The Economic Plan To Destory America: The Cloward-Piven Strategy -- Jim Simpson -- Circa 2008

Part I

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

Liberals self-righteously wrap themselves in the mantle of public spirit. They ardently promote policies promising to deliver the poor and oppressed from their latest misery - policies which can only find solution in the halls of government. But no matter what issue one examines, over the last fifty plus years, the liberal prescription has almost always been a failure.

Why is this so? Why does virtually every liberal scheme result in ever-increasing public spending while conditions seem to get continually worse? There are a number of reasons:

The programs usually create adverse incentives. This is especially true in so-called "anti-poverty" programs. The beneficiaries find government subsidies a replacement for, rather than a supplement to, gainful employment and eventually become incapable of supporting themselves. This in turn creates a dependent culture with its attendant toxic behaviors which demand still more government "remedies."
The programs create their own industry, complete with scads of "think tanks" and "experts" who survive on government research grants. These are the aptly named "Beltway Bandits."
They create their own bureaucracies, whose managers conspire with interested members of Congress to continually increase program funding, regardless of merit
Members of Congress secure votes and campaign donations by extorting them from beneficiaries of such programs, either through veiled threats - "vote for me or those mean Republicans will wipe out your benefits" - or promises of still more bennies.

In short, all develop a vested interest in the program's survival. But if the result is always more and more government, of government, by government, and for government, with no solution in sight, then why do liberals always see government as the solution rather than the problem?

Similarly, liberals use government to promote legislation that imposes mandates on the private sector to provide further benefits for selected groups. But the results are even more disastrous. For example, weighing the laws or stacking the courts to favor unions may provide short term security or higher pay for unionized labor, but has ultimately resulted in the collapse of entire domestic industries.

Another example is health care. The Dems are always trying to impose backdoor socialized medicine with incremental legislation. Why do you suppose American healthcare is in such crisis? Answer: the government has already become too deeply involved. For example, many hospitals are closing their doors because they are overwhelmed with the burden of caring for indigent patients, illegal immigrants and vagrants who must, by law, be admitted like everyone else, despite the fact that they cannot pay for services. Read about it here -Destroying Our Health Care. The net result is reduced availability of care for everyone, exactly the opposite of what liberals claim to want.

To further complicate things, liberal jurists and lawyers have created new theories of liability that utilize the legal system as a means to further redistribute income. This too, has resulted in higher costs and prices in affected industries, higher insurance costs, or in some cases, complete elimination of products or services.

Liberals' endless pursuit of "rights" for different groups also does little but create increasing divisions in our society. Liberal policy pits old against young, men against women, ethnic and racial groups against one another, even American citizens against illegal aliens, all in the name of "equality." The only result is anger, tension and equal misery for all.

How does any of this improve our lot?

Finally, when companies relocate overseas to avoid the high cost of unionized labor and heavy domestic regulation, liberals sarcastically excoriate them for "outsourcing" America. Yet, when it comes to certain domestic industries, liberals in Congress suddenly become free marketers and choose to buy from overseas contractors rather than domestic suppliers. This happened most recently with a huge military contract being outrageously awarded to the heavily subsidized European consortium, AIRBUS, over America's own Boeing. Since liberals claim to be so determined to "save the American worker," what gives?

You have to take a step further back and ask some fundamental questions. Why is the liberal public policy record one of such unmitigated disaster? I mean, even the worst batter hits one occasionally. No one bats zero. No one that is, except liberals.

Prior to the Republican takeover in Congress in 1994, Democrats had over fifty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress with substantial majorities most of the time. With all the time and money in the world - trillions spent - they couldn't fix a single thing, not one. Today's liberal has the same complaints, and the same old tired solutions. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

When things go bad all the time, despite the best efforts of all involved, I suggest to you something else is at work - something deeper, more malevolent.

I submit to you that it is not a mistake, the failure is deliberate!

There is a method to the madness, and the method even has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It was first elucidated in the 1960s by a pair of radical leftist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Former radical-turned-conservative, David Horowitz, describes it thusly:

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.

Part II

Exploring those organizations created to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy and their direct ties to Barack Obama and his presidential candidacy

America waits with baited breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.

Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors – Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.

Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.

But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis

In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress – with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent – the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

The 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 1971 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)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

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 "…the drain on local resources persists indefinitely."

ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear

In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke – like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) – was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN went nationwide.

Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN's website: "ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country," It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.

--Voting

On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote, have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993, a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places. That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony.

ACORN's voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:

Register as many democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.

In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor.

ACORN's website brags: "Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote." Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them were named Jive Turkey. For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.

Barack Obama ran ACORN's Project Vote in Chicago and his highly successful voter registration drive was credited with getting the disgraced former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun elected. Newsmax reiterates Cloward and Piven's aspirations for ACORN's voter registration efforts:

By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, they [Cloward & Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. that would re-distribute the nation's wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.

--Illegal Immigration

As I have written elsewhere, the Radical Left's offensive to promote illegal immigration is "Cloward-Piven on steroids." ACORN is at the forefront of this movement as well, and was a leading organization among a broad coalition of radical groups, including Soros' Open Society Institute, the Service Employees International Union (ACORN founder Wade Rathke also runs a SEIU chapter), and others, that became the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. CCIR fortunately failed to gain passage for the 2007 illegal immigrant amnesty bill, but its goals have not changed.

The burden of illegal immigration on our already overstressed welfare system has been widely documented. Some towns in California have even been taken over by illegal immigrant drug cartels. The disease, crime and overcrowding brought by illegal immigrants places a heavy burden on every segment of society and every level of government, threatening to split this country apart at the seams. In the meantime, radical leftist efforts to grant illegal immigrants citizenship guarantee a huge pool of new democrat voters. With little border control, terrorists can also filter in.

Obama aided ACORN as their lead attorney in a successful suit he brought against the Illinois state government to implement the Motor Voter law there. The law had been resisted by Republican Governor Jim Edgars, who feared the law was an opening to widespread vote fraud.

His fears were warranted as the Motor Voter law has since been cited as a major opportunity for vote fraud, especially for illegal immigrants, even terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal: "After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote…"

ACORN's dual offensives on voting and illegal immigration are handy complements. Both swell the voter rolls with reliable democrats while assaulting the country ACORN seeks to destroy with overwhelming new problems.

--Mortgage Crisis

And now we have the mortgage crisis, which has sent a shock wave through Wall Street and panicked world financial markets like no other since the stock market crash of 1929. But this is a problem created in Washington long ago. It originated with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The CRA was Carter's answer to a grassroots activist movement started in Chicago, and forced banks to make loans to low income, high risk customers. PhD economist and former Texas Senator Phil Gramm has called it: "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks."

