Cloward-Piven Strategy

[cobra de capell]

______

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

Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, 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.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called "crisis strategy" or "Cloward-Piven Strategy," as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

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 1989 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.

This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements -- mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown -- providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven's article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States -- often violently -- bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law "entitled" them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

Regarding Wiley's tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, "There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests - and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones."

These methods proved effective. "The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams," writes Sol Stern in the City Journal. "From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy."

As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.

The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York's welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in "the end of welfare as we know it" -- the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. "This wasn't an accident," Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. "It wasn't an atmospheric thing, it wasn't supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare."

Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new "voting rights movement," which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new "voting rights" movement was led by veterans of George Wiley's welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

All three of these organizations -- ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE -- set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with "dead wood" -- invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people -- thus opening the door to the unprecedented levels of voter fraud and "voter disenfranchisement" claims that followed in subsequent elections.

The new "voting rights" coalition combines mass voter registration drives -- typically featuring high levels of fraud -- with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of "racism" and "disenfranchisement," and "direct action" (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America's welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation's understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries.

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros's Open Society Institute and his "Shadow Party," through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left's most ambitious campaigns.

[cobra de capell]

Post above.......

A long read, but hopefully a few here will get through it.....most posters here will ignore this thread as no big deal - a rant from the right, but if you have children and grand children.....consider looking into what is actually happening in America on your watch.....

It's interesting to note that while all of us are going about our lives, groups of people are out there implementing 'strategies' to bring down capitalism in our lifetime - to bring down America as we know it - they have access to a ton of money and Obama is now their candidate for POTUS with an excellent chance that he will win next month.

The thing is that only a few people have connected the dots between Obama and radical groups with that connection discounted to nothing important by the news media. It is simply awesome that Obama and his people, his supportors may get away with the take over of America. A democrat house, senate and presidency for just a few years will change your life as you know it. Supreme Court judges will probably elect to retire during those few years - adding to the downward trend to the left. God save America.

[cobra bill]

Well I did read it and found it fascinating, I for one am appalled at anyone that would work to fix an election, whether from caging or what was described in this article, we all need to be weary of voter fraud, as well as caging and disenfranchising. That said I also believe that the republicans have always been great at getting out the vote there by allowing a minority to dictate policy, though one cannot blame them, one would have to blame the democrats for not getting out and voting! I very much feel the country is heading in the wrong direction, and have always believed that if the party won the election fair and square then so be it, the people have spoken. I just wonder if this is a scare tactic, much like inciting people at the rallies to shout out such vile things as terrorist and kill him, for one this is illegal to incite this kind of discourse, but it seems in this country we have just enough lunatics and crazies to actually buy into this kind of talk. You may not like Obama, and that's fine but he wants what's best for this country just as we all do, we don't all have the same idea of what's best, but then that's what makes our country great is the diversity of ideas in this great country! if there is proof of any affiliation with a militant group as described above, I will change my vote, otherwise it's just scare tactics just like what McCain is spewing at this point because he has nothing left.

[J. T. Toad]

I am amazed at the short term memories of the American Public. Voter fraud has been happening for years.

11/2000

"He said his staff had verified that one Democratic campaign worker acting on her own bought 40 packs of cigarettes, and that she and other people distributed them to 15 to 25 homeless men as an inducement to send in absentee ballots."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...B63&sec=&spon=

cobrabill, you and I differ, extremely, but your last statement strikes fear in my heart. IF you find it necessary to change your vote, it appalls me that we have come this close to annihilation, and those who were deceived should be stripped of their rights to vote for 20 years.

If what Corsi has determined to be true is true, be damned those who promoted him to the level he has gotten to.

[cobra bill]

(annihilation) are you insane? do you really think that a senator of this country would ever have anything but the best intentions for their country, and do you think he sits in that office without a thorough background check, it's not like he is a nobody, OK it's been a short political career, but so was JFK's what's your point!

And if by Corsi, you mean Jerome Corsi, this guy is a wack job and has been disproven time and time again.

[VRM]

JT,
For every instance of DNC vote fraud I will show you one of GOP vote fraud. They both do it - they both suck, and I think both parties should be dismantled, tarred, and feathered. There are probably 5 people in each party that actually care about nothing but making the country better.

[J. T. Toad]

cb the more you type .... I laugh, you think I am insane.

Have you ever studied logic... or the truth tables... if True then True?

"if there is proof of any affiliation with a militant group as described above, I will change my vote,"

I said "IF" you changed your vote THEN would mean that there was proof of affiliation with a militant group, THUS/THERBY the public would have nearly (as the CNN poles suggest) placed a tool in a most effective position.

