Now we know what then-presidential candidate Barack Obama meant when he predicted on the campaign trail that, “We are going to fundamentally change America.”
His goal is to mutate every one of the nation’s key institutions, in both the public and the private sectors, in the service of a revolutionary, even nihilistic, agenda right out of the playbook of Mr. Obama’s ideological mentor, Saul Alinsky.
Most voters in the 2008 elections were unaware that the man they elected president of the United States had spent years working in and for community activist organizations, including ACORN, that were created or associated with Alinsky — one of the most radical figures in American political history. They were ignorant of what Alinsky sought to do, let alone what Barack Obama might do once in office.
Someone who was under no illusion about either point is David Horowitz, who was himself a leading radical in the 1970s but broke with his former comrades and became one of the left’s most knowledgeable and effective critics.
He recently published an excellent short pamphlet entitled “Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model.” It has this chilling section:
“Alinsky’s advice can be summed up in the following way. Even though you are at war with the system, don’t confront it as an opposing army; join it and undermine it as a fifth column from within. To achieve this infiltration you must work inside the system for the time being. Alinsky spells out exactly what this means [in his book Rules for Radicals]: ‘Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people.’
“In other words, it is first necessary to sell the people on change itself, the ‘audacity of hope,’ and ‘yes we can.’ You do this by proposing moderate changes which open the door to your radical agendas: ‘Remember: Once you organize people around something as commonly agreed upon as pollution, then an organized people is on the move. From there, it’s a short and natural step to political pollution, to Pentagon pollution.’”
Alinsky’s last example is particularly alarming in light of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ announcement March 25 that he was changing the Pentagon’s regulations with respect to implementation of the law that prohibits openly homosexual individuals from serving in the military. He claims that the purpose of the changes is to make such enforcement “fairer and more appropriate” — presumably, fairer to people who are not supposed to be in the armed forces in the first place.
In practice, however, those changes will have an insidious effect. Henceforth, only flag and general officers will be able to initiate investigations of such people and to convene proceedings to remove them from the service.
Sources of information that can be used for those purposes also will be restricted sharply — and less likely to be forthcoming. In short, it will become vastly more difficult to enforce the law by removing those gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals who have flouted the law by joining the armed forces, then made known their sexual proclivities.
Even before President Obama achieves his avowed goal of repealing the law, the Pentagon is serving notice that military personnel who oppose that policy are out of step and putting their careers on the line. To make the point explicitly, Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, a declared proponent of repeal, used the Pentagon news conference to denounce a senior officer, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the commander of U.S. Army Pacific.
In a recent letter to the military publication, Stars and Stripes, Gen. Mixon declared: “It is often stated that most service members are in favor of repealing the policy. I do not believe that is accurate. I suspect many service members, their families, veterans and citizens are wondering what to do to stop this ill-advised repeal of a policy that has achieved a balance between a citizen’s desire to serve and acceptable conduct. Now is the time to write your elected officials and chain of command and express your views. If those of us who are in favor of retaining the current policy do not speak up there is no chance to retain the current policy.”
Gates and Mullen both called the general’s letter “inappropriate.” Mullen went further declaring, “As a three-star leader in command, by virtue of that position alone, he has great influence. If there’s policy direction that someone in uniform disagrees with…the answer is not advocacy, it is in fact to vote with your feet.”
In other words: “Get out. There is no place for you in the Obama armed forces if you support the present law.”
Polls of U.S. military personnel have indicated that 10 percent of those now in uniform will, to use Mullen’s phrase, vote with their feet if the law is repealed. Another 15 percent responded that they seriously would consider doing so. Needless to say, the effect of such losses of skilled officers and enlisted servicemen and women on an all-volunteer force could be catastrophic, especially for a nation at war.
The question occurs: Is President Obama deliberately seeking to “fundamentally change” the American military as he has so many other of our country’s institutions — among them, the Congress, the financial sector, the automobile industry, the healthcare system, and student aid programs?
More to the point, as with his mentor, Saul Alinsky, is the real purpose to wreck these entities that underpin our economy, society, and system of government?
During the weekend, President Obama declared in his tribute to American troops at Bagram, Afghanistan: “I have no greater honor than serving as your commander in chief.”
If he truly means that and wants to support, rather than undermine, those who serve, he should put an end to social experimentation with the armed forces. And that is what the rest of us must do if, as is evidently the case, Mr. Obama remains intent — such rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding — on pursuing a wrecking operation against our military.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.
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