ACORN aggressively sought to expand loans to low income groups using the CRA as a whip. Economist Stan Leibowitz wrote in the New York Post:

In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining"-claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.

In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications-but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.

ACORN showed its colors again in 1991, by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. Most significant of all, ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton Administration that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borne financial crisis we now confront. Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing, to promote subprime loans more aggressively.

As a New York Post article describes it:

A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.

Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.

Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing ... no credit scores ... undocumented income ... even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.

Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003.

The lender they were speaking of was Countrywide, which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship with ACORN. Countrywide had many friends on Capitol Hill as well.

Investor's Business Daily added:

The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. (Emphasis, mine.)

Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported: "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."

And if you think Washington policy makers cared about ACORN's negative influence, think again. Before this whole mess came down, a Democrat-sponsored bill on the table would have created an "Affordable Housing Trust Fund," granting ACORN access to approximately $500 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revenues with little or no oversight.

Even now, unbelievably – on the brink of national disaster – Democrats have insisted ACORN benefit from bailout negotiations! Senator Lindsay Graham reported last night (9/25/08) in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of On the Record that Democrats want 20 percent of the bailout money to go to ACORN!

This entire fiasco represents perhaps the pinnacle of ACORN's efforts to advance the Cloward-Piven Strategy and is a stark demonstration of the power they wield in Washington.

Enter Barack Obama

In attempting to capture the significance of Barack Obama's Radical Left connections and his relation to the Cloward Piven strategy, I constructed following flow chart. It is by no means complete. There are simply too many radical individuals and organizations to include them all here. But these are perhaps the most significant.

The chart puts Barack Obama at the epicenter of an incestuous stew of American radical leftism. Not only are his connections significant, they practically define who he is. Taken together, they constitute a who's who of the American radical left, and guiding all is the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Conspicuous in their absence are any connections at all with any other group, moderate, or even mildly leftist. They are all radicals, firmly bedded in the anti-American, communist, socialist, radical leftist mesh.

--Saul Alinsky

Most people are unaware that Barack Obama received his training in "community organizing" from Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. But he did. In and of itself that marks his heritage and training as that of a radical activist. One really needs go no further. But we have.

--Bill Ayers

Obama objects to being associated with SDS bomber Bill Ayers, claiming he is being smeared with "guilt by association." But they worked together at the Woods Fund. Today the Wall Street Journal added substantially to our knowledge by describing in great detail Obama's work over five years with SDS bomber Bill Ayers on the board of a non-profit, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, to push a radical agenda on public school children. As Stanley Kurtz states: "…the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."

Also included in the mix is John and Theresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charity, the Tides Foundation. A partial list of Tides grants tells you all you need to know: ACLU, ACORN, Center for American Progress, Center for Constitutional Rights (a communist front,) CAIR, Earth Justice, Institute for Policy Studies (KGB spy nest), National Lawyers Guild (oldest communist front in U.S.), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and practically every other radical group there is. ACORN's Wade Rathke runs a Tides subsidiary, the Tides Center.

--Carl Davidson and the New Party

We have heard about Bomber Bill, but we hear little about fellow SDS member Carl Davidson. According to Discover the Networks, Davidson was an early supporter of Barack Obama and a prominent member of Chicago's New Party, a synthesis of CPUSA members, Socialists, ACORN veterans and other radicals. Obama sought and received the New Party's endorsement, and they assisted with his campaign. The New Party also developed a strong relationship with ACORN. As an excellent article on the New Party observes: "Barack Obama knew what he was getting into and remains an ideal New Party candidate."

--George Soros

The chart also suggests the reason for George Soros' fervent support of Obama. The President of his Open Society Institute is Aryeh Neier, founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As mentioned above, three other former SDS members had extensive contact with Obama: Bill Ayers, Carl Davidson and Wade Rathke. Surely Aryeh Neier would have heard from his former colleagues of the promising new politician. More to the point, Neier is firmly committed to supporting the hugely successful radical organization, ACORN, and would be certain back their favored candidate, Barack Obama.

--ACORN

Obama has spent a large portion of his professional life working for ACORN or its subsidiaries, representing ACORN as a lawyer on some of its most critical issues, and training ACORN leaders. Stanley Kurtz's excellent National Review article, "Inside Obama's Acorn." also describes Obama's ACORN connection in detail. But I can't improve on Obama's own words:

I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career (emphasis added). Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. - Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007 (Courtesy Newsmax.)

In another excellent article on Obama's ACORN connections, Newsmax asks a nagging question:

It would be telling to know if Obama, during his years at Columbia, had occasion to meet Cloward and study the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

I will put it more bluntly: Barack Obama is fully aware of the Cloward-Piven strategy and has actively worked to achieve its goals for most of his adult life.

I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for???

As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns – both with money and campaign workers; it is inconceivable that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is inconceivable he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

Fast-forward to 2005 when an obsequious, servile and scraping Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus swearing in ceremony for newly-elected Illinois Senator, Barack Hussein Obama. Mudd called, the Congressional Black Caucus "our family" and "the conscience of Fannie Mae."

In 2005, Republicans sought to reign in Fannie and Freddie. Senator John McCain was at the forefront of that effort. But it failed due to an intense lobbying effort put forward by Fannie and Freddie.

In his few years as a U.S. senator, Obama has received campaign contributions of $126,349, from Fannie and Freddie, second only to the $165,400 received by Senator Chris Dodd, who has been getting donations from them since 1988. What makes Obama so special?

His closest advisers are a dirty laundry list of individuals at the heart of the financial crisis: former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson; Former Fannie Mae CEO and former Clinton Budget Director Frank Raines; and billionaire failed Superior Bank of Chicago Board Chair Penny Pritzger.

Johnson had to step down as adviser on Obama's V.P. search after this gem came out:

An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) report[1] from September 2004 found that, during Johnson's tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses in 1998.[2] A 2006 OFHEO report[3] found that Fannie Mae had substantially under-reported Johnson's compensation. Originally reported as $6-7 million, Johnson actually received approximately $21 million.

Obama denies ties to Raines but the Washington Post calls him a member of "Obama's political circle." Raines and Johnson were fined $3 million by the Office of Federal Housing Oversight for their manipulation of Fannie books. The fine is small change however, compared to the $50 million Raines was able to obtain in improper bonuses as a result of juggling the books.