I am truly amazed that despite your vehement worship of O... you have now cast some doubt on your vote.

Are you that naive to not know history? Never in the history of the world has there been a senator with their own agenda. (Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, Stalin, Hitler, (don't ban me bro! just making a comparison of rising to power by a lack of scrutinizing public))

VRM...

I just posted the first article from google. No party affiliation was truly intended. My point was that this is nothing new... but, because you brought it up .... for fun... about 2 to 1 no I don't think this is that accurate.

Searched "democrat voter fraud"

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,130,000 for democrat voter fraud. (0.08 seconds)

Searched "republican voter fraud"

Results 1 - 10 of about 509,000 for republican voter fraud. (0.07 seconds)

[nevermind65]

Originally Posted by J. T. Toad

cb the more you type .... I laugh, you think I am insane.

Have you ever studied logic... or the truth tables... if True then True?

"if there is proof of any affiliation with a militant group as described above, I will change my vote,"

I said "IF" you changed your vote THEN would mean that there was proof of affiliation with a militant group, THUS/THERBY the public would have nearly (as the CNN poles suggest) placed a tool in a most effective position.

I am truly amazed that despite your vehement worship of O... you have now cast some doubt on your vote.

Are you that naive to not know history? Never in the history of the world has there been a senator with their own agenda. (Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, Stalin, Hitler, (don't ban me bro! just making a comparison of rising to power by a lack of scrutinizing public))

VRM...

I just posted the first article from google. No party affiliation was truly intended. My point was that this is nothing new... but, because you brought it up .... for fun... about 2 to 1 no I don't think this is that accurate.

Searched "democrat voter fraud"

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,130,000 for democrat voter fraud. (0.08 seconds)

Searched "republican voter fraud"

Results 1 - 10 of about 509,000 for republican voter fraud. (0.07 seconds)

See...that is why our country is in such a mess right now. Because the repubs are more concerned about blowjobs and voter fraud (even though they won many of the elections) than they are about running the country and fixing the real problems.

[Wayne Maybury]

I also read the entire post and found it fascinating and very disturbing. However, in the past 30 or 40 years there have been more communist / socialist countries than there have been democracies to fall / fail. The entire USSR is gone.

What kind of proof or identification is required when voting in an American election? In the upcoming Canadian federal election, we require a valid form of identification (passpost, driver's licence, medicare card, etc) or the person can swear an oath that must be witnessed by another person with proper valid identification and who must be registered to vote in the same poll. This does leave some room for fraud but it certainly makes it much more difficult.

Wayne

[Joe Wicked]

Last time I checked it was a democrat that was more worried about a blowjob

[turnpike boy]

Originally Posted by nevermind65

See...that is why our country is in such a mess right now. Because the repubs are more concerned about blowjobs and voter fraud (even though they won many of the elections) than they are about running the country and fixing the real problems.

What bullsh*t. AS IF the dems actually gave a sh*t, either.

Are you putting us on, or do you really see things this way?

[cobra bill]

OK I will tell you what Bullsh*t is, it's running up the debt to 10 trillion, its running two wars with no real plan and bumbling your way through it just so your buddies can make a profit on the blood of good Americans, its selling our country out to the Chinese, It's no bid contracts, It's barrow and spend, barrow and spend that's all the cons do. when the top 4% increase their wealth by 68 billion in the last year alone and we are bailing out wall street that's Bullsh*t I work for the department of defense, and when I see more contractors then soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, something is wrong! and putting the same party that caused this mess to begin with would be sheer stupidity!

[J. T. Toad]

Yes, government has been pushed to heinous levels, but more dangerous is the Marxist who changes the subject matter to irrelevant topics, well covered by other threads, when their ideas are being challenged.

[cobra bill]

Oh I'm Marxist now, NICE! I answer back to TB and now I'm a Marxist! who really is the ignorant one among us? I think you answered that one JT

I'm a proud American, that has worked to defend my country from enemies both foreign and domestic for the last 34 years. Yes I took the oath seriously, not like the current administration!

[cobra de capell]

All Roads Lead To ACORN
From The Union News:

Getting to know Barack Obama

Following the DNC Convention, Saul Alinsky’s son, L. David Alinsky, wrote a letter to the Boston Globe. “Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing his effectiveness,” the son wrote. “I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It’s a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”

The great community organizing Obama did was through the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN is notoriously known for its radical, and often illegal, practices and adherence to the radical philosophy of Saul Alinsky. According to the Washington Post, Alinsky’s “disciples hired Barack Obama, a 23 year old Columbia University graduate to organize black residents on the Southside, while learning and applying Alinsky’s philosophy of street level democracy.”

