THE ENEMY WITHIN

[Soldier4Christ]

Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of Socialist 'New Party' In 1996

In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois, Barack Obama was endorsed by an organization known as the Chicago "New Party". The 'New Party' was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist 'New Party' was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations "fusion" reform platform as unconstitutional.

After allegations surfaced in early summer over the 'New Party's' endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and 'New Party' then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA's New Party.

On Tuesday, I discovered a web page that had been scrubbed from the New Party's website. The web page which was published in October 1996, was an internet newsletter update on that years congressional races. Although the web page was deleted from the New Party's website, the non-profit Internet Archive Organization had archived the page.

From the October 1996 Update of the DSA 'New Party':
"New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races...

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)."

Link To The New Party Update:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010306031216/www.newparty.org/up9610.html

Beyond the archived web page from the Socialist New Party is the recognition by the "Progressive Populist" magazine in November 1996 that Obama was indeed an acknowledged member of the Socialist Party.

"New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George's County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago. "

Link To The November 1996 Progressive Populist Article:

http://www.populist.com/11.96.Edit.html

The Democratic Socialist Party of America published in their July/August Edition of New Ground 47 Newsletter.

"The Chicago New Party is increasely becoming a viable political organization that can make a different in Chicago politics. It is crucial for a political organization to have a solid infrastructure and visible results in its political program. The New Party has continued to solidify this base...

the NP's '96 Political Program has been enormously successful with 3 of 4 endorsed candidates winning electoral primaries. All four candidates attended the NP membership meeting on April 11th to express their gratitude. Danny Davis, winner in the 7th Congressional District, invited NPers to join his Campaign Steering Committee. Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in 7th Subcircuit Court, explained that due to the NP she was able to network and get experienced advice from progressives like Davis. Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration."

Link To DSA Article:

http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng47.html

Obama's membership within the 'New Party' is disturbing as even Green Party members attacked the DSA and New Party as nothing more than a fringe group. The New Party had hoped to implement Socialist Rule in the United States and was established to counteract the influence of a Democratic Party that they viewed as too moderate and too centered. Now it seems that nearly 10 years after the socialist party fell apart, their strategy of upward growth has reached the White House. Obama's ties to the DSA's New Party is beyond just an association it is outright membership, as clearly defined by the parties August 1996 newsletter, in an outright Socialist organization.

[Soldier4Christ]

Judge rules Ohio breaking federal election law
Says secretary of state not giving counties time to detect fraudulent registrations



Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is breaking federal law by not giving county elections boards the chance to determine whether new voter registrations are fraudulent, a federal judge ruled tonight.

It is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States,” said Judge George C. Smith of U.S. District Court in Columbus, in upholding the Ohio Republican Party’s request for a court order.

Smith, appointed by President Reagan, said the Help America Vote Act requires states not only to verify the identity of newly registered voters with the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the federal Social Security Administration, but to provide counties with the names of new voters whose records did not match.

Brunner’s office had been doing the verification but had not made the names available to county elections boards. The judge gave her a week to comply.

However, the judge said he lacked the authority to order the counties to clean up the voter rolls once they had the list.

Smith cited the “millions of qualified electors across the state of Ohio whose
confidence in the electoral process will be undermined if new voter registrations are not verified in accordance with HAVA, and if unqualified individuals are permitted to cast votes. This would demean the voting process and unlawfully dilute the votes of qualified voters.”

Brunner’s office said she is filing an immediate appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals.

“My office will do everything within its power to ensure that the state’s 88 county boards of elections can continue to allow early voting to proceed uninterrupted and to assist them with their preparation to ensure a smooth election for the voters of Ohio,” she said in a statement.

Smith said speed is necessary because next Thursday is the deadline to challenge absentee voters; on Oct. 25 elections workers can remove ballots from envelopes that contain the only identifying information about who cast them.

He specifically cited questionable activity of one group that registered thousands of new Ohio voters: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine said the ruling spoke volumes about Brunner, a Democrat.

