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your support. So all right, let me get to this
because it is it's a well, okay, it's about a
month old. It was an article at the Washington Examiner,
and I missed it on their website. But I do
get a dead tree copy recycled to me by a friend,
and so I get them. But I'm usually a couple
weeks behind on the dead Tree copy because the Washington
Examiner's got a paywall, and you know, I'm just living
on a radio salary, so I can't I can't have
all the subs, you know. Anyway, the big piece by
David Hersani, and we've had David on the program over
the years, and I had a really good I think
this was the cover story. Yes, it was one of
it was connected to another story. That's two stories that
were part of the cover headline writing the book on
political violence. And I remember when I first came across
this guy's name, not David Harsani, although I guess it
would have been about the same time. But no, I'm
talking about the name Saul Olinsky. And I had never
heard this name before. I mean, I was a product
of you know, government K twelve education, so it's not surprising.
But the name Saul Olinsky I only started learning about
when Barack Obama ran for president and I started seeing
this name of some community organizer and he wrote a
book called Rules for Radicals. And then, of course was
the famous photo of Barack Obama at college and he's
or maybe not at college, maybe it was like right
after college where he where he went out to be
a street organizer, community organizer guy. And he was doing
like a chalkboard presentation of some kind, you know, teaching
people about stuff about communities and organizing. And when you
look at the photo, you can make out what's on
the chalkboard, and it's it's the Olinsky stuff on the chalkboard.
And I remember when I saw that picture, and I
was like, huh, I'm reading this guy's name popping up,
you know, from certain commentators and writers and such, and
they're tracing the connections between Barack Obama and Saul Olinsky
and what Olenski taught. And I remember the pushback because
you know, this was going on for a while in
conservative media. I covered it. I remember there was a
whole case that was made that Barack Obama is a
red diaper baby as they're called. You know, his parents
were Communists, his grandparents commis ount in Hawaii. The guy
in his book, his own biography, his autobiography, and he
talked about his relationship with this guy, this father figure.
His name was Frank, and that was Frank Marshall Davis,
a Kami that his grandmother had sort of introduced her
grandson too. So he had a father figure mentor in
his life. Because at that point when Obama and his
now single mom moved back from where were they, Indonesia,
I want to say, and they had moved back to
Hawaii and because she had gotten a divorce from her
second husband, and that that was because he was working
for I think it was a gas company maybe, but
he was working in a corporate environment and it was
getting he was becoming wealthier, and he was like welcoming
this like new infusion of investment into the country, and
the people were raising their station in life. And Obama's
mom not so big on the capitalism, and so they
had fights and stuff. They eventually separated, and yes this
was the period in which Barack Obama ate dog. But anyway,
he moves back to Hawaii. He's then, you know, paled
up with Frank Marshall Davis, and I saw him referred
to as red diaper baby, raised in this culture, in
this ideology, and then he became sort of I saw
another tag for him, which was the Red Avenger. In
other words, I'm going to prove that the life's mission
and philosophy of my parents, my mentor my grandparents, the
weather underground terrorists that you know, helped launch my political
campaign in their living room in Chicago. Like I'm going
to prove that like I am the you know, the
light bringer. People refer to him as like I'm going
to bring the light to all the people, and I'm
going to show everybody like this is fundamental transformation of
America and like their philosophy was right, their lives weren't wasted,
you know, pursuing the communist utopia. But I remember when
I started looking into Saul Alinsky's stuff, reading through the
Rules for Radicals, talking about it, and there was this
sort of stiff arming in the legacy media, mainstream media
outlets and such. I would get lefties that would call
into the show and they would they would mock me,
Oh yeah, rules for Radicals, Oh it's Sawlolinsky like. They
would just like mock me in order to make me
shut up about this guy Sawlolinsky like, denying that this
guy and his strategy was you know, animating in any way.
For any of these politicians, let alone Barack Obama, you
get the same reaction, by the way, with George Soros.
Right people try to stiff arm you out of that
conversation too, because when it started breaking containment out of
the right wing conservative media ecosystem and it started filtering
into the mainstream, then there was this rush to dismiss
and deflect and defend Saul Olinsky and Barack Obama because
you know, the precious Obama has to be protected at
all costs. And so I was interested to see this
piece by David Harsani because he is connecting what we
see now with Slolinsky. This is the natural trajectory. His
headline writing the book on political violence, the subhead is
how Slolinsky mainstreamed the radicalism seen on the left today.
Perhaps no one helped bring violence and the disruption of
all norms into the mainstream from the fringes more than Saulolinsky.
