Rules for Radicals, anyone?

After being on the waiting list for awhile, I checked out Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky from the Denver Public Library. Even after a few pages into it, I felt Alinsky held a dim and grim view of life in the free world. In his view, the only way to achieve the so-called ruse of the American Dream is not to pursue and work hard for it, but to take it from others.

Some notable and telling quotes:

Page 61-under the Ego subheading

"The ego of the organizer is stronger and more monumental than the ego of the leader. The leader is driven by the desire for power, while the organizer is driven by the desire to create. The organizer is in a true sense reaching for the highest level for which man can reach - to create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God."

So a community organizer is on par with playing God- is that what I'm hearing?

The ego section ends on page 61 with this gem.

"Ego must be all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego."

These quotes speak to the influence that Saul Alinksy's philosophy had on a young Barack Obama. This strategy has been successful in getting him elected to the highest office in the U.S. as leader of the free world. Millions of people have been mesmerized by his cult of personality and massive ego and thus easily falling into groupthink. His stage persona has succeeded in getting the masses to forgo their critical thinking skills and ignoring or glossing over the implications of his message.

There is a lot about "change" in this book, but not a lot about hope. I found the tone of this book, in a word, bitter. It pits one side against the other; specifically, the Haves and Have Nots. It is not about the power of persuasion with Alinsky, but about the persuasion of power. The "let's start a revolution" talk is almost juvenile and I can see why it appeals to the uninformed, less-educated, younger generation who have glamorized the hippie protest culture of the sixties. Let's stick it to the man, man.

A couple more quotes: Alinksy comments on power on page 51.

"The corruption of power is not in the power, but in ourselves."

What about that oft used axiom? - "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Page 195
"Corporations must forget their nonsense about 'private sectors.'"

Private sectors organized from free-enterprising individuals to make money is nonsense to the Have Nots in Alinsky's world. Didn't you know you're a victim of the system? I can't help but indulge with the sarcasm as this book emitted lots of groans and eye-rolling.

Page 196 concerning the private sector.
"corporation - predatory drive for profits should be concerning themselves with poverty, disease, crime."

So what's the point? Bottom up prosperity? Can pigs fly? Help others before you help yourself? Don't the flight attendants tell you to put on your oxygen mask first before you assist others? Production precedes consumption anyone?

This book is worth reading and analyzing how Alinsky has influenced the Obama doctrine. Unfortunately, it flies in the face of the abundance of prosperity and concept of freedom known as American Exceptionalism.

Remembering Shrillary: When dissent was patriotic

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Even Hillary Clinton agrees with that.

It doesn't make me a Nazi or a white supremacist or a militia member to debate and passionately disagree with Obama's administration. When you're fighting statists for your freedom and liberty from an overreaching government dissent is still the highest form of patriotism.

Health Care Plea

When I was a kid, I never thought I would have to write my congressmen to fight for my humanity in the United States. I sent the following letter to Diana Degette. I don't know if they read these or a staffer just hits delete, delete, delete.

Politics aside- this is my life. Please represent me in this remaining session of Congress and vote NO on the health care bill that Obama is proposing. Please have the courage to stand up for individual choice in health care. I am very satisfied with my current health insurance, Anthem BCBS and health care provider.

I am engaged to be married and we would like to have children. For the sake of my future children, please do not make them wards of the state. I do not want a comparative effectiveness board making cradle to grave choices for me or my family. I am a sovereign being unto myself and I do not want the government overstepping its bounds and interfering with my private property rights. Health care is not a right. Rights are inalienable because the creator has endowed them to me, not because the state bureaucrats have granted them to me. If the state can grant health care a right, they can also take it away or hinder access to it with waiting and rationing availability of treatment.

Yes, there needs to be health care reform, but massive government intervention is not the answer to problems such as covering pre-existing conditions and exorbitant malpractice insurance. Please vote against the government entering into competition with private health care. Please represent ME and vote no on Obama's health care bill.

Liberty in the Books: Finale of the Forgotten Man

Liberty in the Books just finished their second book since the club's inception last winter; The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. We're gaining popularity as we increased our reading group with some new additions this past meeting.

Fascinated by the Great Depression, I keep coming back to the notion of, "why didn't I learn about this in high school?" Sure I've read Grapes of Wrath, but perhaps it was not in my government school's teaching plans that year to explain the pitiful economic consequences of implementing Keynesian policies via White House directives. Oh wait, fast forward from FDR - I'm learning about it in real time with Obama.