Most significantly, Penny Pritzger, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama's presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as owner and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in life savings of the bank's approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn't seem to have come out of it too badly.

As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) authority. In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis.

Did they not know this would occur? Were these smart people, led by a Harvard graduate, unaware of the Econ 101 concept of moral hazard that results from the government making implicit guarantees to underwrite private sector financial risk? They should have known that freeing the mortgage market of risk, calamity was sure to ensue. I think they did.

Barack Obama, the Cloward-Piven candidate, no matter how he describes himself, has been a radical activist for most of his political career. That activism has been in support of organizations and initiatives that at their heart seek to tear the pillars of this nation asunder in order to replace them with their demented socialist vision. Their influence has spread so far and so wide that despite their blatant culpability in the current financial crisis, they are able to manipulate Capital Hill politicians to cut them into $140 billion of the bailout pie!

God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave.

And God save us from Barack Obama.

Part III

Conspiracy of the Lemmings: Barack Obama and the Radical Left's Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

Note: I am indebted to the incredible efforts of many bloggers, who did the yeoman's work of ferreting out many of the hard-to-find facts in this article. I particularly want to thank David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks team, Trevor Loudon of New Zeal blog, Cliff Kincaid, Herb Romerstein, Max Friedman, and others too numerous to mention. Links to all their work is provided where appropriate.

--Introduction

The United States of America is the world's marketplace. Without the worldwide trade generated by American demand, the international marketplace will fail. Today we are witnessing an undeniable demonstration of this fact as world markets reel in response to our domestic financial crisis. This lesson must be burnt into our collective conscience. Our nation is the last repository of free market economic principles, and a fundamental change in our government toward socialism will spell worldwide economic disaster from which we may never recover.

Yet this is exactly the endgame of the American radical Left-- increasingly indistinguishable from today's Democrat Party --and offers the only internally consistent explanation for their historic obsession with divisive policy. From their early support of Hitler to their central role in the current financial crisis, the Left's contribution to domestic and foreign policy at federal, state and local levels can only be described as wantonly destructive. Their takeover of schools and popular culture has been equally toxic. Their environmental radicalism has spawned the energy crisis, while offering no viable alternatives. It defies logic.

But there is logic, a deadly logic, and in the '60's, two radicals gave it a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. As explained in my prior article, the goal was to create a groundswell of demands for public services to overwhelm government, create crisis and usher in a widespread call for fundamental economic reform at the federal level, with socialism the ultimate goal.

Democrats embrace the rhetoric of "compassion," but look past the rhetoric to the results. This country is polarized as never before because of their relentless agitation for extremist positions on every issue, and the outrageous tactics they use to promote them. But while Radical Saul Alinsky's tactics guide today's Democrat electoral game plan, the Cloward-Piven Strategy describes the overarching goal of almost every leftwing organization/movement/ideal today.

--How do they Survive?

These organizations rarely produce anything of value, yet are extremely adept at not only surviving but flourishing. Many receive their financial backbone from prominent philanthropies. They also receive subsidies and tax breaks with the help of friends in federal, state and local government. This fact is unknown to most voters, who would be outraged if they fully understood how their tax dollars were being spent. For example, the radical group, ACORN, responsible for widespread voter fraud this year, gets about 40 percent of its revenues from federal, state and local government.

Our mass media is mostly to blame for the current state of affairs. The Left's strategies could not survive the light of day. Radicals require a sympathetic media to deliver their message in an acceptable fashion and actively suppress inconvenient facts that reveal these organizations' true character and agenda. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is perhaps the most poignant current example of this. Without mass media's shamelessly biased support, he would still be community organizing, or perhaps in jail.

It is a tangled web of radical interconnections with the ultimate goal being an end to our Constitutional framework, the fall of our Republic and its replacement with a radical vision of socialist utopia-- finally removing the last major roadblock to world socialism.

These radical individuals are highly motivated, in many cases intelligent and talented, and sometimes even driven by what they would describe as altruistic motives. Yet the impacts of socialist central planning are inarguably destructive.

Marx may have had some interesting insights on history, but despite his ponderous three volume "Das Kapital" he was no economist. Instead, Kapital provided the intellectual excuse for Marx's anarchistic Communist Manifesto.

And the severe verdict of history on his perverted vision is without equal: over 100 million people murdered by their own governments in times of peace, more than all the wars of history combined. The rest face abject poverty, mass starvation, economic and environmental ruin, all overseen by smothering, indescribably brutal governments-- a grey, barren existence for all but the apparatchiks.

So why are so many Westerners infatuated with this demented vision?

--Entrepreneurial Parasites

The high-minded types are driven by a galling sense of superiority. They are addicted to their own egos. They know better and can defy the verdict of history because people as smart as they are weren't around when Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Ethiopia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, etc., went Red.

Living well in affluent, capitalist America, it is all theoretical, so they can indulge their fantasies while promoting this destructive agenda with impunity. For these people ignorance is literally a blessing, for if they soberly analyzed their ego-driven beliefs, they would be embarrassed.

If you examine their pasts closely, you learn that most of these people also came from upper class backgrounds. PhD Chemistry Professor George Wiley, the black radical who led Cloward and Piven's National Welfare Rights Organization, was a well-to-do son of a Rhode Island family.

Wade Rathke, the NWRO veteran who started ACORN, was from a similarly well-to-do background, although he dropped out of Williams College.

Obama's radical friend Bill Ayers' family was very wealthy. Looking at his arrest photos, and listening to his smug self-righteousness, you really get the impression that he was little more than an arrogant, spoiled brat, with a titanic sense of entitlement that allowed him to rationalize mass murder.

This is a familiar story throughout the American left and indeed with many of the most infamous communist leaders around the world. For example, Communist China's first leader, Mao Zedong, the inspiration for Ayers and many other radicals, was son of the wealthiest man in his home town.

According to the incredible biography, Mao: the Unknown Story, he was lazy, arrogant, and refused to work, despite his father's repeated attempts to find him suitable employment. He finally saw an opportunity for real advancement working for the Soviets. During the Long March he was carried by porters.

As young idealists, many of these people are initially snared into this ideology by the exaggerated sense of self-importance that is often a characteristic of youth. But we all have to live, and as they grow up they discover that the radical profession can be a pretty lucrative racket. Despite their high-minded rhetoric about saving the poor and oppressed, communists and socialists are what I call entrepreneurial parasites.

Consider what they demand of us: sacrifice of all worldly goods to the state, penurious, barren lifstyles, slavish observance of their dictates and full-time commitment to the well-being of the state, while our jobs, careers, industries, the environment, even our lives are threatened. But how do they live?

