have heard that there are now over 40 cases!

Article conclusion:

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi had gone to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject. A one point a Kenyan ambassador said Obama's birth place in Kenya already was recognized and honored.



Hat Tip: WorldNetDaily

*******

Update:

I have placed several helpful links in my sidebar under the title, "Why Natural Born Citizen For POTUS Matters."

The following are two comments that help to explain "natural born citizen" status requirement for POTUS in Section II, Article 1, clause 5 of the United States Constitution.

Quote:

There is a lot of fuzzy thinking in the legal opinions being rendered which seek to equate "Natural Born Citizen" of the Constitution's Article II, with the ever-changing "citizenship at birth" provisions of 8 U.S.C. 1401. This simplified analysis is to suggest that these terms should be seen as separate and distinct. The only way that Obama might claim he is a "Natural Born Citizen" is if his mother was, in fact, unwed at the time of his birth and he was, in fact, born in Hawaii or any other state where the U.S. has sole jurisdiction.


While his father might have "acknowledged" him, it would not have been enough under the British Nationality Act of 1948 to impart citizenship to him. That Act clearly had provision governing "legitimated children" which held that the offspring of British subjects would, even after birth, take claim to British citizenship rights effective with the date of the marriage.

Tracing NATURAL BORN CITIZENSHIP
Emerich deVattel's 1758 treatise "Law of Nations" can be proven to have been in extensive use by the framers from the time that they declared Independence up through the time they were drafting the Constitution (1787) and as per a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Charles Dumas, who had reprinted the treatise in 1774, thanking him for an additional copy and mentioning the uses to which copies were being put.

[blog.barofintegrity.us]

Here is that definition, as found in CITIZENS AND NATIONS chapter, paragraph #212, of de Vattel: "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society can not exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as a matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it."

The term "natural born citizens" was obviously meant to be defined differently that merely "citizens" since the Constitution uses the former term in describing part of what it takes to be eligible for POTUS, while it uses the latter term in carving out a "grandfathering clause" for the founding fathers and others born at the time of the Constitution's adoption (who would have been "natural born" as British subjects in colonial America pre-Revolution) and also in other Articles and clauses having a bearing upon "citizens" as solely such, including the requirement of only "citizenship" for those running for office in Congress.

Much is made of the 1790 law where "natural born citizen" again appears. The Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided, in part, that "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens"

[memory.loc.gov]

This 1790 law is mentioned in the "research" put together by Laurence Tribe and Ted Olson which was intended to help John McCain argue his way out of his own ineligibility; and it was alluded to in the Senate Resolution 511 which Sen. McGaskill introduced with co-sponsors Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to assist McCain in April 2008, after the legally devastating (and probably accurate) research of Prof. Gabriel Chin had exposed the fact that McCain most likely wasn't even a citizen at birth, much less one who was natural born. How should the words "considered as" be interpreted? Are they to mean that only birth to two citizens is enough to make up the definition? Or, are they to be interpreted as having created an EXCEPTION and to have meant the children were to be treated as" natural born despite their manifest lack of a critical element: birth inside the country?

What got overlooked by Tribe-Olson and McGaskill, Clinton, Obama etc. was how short-lived the 1790 law was. It got repealed, and there may well have been a recognition that it had overstepped constitutional boundaries or that it created impermissible laxity for the one job where "natural born" criteria must be met -- POTUS. And so it was that the Naturalization Act of January 29, 1795 (1 Stat. 414) repealed and replaced the language of the Naturalization Act of 1790, so that the virtually identical sentence then read: "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as Citizens." The two words NATURAL BORN were stripped out.

Flash forward into the 20th Century and one finds the case of Perkins v. Elg (1939) where female infant Elg is found, in the SCOTUS ruling (and not dicta), to be a "natural born citizen" because she was born in the U.S. (New York) of parents who were "then naturalized" as U.S. citizens. A layman reading the case might ponder if only the father was naturalized after the parents had emigrated from Sweden, since the factual recitation mentions that he became a U.S. citizen in 1906 and baby Elg was born in 1907 and no mention is made of the mother, other than that she was also a Swedish immigrant who returned to Sweden with the baby in 1911 while the father remained in the U.S. until the 1920's. But the court also states in the ruling that the parentS (plural) were "then naturalized" -- which prompts proper scholarship to do a look-up on
naturalization laws in effect. Prior to 1922, derivative citizenship was common and that was the case with Mr. and Mrs. Elg. The husband's naturalization operated to also "naturalize" the wife as a U.S. citizen.