His book Rules for Radicals explains what we are seeing
today and how we got here. Just as the title
of this nineteen seventy one work of practical militancy suggests,
it codified tactics intended to overturn the constitutional order. At
the same time, the quote Rules that Alinsky had championed
threatened and promised to propel American politics into violence. The
most reprehensible accomplishment of Rules for Radicals was convincing a
generation of progressive Democrats that it no longer needed to
ask the fundamental question does the end justify the means? Indeed,
Olynsky derided this broad rule of civilized conduct as a
meaningless moral formulation. That's what he called it. Who's meaningless?
Does the end justify the means? What? He said? The
only question worth posing, he said, was does this particular end,
justify these particular means, and what does that mean. Well,
that's why you get different standards in every conversation and
on every top right. That's why you can be arguing
with a lefty and they're taking a position of X,
and then you shift to a different topic and now
they're arguing not X, and it doesn't matter. There doesn't
need to ever be a consistent application of a standard
because of this philosophy that has so permeated the way
the left engages in I was going to say discussion,
but I mean, let's be clear, like that's not happening
right by the way. I know, I have mocked the
inflatable costumes that the left has been wearing of recent days,
and I shouldn't have been doing that, not because it
hurts their feelings or anything, but because they're simply doing
that to deflect attention away from their violence. They knew
things got too hot. That's them dialing it down. They're
trying to dial it down by Oh my gosh, look
at me. I'm just so silly. I'm dressed like a unicorn.
M Yeah, I know what the person inside that costume
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message from John in New Jersey who says there's a
film out there on how Olinsky developed community organizing and
compromising social programs in the Catholic Church. It can probably
be viewed somewhere without purchasing. It's called a wolf in
sheep's clothing. Also regarding Obama, I could just never trust
a guy who ate a dog. That's fair. That's fair,
all right, So David Arsani writing about Saul Alinsky in
the Washington Examiner. This was from the September twenty fourth edition,
the Dead Tree Edition, the paper edition. Alinsky wrote, a
practical revolutionary understands that quote, one does not always enjoy
the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with
one's individual conscience and the good of mankind. So a
practical revolutionary understands that you don't always have the luxury
of making a decision that is going to be consistent
with your conscience and the good of mankind. So in
other words, you're going to have to do some stuff
that you don't want to do, that would offend your
own conscience, but it's for the good of mankind. See,
this is what makes communists so dangerous, much like well,
really all of the worst people throughout history is they
think they're doing good. They think that I am going
to reach for this utopian vision. I can perfect society
and people, and then everybody will be better off. This
is a good place to be, and it's just all
of this rabble getting in my way. And so you
know what, Sorry, I'm going to have to exterminate a
whole bunch of people in order to get to the utopia.
But once we get there, it's going to be so
good for you. See, don't you get it right? They
think that they are doing something good. That's what makes
them so dangerous. Well, that and all the murdering. Of course,
as Harsani says, this is an invitation to do what
your nature and civilization teach you is wrong, and then
to allow you to excuse any enormity as being for
the wider good. According to rules for radicals, what was
good for mankind? Well, its answer was building a revolutionary
force that methodically deconstructed the system and imposed class justice.
The book is an instruction manual for appropriating the ideals
of an open society and turning it against itself. It's
also a ready made strategy of disruption by trial attorneys.
This revolution begins with the fundamentally destructive task of transforming
every interaction between citizens into confrontation. One of his rules
you may have heard. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it,
and polarize it. One of his rules. I think there
were thirteen. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.
This is perhaps Lensky's most vulgar rule. Aim your fire
at humans rather than amorphous institutions. Create caricatures of your opponents,
because if you quote push a negative horr and deep enough,
it will break through into its counterside. Is what he wrote.
This is how to isolate your adversary and deny him
public sympathy, even from his own side, which is really
at the roots of the defender disavow game that the
media make Republicans play all the time and never make
Democrats play. By the way, have you heard of this
guy what's his name, Plampton or something up in Maine.
He's running for Senate. I want to say, I'm pretty
sure he's in mein. And the guy was like a
poop poster on Reddit that they don't call them poop posters,
but you get the idea. And he has said some vile,
awful things. I know it's not a secret group chat
with you young Republicans. This guy was posting on you know,
open threads on a public forum, and today it turns
out dude has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. He's
a democrat. Anybody playing defender disavow with him, No, didn't
think So see how that works. Pick the target, freeze it,
personalize it, and polarize it, and so you isolate the
adversary and you deny them public sympathy, even from people
on his own side. People who have gone through these cancelations,
they go into depression because all your friends and family
now want nothing to do to do with you. Oh
my god, I can't believe you said this thing. And
now you're isolated and there's no path back. There's no forgiveness,
there's no grace, there's no apology. Even in fact, if
you offer an apology, then it's worse for you. There's
no respite for grace or compromise. In Alenski's world, he says, quote,
keep the pressure on, never let up. All of it
in essence dehumanizes the opposition, and social media has thermonuclearized
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All right, So back to this piece at the Washington
Examiner by David Harsani talking about Rules for Radicals, Saul
Alenski's tome from nineteen seventy one, how he mainstreamed the
radicalism seen on the left today. Harsani goes into depth
on what the rules do and how they are implemented,
and then you know, we're looking at the long term
impact now, because seventy one it's been you know, fifty
five years of training and people adopting these tactics. They
may not even realize where the tactics came from. If
I recall correctly, he dedicated his book Rules for Radicals
to Lucifer. It's kind of out in the open, so
it's like right there, page one dedicated to Lucifer. So anyway,
hyper personalization, hyper personalization of politics. It works only if
you can convince people on your side that their opponents
are all evil. This is why progressive democrats bred on
this kind of radicalized politics treat every single political setback,
no matter how trivial, as if it's an existential threat
to the nation or as I would say, to the democracy. Right.
