"The [Cloward-Piven] Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as . . . The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The 'Cloward-Piven Strategy' seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:
'Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,' Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to 'live up' to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist 'rule book' with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)
No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:
1. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
2. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and / or create new benefits.
3. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse. [Obama's Healthcare pushed by DNC - Webmaster]
Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley, who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy.
Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their 'rights.' According to a City Journal article by Sol Stern, welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, 'one person was on the welfare rolls . . . for every two working in the city's private economy.' According to another City Journal article titled 'Compassion Gone Mad':
The movement's impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay's first two years; spending doubled. The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.
The vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO's Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975. Rudy Giuliani cited Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for "an effort at economic sabotage." He also credited Cloward-Piven with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all.
Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity.
Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay, and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals' threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:
Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.
The next time you drive through one of the many blighted neighborhoods in our cities, or read of the astronomical crime, drug addiction, and out-of-wedlock birth rates, or consider the failed schools, strapped police and fire resources of every major city, remember Cloward and Piven's thrill that ' [wait for it] . . . the drain on local resources persists indefinitely!'" . . . Read More
As you can see through reading the above objectives of Cloward-Piven, Obama's goals have been met in his first term. His party has passed a trillion-dollar healthcare bill while he refuses to address the mounting university enrollment costs to solve student loan debt. And he has successfully pushed food stamp usage through the ceiling, the highest in American history. Yet he told voters he needed four more years, that the job still wasn't done.
So they bowed to his wishes, handing Obama four more years to complete the transition of America from Capitalism for the individual to Socialism for the collective, as the new Democrat Party continues to stop passage of a budget going into four years. Obama will therefore have for his second term out-of-control spending, guaranteed to be a drag on the system.
Saul Alinsky would be proud. Next up to bat to insure the change over in 2017? It's Alinsky's personal admirer, Democrat Hillary Clinton. - Webmaster |
Obama's Radical Support Chart Leading Him Into The 2008 November Election.