“Her refusal to comply with federal law raises serious concerns about her ability to objectively oversee this election. It's especially troubling in light of her connection to ACORN and that group's stunning confession this week of fraudulent registration activity happening right here in Ohio,” he said.

Republicans say Democrat Barack Obama has “strong ties” to ACORN, serving in the past as an attorney and "leadership trainer" for the group.

Earlier in the day, national Republicans turned up the heat on allegations of voter-registration fraud by ACORN.

Sean Cairncross, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, called ACORN a “quasi-criminal organization” in a conference call with reporters.

[Soldier4Christ]

1 voter, 72 registrations
Man says ACORN paid him in cash and cigarettes

A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, 'You are?' I say, 'Yup,' and then they say, 'Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

Johnson used the same information on all of his registration cards, and officials say they usually catch and toss out duplicate registrations. But the practice sparks fear that some multiple registrants could provide different information and vote more than once by absentee ballot.

ACORN is under investigation in Ohio and at least eight other states - including Missouri, where the FBI said it's planning to look into potential voter fraud - for over-the-top efforts to get as many names as possible on the voter rolls regardless of whether a person is registered or eligible.

It's even under investigation in Bridgeport, Conn., for allegedly registering a 7-year-old girl to vote, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

Meanwhile, a federal judge yesterday ordered Ohio's Secretary of State to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents. The order was in response to a Republican lawsuit unrelated to the ACORN probe in Cuyahoga County, in which at least three people, including Johnson, have been subpoenaed.

Bribing citizens with gifts, property or anything of value is a fourth-degree felony in Ohio, punishable by up to 18 months in prison. And it's a fifth-degree felony - punishable by 12 months in jail - for a person to pay "compensation on a fee-per-registration" system when signing up someone to vote.

Johnson, who works at a cellphone kiosk in downtown Cleveland, said he was a sitting duck for the signature hunters, but was always happy to help them out in exchange for a smoke or a little scratch. He'd collected 10 to 20 cigarettes and anywhere from $10 to $15, he said.

The Cleveland voting probe, first reported by The Post yesterday, also focused on Lateala Goins, who said she put her name on multiple voter registrations. She guessed ACORN canvassers then put fake addresses on them. "You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care," she said.

ACORN spokesman Kris Harsh said the group does not tolerate its workers paying people to sign the voter-registration cards.

ACORN's political wing has endorsed Barack Obama for president, but Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign in Ohio, said ACORN has no role in its get-out-the-vote drive.

During the primary season, however, the Obama camp paid another group, Citizen Service Inc., $832,598 for various political services, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. That group and ACORN share the same board of directors.

In Wisconsin yesterday, John McCain blasted ACORN.

"No one should be corrupting the most precious right we have, that is the right to vote," he said.

It's a right Johnson will exercise. "Yeah, I've registered enough - I might as well vote."

[Soldier4Christ]

Obama paid ACORN to register new voters
Forced to amend FEC report to specify spending $800,000 with group

Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said it is not unusual for campaigns to amend reports, even regarding large sums of money.

But, said Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee: "Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud. For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday."

In response to the RNC's position, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said in an e-mail: "The RNC can concoct all of the outlandish conspiracy theories they want, but when we saw that our FEC report didn't accurately reflect the field work CSI was hired to perform we corrected it. It's pretty bold for the RNC to attack us for a clerical error after John McCain's campaign was just forced to return $50,000 raised by a foreign national through a number of contributors who weren't even supporting McCain."

Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the campaign's error on FEC documents doesn't seem extraordinary, especially considering the huge amounts of money being spent.

"It's rare that people don't file any amended reports. If he has a pattern of lots and lots of amended reports, that would be more noteworthy than an occasional one," Sloan said.

Jim Terry, spokesman for a group that tracks ACORN, said Citizens Services Inc.'s involvement in the Obama campaign raises bigger questions.

"All of this just seems like an awful lot of money and time spent on political campaigning for an organization that purports to exist to help low-income consumers," said Terry, chief public advocate for Consumers Rights League, a Washington, D.C., advocacy outfit with a libertarian outlook.

"ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain," Terry claimed. "Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain."

Obama is the CSI's first national candidate, although the company has worked for several regional candidates in recent years, said Jeff Robinson, CSI's executive vice president.

"Our contracts were relatively small for Obama," he said, declining to specify amounts because of "proprietary" rights of CSI's clients. The largest project for Obama was during the Ohio primary, he said.

"That was a very short-term contract for one week of work. In Ohio, they asked us to do canvasses in five cities statewide," Robinson said.

The Ohio primary was March 4. According to FEC records, the Obama campaign paid Citizens Services Inc. $832,598.29, from Feb. 25 to May 17.

A Trib analysis of campaign finance reports showed Obama paid CSI for services that stood out as unusual. For example, CSI received payments of $63,000 and $75,000 for advance work. Excluding the large payments to CSI, the average amount the Obama campaign spent with other organizations was $558.82 per check on more than 1,200 entries classified as advance work.

Citizens Services Inc. is headquartered at the same address as ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans. Citizens Services was established in December 2004 to "assist persons and organizations who advance the interests of low- and moderate-income people," according to paperwork filed in Louisiana. In a 2006 ACORN publication, Citizen Services Inc. is described as "ACORN's campaign services entity."

ACORN describes itself as the nation's largest grass-roots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, operating in 110 cities across the country, including Pittsburgh.

Founded in Arkansas in 1970, ACORN long has been considered a political ally of the Democratic Party. It has received praise from leading Democrats, such as Howard Dean and former President Bill Clinton, for its community activism, especially regarding efforts to increase housing for low-income people and restoration work after Hurricane Katrina.

Early in his career, Obama worked as an organizer for Project Vote, an ACORN offshoot, and represented ACORN in legal actions, according to various published reports, including Associated Press articles. ACORN's political action committee endorsed Obama in the primary.

The organization has sparked controversy.

Accusations of voter fraud have followed ACORN's canvassing projects in about a dozen states. ACORN has dismissed the charges as politically motivated allegations from conservative groups, yet cases are pending and, in other cases, ACORN workers have entered guilty pleas. For example, three ACORN workers pleaded guilty to submitting phony voter registration forms in Washington, and eight ACORN employees pleaded guilty to federal election fraud in Missouri.

ACORN is at the center of a scandal involving a $1 million embezzlement by Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. ACORN discovered the embezzlement in 2000 but did not alert law enforcement officials.

ACORN's management committee instead negotiated an agreement to have the Rathke family repay the stolen funds, according to a report in The New York Times. The Rathke brothers resigned from ACORN this summer after news reports disclosed the embezzlement. A donor agreed to repay the most of the money, the Times reported.

Sunday Alabi, an ACORN activist and spokesman in St. Paul, is one of CSI's three-person board of directors. Alabi described CSI as a nonprofit consulting firm related to ACORN.

"I do not know the day-to-day work of what they do. I'm on the board," Alabi said, referring other questions to Robinson, the executive vice president.

Robinson said CSI is a "not-for-profit political and campaign management firm, much like any political consulting firm."CSI is not tax-exempt under any IRS code, he said. Without tax-exempt status, the organization isn't bound by IRS restrictions for nonprofits on political activities.

"We have a wide range of clients. We provide political campaign management. We provide field services," Robinson said. "Our clients are typically considered liberal. Our clients are labor unions, liberal to progressive candidates, nonprofit organizations on the liberal side of the political spectrum."

In 2006, CSI collected all the signatures and managed successful statewide ballot measure campaigns in Missouri, Ohio, Colorado and Arizona to increase the minimum wage, he said. "We have a good reputation. We provide good services."

Regarding CSI's nonprofit status, Robinson said: "We are organized specifically not to make money, but we make money. There are no profits. We have a staff of 60 people around the country, and that eats up our entire profit. We're not a for-profit corporation, but we are not a group like a United Way."