For those who would argue that the definition of Natural Born Citizen has never been decided, or is somehow cloudy, the response should be: "No, it isn't. What more do you need than a U.S. Supreme Court ruling?"

Tracing CITIZENSHIP

Citizens are mentioned in the original Constitution. The power of Congress to devise a "uniform rule of Naturalization" to create citizenship is also one of the explicit functions laid out in the Constitution. Prior to the time that the 14th Amendment was passed, it was often the case that the individual states
established who constituted their citizens while the federal statutory schemes dealt with immigrants and periods of necessary residency (originally 2 years per the 1790 law, then 5 years per the 1795 law, and even 14 years per a 1798 law) prior to qualifying to "naturalize" -- along with protocols of giving prior notice of "intent" to naturalize. The aftermath of the Civil War found the Congress grappling with a situation that was unusual -- recognition of former slaves as citizens. It could not be argued that these former "non-citizens" were "immigrants" since they had been born on U.S. soil over many generations. And thus there arose the need to pass the 14th Amendment which defined the term "citizen" explicitly. All legislative enactments which further refine the terms for citizenship would appear to draw upon the 14th Amendment as their wellspring.

It is noteworthy, moreover, to find that the "subject to the jurisdiction" clause of the 14th Amendment found Native Americans excluded from citizenship despite their birth within the confines of the United States' borders, and by reason of their not meeting the terms of the "subject to the jurisdiction"
clause whose author described it in Senate debate as meaning "sole jurisdiction" and "sole allegiance." Tribal jurisdiction and allegiance was felt to be the kind of impermissible duality which excluded American Indians -- a situation which remained the case until 1924 when laws were passed that allowed Indians to become U.S. citizens.

If any of the "natural born" cases should ever reach a Court willing to rule on the merits, it is to be expected that those who would argue in favor of looser eligibility standards will trot out the statutes at 8 U.S.C. 1401 and claim that the statutory term "citizen at birth" is synonymous with "natural born citizen."
Those who would like to see the originally intended eligibility restrictions envisioned by the Framers enforced will argue that a "citizen at birth" is simply one form of a person able to take "citizenship" and that "natural born" has followed its own separate path of definitional integrity from 1787 into the 20th Century.

It is interesting to note that Barney Frank introduced a proposed Constitutional Amendment in 2000 to remove the "natural born" requirement for POTUS eligibility while, in 2003, and possibly with an eye to his friend John McCain's fragile eligibility problems (which were first brought to light in a 1998 item in the Washington Post, prior to McCain's first foray of 2000 into the GOP primaries),
Orrin Hatch introduced another proposed Amendment to remove the "natural born" restriction. Neither went anywhere.

Since Bobby Jindal will face the same impediment, this should serve as fair warning if the GOP trots him out as their candidate of choice. People who believe in "rule of law" and in the notion that Americans should be just as outraged by end-run games around the Constitution as they would be by an
alteration of the rules of baseball at the bottom of the 9th should be prepared to challenge Jindal or any candidate of any party who is simply NOT ELIGIBLE.


Or, if people believe it's time to let the voters decide based on the known public record of candidates, and some period of residency and naturalization sufficient to foster "attachment" to this country, then get busy and change the rules of "political baseball" the right way. Amend the Constitution.

Posted by: Forseti
Dec 30, 09:32 AM

/quote

Second comment - Quote:

Copied with permission from www.vibe.us

Mr. Obama claims that he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. As his only evidence that he meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a President be a natural born citizen, he produced a document called a "Certification of Live Birth," which he posted on his website under the title: "Barack Obama's Official Birth Certificate."

At first blush, it is case closed. A closer examination of the facts, however, reveals that Mr. Obama failed to point out on his website that his posted "Official Birth Certificate," as he called it, is actually a 2007 computer-generated, laser-printed summary document of his 1961 birth record on file with the Hawaii State Department of Health. To date, he has refused to produce his 1961 birth record, despite numerous lawsuits (Keyes v. Bowen, Berg v. Obama, Donofrio v. Wells, and Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz).