He is spot on. Harsani is spot on, Like this
is why every single issue, no matter how big or small,
is the end of the world. Everything is lost. Every
Republican president is Hitler, and the next president that's a
Republican is worse than the last Hitler. It's like at
some point, like where Hitler cubed or something. He goes
on to say, conservatives are not seen as merely adopting
misguided policies, but as putting the elderly, the poor, and
minorities in perilous situations. Even fleeting and mundane policy disagreements
like a tax cut or the institution of net neutrality
portend death. Well, okay, and hang on a second, that part,
that part is actually true. I myself died when net
neutrality was repealed, so like that, I'm not sure sure
he may have missed the mark on that one. A
lot of people died from net neutrality. Okay. Former President
Joe Biden, you'll recall, delivered a speech smearing the right
as budding fascists. Remember that speech right in Philadelphia. It
was all had red lighting, had the black, black and
red motif going a tableau. He had the two marines
stationed behind him, and he was angry, calling all of
his opponents fascists. And it was such a bad visual
that I believe it was CNN. It may have been MSNBC,
but then nobody would have seen it, so I think
it was CNN. They actually adjusted the color filtering to
try to make it less red. You could actually see
it happen where it morphed into sort of a purplish
you know. They tried to. They tried to increase the
tinting of the blue a little bit, to make it
a little bit more purple so it wouldn't be quite
so jarring. Alinsky would have approved of that speech. He
understood that the threat is usually more terrifying than the
thing itself. That is a direct quote from Olinsky. The
threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Net neutrality,
climate change, right, which is why democrasse is always allegedly
hanging in the balance, but somehow never ends. It's why
you see these people in their inflatable costumes and such. Oh,
by the way, somebody said something about the inflatable costume.
Here it does on the text line stand says an
adult in an inflatable costume at a protest is scary
because they are reproducing. Are they? Are they? I'm not
sure about that. You need a fact check on that one.
Radicals were council to compare their conservative opponents with Nazis
even back in the day, back in the seventies, even prior. Actually,
it's been going on for a very very long time.
Many of the modern left have convinced themselves that their
political opponents are ideologically as dangerous as Nazis. Again, this
sort of hyperbole has been around for a long time.
Alinsky used the Nazi analogy. The left began accusing Republicans
of being Nazis when Harry Truman said that Thomas Dewey,
the GOP presidential candidate, was a hitlarian frontman for bigots
and profiteers. That was nineteen forty eight, right. Olinsky himself
claimed to have quote survived the Joe McCarthy holocaust of
the early nineteen fifties. That was a holocaust, Joe McCarthy,
that was a holocaust. Really. Later in the piece, David
Arsani goes on to say that modern Olenskiites don't function
under any book of rules, that is, under any code
that applies principles consistently. Their principles are contingent. That's the
key to always remember that the principles are contingent. Everything
is contingent. It's relativistic. Right. If an act moves your
cause forward, it's okay, you can do it. There's no guardrails.
They can play innocent. But anybody functioning in the real
world understands that many progressive Democrats, perhaps most of them,
have a difficult time coexisting with conservatives, usually treating conservatives
as pariahs. I would refer you to the story that
I covered at the end of the last hour about
the man from Atlanta who could not bear to see,
to simply view, a Trump banner whilst driving through western
North Carolina. So he stopped his car and ripped it down.
And then when the owner of the property saw him
and fired warning shots into the air to scare him
off of his property, the leftist accountant from Atlanta opened
fire on the guy's house, firing indiscriminately from out of
his sunroof, which just like that's just a really bit
just from a tactical standpoint, that's not that's not wise, Like,
it's not a natural position to be firing out of.