Frankly, I think Obama needs to read this book during his sleepless nights worrying about deficits. It is very enlightening and I don't believe he knows half of the history that Shlaes imparts in The Forgotten Man. The parallels are frightening, right down to the fact that in 1937, Roosevelt's administration debated the Federal Public Health Service a.k.a nationalization of health care, with the American Medical Association. It seems that national health care, complete government command and control over what they do with your body, how it will be treated through a "decision tree" via a comparative effectiveness board, and when you should live and die, has been the dream of leftists for decades. I guess when you are no longer a tax revenue contributor to the federal tax base you are slowly deleted from the system. My sleepless nights are my worries that a government run health system will only grant me supposed coverage and a place in the queue, not quality care.

In the last part of the book, problems with the New Deal snowball and the rhetoric deteriorates. Unintended consequences on the next generation from government expansion, out-of-control spending, and subsequent budget deficits weighed heavily on the mind of FDR's treasury secretary, Morgenthau. Shlaes explains that even Morgenthau was having a hard time explaining the New Deal to his son and coming up with an answer as to what the New Deal had achieved. Morgenthau confided this with FDR and through a slick and deliberate speech to Wall Street assured businessmen of the government's action.

Currently, this resonates with Obama and Geithner soothing Wall Street with their financial regulation siren song to prevent future sector bubbles. The next generation of Americans already have their hands tied to a whopper of a deficit Obama created and for what? How do you explain that to your kids? I don't even have kids, but still.


I think it would be an interesting foray for the author to adopt a visual medium for this book. Similar to The Commanding Heights series to piece together a side-by-side view of FDR's policies and Obama's policies. (There are just too many to enumerate in a blog. I think Shlaes would have to write another book to discuss that.) It would show that history DOES repeat itself when NOT understood, or taken into consideration of what policies are feasible for economic growth, how it affects productive individuals, and what policies increase the quality of life for regular average hard working people, just like the Forgotten Man.

NEXT BOOK CLUB BOOK - HOT OFF THE PRESSES:
The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell

Atlas Shrugged Trivia

I was out at the Fat Tire Brewery in Fort Collins being introduced to their fabulous beer by the waiter/host dude in the tasting room. He handed out his leaflet for me to circle the beers I wanted and then as a Fat Tire notable, told me to write down a trivia question at the bottom of the leaflet. As a Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit, geography bee question buff, I was thinking how I could stump him. But really, why not just go for the big guns.

I wrote at the bottom, "Who is John Galt?" Easy enough I thought, I was just going for some name recognition here. He could spare me an Atlas Shrugged synopsis, I just wanted a reaction of understanding. The host dude was college age and could be a well-read freedom lover OR a stoner hippie just waiting tables till he could play ultimate. Either way, when he came to the table and read my trivia question I knew my hopes had been dashed. His look of bewilderment at the name was disappointing.

I had to tell him that John Galt was a fictional character from a best selling novel titled Atlas Shrugged. Then I encouraged him to read the book so see what I'm talking about because it would probably interest him. And to ask his friends, "who is John Galt." (just to get the ball rolling)

It was a busy place so I couldn't divulge a complete character study of what it means to be John Galt. Hopefully the host dude will read the book.

Liberty in the Books: Round 2 with The Forgotten Man

The liberty bookworms have converged again at Illegal Grounds Coffeehouse this past April 14 to discuss Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Each time we assemble for Liberty in the Books, at least one coffeehouse patron engages us afterwards and is interested in our discussion. If that’s, you, please join us! Our group is small and cozy with about 8-10 of us gathered around a large table - perfect for bookish dialogue. Meetings are the second Tuesday every month from 7-9PM at Illegal Grounds at 925 E. 17th.

I’ve captured a few highlights from our second discussion of this book. A couple notable parts of chapters 4-6 were particularly effective at eliciting déjà vu moments that are uncannily relevant to today.

May 1930, 1928 economists wrote an open letter to the NY Times urging Hoover to veto the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.
(Didn’t this just happen with the Cato Institute placing a similar ad responding to “Obama’s needed stimulus spending") Neither letter worked. In both cases, attempts to inform and persuade were ignored at the president’s folly and the public's peril.

Inventing local currencies and bartering were thriving in 1931. The Vallar currency was created by locals for exchange of goods within Salt Lake City. Also, many were getting paid for a day’s work with farm fresh food or trading specialized services. Bypassing the buck, bartering is back in fashion today with couchsurfing, house swaps, and trading other goods or services.

In chapters 5-6, Roosevelt outlines the massive government plans to drive prices up and put people to work in the 1930’s:

NIRA- National Industrial Recovery Act- created the Public Works Administration
NRA- National Recovery Administration- coalesced industry, labor, and government
AAA- Agriculture Adjustment Administration – regulated farming

The consequences from the AAA stood out in my mind as being entirely backward given the fact the people were starving in the Great Depression. Production controls enacted by the AAA meant farmers were getting paid NOT to farm and were told to basically retire their fields. Millions of acres were left bare in an effort to drive up prices. Another sick consequence of production controls was that six million young pigs were killed before they were ready for market, 6 MILLION!