To understand what this 1961 birth record is that he refuses to produce, one needs to understand Hawaiian "Birth Certificates." An analysis of Hawaiian Birth certificates is made in the Keyes v. Bowen lawsuit. Paragraph 75 of the Keyes complaint reads, in part:

In Hawaii, a Certificate of Live Birth resulting from hospital documentation, including a signature of an attending physician, is different from a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth. For births prior to 1972, a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth was the result of the uncorroborated testimony of one witness and was not generated by a hospital. Such a Certificate could be obtained up to one year from the date of the child's birth. For that reason, its value as prima facie evidence is limited and could be overcome if any of the allegations of substantial evidence of birth outside Hawaii can be obtained. The vault (long Version) birth certificate, per Hawaiian Statute 883.176 allows the birth in another State or another country to be registered in Hawaii. Box 7C of the vault Certificate of Live Birth contains a question, whether the birth was in Hawaii or another State or Country.

Therefore, the only way to verify the exact location of birth is to review a certified copy or the original vault Certificate of Live Birth and compare the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor against the birthing records on file at the hospital noted on the Certificate of the Live Birth.

To sum it up, Mr. Obama produced a 2007 computer-generated, laser-printed Certification of Live Birth (a summary), and posted it on his website. He called it his "Official Birth Certificate," but did not disclose that it derives from a 1961 birth record on file with the Hawaii State Department of Health. Furthermore, it is not yet publically known whether this Certification of Live Birth derives from a 1961 Certificate of Live Birth (resulting from hospital
documentation, including a signature of an attending physician), or a 1961 Certificate of Hawaiian Birth (result of the uncorroborated testimony of one witness and was not generated by a hospital, and could be obtained up to one year from the date of the child's birth). Moreover, Mr. Obama refuses to release this 1961 birth record to clear this up, despite numerous lawsuits asking him to do so. Furthermore, neither the FEC, the DNC, the RNC, nor any court in the United States has subjected his birth certificate evidence to any level of scrutiny. For all intents and purposes, they have just accepted the 2007 computer-generated, laser printout of the summary document Certification of Live Birth as conclusive evidence that he meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a President be a natural born citizen.

Mr. Obama’s birth certificate does indeed call into question his eligibility to be President. However, the most important foundation question is what is any candidate's burden of proof that he meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a President be a natural born citizen?


In determining which standard of proof applies, it important to remember that the goal is to set a stable standard of proof that ensures that, we the people, will get a qualified presidential candidate, now matter who he is, no matter
which party he is from, no matter what political climate dominates the times, and no matter in which election year he runs for office.

Turning now to the foundation question of what is any candidate's burden of proof that he meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a President be a natural born citizen? Burden of proof refers to both the burden of production, and the burden of persuasion.


Burden of production is the obligation to come forward with evidence to support a claim. The burden of persuasion is the obligation to persuade the trier of fact of the truth of a proposition.

The answer to this burden of proof question lies with who has this burden of proof, the candidate, or the people? Allocating the burden of proof, ‘is merely a question of policy and fairness based on experience in the different situations."Keyes v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 413 U.S. 189 (1973). The burdens of pleading and proof with regard to most facts have been and should be assigned to the plaintiff who generally seeks to change the present state of affairs and who therefore naturally should be expected to bear the risk of failure of proof or persuasion. 2 J. Strong, McCormick on Evidence §337, 412 (5th ed. 1999). Moreover, in most cases, the burden of proof rests on those who claim something exists.

It seems apparent that a presidential candidate is seeking to change the present state of affairs by wanting to become the new President. The candidate is also the one who is claiming that something exists, which in this case, is that he is a natural born citizen. Furthermore, he is also applying for a job. As such, the burden of proof rests on him.

It takes no stretch of the imagination to understand that it has been a commonly accepted and expected fair practice for any candidate applying for a job to produce evidence that he meets its eligibility requirements. Typically, he produces a resume, certified copies of education transcripts, documents his work history and residences since age 18, and, in cases of classified government jobs, submits to and produces without reservation, documentary evidence such as a birth certificate for use in an extensive and thorough background check. Since the greater includes the lesser, it follows then that a more important job, like being President, would include at least the aforementioned production of documentary evidence of sufficient persuasion. Arguably then, it follows that a presidential candidate has a similar burden of production and persuasion that he meets the eligibility requirements for President. To create a presumption of eligibility that shifts the burden of proof to the People would otherwise defeat the search for the truth about the candidate’s eligibility. This is especially true when the candidate locks down the evidence of his eligibility.

