"A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING" Sunday May 17 at 1:30 PM EDT on EWTN (Television): Where did political correctness, gender conflict, gender confusion, Cu

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Watch it, Freddy - this Sunday - tomorrow. The issue here is not well described as simply “tactic.” Adolf Hitler’s driving force, schemes, horrors were far, far beyond merely “politics,” “ideas,” “philosophy” and “tactics.” Please get more information on this man, and what he has done to American politics, and his political influence within the Catholic Church and the left in general. This is no mere academic matter, and no merely academic discussion can touch it. What is at work here is deeper and darker than academia can probe.
 
It looks as though that post was “disappeared” - I tried to find it to see your reference, but…

Thanks anyway.
 
fide said:
Watch it, Freddy - this Sunday - tomorrow. The issue here is not well described as simply “tactic.” Adolf Hitler’s driving force, schemes, horrors were far, far beyond merely “politics,” “ideas,” “philosophy” and “tactics.” Please get more information on this man, and what he has done to American politics, and his political influence within the Catholic Church and the left in general. This is no mere academic matter, and no merely academic discussion can touch it. What is at work here is deeper and darker than academia can probe.
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I’m not in the US so won’t be watching it. But you, and others, seem to be confusing the political tactics used - the means, with the results of those tactics - the ends. The op and subsequent posts have simply questioned the tactics as used by the left. Not realsing that they are quite common across the political spectrum. Hence my comments re Trump to indicate that.

I tend to the left so I doubt if we’d get agreement on the ends. But there is nothing to stop us agreeing that the means are not exclusively a tool of the left.
 
Freddy, as I said, what is on the table in this thread is beyond a mere “means and ends” analysis. At stake here - in America and in the world - is a matter of the heart, and even deeper than the heart, the foundations of the soul. Are you familiar with Augustine’s “City of God”? He very well describes two cities being built by man - a continuing work begun at the beginning of humanity, that will continue until the end of this world. Two cities - ultimately driven, and being built, by two radically opposing loves: a love of God, to the contempt of self, and a love of self, to the contempt of God.

Yes there are those to be found working toward one city while living in the other, and those working toward the other while living in the one. To your point, yes there are bad people in both parties, as well as good. Some of the mixture is due to simple innocence, or ignorance; some , to deception and evil. There are manipulators on both sides. But in the end, all will be revealed; all hearts will be exposed; all souls unmasked.
The City of God — Book XIV, Chapter 28—Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly.

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience.

The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” [Ps. 3: 3] In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.”
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Can you not get EWTN in any country if you’re on the internet? I would think so - it is broadcast on their website, free.

Saul Alinsky was the kind of man not to be underestimated. Others will come in the same spirit, maybe one in your own neighborhood, one day.
 
fide said:
Freddy, as I said, what is on the table in this thread is beyond a mere “means and ends” analysis. At stake here - in America and in the world - is a matter of the heart, and even deeper than the heart, the foundations of the soul.
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What’s been on the table is a discussion of political tactics. Maybe you’ll get someone to discuss the heart and soul of your version of America with someone else.
 
Freddy said:
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fide:
Freddy, as I said, what is on the table in this thread is beyond a mere “means and ends” analysis. At stake here - in America and in the world - is a matter of the heart, and even deeper than the heart, the foundations of the soul.
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What’s been on the table is a discussion of political tactics. Maybe you’ll get someone to discuss the heart and soul of your version of America with someone else.
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No, that’s not all that’s been on the table. You’ve just been ignoring everything else on the table.
 
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27lw said:
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Freddy:
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fide:
Freddy, as I said, what is on the table in this thread is beyond a mere “means and ends” analysis. At stake here - in America and in the world - is a matter of the heart, and even deeper than the heart, the foundations of the soul.
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What’s been on the table is a discussion of political tactics. Maybe you’ll get someone to discuss the heart and soul of your version of America with someone else.
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No, that’s not all that’s been on the table. You’ve just been ignoring everything else on the table.
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Nah, it’s been pretty much on political tactics. Here’s some random snippets taken from different posts throughout the conversation (leaving all mine out):

Are Alinsky tactics being used by a few state Governors…

Fr. Mitch, as a young novice, had no idea what Alinsky-style community organizing was all about…

Saul’s tactics were precisely what he said Saul did…

What she is refering to is the “Us vs. Them” mentality in politics…

…align themselves with the devil’s sly tactics?

Alinsky was a divider.

The left has been using Alinksky’s tactics for decades…

But, his spiritual child agitates and organizes 2 onward…

Alinsky’s rules are just plain old political tactics…

Divide and conquer” is an old tactic, and it still works.

If you believe that there is a moral equivalence present in the tactics of Alinsky and the “Tea Party…

The issue here is not well described as simply “tactic.”
 
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That is quite scary. We are talking about a man who’s tactics are to ensure the communication of the enemy is not heard. And… no more post.
 
I’ve got that documentary on my Spectrum DVR record menu for tomorrow afternoon.

