THE CLOWARD-PIVEN-OBAMA STRATEGY

Political change can be forced through orchestrated crises, wrote Richard Cloward, a Columbia University sociology professor, and Frances Fox Piven, then his research assistant, in May of 1966 in an article in The Nation magazine entitled: "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty."

Only about half the Americans technically eligible for benefits were on welfare rolls, they noted. If "cadres of aggressive organizers," who "create a climate of militancy" through threats of violence, could sign up everyone who was eligible, the welfare bureaucracy would be overwhelmed, would collapse, producing political and economic chaos.

To restore order, political leaders would be forced to provide everyone with a guaranteed annual income, they predicted.

The Nation sold 30,000 reprints. The "Cloward-Piven strategy" was born.

It inspired Saul Alinsky, father of "community organizing," and Wade Rathke of ACORN, who sought also to collapse the system by clogging voter rolls with bogus registrations; lowering standards for home loans (to increase defaults), and reducing barriers to illegal immigration.

Just 8 million Americans were on welfare when Cloward and Piven wrote their article; more than 100 million get some form of public assistance today. But "the system" has proved more durable than they imagined.

Which may have been as much a blessing for Cloward-Piven strategists as for us. If a small minority of belligerent deadbeats caused the economy to collapse, how likely is it the vast majority of Americans would respond by meekly acceding to their demands?

"Cloward-Piven has always struck me as an idiot strategy," said novelist Andrew Klavan. "The idea that you can cause chaos and then predict what will come out of that chaos makes absolutely no sense."

Those who seek to impose socialism through orchestrated crises have weakened America, but haven’t been able to engineer a crash. Yet. But what if the most powerful man in the country were among them?

Evidence the border crisis is manufactured is substantial. The flood was triggered by Barack Hussein Obama’s announcement he would stop deporting young illegals. Tens of thousands of aliens who’ve committed felonies here have been released into the general population.

Border Patrolmen have been pulled away from the border, given additional duties which hamper their ability to guard it. De facto safe zones are being established where drug and human smugglers can cross with little interference.

Illegals couldn’t come in such numbers without collusion from the governments involved. The administration knew they were coming, did nothing to stop them, prepared inadequately for their arrival.

The most plausible reason for manufacturing a border crisis would be to blackmail Republicans into supporting "comprehensive immigration reform."

But if this were the strategy, it backfired. Large majorities disapprove of how the president has handled the crisis; want the "unaccompanied alien children" streaming across the border sent home pronto. They’re furious about how much the president plans to spend on the UACs, adamantly oppose settling them in their communities.

If he created the border crisis for partisan advantage, it’s plain the president should act now to defuse it, lest it become an albatross around the necks of Democrats. But he’s unwilling to act decisively to stanch the flood, despite the chaos it’s causing and the likely political fallout.

This could be because Mr. Obama is a risk averse incompetent who’s never acted decisively in a crisis; an egotist unwilling to admit mistakes; a hyper partisan who even during a national emergency won’t work with Republicans.

Conservatives who note he was reared by people who disliked America, was a community organizer, an admirer of Saul Alinsky, a lawyer for ACORN, a friend of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn suspect there may be another reason.

It’s clear the border crisis was triggered by the halt the president ordered in deportations of the so-called "Dreamers," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala, wrote in a "dear colleague" letter Tuesday (7/15). Despite that, he’s planning to issue additional executive orders which would gut remaining barriers to illegal immigration.

"By declaring whole classes of illegal immigrants beyond the reach of the law, it would reduce the moral authority needed to enforce any immigration law, creating the very open borders policy explicitly rejected by Congress and the people," Sen. Sessions said.

This "threatens the foundation of our constitutional Republic," he warned.

Which may be exactly what Mr. Obama has in mind.  "Cloward-Piven" needs to be renamed "Cloward-Piven-Obama."

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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