Posted on 12/03/2007 4:27:53 PM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, December 3, 2007 |
Permanent Link Past Columns |
HILLARY CLINTON is America’s leading gun-hater. This is no secret. Her “F” rating from the National Rifle Association merely confirms the obvious. More perplexing is why she hates guns. The explanation may lie in the teachings of Hillary's one-time political mentor Saul Alinsky.
As noted in last week’s column, Alinsky was a radical organizer who got his start building militant community groups in Chicago slums during the 1930s. Young Hillary met him through a leftwing church group in high school. She wrote her senior thesis about Alinsky at Wellesley College, and remained friends with him until Alinsky died in 1972. After law school, Alinsky operatives got Hillary an appointment to the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate investigative team in 1974.
Hillary’s ties to Alinsky run deep. Her tactics have long borne his imprint.
In 1971, Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals, a book destined to change the American left. In it, Alinsky mocked Sixties radicals as dilettantes who loved to talk revolution, but shunned the hard work of organizing the masses.
Especially irksome to Alinsky was loose talk of guns and bombs.
Such talk was fashionable in the Sixties. Student protestors loved quoting Chairman Mao's 1938 statement, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”.
Some activists, like those of the Black Panther Party, went beyond mere words. In their ten-point platform of October 1966, the Panthers declared, among other things, “The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self-defense.”
On May 2, 1967, Panther boss Bobby Seale led some 20 armed Panthers into the California State Capitol Building in Sacramento, brandishing loaded rifles, shotguns and pistols. They were protesting the Mulford Act, a pending bill that would bar Californians from carrying guns in public or in vehicles.
Police arrested Seale and five others, but pressed no weapons charges. Carrying guns was still legal in California. Prosecutors ended up charging the Panthers only with disturbing the peace.
Young Hillary Rodham supported the Black Panthers. At Yale, she helped defend the New Haven Nine, a group of Panthers who tortured to death a suspected police informant. Hillary worked closely with Panther attorney Charles Garry on the case. She was put in charge of monitoring the Panther trial for civil rights violations.
Despite her work on behalf of the Panthers, Hillary may have developed doubts about their tactics. Her mentor Saul Alinsky had harsh words for Panther gunmen. In his book Rules for Radicals, Alinsky expressed “contempt” for “those who leave their dead comrades and take off for Algeria or other points”.
Alinsky was no pacifist. In Rules for Radicals, he wrote, “The power of a gun may be used to enforce slavery, or to achieve freedom”. He rejected violence for practical reasons, not moral ones.
The problem with America, Alinsky wrote, was that rightwingers had more firepower than leftists. This made violent revolution impractical. “`Power comes out of the barrel of a gun!’ is an absurd rallying cry when the other side has all the guns,” Alinsky admonished his readers.
In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky noted approvingly that Lenin renounced violence upon returning to Russia from exile in April 1917. The Tsar had abdicated, but Social Democrats now controlled the government. Lenin’s Bolsheviks were outnumbered and outgunned.
Alinsky explained, “The essence of Lenin’s speeches during this period was `They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet’ And it was.”
Lenin did not have to wait long. He siezed power in an armed coup in October 1917.
As long as the right has more guns, the left should oppose guns, Alinsky concluded. Only when the balance of power shifts, and “appropriate weapons” became “available” to the left, should leftists consider turning to violence.
To what extent Senator Clinton adopted Alinsky's thinking on revolutionary violence we can only guess. However, her policy on guns is clear, whatever her motives may be. She seeks to disarm the American people, while arming herself to the hilt.
Hillary exhorts us to give up our guns for the common good. For herself, she aspires to the Presidency, from which perch she would wield power as America’s top law enforcement official, highest-ranking intelligence officer and commander-in-chief of the mightiest army, navy and air force in the world.
Something about this deal does not strike me as equitable. Or wise.
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Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF of my Hillary ping list.
Ping!
“To what extent Senator Clinton adopted Alinsky’s thinking on revolutionary violence we can only guess. However, her policy on guns is clear, whatever her motives may be. She seeks to disarm the American people, while arming herself to the hilt.”
This is all you had to say. Lets be succinct, shall we?
Hillary doesn't hate guns. She hates OUR guns.
Thank you Mr. Poe for the ping.
#
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=hillary
http://truthusa.com/a/index.php?topic=137.0
Because, of course, one might be used on her,......and Big Billy Jo, Jim Bob, Bubba Jo and Billy Jo Jim Bob Earl,...etc., etc., etc.
Not to mention Jimah Cahtah and all their commie friends and cohorts.
I’m not sure she hates guns as much as she hates people who want them. Guns, like environmentalism, abortion, AIDS and racial divisiveness, is a tailor made subject for whipping up the left-leaning emotional masses. It’s not about guns, babies or clean air; it’s about power.
I started reading your books because of Mister Robinson’s
Foreword.
They make me wonder “How does the greatest Nation in the
history of the world can turn out such traitorous scum?”.
The Clinton ethos on weapons and force can be summarized in one word; Waco.
Bump! Her pet panthers were challenged in Texas.
Good old Saul Alinsky. I was introduced to him in college through various professors and I still find as a conservative that I can just as easily use his methods against him and they can be against others.
The writer brings up some interesting points about Hillary’s motives and thinking, but I believe that his fears are unfounded. I’ve written this before and I still believe it - I think that the military would refuse to carry out any “revolutionary” actions by Hillary, the justice department in many parts would do the same, some of the states would tell her to go to hell, and many police departments would also do that same thing. Yes, her efforts would have the rabid support of the academics and the media, but I don’t think that anyone is fearful of a nighttime raid by a literature professor and the staff of the local newspaper. The military takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not the president, and they take that oath seriously. Despite the seemingly vast numbers of leftist judges out there, there are many who also support the Constitution, not the president. I’ve hung around enough cops to know they would simply ignore orders coming down from on high to commit crimes against the population.
I still see a President Hillary Clinton as a one-term president, spending her last year barking orders that no one obeys and making speeches that no one listens to.
“The problem with America, Alinsky wrote, was that rightwingers had more firepower than leftists. This made violent revolution impractical. “`Power comes out of the barrel of a gun!’ is an absurd rallying cry when the other side has all the guns,” Alinsky admonished his readers.”
I believe that’s the problem for Hill and really all leftists in a nutshell. Its the ability to resist their plans for the rest of us. A disarmed populace is much more willing to accept the intelligentsia ‘s grand design for our lives. Those guns can be a real nuisance.
bump for later
So very well said.
She does not “hate’ guns. She follows whatever the liberal view of the day is. She has no independent ideas. Liberal opinion leaders tell her she is to be pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-gray rights etc. So she is.
Hilary just hates freedom, in general. Hilary can’t hope to see her plans prevail,in a free nation.
BTTT, Bump
“I started reading your books because of Mister Robinson’s
Foreword.”
I found Free Republic by reading the forward in that book!
Another reason that Mrs. Hillary Clinton must NEVER be allowed anywhere near the White House, even on a tour!!
All conservatives, 911 moderates and Reagan democrats should get behind and support Fred Thompson to be the republican nominee. With his courtroom experience, knowledge of foreign and domestic affairs, and well-thought-out plans on the issues, he is the man that can defeat Senator Clinton.
Fred on the issues:
http://www.fred08.com/Principles/PrinciplesSummary.aspx?View=OnTheIssues
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