Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

[-1-]

People were shat on long before Keynes.

Humans, like almost all other species of animals living in social groups, do form hierarchical societies.

Folks been gettin' shit on by other folks since before we fell out of the trees, Keynes is just part of a very long chain.

As I say: this ain't news.

If three people agree and say the same thing on a philosophy website on a given topic, then there is something wrong with the site administration.

This thread must be got deleted, before this harmonious agreement-shit gets out of hand.

[Greta]

I am too stunned by the extraordinary lack of comprehension of my post to reply.

Forget it. I'm so bored with insincere game players like you lot.

Oh. Ok.

Not you.

[Greta]

I am not sure why it is that religious people have such a problem with healing the poor, which is what universal healthcare is supposed to be about.

Still, universal healthcare is not a feature of any country with a very large population. Large populations seem to inevitably become plutocracies - the wealthy in those nations are so powerful that they can dictate terms generally to favour themselves.

The US sure has some major problems at the moment. The whole world is looking on in horror over the past few years (at least) as if watching a car crash in slow motion. We are all wondering if the US will implode from the divisions being exploited and deepened by their uncompromisingly partisan polity, and what the global fallout another US crash would look like.

[henry quirk]

Yer right.

Let's start a petition.

[Nick_A]

America The Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea

O beautiful for Pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat, across the wilderness
America, America, God mend thine every flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control, Thy liberty in law

O beautiful for heroes proved, in liberating strife
Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life
America, America, May God they gold refine
Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine

O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea

America the beautiful has been replaced by the progressive utopia proving the genius of those like Marx and Alinsky. Where would we be without them?

[henry quirk]

It's gettin' there, but -- no -- not quite yet.

Commie Hell, er, I mean 'utopia', is still a lil bit down the road.

[henry quirk]

Let's start (another) petition.

[Nick_A]

Simone Weil wrote in “The Need For Roots:

The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.

It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations towards him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.

The notion of rights, being of an objective order, is inseparable from the notions of existence and reality. [The obligation] always involves to a certain extent the taking into account of actual given states and particular situations. Rights are always found to be related to certain conditions. Obligations alone remain independent of conditions. They belong to a realm situated above all conditions, because it is situated above this world.

Notice how the Alinsky agenda is only concerned with rights defined by the agenda. The idea of objective human obligations is foreign to it. Obligations are defined by the agenda. The essential obligation is to further the will of the agenda. It is what a slave does. That is why the greatest atrocities are justified when they are believed to further the agenda. “The Ends Justify The Means.”

A healthy free society needs a healthy balance between voluntary obligations and rights. Without it freedom must perish during the struggle over opposing rights.

From the Eight Levels of Control

6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools

For a society to appreciate the value of the balance between obligations and rights necessary for a free society to function requires both education and religion of a certain quality.

The Alinsky secular progressive agenda must prevent it and deny it at all cost. Their efforts have been so successful that only a relative few have thought about education and religion in this way. They have established preconceptions of what society and religion are. IYO What kind of education and religion could further the cause of the essential collective balance between voluntary obligations and rights in the cause of freedom?

[Walker]

IYO What kind of education and religion could further the cause of the essential collective balance between voluntary obligations and rights in the cause of freedom?

I think a kid should learn to vertically move through one topic, then vertically move into the next, and so on.
This is done by challenging the most basic of personally assumed truths, with inquiry.

This is a necessary balance to the information-age tug into horizontally broad and superficial knowledge.

Once a deep dive into thinking is possible for one topic, then it’s possible for other topics, and more topics are available in the course of a day as the facility of vertical diving and vertical ascent improves with practice. At the bottom (or peak) of the vertical movement is discovered the commonality within all topics.

This is the natural way of learning, since the natural way of thinking is to think one thing at a time anyway, although those enslaved by mind have no control over the cycling of one thought to another in rapid succession, and this gets perceived as a chaotic mind. OCD would be wonderful if it was controllable, but it’s called a disorder of the mind because it is not controllable.

The preparation for learning the vertical movement into a topic is to eliminate distractions, until relaxing into attention upon anything is learned (actively discovered), and distractions are naturally embraced into awareness without resistance and conflict.

This means no social media for the youngsters.
Actually, it means no computers or phones.

This is because the youngsters need to learn and absorb principles before they need to communicate all that they don’t know.

So, it’s back to books and slide rules for the ruggers until they pass beyond the ivy walls.

*

I’ve appreciated Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Brockwood School model since I first learned of it.

"This is the function of all education. We need to bring about a good society in which all human beings can live happily in peace, without violence, with security. As a student you are responsible for this."

Krishnamurti,
Letters to the Schools

[Nick_A]

Walker

I think a kid should learn to vertically move through one topic, then vertically move into the next, and so on.
This is done by challenging the most basic of personally assumed truths, with inquiry.

This is a necessary balance to the information-age tug into horizontally broad and superficial knowledge.

Please provide an example of what you mean by vertically moving through one topic.

Could this apply to the question of abortion for example. How could students vertically move through it?

[Walker]

Hey Nick. Krishmanurti wrote Think On These Things. You’ve likely read it. It’s a book about his philosophy of education, and a thinking demonstration for youngsters of all ages.

First paragraph of the book:
"I WONDER IF we have ever asked ourselves what education means. Why do
we go to school, why do we learn various subjects, why do we pass examinations
and compete with each other for better grades? What does this so-called
education mean, and what is it all about? This is really a very important question,
not only for the students, but also for the parents, for the teachers, and for
everyone who loves this earth. Why do we go through the struggle to be
educated? Is it merely in order to pass some examinations and get a job? Or is it
the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the
whole process of life? Having a job and earning one's livelihood is necessary -
but is that all? Are we being educated only for that? Surely, life is not merely a
job, an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a
great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings. If we merely
prepare ourselves to earn a livelihood, we shall miss the whole point of life; and
to understand life is much more important than merely to prepare for
examinations and become very proficient in mathematics, physics, or what you
will."
https://selfdefinition.org/krishnamurti ... Things.pdf

Otherwise, I’m laying back for a bit. Been contributing a lot about the implications of particular current events, which can now be buried under other threads.* Out of sight, out of mind.

* "Is Eva Longoria a force that wants sexiness to be the same as the uniqueness of socialism?"

[Walker]

The rules perpetually manifest, don't you know.

[-1-]

Please provide an example of what you mean by vertically moving through one topic.

Could this apply to the question of abortion for example. How could students vertically move through it?

Without intending to labour the point: Students would vertically move through it the same way as when studying for a proctology exam.

In computer science it's called the "bottom up approach to problem solving."

[Nick_A]

Walker

to understand life is much more important than merely to prepare for
examinations and become very proficient in mathematics, physics, or what you
will."

I agree. I was curious as to how you understood "verticality." It is normally considered only as a bottom up exercise as -1- describes. Is that how you understand verticlity?

[Nick_A]

“We must create a cosmic man, a man ruled by his conscience.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 133.)

Th concept of conscience as the foundation of the cosmic man must be destroyed by the secular mind responsible for Alinsky and communism in general. For them conscience can only be the subjective result of indoctrination by the agenda. The concept of objective conscience, a quality of apriori knowledge we can remember, is poison to the Alinsky mind since it questions the supremacy of the state in matters of right and wrong.