Under the guise of progress it turns out- it’s basically a contest between Roosevelt and Hoover to see who can take the most credit for each massive government project. From Hoover you have the Hoover Dam, which Roosevelt tried and failed to rename the Boulder Dam. Roosevelt then decided to one up him and created the TVA- Tennessee Valley Authority, to nationalize the expansion of the electrical grid to the South.

Bypassing the trite sound bytes of the day, the author expertly shows how the devil was in the details and the masterminds or “braintrusters” were doing the work that wreaked so much havoc prolonging the Great Depression. Without summarizing all the chapters, just read the book and you'll have a new take on history that you didn't get in your public school system.

This book has also been getting some play in the media and will help you decide whether to read the book if you’re still on the fence.

Dennis Miller announced he’s reading The Forgotten Man when he was on the O’Reilly Factor on 4/15/09. Very early on in the video, Miller gives a good explanation of who is “The Forgotten Man.” Then he digresses into a comedic bit railing on Janet Napolitano and comments that the participants of the April 15th teaparties are essentially the Forgotten Man.

Nick Gillespie of Reason also has posted an insightful interview transcript with the author, Amity Shlaes, about this bestselling book.

Book Club Alert: Liberty in the Books

Starting a brand new book is like embarking on an adventure. This is the case with the new group I’m involved with called Liberty in the Books. It is a book club that meets once a month to discuss the issues and ideas encapsulated in the chosen book. An offshoot of the socializing event and happy hour, Liberty on the Rocks, Liberty in the Books is held at a coffee shop and is conducted in a moderated format that discusses the values of economic policies found in relevant literature. It is founded by Ari Armstrong and Amanda Teresi, who are both active free marketers in Colorado. It is intended to be a layman's discussion to encourage economic education.

This month’s book club meeting at Illegal Grounds served as an introduction to the chosen book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. It is a New York Times Bestseller and when I went to buy it at Barnes and Noble, I reached for the last copy on the shelf.

Right off the bat, this book delves into the presidential history of the era and forays into the character background of Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt and their respective economic policies. This author does a masterful job of creating an easy to read history book, very unlike the dry history texts from high school.

Our discussion turns to the obvious in that history tends to repeat itself in generational intervals and this book already has proven a timely composition to relate to our current state of the nation. Nonetheless, paralleling Shlae’s issues with contemporary occurrences was an uncanny theme to our discussion. What I have written below is a condensed summary of our discussion from Tuesday, March 10, 2009. It proved illuminating and simultaneously frustrating as the issues are not elementary or readily available which explains why so many myths and romanticized notions about the Great Depression abound.

The reference to the title of the book, the Forgotten Man, is from an essay written by William Graham Sumner, available courtesy of a great educational foundation the Liberty Fund. The Forgotten Man is a reference to logical argument and explained as a variable in a simple equation. A+B have decided to join forces to accommodate and help X, however, in that process, the variable of C is present and by forces of proximity is “indentured” to become part of the sum to help X. Sumner wrote about the Forgotten Man, C “the man who paid.” However, the New Deal only focused on the X man, the man dependent on government, and the recipient of C’s forced charity. This book does an excellent job in explaining the convoluted justification of the New Deal while providing skeptical attitudes of the day.

What became a predominant part of our discussion was a clarification of terms, especially deflation. Currently, we are all familiar with inflation and its consequences; the reduction of purchasing power of a dollar. However, deflation means that prices are falling and demand goes down. With the Fed’s money supply factor being injected into the equation, there becomes too much money available, lack of demand for goods, and more saving and not enough circulating. Since prices and wages are intertwined, when one does not counterbalance the other, the result is something must give. What gives are jobs. Hence, companies lay people off when there are people working for the same amount of money, but the prices of their product are too low to support the payroll. Deflation + wage controls = unemployment. Shlaes touched on deflation briefly, almost too briefly. Thus our group discussion ensued over the meaning of this economic indicator. What Shlaes does well is explaining how the combination of deflation along with other economic policies that were a deterrent to business compounded the depression into a massive disaster.

This book club is serving a purpose of reeducating myself and making up for the poor teaching of the subject that I received during my stint in government school, a.k.a. public high school. The only real sense I got of the Great Depression came from reading the Grapes of Wrath when I was a junior in AP English and finding it really depressing and also from learning that my grandmother still hoarded any useful items or goods for the home and kitchen because it was a habit that carried from the Depression generation; everything was to be saved and nothing was to go to waste as it could be used for something. From desperation comes improvisation, I guess.

If you’ve read this far, I encourage you to check this blog again soon for our next discussion recap and also pick up your copy of Shlaes’ Forgotten Man. Insofar as the third chapter, the Forgotten Man has been an illuminating book and I've already learned a lot of history This book does a supreme job of reliving the ugly facts of the Great Depression as it is a period of history I would rather not repeat.