Just like stick your hand up out of the sun
roof and just fire around, you know, like you got
no you got no firearm control there, you know. Just
that's how I knew he was a lefty. Anyway, it's
always the think pieces and the explanatory journalism pieces and
the uh, you know, hey, I'm going to offer you
this advice for Thanksgiving dinner when you're sitting around with
your trumper Republican uncle. Here's how you here's how you
fight back, and all this other stuff. Right, Democrats, according
to the polling, have a difficult time coexisting with conservatives.
Our mere existence is triggering to them. They get angry
with us. Now I'm not and this is not all
people who are liberal. Again, I use the word leftist,
uh specifically, that is a it is an ideology, it's
a religion. It's an ideology that animates a portion of
people that would be considered you know, democrat liberal, not
not even progressive, like I see those as as further
towards towards the center than leftists. I use that word intentionally.
It's not leftists who are browbeaten into silence and learn
to keep their opinions to themselves in case they are
attacked verbally at a minimum. Right, I don't ever hear
of leftists having any kind of problem, you know, celebrating
Charlie Kirk's death and then they're like, oh my gosh,
I can't believe I'm getting fired for posting Charlie Kirk's
assassination was justified somehow, Like that's the first time I
can recall there being any kind of ramifications for this
kind of behavior. Conservative self censor themselves, particularly in the workplace,
all the time, all the time. All Right, if you're
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media landscape more transparent. All right, So back to the
David Arsani piece. This is from the Washington Examiner talking
about saul A. Lenski's rules for radicals that has laid
the groundwork for the kind of violence that we are
seeing today because we've had fifty years of leftist agitators
trained up in this kind of in the Olinski philosophy. Okay,
for example, there was one this is not in the article,
but what Alinsky called it the eyes, ears nose tactic,
which is, if you have the numbers right, if you're
going to march someplace, you're going to protest whatever. If
you've got the numbers, then you show up with the
numbers and you parade around and you show your force.
You show the size of your army. Right now. I
also would just point out here that some of these
tactics are not actually new. Olinski did not invent these,
like I think this one is actually Sunsu Art of war.
But regardless, this is what he says. If you have
the numbers, you bring the numbers and you march around
and you show the opponents the size of your forces.
If you don't have the numbers, well then you just
make yourself sound like you've got the numbers. And this
is where social media becomes very effective because with the
bot armies and such, you can you can make it
seem like remember remember when Rush Limbaugh got targeted for
the boycott, the Advertiser boycott, and he actually hired investigators
to go find like who is doing this because it
was all anonymous online people and I think I forget
the exact number, but it was basically like ten to
fifteen people and they had created what appeared to be
or what sounded like a large army, but it wasn't.
So that's the ears. Make yourself sound bigger, Maybe give
yourself some important sounding name. Oh my gosh, these these
sound this organization sounds powerful, sounds legitimate or whatever. Now,
if you if you, if you don't have the the
large army, and you can't make yourself sound like you're
larger than you are, well, then there's the nose. And
that is just to stink up the place. And that's
what we see in like the North Carolina General Assembly
with the Moral Monday protesters. We see it today, happened today,
happened yesterday in the General Assembly where the protesters go
in and they just they cause a scene. They stink
the place up, right, they disrupt. These are the tactics
and they've been the tactics for fifty years. Okay, so
back to the piece here by David Arsani. The problem
of leftists shutting down speech on campus is an old one.
According to a recent you gov poll, people who identify
themselves as very liberal people, which I think is a misnomer,
as does David, But people who are quote very liberal
are eight times more likely to say that political violence
is justified. Then very conservative people do eight times the rate.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and expression, fri or fire.
They put out their college free speech rankings every year,
and the latest one found that about one third of
students contend that using violence to stop a campus speech
is acceptable, about a third it's acceptable to use violence
to shut down freeze. This isn't even the Heckler's veto anymore, right,
that's not the Heckler's veto. That's the assassin's veto. That's
very dangerous. And this, of course is at the root
of this authoritarian mindset on the left that has to
silence opposition because they can no longer if they ever
could persuade based on rhetoric, based on oratory skills, based
on data, for whatever reason, they cannot convince you that
they are right, that you should do what they want.
So if you're not going to do what I want,
then I'm going to prevent you from making any case
against me. And by the way, this is not just
a leftist ideology. Islamists also engage in this very same
kind of behavior. There is a nexus of authoritarianism, of
tyrannical behavior. You're not even allowed to question this stuff
in either camp. You can't question. You question, you get
shouted down, you'll get canceled. Factions of the progressive left
have made heroes of murderers for decades, like Jay Govara
Castro Mao Stalin. For years, he says, I attended the
Conservative Political Action Conference or SEAPAC, and never once did
I witness anyone celebrating the legacy of a mass murderer
or terrorists. But whenever I go to the Socialism Conference
in Chicago, I can purchase a slew of their work
at the book sale. The only way for the mainstream
left to join the side of angels is to reject
Alensky's moral relativism. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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