Obama's pal Ayers, who describes himself as a "small 'c' communist," lives in a lavish home, in the upscale Hyde Park neighborhood, with a six-figure (or more) income. It is easy to see how, given the open spigot of money his organizations receive from the various non-profit funds he's ingratiated himself to. Bill Ayers father, Tom, had been CEO of Commonwealth Edison, so he's used to money, and later developments in his career point to a hand up from Daddy.

Barack lives in Hyde Park too. It is difficult to find anyone in the American Marxist elite who doesn't fully enjoy the fruits of capitalism in his or her personal life. In fact, Obama's early career seems to have been centered on dispensing foundation money as a means to secure his career in politics. Here and here are perfect examples. But more about this later.

Marxist austerity is only meant for the rest of us.

This taste for wealth is not limited to American socialists. Every socialist dictator from Stalin to Saddam has lived in opulent surroundings with multiple estates, scores of servants and every kind of luxury and indulgence available to them.

See for example, Gorbachev's dacha in Foros, Crimea; a testament to communist modesty if ever there was one. Same with all the leaders of communist countries. Indeed, Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was murdered for his extensive reporting on the opulent, decadent lifestyles of Bulgarian Communist leaders. It's a good racket, if you don't mind blood.

While socialist leaders live in lavish style, in every country where socialist policies are imposed, they measurably worsen the lives of everyday citizens in direct proportion to their scope. Even countries with vast natural resources, like Russia, founder because their economies are constructed on the fatally flawed economic principles of socialism.

Despite this, they still manage to live on, in many cases hanging by mere threads for years.

How?

The dirty little secret of socialism is that it cannot survive without capitalism-- capitalist countries provide the resources necessary for these socialist governments to continue. In addition to providing a market for their goods, Western nations keep socialist countries afloat through grants and loans from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other governmental institutions, as well as huge investments by private companies.

Even China, widely misunderstood as the next "free market," only practices market economics one-way in international trade while maintaining iron fisted central planning internally, and could not maintain its current level of economic growth without the markets provided by the United States and other Western countries.

Finally, there is a vast network of American enterprises, owned covertly by foreign dictators, whose true purpose is to provide underground income for these leaders and their socialist governments, while offering convenient cover for industrial and military spies. This fact is rarely mentioned and largely unknown.

At its core, socialism can only be parasitic. It cannot survive without its capitalist host. Therefore, if the United States becomes a socialist country, worldwide capital will soon dry up. Remaining market economies around the world will succumb either to their own internal socialist movements or direct military threat from abroad. Without the protective umbrella of American military might, they will have no other choice.

Without the markets and resources capitalist economies provide, the many socialist countries that have survived on our largesse until now will find their income stream shut off. The world will plunge into an unprecedented, cataclysmic depression. This depression will be of indeterminate length because the wherewithal for recovery-- a large capitalist economy --will no longer exist. With a world controlled by parasites, the host will die.

At this point even the parasites will be in danger. The socialists' internationalist agenda truly is a Conspiracy of the Lemmings. It is not merely a criminal conspiracy, it is criminally insane.

Barack Hussein Obama has been chosen as standard bearer to bring this agenda to fruition here. If he is elected we can expect a sea change in Washington. But it will not be for the better. The socialist economic agenda he has publicly articulated is enough in the current financial crisis to plunge our economy into deep recession. The disarmament agenda he has publicly articulated is enough to strip us of the meager defenses we currently have against a rogue missile attack, and Iran has already telegraphed plans to launch such an attack.

What is even more frightening is the agenda he has not shared, but is implicit in his radical upbringing, his radical connections, and his limited but demonstrative experience.

--Obama's Radical Roots

Are we beating this subject to death? Sorry, we have to. And there's much more, if you still need convincing. Obama hates being "associated" with radical individuals and organizations. But the truth is he hasn't been associated with them at all, he has been immersed in them. He is one of them. And it goes back to his youth.

There is no doubt that "Frank" in Obama's Dreams from My Father is longtime communist Frank Marshall Davis. It is probable that Davis convinced Obama to initiate his career in radical-friendly Chicago-- birthplace of the American Communist Party --where Davis was a very active communist party member before moving to Hawaii.

Obama was inspired by Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington, even writing for a job in his administration. Washington's successful campaign relied on a coalition of the American Communist Party, Democratic Socialists of America and other radicals. Washington may have been a secret communist party member himself.

Finally, given his unwillingness to release his birth certificate, some are conjecturing that Davis may be Obama's father. If so, it explains a lot about Obama's very radical political orientation. But it is not necessary in order to make the connections.

From Obama's earliest days as a community organizer and throughout his political career, he has been involved with and supported by a broad network of radical groups. It is likely that he was similarly influenced in college, but since he won't release any information about classes, grades, teachers, clubs or affiliations-- no information whatsoever --we don't have a complete picture.

--Who Sent You?

There is an old story about getting into Chicago politics that ends with the quote: "We don't want nobody that nobody sent." According to this article, the person who "sent" Obama was former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers. The reasons are many and compelling.

Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) -- Ayers chaired the Chicago School Reform Collaborative which was responsible for recruiting Barack Obama to chair the board of CAC in 1995. Barack remained chairman until 1999 and stayed with the board until CAC folded in 2001. Obama and Ayers shared the same 50 X 50 3rd floor office for three years when Obama chaired the CAC. How is it they didn't know each other? By the way, the CAC was not endowed with $49.2 million, as initially reported. Matching grants and tax dollars brought the total to three times that amount.

In addition to his work on CAC, Ayers ran the Small Schools Workshop out of the same address. Another former SDSer, Mike Klonsky co-chaired the Workshop and shared that office as well. Remember that name. Despite Chicago's failing schools, this project was intended to create charter schools focused not on basic skills, but developing young anti-capitalist partisans.

As chairman of CAC, working from the same office, Obama gave over $1 million to the Small Schools Workshop run by Ayers and Klonsky. Oh yes, Klonksy's wife, Susan worked there too. She was also a former SDS member. Just one big happy family. Obama apparently also managed to show his appreciation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's causes with CAC largesse.