CSI is a "separate organization entirely" from ACORN, he said.

"ACORN is a client of ours," Robinson said. "ACORN has a lot of different partner organizations. We are a partner, but we are separate."

Robinson is listed on several Web sites as national deputy political director for campaigns and elections at ACORN. He is also listed as political director at the nonprofit Communities Voting Together and as a consultant at Project Vote. He did not return phone calls or an e-mail request for a follow-up interview.

Money flows back and forth between ACORN, Citizens Services Inc., Project Vote and Communities Voting Together. ACORN posts job ads for Citizens Services and Project Vote. Communities Voting Together contributed $60,000 to Citizens Services Inc., for example, in November 2005, according to a posting on CampaignMoney.com. Project Vote has hired ACORN and CSI as its highest paid contractors, paying ACORN $4,649,037 in 2006 and CSI $779,016 in 2006, according to Terry of the Consumers Rights League.

[Soldier4Christ]

It all ties in the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA), the Progressive Caucus, Obama and Acorn. I do think that it shows the true agenda of them all. It is very much like what happened in Venezuela when Chavez' took over that nation with communism.

[Soldier4Christ]

ACORN Fraud In North Carolina

Yup, it just keeps piling up. Soon that annoying drip overflows the sink

    DURHAM - State Board of Elections officials are trying to determine whether about 100 voter registration forms submitted by a local chapter of a national grassroots organization to the Durham County Board of Elections are fraudulent.

    Similar accusations have been lodged across the country against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which goes by the name ACORN. In Durham, the claims were made last month after the group submitted about 5,000 voter registration forms to the county board of elections.

    “All of a sudden, I started seeing the same names over and over again,” said Mike Ashe, county elections director. He said some forms had similar names but different addresses or dates of birth.

And, in a second story from the Raleigh N&O

    Several hundred of the recent applications, however, have turned out to be incomplete, Poucher said. In some cases, the applications contained no dates of birth or Social Security numbers that appeared to be random numbers. Other applications contained the same person’s name.

    County elections officials have sent about 30 applications to the state Board of Elections for possible fraud investigation, Poucher said. Those applications were submitted by the grassroots organization ACORN, whose voter registration activities have been questioned in Durham and other communities, as well.

[nChrist]

It all ties in the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA), the Progressive Caucus, Obama and Acorn. I do think that it shows the true agenda of them all. It is very much like what happened in Venezuela when Chavez' took over that nation with communism.

Hello Pastor Roger,

I've been looking at a lot of evidence, and you just provided MUCH more for me to look at. I sincerely hope that everyone takes a long and hard look at this information. I arrived at the same conclusion you did, AND IT MAKES ME SICK TO EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

We are talking about FACTS and where those FACTS lead. This is not just wild conspiracy theories cooked up by loons. This is happening right now, and we are watching it. Many outstanding Christian news sources are reaching the same conclusions. Bluntly - this is happening.

[Soldier4Christ]

LOL  ...  Thank you for saying that I'm not a loon. 

[nChrist]

LOL  ...  Thank you for saying that I'm not a loon. 

                 ROFL!

I didn't even think about that comment, so I'm glad that it turned out right. If you're a loon, so am I, and I'm not going to admit that I'm a LOON. The more I think about this, the funnier it gets. If I wanted to be a LOON, I would opt for being a STEALTH LOON. However, I wonder if there would be any advantage of being a STEALTH LOON. The prefix term of "STEALTH" does hint that a STEALTH LOON would be a higher quality LOON. In this case, it might mean that the LOON needs more expensive treatment. If I was a LOON, I think that I would reject treatment and simply enjoy being a LOON!

(Small Print:  This post was not intended to promote LOONS or LUNACY!  Removing this tag from this post is a serious violation of the law. In fact, it's more serious than removing a tag from a pillow.)       

[Soldier4Christ]

I have no desire to violate the law in the removal of that tag.  (Shhh ...  I did remove a tag from a pillow once but it was an accident. I tried to sew it back on but it just made it worse.)

