Deliberate or Dysfunctional?

By William L. Garvin

During the presidential campaign, Candidate Obama was continually lauded for his new age prowess via his Blackberry while Candidate McCain was derided as a techno-troglodyte.  There was considerable ballyhoo relating to encrypting the Obamaphone as he was continually multi-tasking, perpetually wired and virtually on top of everything.  His campaign was praised in the highest terms for its sophisticated use of technology and supreme organization in gathering funds and voters.  Then there is his presidency.

Typical of many multi-taskers, there is very little multi-finishing.  For someone who is reputedly so technologically advanced, President Obama seems to get most of his information from the “same news reports you watch.”  How can someone who is so on top of things know nothing about “Fast and Furious,” know nothing about IRS targeting political opponents, know nothing about NSA spying, and know nothing about DOJ seizing AP and Fox reporter correspondence?  Furthermore, how could someone who was so directly involved that you would have thought he personally pulled the triggers on the Somali pirates and personally led the charge up the stairs to kill Bin Laden know so little about Benghazi?  Despite Candy Crowley’s erroneous lifeline in the 2012 debate, he never called Benghazi a terrorist attack until long after his “provocative video” cover story was exposed for the blatant lie that it was and is.

What is even more astounding is the absolute technological incompetence displayed throughout the Democrat rollout of Obamacare.  After more than three years of advance planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, the Democrats could not even build a functioning website.  What is wrong with this picture?  How could such aforementioned technological brilliance and organizational genius deteriorate into such an abysmal and unmitigated disaster?  Is this the final nail in the progressive belief that government can do everything and compelling evidence that big government has bitten off more than it can chew or could there be another explanation?

A socialist professor at Columbia University (President Obama’s alma mater) named Richard Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven (also a socialist professor) developed the Cloward-Piven strategy.  Inspired by Saul Alinsky, these left-wing, radical champions of the poor deliberately sought (Cloward died in 2001) and seek the destruction of capitalism by class warfare in physical terms.  Not satisfied with gradual evolution, they prefer violent revolution.  The overarching principle in their strategy is to overload the entitlement system by adding so many people to the roles that our economic system collapses.  Anarchy, chaos and violence will be the inevitable result.  If you need a visual picture, think of Greece in combination with a Mad Max film…Detroit on a national scale. 

As far back as 1966, Cloward and Piven wrote:  “It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor.  If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.”  In blunter terms, Cloward stated that poor people will only advance when “the rest of society is afraid of them.”  Cloward and Piven were instrumental in developing ACORN.  Cloward and Piven were standing behind President Clinton when he signed the “Motor Voter” act into law.  President Obama was a community organizer who practiced Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” tactics.  As a young lawyer, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit to implement the motor-voter law in Illinois.  President Obama has stated:  “I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”   President Obama has also promised to “fundamentally transform” America.  The question is, into what? 

Does the president envision some sort of socialist utopia?  Does he think that the Democratic Socialists, brandishing their shibboleths of social justice, economic justice, income inequality, and redistributive justice will step to the fore and bring about a “fair” New World Order?  Does he think this political-economic theory which has a one hundred percent failure rate elsewhere will somehow miraculously work here?  If so, maybe the failure of the trillion dollar stimulus makes sense.  If so, maybe his trillion dollar deficit years make sense.  If so, maybe a $17.3 trillion dollar national debt makes sense.  If so, maybe record numbers of people on food stamps and millions more too dispirited to even look for work makes sense.  In that perspective, the disastrous Obamacare policy and implementation makes sense.  It is not clear whether or not President Obama’s administration is consciously employing the Cloward-Piven strategies.  But if they were to do so, it’s crystal clear that they would only have to make minor adjustments to their current practices.