But Obama's relationship with Ayers may go back much further than that. According to NationMaster.com encyclopedia:

The [Chicago School Reform] Collaborative was the operative on the ground body of the Challenge. It was made up of representatives of various constituencies in the Chicago school reform movement. That reform movement had begun in 1987 in the wake of an unpopular strike by Chicago teachers. Bill Ayers was active in that reform effort through a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. ABCs was an alliance of various activists and reform groups that included the Developing Communities Project which Barack Obama headed up at the time as well as Chicago United, a business sector group, that was headed up by Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers. Barack and Obama redirect here.(Emphases mine)

Thomas Ayers was the liberal former CEO of the Consolidated Edison (ConEd) power utility and was very active in Chicago education issues. ConEd was a client of Sidley & Austin, a prestigious Chicago law firm, and senior partner Howard Trienens was chief counsel to ConEd. Trienens also worked with Tom Ayers on the Board of Northwestern University. Bernardine Dohrn worked at Sidley until 1988, despite no law license or experience and was hired, according to Trienens, as a favor to "friends." She subsequently got a teaching job at Northwestern. Another favor?

Obama left for Harvard in 1988 but returned the next summer to intern with Sidley. How did he get that job? Michelle Robinson (Obama) also worked for Sidley at the time and was Obama's supervisor. They were married in 1992. Given the time they spent at the same firm, Michelle probably knew Bernardine as well.

Barack later became chairman of the board of the Woods Fund (1999-2002). In this position he funneled millions to ACORN and other radical groups. The Woods family ran the fund until 1990, when it was taken over by George Kelm, who moved it politically to the left. Frank Woods Jr., the Fund administrator until 1980 also headed an Illinois coal company, Sahara Coal, which supplied ConEd, so it is likely the Ayers family was already familiar with the Fund and its principals.

Obama also served on the Board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994-2001. This organization funds a large number of gun control groups and did so during Obama's tenure. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was also one of Joyce's grant recipients. Obama worked for them too. During Obama's time at Woods and Joyce, those funds gave another $900 thousand to Small Schools. They also funded Bill Ayers' brother John's organization, Leadership for Quality Education, to the tune of $761,000. Obama worked on that board too! One very happy family.

Despite receiving almost $2 million in funding, the Small Schools Workshop and all of the other CAC initiatives were failures. Now, you could argue that Obama was only one Board member. But on the Woods board at least he was one of six. Bill Ayers was another. To suggest he didn't know about Ayers ideology and aspirations for the grants he was making would be to accuse him of abandoning his fiduciary responsibility. Would you expect that kind of incompetence from a Presidential candidate?

The way many radicals stay in business is by insinuating themselves onto various philanthropic boards, then dispensing grant monies to friends and fellow travelers, who in turn show their gratitude later. The organizations become a revolving door for these people, who move back and forth between them, or create new ones that they run with grants from their friends. Most American philanthropic organizations have been thusly captured by radicals, often perverting the organization's mission in a way that would horrify the founders if they knew. But most are dead.

In the case of Ayers, it appears he was dispensing a lot of philanthropy money, through Barack Obama, right back to himself in organizations he created and ran for the purpose-- the perfect entrepreneurial parasite. Note that little has come from all his efforts, other than to "mainstream" his lunatic fringe, destructive vision.

This method is also a perfect vehicle to groom someone for public office. Friends use their influence to help the aspiring politician secure a position of influence in a wealthy philanthropy. Using philanthropy money, the aspirant dispenses grants and aid back to those friends and others who later use their influence and connections to smooth the skids for the official candidacy. Once in office, the successful candidate uses his newfound influence to turn around and help his friends again. I believe this is the model Obama used to promote his political career.

But there's still more. When the CAC folded in 2001, they set up a follow-on organization called the Chicago Public Education Fund. Barack stayed on that board too, in an advisory role. One of the twelve board members was Penny Pritzker, currently the national finance chair of Obama's presidential campaign. Penny is notorious as the former chairman of the failed Superior Bank. She led the bank into substantial subprime mortgage investments, then cooked its books so she and her family, already one of the wealthiest in the country, could take record profits while the bank slowly failed. Wait a minute. That sounds just like Frank Raines, Obama's economics advisor, who did the same thing at Fannie Mae! Birds of a feather?

Pritzker was named in a class-action RICO lawsuit, and her family settled with the FDIC for a record $450 million in order to avoid another lawsuit. But the way it was structured, her family may yet come out ahead. Many depositors lost their life savings. These are the "champions of the middle class" Obama likes to work with.

As if all this weren't enough, it now appears that Ayers may have ghostwritten or at least heavily edited Obama's "Dreams From My Father." Obama got an astounding $125,000 advance in 1990 from Simon & Schuster for this first book. They dropped him because he was taking too long. He got a second advance for $40,000 from Random House. The book was finally published in 1995, the same time Ayers got him on the CAC board and helped launch his political career. Passages in his and Ayers' book use many similar unusual metaphors and phraseology, and the writing is of distinctly higher quality than Obama's scant and sophomoric efforts of earlier days. Obama, meanwhile, wrote a glowing review of one of Ayers books, here.

The media could easily reveal that Obama is more than just casual friends with Bill Ayers and that he's a radical to boot. The Los Angeles Times has a video tape of a farewell party given to departing University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi, a former advisor to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. (Yes, he's a "professor too!") This video shows Obama lavishing praise on the former terrorist. Next up is Obama's "neighbor" Bill Ayers. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Just for perspective, watch and hear what a former FBI assistant director has to say about Ayers. Or watch this hilarious video where Ayers calls the police to avoid an O'Reilly Factor reporter. As Bill O'Reilly observed, given that Ayers tried to bomb the police years ago, that is indeed ironic.

But the most chilling of all is the testimony given by FBI informant Larry Grathwohl. See it here in this clip from a 1982 documentary. The Weather Underground planned to build re-education camps in the American Southwest. Those who wouldn't submit to the program would be murdered. The Underground estimated they would have to kill about 25 million Americans. Grathwohl was assigned to Bill Ayers. Following is a summary of his impressions:

Grathwohl found Ayers hard to love; he seemed self-important, a controller of subordinates, the type who loved to give orders. Ayers was a key leader. Grathwohl, a government informant, wrote that Ayers had helped direct a pair of attempted police building bombings in Detroit in February 1970. After doing his assigned job in reconnaissance, Grathwohl disagreed with Mr. Ayers over the placement of one bomb, which could easily kill black patrons who favored an adjacent restaurant, but that Ayers dismissed such sentimentality as unrevolutionary. The informant was glad to be dismissed from the operation by Ayers. Forty-four sticks of dynamite were then formed into two bombs and put into place, before Grathwohl's information allowed police to dismantle both. Ayers' memoir - which freely admits to incompleteness - says nothing of this episode, or Detroit, or the month of February 1970.

