From Unknown to Dictator of Germany
   24 Chapters

   

http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/alinsky.htm

• 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 -Created a blueprint for revolution under the banner of "social change" -Two of his most notable modern-day disciples are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. 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. 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 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. 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. They won't act for change but won't strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution."[1] 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]

Cass Sunstein 

• http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=614400 - DO YOU WANT TO BE "NUDGED" WELL Cass Sunstein...wrote the book on it....He wants to play the role of your parent. Legal scholar and avowed environmentalist Cass Sunstein, however, holds out hope that we, both individually and collectively, are not condemned to irrationality. In Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (released in paperback last month), Sunstein and co-author Richard Thaler explain how enlightened "choice architecture" can close the gap between hedonism and wisdom though "libertarian paternalism": a kind of minimalist interventionism designed to remedy some of the America's greatest collective action problems. Sunstein recently became director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.Regulatory CZAR. With Sunstein in the role of President Obama's "regulation czar," Americans should prepare to get nudged. What is a "nudge"? And what in the world is libertarian paternalism? A nudge is a small change in the social context that makes behavior very different without forcing anyone to do anything. The concept behind libertarian paternalism is that it's possible to maintain freedom of choice -- that's libertarian -- while also moving people in directions that make their own lives a bit better -- that's paternalism. We think it's possible to combine two reviled concepts. Once we put the two together we might start to have a philosophy that a lot of different people can sign on to. Paternalism implies that there's some notion of what "good" is. How does anyone determine what's "good"? How do we determine what's good for the environment? …we inflict harm on others, so our own judgments about our own welfare aren't complete. We want nudges that do help people who are being nudged but also help people who are harmed by those who are not taking adequate account of the risks they are imposing on other people. How can we expose those harms and the people committing them? The nudge approach would be, for energy use in homes and automobiles, to make very clear to people what the costs of their activities are to they themselves. When we're driving cars, most of us don't have a concrete sense of what it's costing per year in gasoline to use a car with bad fuel efficiency. A nudge-like solution is to let bad actors, as we might call them, actually see the economic costs to themselves of what they're doing. by by Josh Stephens 6 Apr 2009 10:28 AM IN OTHER WORDS CASS SUNSTEIN THINKS YOU ARE STUPID AND YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY MAKE GOOD DECISIONS FOR YOURSELF WITHOUT HURTING THE EARTH, ANIMALS OR OTHERS This is why he feels animals should have legal representation in court and that animals should be allowed to sue you.er Construction

Wilson aligned himself with legislative progressives and managed to record major accomplishments in short order. Laws were passed providing for regulation of public utilities, school reform, workmen’s compensation, direct primaries, and later, state antitrust legislation for the formerly permissive New Jersey. These successes made Wilson a national political figure. During this period, Wilson developed a close political relationship with “Colonel” Edward M. House of Texas, who would later engineer Wilson’s nomination for president and then served as one of his closest advisors.

Wilson’s triumph in the Democratic convention of 1912 was not assured, but in the end owed much to former nominee William Jennings Bryan. The main challenge in the campaign came from Theodore Roosevelt, the Bull Moose candidate, who trumpeted his progressive message as the “New Nationalism.” Wilson responded with a vigorous campaign of his own and dubbed his more restrained form of progressivism as the “New Freedom.” Both reform candidates recognized that the main issue of the day was the relationship between big business and government. Wilson’s whopping electoral victory was somewhat misleading; he received only about 42 percent of the popular vote, but that was sufficient to become the first Democratic president in 20 years.

  

Franklin D Roosevelt

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3357

How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People

by Jim Powell

This article appeared on cato.org on December 29, 2003. cato.org

Democratic presidential candidates as well as some conservative intellectuals, are suggesting that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is a good model for government policy today.

Mounting evidence, however, makes clear that poor people were principal victims of the New Deal. The evidence has been developed by dozens of economists -- including two Nobel Prize winners -- at Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, the University of California (Berkeley) and University of Chicago, among other universities.

New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. Excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and so-called "excess profits" taxes all went up.

The most important source of New Deal revenue were excise taxes levied on alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, matches, candy, chewing gum, margarine, fruit juice, soft drinks, cars, tires (including tires on wheelchairs), telephone calls, movie tickets, playing cards, electricity, radios -- these and many other everyday things were subject to New Deal excise taxes, which meant that the New Deal was substantially financed by the middle class and poor people. Yes, to hear FDR's "Fireside Chats," one had to pay FDR excise taxes for a radio and electricity! A Treasury Department report acknowledged that excise taxes "often fell disproportionately on the less affluent."

Until 1937, New Deal revenue from excise taxes exceeded the combined revenue from both personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. It wasn't until 1942, in the midst of World War II, that income taxes exceeded excise taxes for the first time under FDR. Consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money for growth and jobs.

New Deal taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging unemployment that averaged 17%. Higher business taxes meant that employers had less money for growth and jobs. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which discouraged hiring.

Other New Deal programs destroyed jobs, too. For example, the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) cut back production and forced wages above market levels, making it more expensive for employers to hire people - blacks alone were estimated to have lost some 500,000 jobs because of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) cut back farm production and devastated black tenant farmers who needed work. The National Labor Relations Act (1935) gave unions monopoly bargaining power in workplaces and led to violent strikes and compulsory unionization of mass production industries. Unions secured above-market wages, triggering big layoffs and helping to usher in the depression of 1938.

What about the good supposedly done by New Deal spending programs? These didn't increase the number of jobs in the economy, because the money spent on New Deal projects came from taxpayers who consequently had less money to spend on food, coats, cars, books and other things that would have stimulated the economy. This is a classic case of the seen versus the unseen -- we can see the jobs created by New Deal spending, but we cannot see jobs destroyed by New Deal taxing.

For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political "swing" states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side.

Americans needed bargains, but FDR hammered consumers -- and millions had little money. His National Industrial Recovery Act forced consumers to pay above-market prices for goods and services, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act forced Americans to pay more for food. Moreover, FDR banned discounting by signing the Anti-Chain Store Act (1936) and the Retail Price Maintenance Act (1937).

Poor people suffered from other high-minded New Deal policies like the Tennessee Valley Authority monopoly. Its dams flooded an estimated 750,000 acres, an area about the size of Rhode Island, and TVA agents dispossessed thousands of people. Poor black sharecroppers, who didn't own property, got no compensation.

FDR might not have intended to harm millions of poor people, but that's what happened. We should evaluate government policies according to their actual consequences, not their good intentions.