Pat Boone Calls The President A Marxist

[jmm99]

Alinsky suggests in Rules that we have three basic groups: Haves, Have Nots and Have Some & Want Mores. While his tactics are not inherently left or right, they are inherently useful only to an "outsider" group - to Have Nots vs Haves and/or Have Some & Want Mores (e.g., his community activism in Chicago); or to Have Some & Want Mores vs Haves (e.g., his later advocacy of stockholder activism).

Should Alinsky's personal political ideology (as opposed to his tactics, which are not so classifiable) be classified as "markist", "socialist", "populist"; or as an individualistic blend belonging to no group ? He claimed the last.

As to President Obama, my belief is that he tends to be more "socialist-populist" on domestic issues than any thing else. He has certainly tied into the Haves and Have Nots dichotomy; and has used that issue very effectively against the Republicans in general, and against Mitt Romney in particular.

Using the Haves and Have Nots dichotomy may be as much pragmatism as ideology on the President's part. It ties into what a substantial segment of Americans perceive (and therefore, believe). That is: Let’s Make a Deal; Meals and Unequal Wealth Distribution (by Joyce Arnold on March 7, 2013), which includes a 6+ min video on Wealth Inequality in America.

The report which underlies the video can be read here: Norton, Building a Better America--One Wealth Quintile at a Time (2011). The bottom line of the report:

Wealth Inequality.jpg

Fig. 2. The actual United States wealth distribution plotted against the estimated and ideal distributions across all respondents. Because of their small percentage share of total wealth, both the ‘‘4th 20%’’ value (0.2%) and the ‘‘Bottom 20%’’ value (0.1%) are not visible in the ‘‘Actual’’ distribution.

This material could as well be used by conservative populists (e.g., William J. Bryan and Tom Watson) as by leftist "marxists-socialists" (e.g, Gene Debs and Bill Foster).

Regards

Mike

PS: the infiltration of canines into the feline Tidy Cat world began innocently enough:



but allowed the bloodhound to get his nose into the tent. After that, the rest was "his story". Really, a classic in infiltration and subversion.