A big question about Obama's early life is who paid for it? Who paid for his Columbia and Harvard educations? Who were his patrons? One was Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour. Mansour, who's name in an earlier life was Don Warden, is a virulently racist black nationalist with ties to the Saudi royal family, specifically Prince Alaweed. After 9-11 Alaweed offered $10 million to New York City but was turned down by Mayor Giuliani when Alaweed suggested we were to blame for 9-11. See a video about Mansour here. For someone who never heard Rev. Wright's hateful speeches, Obama sure knows how to pick 'em. Newsmax has a good backgrounder, here.

Another patron is Tony Rezko. His relationship with Obama seems to have been a fairly straight forward you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours scenario. Obama's law firm worked on Rezko projects and Obama helped Rezko businesses with legislation and Woods Fund grants. There's more to this story, but I'd have to write a book.

--Obama's Radical Support Network

Obama has been groomed and supported by such a large number of radical groups it is difficult to chart it all. But the following list represents the best known and significant groups that have provided the intellectual grounding for his ideology and the material support for his political campaigns:

Democratic Socialists of America -- The DSA describes itself as "the largest socialist organization in the U.S. and principle U.S. affiliate of the socialist international" which traces its roots to Marx's first organization. DSA has endorsed Obama and provided an army of on-the-ground campaign workers. Their members are even boasting credit for the success of his ground game. This organization is probably the largest base of Obama's support. The DSA endorsed Obama as far back as 1996, when he first launched his political career.

Here is what the DSA has to say in their endorsement of Obama for President:

While recognizing the critical limitations of the Obama candidacy and the American political system, DSA believes that the possible election of Senator Obama to the presidency in November represents a potential opening for social and labor movements to generate the political momentum necessary to implement a progressive political agenda. (Emphasis added)

WorldNetDaily did an expose on the DSA in 1999, revealing their direct link with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which Nancy Pelosi was a prominent member. Following this revelation, DSA edited its website, removing the links between the two organizations and some other damaging information. As WND relates:

Prior to the cleanup of its website in 1999, the DSA included a song list featuring "The Internationale," the worldwide anthem of communism and socialism. Another song on the site was "Red Revolution" sung to the tune of "Red Robin." The lyrics went: "When the Red Revolution brings its solution along, along, there'll be no more lootin' when we start shootin' that Wall Street throng. ..." Another song removed after WorldNetDaily's expose was "Are You Sleeping, Bourgeoisie?" The lyrics went: "Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie. And when the revolution comes, We'll kill you all with knives and guns, Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie." (Emphasis mine)

Newsflash to you "middle class" families Obama trying to woo with tax cut promises, you are the bourgeoisie!

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) -- Started in Chicago in 1919, the American Communist Party was under the control of the Soviet KGB until 1989, and may still be under the guidance of KGB successor SVR. While the CPUSA provides fertile recruiting ground for espionage agents in government and business, its main purpose was to provide the Soviets or "Russians" if you prefer, a back door entrance into our political system. The Communist Party supports a political platform virtually identical to Obama's in many aspects. See the chart below. There is, of course, no doubt about who they support, and their endorsement largely parrots what DSA has to say.

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) -- Another CPUSA splinter group with many Communist Party members and a hodgepodge of others. Early Obama patron Carl Davidson serves on the CCDS National Council. He was prominent in the New Party, which Obama joined.

New Party -- A political party that promoted electoral fusion, formed of DSA, ACORN, CCDS and CPUSA members. Barack joined the New Party early in his political career and according to the DSA "encouraged NPers to join his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration." So not only was he a member of an avowedly socialist organization, he encouraged its members to work with him. Cloward Piven Strategy co-author Frances Fox Piven was also a New Party member. Carl Davidson was also a prominent member. The New Party folded when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling making electoral fusion more problematic-- though it is still practiced in a few states, notably New York. But many New Party members were instrumental in creating the umbrella group, Progressives for Obama.

Students for a Democratic Society (recently revived) -- This newly reformed SDS has 130 or more chapters in the U.S. as of this writing and was designed to attract young radicals into the fold. This SDS was behind much of the violence at the Republican Party convention in Minnesota this year.

Movement for a Democratic Society -- Yet another new party, this time created for the SDS old-timers. MDS and SDS are mutually supportive, with MDS supplying the brains and SDS supplying the brawn. This organization includes the old SDS members we are getting to know: Ayers, Dohrn, Davidson, Klonsky, and many others. Most of the radicals closely associated with Obama have an SDS past. This group founded Progressives for Obama.

Black Radical Congress -- Founded in 1998 in Chicago by some New Party leaders and other black radicals. Endorsed by prominent CPUSA members and has many ties to that group. Member Bill Fletcher was a co-founder of Progressives for Obama.

Progressives for Obama -- Founded by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich and Danny Glover. Carl Davidson is webmaster. All but Glover are MDS members. Glover is considered a socialist although he is not a listed DSA member.

New Black Panther Party -- A friendly bunch as you can see from their website. All you need to do is watch this video. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Interestingly, the endorsement formerly posted on Obama's website, visible in the video and here, has been removed. The Panthers explain this embarrassment here. These people are real losers.

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)-- this group needs no introduction. In addition to being at the heart of the mortgage meltdown, ACORN is being cited once again for widespread voter fraud in 15 states. Given ACORN's boast of registering 1.5 million new voters this year, it is possible this election could be decided by fraudulent votes. In the meantime, it has been revealed that the Obama Campaign has paid at least $800,000 to an ACORN subsidiary for get-out-the-vote efforts. That the media has overlooked this glaring conflict of interest is astounding. Meanwhile, Obama has lied through his teeth about his longstanding ties to the group.

ACORN gets a sizeable share of its revenues from federal, state and local government subsidies. House Republican leader John Boehner's office estimated ACORN received at least $31 million from the feds since 1998. Despite government largesse, ACORN owes almost $4 million in back taxes, going back almost 20 years. A full report on this, along with funding sources and a good history of its activities and principals can be seen here. Boehner and others are calling on Congress to "defund ACORN."

But this isn't the whole story.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 passed in July puts about $500 million per year into the National Housing Trust Fund. This is separate from the huge amount the Democrats wanted to add in the October bailout bill, and there's probably some in that too, though I haven't checked.

The Trust Fund objects to Republican calling it a "slush fund for ACORN." They claim that "ACORN is ineligible to apply for or receive any dollars from the National Housing Trust Fund." But this is a deception. Another component of the Bill gives $100 million to the "Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation" for 2008. A list of grantees is here. ACORN Housing is 4th on the list, receiving $7.9 million. There are many other similar organizations listed, some of which could be ACORN offshoots as well. Similarly, if ACORN cannot receive grants directly from the Trust Fund, I am sure they are adept at getting handouts from grantees.