In all seriousness there is way too much evidence for this subject to be any kind of conspiracy. As I said in an earlier post, I have been following this information in regards to the DSA and the Progressive Caucus since 1994 and the statements made of their intentions was in their own words that they signed on to.

[nChrist]

I have no desire to violate the law in the removal of that tag.  (Shhh ...  I did remove a tag from a pillow once but it was an accident. I tried to sew it back on but it just made it worse.)

In all seriousness there is way too much evidence for this subject to be any kind of conspiracy. As I said in an earlier post, I have been following this information in regards to the DSA and the Progressive Caucus since 1994 and the statements made of their intentions was in their own words that they signed on to.

Brother,

I'm already positive that this information is CORRECT! I did some searches the other day to add some bookmarks for some excellent Christian news sources that can be trusted. I think that some of the names have been changed over the years, but I was happy to bookmark some sites with excellent and long-term reputations. WND is definitely one of my favorites, and it has huge resources to get the job done. I hope that I say the next ones accurately, and I'll try from memory. I searched for Agape Press, and that is now the American Family Association. I also had some old links that needed to be updated for One Million Dads, One Million Moms, and other Christian organizations that furnish accurate information for Christians. Some people might now know about this, but Christians Unite publishes Christian News Monday through Friday, and it's excellent. Some of the other sources I bookmarked were Concerned Women for America, Crossroad Christian News, Faith and Values Coalition, Christian Post, One News Now, and Worthy News. By the way, the Jerusalem Post is an excellent news source for the Middle East. I know that some of these news sources are better than others, but they all contain good news that we aren't going to get on network news or in our newspapers.

In short, anyone can easily do an Internet search and see that this information is correct. YES, the DSA and other Socialist/Communist organizations are REAL, and these folks are already in all levels of government. BLUNTLY, the common stereotype involves hatred of GOD and hatred of our system of government where the PEOPLE are IN CHARGE and the GOVERNMENT is the SERVANT of the PEOPLE. They hate our foundation and everything America used to stand for. They are systematically trying to destroy what's left of America and change it into a SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST COUNTRY WITHOUT GOD! This work is in progress RIGHT NOW, BUT Christians are standing in the way. I, for one, plan to keep standing in their way for the rest of my days. As far as I'm concerned THE COMMUNISTS CAN'T HAVE THIS COUNTRY - AND THEY WON'T BE TOLERATED!

[Soldier4Christ]

I'm definitely with you there.

[Soldier4Christ]

The more I look into this situation the deeper it gets. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International has what is called "consultative status" with the United Nations.

The name of George Soros and his organization, Open Society Institute, seems to be tied somehow to all of these but I haven't figured out how just yet. It is clear though that when they are mentioned so is the name of Soros and the OSI.

It has also been said, with proof, that Soros had his hands in the U.S. bailout plan although the plan that was finally instituted did not go precisely as he wanted it to.

[nChrist]

The SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS are far more deeply entrenched than any of us imagine. I think that we took it for granted that things like this could not happen in this part of the world, but they ARE HAPPENING in this part of the world. In fact, they have been happening in an organized and determined manner for many years. Maybe they were dismissed as a few NUTS years ago, but the few NUTS have grown to a powerful FORCE. It's also NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT to tell it like it is because of the situation with McCarthy many years ago.

There is no comparison with the McCarthy years and what's happening now. McCarthy led a witch hunt that was mostly unfair nonsense. One doesn't have to hunt today because it's blatant and in your face. The only thing the SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS are uncomfortable about still in revealing all of their memberships and what they really believe in. However, the membership lists are available, and so is what they believe in. They did have to back up some and try to hide some things because of the current interest in SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS, but it's impossible to hide all of the information now because of copies and spreading information to various sites. It's still pretty easy to find.

[Soldier4Christ]

These two articles combined are definitely a very long read but well worth every second that it takes to understand what is happening. The first that is necessary is to understand what the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" is.

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." – Abraham Lincoln

____________

It is the 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.

cont'd