Once some evidence has been produced, the question becomes does the evidence submitted persuade the trier of fact that a candidate meets the natural born citizen requirement of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution?
The degree of proof required depends on the circumstances of the proposition. In this case, the standard that applies should ensure that the candidate meets the eligibility requirements to be President of the United States.

The President of the United States is one of the three branches of government. He is the Executive branch. The nation speaks to all people through one voice, the President's. The President can make treaties, grant pardons, sign and veto legislation, appoint a Cabinet, as well as Supreme Court Justices. In addition to these duties, the President knows the nations' most important and secure secrets, and as the Commander in Chief of the military, has the military's nuclear launch codes at the ready, and who can arguably, either take steps to weaken the nation or even destroy it. In the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, "The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

So which burden of persuasion should apply to the evidence submitted by a President elect given the job for which he is qualifying? There are at least three major burdens of persuasion - preponderance of the evidence, clear and
convincing, and beyond a reasonable doubt. Let's examine each standard and choose the one that is best suited to ensure that only a qualified President elect becomes President.

Preponderance of the Evidence - (lowest level) This is the lowest standard of proof that uses a more likely than not test. The standard is met if the proposition is more likely to be true than not true. Effectively, the standard is satisfied if there is greater than 50 percent chance that the proposition is true. It is used in civil cases, e.g., personal injury lawsuits.

If this standard is accepted, then arguably the President elect will get the opportunity to prove that he meets the requirements to be President by a little more than the odds of a coin toss. Using this standard also seems to equate the importance of a candidate meeting the Constitutional requirements to become President with giving the right private litigant a chance at winning a lawsuit.


The ramifications and consequences of being wrong in each one are at opposite ends of the spectrum. This standard therefore does not seem high enough.

Clear and Convincing Evidence - (medium level) The person must convince the trier of fact that it is substantially more likely than not that the thing is in fact true. This standard of proof is used in termination of parental rights, and restraining orders, among other civil actions. This standard also does not seem high enough.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt - (highest level) The proposition being presented must be proven to the extent that there is no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a reasonable person. This standard has been traditionally applied to criminal defendants to ensure that an innocent person is not deprived of his life or liberty. True, the Presidential candidate is not a criminal, but the justifications for applying the beyond a reasonable doubt standard are not for proving the guilt of a criminal defendant, but rather to ensure that an innocent person does not lose his life or liberty. Ensuring that these freedoms of life and liberty are given the highest protections rings throughout the justifications for the beyond a reasonable doubt standard being applied to presidential candidates so that the citizens do not lose their lives or liberties at the hands of an unqualified President. For the highest office in the land, and for arguably the most powerful leadership position in the world, it follows that the highest burden of proof that he is qualified to be President of the United States of America should be required of him.

At this point, I would like to conclude that the beyond a reasonable doubt standard should apply to the President elect, but unfortunately, I do not get to decide this issue. Who then, should determine which standard applies? Moreover, who gets to interpret it?

Should the states get to decide this question? If you look to state law for deciding which burden of persuasion applies, then a problem arises because one might foresee not all states using the same burden of persuasion. One might also expect to wind up to 50 different interpretations for each of the three burden of persuasion standards. This could result in as many as 150 different interpretations for the three standards. It's arguable then, that having as many as 3 different standards with up to 50 different interpretations of each one could lead to 150 different possible ways to qualify a presidential candidate.


Arguably, this outcome would favor some candidates over the others, with each election year providing for unequal treatment of the candidates depending upon from which state's record the each candidate seeks to establish his birth (or age), and resulting in unequal risk to the nation that an unqualified President would be elected.

Imagine if one state uses a preponderance of the evidence standard while the other state uses beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Who has the advantage here and what are the risks to the nation and its citizens? Let's assume that two states require clear and convincing evidence, but one state interprets clear and convincing to mean less than the other state's interpretation. The end result would be unequal treatment of the candidates resulting in different states having the power to gain an advantage over the other state's candidate by lessening or lowering the burden of persuasion and weakening its interpretation.


Furthermore, there would be an increased opportunity for planting fraudulent birth records in the states with the weakest burden of proof that have the highest incidents of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

So where does this leave us? Should each state decide what is their native candidate's burden of persuasion? Or should each state agree to have one standard for all candidates? Who gets to decide which standard applies, and who gets to interpret the standard?