Recently the Obama campaign has sought to distance the Senator from the radical organization, claiming Obama merely represented ACORN in a lawsuit enforcing the Illinois “Motor Voter” law. Apparently the Obama campaign does not want Obama’s ties to an organization that has a “decade long history of voter fraud, embezzlement and misuses of taxpayer funds” that Consumer Rights League Chief Public Advocate, James Terry testified about last month to the House Judiciary. Alinsky wrote: “An organizer works for change…does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing.”

Obama trained ACORN activists. A 1995 Chicago Reader article on Obama stated “Obama continues his work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons.” Obama also ran Project Vote, known for widespread voter fraud, which Time magazine called “a non-partisan arm” of ACORN. In a speech to ACORN in 2007, cited by Newsmax, Obama gushed “I have been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. 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.”
____

ACORN Las Vegas Office Raided
From Texas Insider:

ACORN's Las Vegas headquarters has been raided by Nevada authorities looking for evidence of voter fraud.

Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.

Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state's office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about "erroneous" registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state's office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about "erroneous" registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

The group was submitting the information through a voter sign-up drive known as Project Vote.

"Some of them used nonexistent names, some of them used false addresses and some of them were duplicates of previously filed applications," Walsh said, describing the complaints, which largely came from the registrar in Clark County, Nev. He said some registrations used the names of Dallas Cowboys football players.
_____

Breaking... Indiana county finds it has 105% of population registered to vote after ACORN voter drive... Folks, ACORN has poisoned this election.

[computerworks]

Boys, here's how it works...

As we get closer to 11/4, the tolerance for infighting in the Lounge will gently and progessively decrease.

If you feel compelled to take time out of your busy day to post propaganda pieces for either side, with little purpose other than to incite the rivals...
...you can do that here if you must.

Why? ..I haven't the foggiest idea...but, nevertheless, you can do it.

And others can rebut and debate the issue(s) in an intelligent manner.

But, when you start throwing stones at your fellow members here because you simply disagree in opinion or ideology... the thread will end.

And repeated violators of these basic etiquettes will not be permitted to continue.

IMO, It is taking far too much admin time to constantly monitor the topics in the Lounge.

I look forward to more respectful dialog on issues and facts, and less personal retribution for opinions.

thanks
ron
ClubCobra Moderator

[J. T. Toad]

I actually didn't call you a Marxist, I merely offered a definition of what a Marxists does. I can't help it if you have decided that you fit that definition.

[cobra bill]

There will always be voter fraud, nothing new, all this is, is an attempt by the right wing nuts to change the issue's, they have nothing to campaign on so they use fear tactics, WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE UP TOO! and it won't work in this election, you listen to Rush Limpballs and Fox Noise too much!

[cobra de capell]

Originally Posted by cobra bill

There will always be voter fraud, nothing new, all this is, is an attempt by the right wing nuts to change the issue's, they have nothing to campaign on so they use fear tactics, WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE UP TOO! and it won't work in this election, you listen to Rush Limpballs and Fox Noise too much!

Your post is nonsensical – are you out to change the hearts and minds of other posters or just to degrade news sources? Voter fraud at the scale implemented by Acorn is far beyond anything that we know of that has happened in the past – don’t you understand that?

By the way, if you own a Cobra, Obama is not going to like that – it will need to be taken away from you and given to someone in the hood to drive to the welfare office, it’s the liberal thing to do. Or, just give it up prior to the election to someone here that’s deserving, someone in the conservative ranks.

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/7195

The state of Ohio and the heavily Democratic area of Cuyahoga County are yet again embroilled in elections controversy. Claims from area residents that they have been hounded by the community activist group ACORN to register to vote multiple times have sparked an investigation by election officials into ACORN, whose political wing has supported Barack Obama.

Yesterday two Ohio voters came forth and claimed that although they had made it clear they were already registered to vote, ACORN canvassers encouraged them to sign up several times. One of those was Christopher Barkley of Cleveland, who estimates that he registered to vote "10 to 15" times after ACORN relentlessly pursued him.

"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again. Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has thus far subpoenaed at least three people as part of a wider inquiry into potential voter fraud by ACORN. The community organization looks to register low-income voters, that tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Lateala Goins, who was subpoeaned along with Barkley and others, said, "You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care. They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter."

[cobra bill]

There will always be voter fraud, nothing new, all this is, is an attempt by the right wing nuts to change the issue's, they have nothing to campaign on so they use fear tactics, WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE UP TOO! and it won't work in this election, you listen to Rush Limpballs and Fox Noise too much!