Progressivism:
A DtN Profile on Saul Alinsky DiscoverTheNetworks.org
Born to Russian-Jewish parents in Chicago in 1909, Saul Alinsky was a
Communist/Marxist fellow-traveler who helped establish the tactics of
infiltration -- coupled with a measure of confrontation -- that have been
central to revolutionary political movements in the United States in recent
decades. He never joined the Communist Party but instead, as David Horowitz puts
it, became an avatar of the post-modern left. Though Alinsky is rightfully
understood to have been a leftist, 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. His motto was, “The most effective means are whatever will
achieve the desired results.” Alinsky 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.”
Upcoming Events
The Perfect Storm An
Edu-Informational Multi-Media Event This educational and informational program
centers on "The Perfect Storm": The convergence of the threats of an advancing
American Fifth Column in the form of the Progressive Movement from within, an
encroaching dogma of fundamentalist Islamism and violent jihad externally, both
of which are facilitated by wide-spread constitutional illiteracy amongst the
American citizenry.
click here for
details
Make a Donation Today
Help support BasicsProject.org by
making a tax deductible contribution today. We accept no government funding so we
depend exclusively on the generosity of our supporters.
The
Internet Is Not Government's to Regulate
Jim Harper, The Cato Institute Imagine that Congress passed a law setting up a
procedure that could require ordinary citizens like you to remove telephone
numbers from your phone book or from the "contacts" list in your phone. What
about a policy that cut off the phone lines to an entire building because some
of its tenants used the phone to plot thefts or fraud? Would it be okay with you
if the user of the numbers coming out of your phone records or the tenants of
the cut-off building had been adjudged "rogue" users of the phone. Cutting off
phone lines is the closest familiar parallel to what Congress is considering in
two bills nicknamed "SOPA" and "PIPA" -- the "Stop Online Piracy Act" and the
"Protect IP Act"...
Revisiting Sabra & Chatila Massacres:
The Assad Regime
Responsibility
Dr. Franck Salameh This past September marked the twenty-ninth
anniversary of the assassination of Lebanon’s president-elect Bashir Gemayel.
Like its most recent clone, the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri, memories of the 1982 crime continue to haunt many Lebanese, some of whom
are still persuaded its perpetrators to have been Syrian operatives bent on
scuttling end-of-conflict prospects for Lebanon. Today, as Syria’s “Alawite era”
teeters on the edge of its twilight, and as the international community prepares
to indict it for ongoing crimes against its own people, the regime’s shady
gruesome past is coming back to assail its tattered present days.
Although few Westerners today might remember Bashir Gemayel (or his
assassination), and fewer still might be tempted to consider the motivations of
those who commissioned his murder, rare are those who would not readily recall
the massacres at Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, and rarer
still are those who would not attribute those crimes to “right-wing”
Lebanese-Christian militiamen -- ostensibly bent on avenging their fallen
leader...
Capital
& Income in Democratic Socialism
DW MacKenzie
Some scholars of the Interwar Debate on
Socialism argue that the trial and error method developed by Taylor (1929),
Lange (1938), and Dickinson (1939) proved that socialism could match or
outperform capitalism. Other scholars argue that the trial and error method
of simulating markets was an illegitimate compromise between true socialism
and capitalism. The market socialists failed to understand the nature of the
challenge that Mises (1920) posed. This paper argues that Lange, Lerner, and
Dickinson effectively conceded what Mises wrote about capital accumulation
in socialism. Lange and Dickinson also argued that
capitalism fails regarding capital accumulation. Lerner, Lange, and
Dickinson believed that democracy could solve some of the problems of
socialism. Mises and Hayek saw the politicization
of investment as at best, inefficient and at worst, dangerous for democracy.
The antagonists in this debate agreed on many of the economic issues, but
disagreed on matters of social philosophy- especially where democracy is
concerned. Recent scholarship on market socialism has tended to overlook the
issues raised by both sides in the interwar debate. Also, the record of the
twentieth century tends to support the von Mises critique of socialized
accumulation...
BasicsProject.org is a
non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) research and educational initiative. Opinions
expressed by those not directly affiliated with BasicsProject.org are expressly
their own. Responsibility for the accuracy of cited content is expressly that of
the contributing author. BasicsProject.org may or may not agree with opinions
and/or content presented unless expressly cited. All content offered by
BasicsProject.org is copyrighted. BasicsProject.org’s goal is the liberation of
the American voter from partisan politics and special interests in government
through the primary-source, fact-based education of the American people.
