I thought I'd post this at the risk of sounding conspiratorial. The radical left (this is a self-applied descriptor, not a pejorative I conjured up) of the 60s didn't disappear in the 70s and 80s, they simply retreated into academia, so it is a fair assessment to say that some of the strategies from the 60s are still in use today.

Quote :

"The Cloward-Piven strategy refers to a political strategy outlined by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, then both sociologists and political activists at the Columbia University School of Social Work, in a 1966 article in The Nation. The two argued that many Americans who were eligible for welfare were not receiving benefits, and that a welfare enrollment drive would create a political crisis that would force U.S. politicians, particularly the Democratic Party, to enact legislation "establishing a guaranteed national income.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward-Piven_Strategy

Quote :

" In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands. The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-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. The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare -- about 8 million, at the time -- probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a "massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls." Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level." Their article called for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy." Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of "a federal program of income redistribution," in the form of a guaranteed living income for all -- working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967



Anyway, thoughts?

4/16/2009 6:04:31 PM

I just got back from a hard workout and am quickly enterring the post hoc protein shake coma so I am not processing thoughts very well, but is this what I am reading

1) Get more people on welfare
2) Cause the system to be bankrupt
...
4) Income guarantees for all


What happened between 2 and 4? Because of the bankruptcy, people got forced off welfare? I'll try reading it again before I pass out.

4/16/2009 8:39:05 PM

I'm amazed that people still thought like that as late as the 1960s. When was the last time that the US had an organized poor class that was capable of revolting when things got tough? As far as I can remember that usually takes the form of a handful of people throwing rocks at the police and a lot more people looting.

It seems completely ignorant of the social justice that has existed since the progressive era as well as completely ignorant of social science and human nature. That being said, I knew a few professors who would spout off shit like this.

4/17/2009 2:33:34 PM

So people that are unable to get out of poverty are somehow able to rise in revolt and make the rest of us pay them?

4/17/2009 2:44:13 PM

Pitchforks.

4/17/2009 3:31:47 PM

Quote :

"So people that are unable to get out of poverty are somehow able to rise in revolt and make the rest of us pay them?"

Did you fall asleep in history class growing up???

4/17/2009 6:57:55 PM

I apologize. I thought we could skip all the distance between the OP and my response, about how 2009 America is not 1917 Russia or 1790s France, how the people are not, by and large, being held down by anyone else (and when they are being held down, its usually the government using what they want to keep them down), and so on and decide the idea is just ridiculous and move on. However I realize that what is most wanted is something to argue about, so I hope I have made amends to give you ample material.

4/20/2009 8:21:38 AM