When the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, I called it an electoral disaster of epic proportions. It gets worse by the day.

--Radical Individuals Who Shaped Obama's Agenda

Frank Marshall Davis -- Communist Party member who was investigated by the FBI for 19 years. Had perhaps the most profound effect on Obama and probably pointed him toward Chicago.

Carl Davidson -- SDS, MDS, CPUSA, CCDS, leadership position in New Party, supported Obama early on. Davidson's recently declassified FBI file reveals that he traveled to Cuba and worked with the Cubans during the Vietnam War to sabotage our war effort. He was a traitor.

Mike Klonsky -- SDS, led the Maoist Communist Party - Marxist.Leninist (CPML). Although he never joined the Weathermen, Klonsky's FBI file shows the same activity as Davidson. Davidson was also a member of Mike's CPML.

Tom Hayden -- SDS, MDS, Founder, Progressives for Obama. Also the subject of FBI surveillance.

Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn -- Need we say more about him? Read about their treasonous interaction with Cuban intelligence here. Dohrn is, if anything, an even bigger whack job than Ayers. Watch her in a 1998 interview with ABC's Connie Chung, here, and another short gem here.

A report has come out summarizing everything these people did. You can read it here. The FBI file, some 400 plus pages, is available here.

Frances Fox Piven, longtime DSA member, who also served on the boards of the ACLU and the DSA, was the co-author of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. She was one of the original signatories of Progressives for Obama. She was also a New Party member. Her husband, Richard Cloward, died in 2001, so fortunately can do no more damage than he already has.

Last January Piven also signed a separate letter opposing Hillary and endorsing Obama's Presidency from an organization called "New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama." You can hear her defend Karl Marx in an NPR interview, May 1, 1996, here.

Finally, we have George Soros, his Open Society Institute and other "philanthropies." Soros has publicly stated his belief that "The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States," and it is necessary to "puncture the bubble of American supremacy. From a FrontPage Magazine interview with author Richard Poe:

Most Americans do not realize that the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 was a Trojan Horse. Its stated purpose was to reform campaign finance law. Its actual effect is to regulate political speech. McCain-Feingold was a Shadow Party initiative. Soros and a group of leftwing foundations spent over $140 million to get it passed.

As part of the plan, before the legislation even passed, Soros' group intended to set up previously unheard of "527" organizations to get around the legislation they helped author. Republicans were, as usual, in the dark. Now the 527's like MoveOn.org, heavily funded with Soros money, do his bidding. Soros also managed to get himself and others like him exempted from donation caps in the campaign finance reform law. Finally, it is difficult to know if Soros has had any influence in our current financial crisis, but he certainly has had a hand in others.

As mentioned in my earlier Crisis article, one of SDS's orginal founders, Aryeh Neier now runs Soros' Open Society Institute. One VERY BIG happy family.

But it gets better still! Director of the Open Society Policy Center is Morton Halperin, who has spent a lifetime working against the interests of the United States. According to a prominent former State Department official: "Halperin has been known on embassy [briefing] cards as a Soviet or communist agent." Bill Clinton tried to get him an appointment to the Department of Defense, but Republicans successfully fought the nomination, citing security concerns.

Halperin's son, Mark, has been the Political Director of ABC News since 1997. He penned the infamous memo in 2004, telling journalists to ignore John Kerry misstatements while magnifying Bush's. From Discover The Networks:

We have a responsibility," Halperin's memo continued, "to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable..."

Now we begin to understand where the media bias comes from. Similar partisans are highly placed in almost every other television news show, with the possible exception of Fox.

--Obama's Policy Positions Indistinguishable from Communists and Socialists

Obama's website offers a much more "nuanced" explanation of his policies, but on the critical issues listed below, there is remarkable similarity to the Communist and Socialist positions on almost every issue. In fact, one might easily conclude he was inspired by them, since they were there first and their positions almost never change.

Obama has openly admitted that he wants to raise top marginal tax rates back to "Reagan Era" levels, although his most recent campaign literature says "Clinton Era" levels. His website tax issue page also states: "Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years." This means retroactive tax increases to 2001!

In a 2001 radio interview, Obama considers Supreme Court's failure to consider "redistribution of income" as a shortcoming that needs to be remedied.

As this video makes startlingly clear, Obama promises to make deep cuts in defense spending and gut our defense posture, regardless of the more "nuanced" tone of his website. Obama is unequivocal in his call for universal health insurance, although once again, his website muddies this fact with promises of tax credits for private insurance. His preference for the UN and other international bodies not particularly friendly to the U.S. is well known.

Obama fully supports the very deceptively named "Employee Free Choice Act," which abolishes the secret ballot and forces employees to reveal how they vote on union issues. A setup for union intimidation, this unprecedented legislation is truly Orwellian. If you want some shocking perspective, even Nixon-era, far left former presidential candidate George McGovern has gone on the warpath against this very anti-democratic legislation, with an article, a commercial and multiple TV interviews.

--Radical Help Waiting in the Wings

There is a ready pool of radicals waiting to push Obama's agenda in Congress.

Congressional Progressive Caucus-- Largest partisan caucus in the House of Representatives --with 71 members comprises about 1/3 of all House Democrats. Avowed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) retains his membership. The Caucus maintained a formal relationship with the DSA until 1999, when an article by WorldNetDaily exposed the links between the two.

Congressional Black Caucus -- at the center of the mortgage crisis, the congressional black caucus welcomed the newly minted Senator Obama in 2005 with a sickeningly toadying speech by the CEO of Fannie Mae. As we all know by now, Obama received more money from Fannie Mae in his three short years as Senator than anyone other than Finance Chairman Chris Dodd. Why? No one has asked!

Some have conjectured that Obama may not really be all that radical himself. Maybe somehow he has just played along with these groups to get their support. I doubt it, but even were it true, so what? It should be painfully apparent to anyone reading this that Obama has committed himself too deeply and owes too much to too many to abandon the radical path he has taken. Isn't that why they supported him in the first place?

--What did Biden Mean?

Earlier this week, Joe Biden made some astounding comments on the campaign trail, not once, but on two different occasions. Following are Biden's words, as quoted by Amanda Carpenter. There were two separate statements, of equal import as far as I am concerned, and I will try to interpret each in turn:

"Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," Biden said. "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

"Gird your loins," Biden warned. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than-- think about it, literally, think about it --this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Regarding the first statement, moronic as it was of him to say so, Biden is right. Our enemies will certainly see vulnerability with Obama as President. Now, as to his remark that "...it's not gonna be apparent that we're right," I believe that what he means is that Obama will back down from any confrontation. Here's why.