If you are going to be involved in public, civic life in any way whatsoever — and that includes voting and paying taxes —you absolutely need to read Rules For Radicals. You need to be able to recognize these techniques when they are used for evil, and realize that some (not all, but some) of these tactics can and should be used for good — the pro-life movement comes immediately to mind. It is not a complicated book, it is not a long book, and it is accessible to anyone. I distilled these principles down into a short summary and I’ll post them here later today (they are on my home main server which I haven’t powered up yet this morning, it’s in my son’s room and he is still asleep).

Let me make it clear that I am not a communist, a socialist, or a left-wing radical. As a practical matter, I vote in Democratic primaries to try to push that party towards the least objectionable candidates where, with rare exceptions (Dan Lipinski, John Bel Edwards, to some extent Joe Manchin et al) none of them are any good — that’s an “in the spirit of Alinsky” tactic right there! I am a Catholic monarchist and would like to see a commonwealth of social solidarity ruled by a benevolent Catholic king where everyone is pulling in the same direction, the Social Reign of Christ the King. But that is not our reality. In our present political system, we need to be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves”. Having a basic command of Alinsky’s principles falls under the “wise as serpents” rubric.

I would like to see Catholic social scientists “baptize” Alinsky’s thought the way Aquinas “baptized” Aristotelian thought.
 
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fide said:
Saul Alinsky was the kind of man not to be underestimated. Others will come in the same spirit, maybe one in your own neighborhood, one day.
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There are plenty of them now. Alinsky purported to be a socialist, even a Marxist, but like most socialists and Marxists, his goal was always simply power. There are plenty of Alinsky-ites in progressive circles right now. Remember, Obama worked for an Alinsky-ite group, and he certainly was a divider. But there are plenty more of them.

Alinsky-ism is like Leninism. It’s not really a societal goal, though it pretends to be. It’s a method of gaining and retaining power and nothing more.
 
Ridgerunner said:
It’s a method of gaining and retaining power and nothing more.
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Augustine saw it clearly - even in his long-ago day:
“they rule for the love of ruling.”

And at the base of their love for ruling:
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.
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This is why the issue today is crucial: there are men in power and seeking more of it, for the lust of grossly disordered love of self, even to the contempt of God - and His people.
 
Here it is, and please understand that I am merely distilling Alinsky for easy reference, not endorsing each and every one of his ideas.

Saul D. Alinsky, RULES FOR RADICALS: A PRACTICAL PRIMER FOR REALISTIC RADICALS (New York: Random House, 1971), ISBN 0-394-44341-1, 301.5 Alinsky, 196 pp, HB.

Key thoughts:
  • Evolution is simply the term used by nonparticipants to denote a particular sequence of revolutions as they synthesized into a specific major social change.
  • Revolution by the Have-Nots has a way of inducing a moral revelation among the Haves.
  • Three groups of mankind: Haves, Have-Nots, Have-a-Little, Want-Mores.
Of means and ends:
  • One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
  • The judgement of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgement.
  • In war the end justifies almost any means.
  • Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
  • Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
  • The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
  • Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
  • The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
  • Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
  • You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
  • Goals must be phrased in general terms like ’ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ', ’ Of the Common Welfare ', ’ Pursuit of Happiness’ , or ’ Bread and Peace '.
  • Does this particular end justify this particular means?
Ideal elements of an organizer:
  • Curiosity
  • Irreverence
  • Imagination
  • A sense of humor
  • A bit of a blurred vision of a better world
  • An organized personality
  • A well-integrated political schizoid
  • Ego
  • A free and open mind, and political relativity
  • Constantly creating the new out of the old
 
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Tactics (very important)
  • Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
  • Never go outside the experience of your people.
  • Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.
  • Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
  • Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
  • A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
  • A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
  • Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
  • The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
  • The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
  • If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside (every positive has its negative).
  • The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
  • Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
  • The real action is in the enemy’s reaction.
  • The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.
  • Tactics, like organization, like life, require that you move with the action.
 
That bit about “goals must be framed in general terms…”.
Kind of like the incredibly specific “hope and change”? 🤣
 
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Freddy said:
And did someone say the tea party was out to divide?
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Did you ever attend Tea Party events and rallies? I did. Those events were full of “they are our enemy and they are a danger and they are coming for you” rhetoric. Reminded me of a more emotional version of “the Russians are coming to take our Bibles and enslave our children” rallies of my childhood.
 
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27lw said:
His seminal work is called “Rules for Radicals”,
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Our Founding Fathers were Radicals.

As Christians we are called to be Radicals. The way we love our enemies is Radical. They way we love one another is Radical. The teaching, eating the Flesh and drinking Blood is the most radical of all!

Radical is not a bad word.
 
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LittleLady, the thing is, there really is a “monstrous enemy” - and he really does have human helpers - some wittingly, many unwittingly, but helpers of a monstrous purpose nevertheless.
 
However, this monstrous enemy is not registered to vote in the US.
 
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