Perhaps we should look to the federal courts to establish a standard instead? Keep in mind that the constitutional requirement to be a natural born citizen is a federal one. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes federal law the supreme law of the land. Furthermore, the office of President is one of the three federal branches of government. Perhaps that as such, there should be a federal standard of proof that ensures that only a candidate who meets the Natural Born Citizen requirement of the U.S. Constitution could become President.

Once again, problems arise. There are 13 federal circuit courts in the U.S. Each one could cause the same selection and interpretation problems that were just discussed with the states. Only this time, the candidates would get their advantage or disadvantage by being born in a particular circuit, thus making circuits more or less appealing to the candidates and their respective parties. Furthermore, circuits with a history of identification document fraud by foreign nationals might be more likely to erroneously qualify a foreign born national to be a Presidential candidate. Again, different circuit standards would result in unequal treatment of the candidates, and unequal risks to the nation that an unqualified candidate would become President.

Should we leave it to the Federal Election Committee (FEC)? No. The FEC filed a motion to dismiss in the Berg case admitting that it has no oversight over the Constitution's Presidential Qualifications Clause.

What about leaving it to the candidate’s respective party? Should such a bias organization decide the issue of their candidate’s eligibility? Allowing such a process would be tantamount to the fox guarding the henhouse.

What about leaving it to the Electors? Are they any less bias than their respective parties?

What about the United States Supreme Court? The first paragraph of their own website makes the following promise to the American People - “As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.”

If the Court has this duty to function as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution, then when must it act to qualify the President elect? Before, during or after the election? Should it be barred from deciding this issue
because of timing, i.e, the candidate has already won the election, so it’s too late? Perhaps we should turn to the 20th Amendment for guidance.

“If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”

Section 3 of the 20th Amendment does allow for the possibility that a President elect might not qualify. The language of the Amendment suggests that the qualification period can come between the period when the candidate wins the election and when he is sworn in. As the guardian and interpreter of the
Constitution, it's arguable that the Court must scrutinize the President elect's natural born citizen evidence during this time period. If the Court, instead, turns a blind eye to it, then just who will be the judge of "if the President elect shall have failed to qualify,...?" Furthermore, what will be the fate of the Constitution, the Court, and the country if it is later discovered that Mr. Obama is not a natural born citizen? Will every treaty, law, military act become void ab initio? Will the nation be launched into a state of civil unrest and unyielding division?

As of this post, the Court has not granted a writ to hear the Berg v. Obama case. While we are waiting for this historic news, perhaps we should at least look at Mr. Obama's only submitted evidence of being a natural born citizen - the posted 2007 computer-generated laser-printed "Certification of Live Birth" on his website. So let’s review the facts and his evidence, and then apply the burdens of persuasion. I used my general interpretations of each burden of persuasion since there is no clearly defined one being applied by anyone else, anywhere.

Preponderance of the Evidence - No. What is a computer-generated printout like Obama's Certification of Live Birth? It is a hearsay document that is susceptible to the perils of computer viruses, trojans, spyware, hackers, and chain of custody issues? Read about Computer Records and the Federal Rules of Evidence on the Department of Justice's website.

Furthermore, since it is not clear from which 1961 document this printout derives from, the one with the doctor's signature and other traceable evidence (Certificate of Live Birth), or the one fraught with he potential for fraud, including registering an out of the country birth as an in state birth after the birth (Certificate of Hawaiian Birth), it's arguable that either source is no more likely than the other, so it does not appear to satisfy this more likely than not standard.

Clear and Convincing Evidence - No. If the Certification of Live birth doesn't satisfy the lesser burden of persuasion then it follows it can not satisfy this heightened one.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt - No. One would need to feign ignorance and act with the utmost bad faith to argue that a Certification of Live birth proves that he was born in Hawaii beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, since it doesn't even satisfy the lesser burden of persuasion then it follows it can not satisfy this heightened one.

This is where the road to the White House should end for Mr. Obama. He can not meet any burden of persuasion for becoming President with only a 2007 computer-generated, laser-printed Certification of Live Birth. Unfortunately however, to date, not one single person or agency in the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branches of government has subjected his Certification of Live Birth to any burden of persuasion scrutiny to determine if he meets the United States Constitution's natural born citizen requirement to be President.

I'll close this post with a quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Posted by: No Free Lunch
Dec 23, 02:26 PM
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