Both Barack and Biden are anti-war. But to truly understand the anti-war movement you have to go back to the beginning and get correct working definitions.

If you recall during the Vietnam War, America's peace activists never had a problem with North Vietnamese flagrant violations of peace agreements, their double-dealing in negotiations, their torture of U.S. POWs, their mass murder of South Vietnamese after we pulled out, or their genocidal holocaust against the indigenous tribes that is ongoing to this day. The silence is deafening.

Our enemies seemingly can do no wrong. Even when al Zarkawi began beheading Americans in Iraq, who did the "peace activists" blame? They certainly weren't calling for his head!

It seems inconsistent that a "peace" movement's "anti-war" stance would be so overtly pro-war when it comes to our enemies. But there is a rational, logical explanation, believe it or not.

From their earliest days, Soviet communists always professed an ardent desire for "peace." They have been relentless in making that claim. However, they have a unique definition of peace:

Lenin said: "As long as capitalism and Socialism exist, we cannot live in peace-- In the end, one or the other will triumph." William E. Odom explains: "The Soviet definition of Peace is unique and incompatible with Western definitions. Defense, in this peculiar Soviet sense, means offense. Peace means the destruction of all non-socialist states-- peaceful coexistence was a strategy for irreconcilable struggle, political and military, with capitalism. Peaceful coexistence remains Soviet strategy today."

To the Soviets, "peace" is defined as that point in history when all Soviet enemies, real or potential, are utterly destroyed. This definition does not only refer to external enemies. It includes all enemies. Thus, while maintaining an offensive posture to the world, in Soviet Russia, Lenin and Stalin murdered 40 million of their own. In China, Mao and his monsters murdered 70 million; Vietnam, 2 million; Cambodia, 2 million, Soviet-controlled Afghanistan, 1 million, Saddam's Iraq, at least 300,000, and so on. All other communist countries do the same. It is communist doctrine to obliterate any and all enemies, real, potential or imagined-- within and when possible, without.

Western "peace" activists fully understand the Soviet definition, and therefore believe that "world peace" can only be achieved when all the enemies of socialism are destroyed-- in other words, when the entire world becomes socialist. Since peace activists are almost all socialists themselves, by working for socialism, they believe they are automatically working for world "peace."

Finally, many of the so-called "peace" activists were overtly pro-war. Bill Ayers' 1974 diatribe "Prairie Fire" specifically stated that they were not anti-war at all, but in favor of Communist victory in the Vietnam War.

But even if you take the most benign view of "peace activism," properly understood, it means that peace activists will seek capitulation to the communist juggernaut, if only to avoid the war that is otherwise certain to come.

Now, I know what you are saying, that communism is supposedly dead. The Soviet Union was defeated by Reagan, SDI, etc. Ignoring for a moment the Chinese Communist elephant in the tent, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and all the other unrepentant communist countries, or the fact that communism has been enjoying a worldwide resurgence lately and the mounting fear that Russia never really abandoned it, regardless, socialists in this country and elsewhere remain determined to see capitalism fall-- it is their raison d'etre --and America is the last bastion of capitalism.

Remember, this is the ultimate goal of the Cloward Piven Strategy, and it matters little how they get there.

So Socialist Obama, believing as he does that the answer to everything is socialism, will do everything possible to undermine our defense posture, as he has already promised. And because he is interested in replacing our capitalist society with a socialist one, if we are attacked he will not fight. As he has promised, he will prefer to "negotiate without preconditions." Hence Biden's statement that "...it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

If the aggressor is one of the large communist countries, he will capitulate. North Korea? He will do nothing. After all, their aggression is our fault-- sorry, Bush's fault. But what happens if the aggressor is Iran? For some reason he is unafraid of a Muslim Caliphate. Perhaps that is because he knows, like some of the rest of us, that the Muslims and Leftists are working together to destroy this country.

Biden's second comment, ending with the line: "This is a systemic problem (emphasis mine) we have with this economy," is also chilling. It suggests he believes the capitalist system is the problem-- not a big surprise if you accept my argument that this is a socialist ticket. And you cannot conclude differently if you acknowledge the fact that Obama's economic policies are socialist to the core. It reaffirms what we have been predicting for a while now: a President Obama will quickly begin moving this country into the socialist camp with his socialist economic policies.

Both statements reinforce the impression that we are in for bad times if Obama is elected-- bad times most Americans cannot begin to imagine. Thanks for the heads up, Joe.

This election may well be the most important in our nation's history. An Obama presidency could not come at a worse time. The world economy stand on the edge of an abyss. If enacted, Obama's socialist class warfare economic policies will push it right over the edge and we could see the nightmare scenario outlined earlier come to fruition. As it stands now, the market is already reacting to fears of Obama's socialist economic policies.

Perhaps this is the place to also note that Hillary backers are claiming widespread vote fraud and intimidation from the Obama camp during the primaries. They have produced a video, here. Read a summary, here and an exhaustive study, here. Now comes the October surprise. A letter from Hillary's campaign sent to the Nevada Democrat State Party Chair alleges:

"...a premeditated and predesigned plan by the Obama campaign to engage in systematic corruption of the Party's caucus procedures. Compounding this blatant distortion of the caucus rules was an egregious effort by the Obama campaign to manipulate the voter registration process in its own favor, thereby disenfranchising countless voters. Finally, the committee has received a vast number of reliable reports of voter suppression and intimidation by the Obama campaign or its allies." (Emphasis mine.)

The media silence on this story that surfaced on October 23 is deafening, although apparently the Clintons don't care too much as they have been out on the stump for Obama of late. Political survival seems always foremost for the Clintons. What else is new.

And now I'll tell you why I think they have pulled out all the stops. From eye-popping, unprecedented bias in the media to biased opinion polls, from unprecedented levels of questionable donations, including illegal foreign money flowing into Obama's campaign coffers, to astronomical levels of voter registration fraud, there has never been an election season like this. They are going for broke because they believe that this is the last time they will ever have to do it. With majorities in both houses of Congress and a leftist in the White House, they will finally own the store completely. They are hoping to never have to give it up again.

When Obama said: "We are the ones We have been waiting for" he was talking about "we the communists."

I can only hope and pray that it is not too late for our great country.

Do not vote for Barack Obama!

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The Economic Plan To Destory America: The Cloward-Piven Strategy -- Jim Simpson -- Circa 2008

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