A social revolution -- or a superior sound-bite?

watttyler

Melanie, I think that Cameron is well aware of Saul Alinsky, as we shall find out. At least I shall be able to say I did not vote for it.

HairyNoddy

If he's not going to allow us referenda on an English Parliament or membership of the EU, nothing that Cameron says or does holds any interest for me.

journeyman

Maybe Alinskyite activists and "Muslimist" entryists will hijack it and well be even worse off than before.
Oh the irony!
Did you know that too much irony can kill ya ?
Not that Commieron and the LabLabLab three-headed Leftopian post-democratic empire of EUtopia would complain.
It's funny how the Bush,McCain RINO's over on State side have been doing the Cameron lefty side-shuffle long before Cameron.In the end they had to get a permission slip and get it cleared by Alinsky Thought Police head office before daring to open their mouths in public.
It took 40 years of the "long march through the institutions to get into this mess, and it might take a reverse 4 decades march to get out of them.
There's only one small problem. Demographically speaking we don't have 40 years.

Eric Hester

An important blog. The Conservative Party certainly knows about the origins of "The Big Society" idea. This is what it put on its offical website in April: "“This plan is directly based on the successful community organising movement established by Saul Alinsky in the United States and has successfully trained generations of community organisers, including President Obama.”

Christians will note that the AlinskY'S chef d'oeuvre, RULES FOR RADICALS is dedicated by its author to Lucifer.

Aileen Park

Will this redistribution of power also bring a redistribution of wealth? Because it seems to me that the issue is not so much about power but about the issues of a small number of elite people possessing 90% of the nation's wealth and not really wanting to part with that. Anything other thgan a radical redistribution of wealth and resources is just a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Can't turn my eyes away from the fact that public money has been used to prop up banks and banker bonuses, no tackling of the bonus culture. Big Society sounds pretty hollow.

journeyman

Eric Hester

Quote: "Rules for Radicals" was dedicated by its author to Lucifer."

Quote: Alinsky was a wild kid in Prohibition era Chicago. Capone's successor and street muscle Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti took a liking to him and let him hang around his H.Q.
He became fascinated with the mobsters strong arm methodology and how he controlled neighbourhoods.
This is all in his Playboy interview which is still on line.
Sounds like a God damned Francis Ford Copalla movie.

In the Wilderness in America

Melanie, your definition of a "true liberal society" is not the definition of a "liberal society" in America. Yours is so much closer to the "conservative" view here in the U.S. Hopefully, Cameron will not initiate community organizing in Britain as you fear. It is deadly as only those who voted for Obama are quickly finding out.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

It is just a talk, community people should run and look after the post offices and the parks and what else? He is gonna give power to those leftist arti arty people, they are gonna mess up everything because they are so lefty they will only do what is good for them like plant marijuana trees in the parks near play grounds or give security jobs to exterimists at the airports or hire burka wearing women to do customer service jobs in a museums.

hadrian

Considering the relentless threatening waves of immigration from E.U. extremities that have barely emerged from the barbarism of years of Soviet repression,- next it's the Modovians, we're being warned about- I rather think anything this silly government may attempt to conserve our historic liberties will be entirely irrelevant- fiddling as the E.U. flames engulf us. A crying disgrace they have not the guts to simply shut our borders to such invasions.

St Bruno

That’s what makes me so uneasy: the shallowness of it all.
Agree as usual with what you say.

I would just like the new Tory/LibDems to do something about the rising national debt that even smacks of real concern for the future of our existing society never mind tinkering with it and changing to some sort of Tory dream land full of the people who have seen the signs of Open for Business on the White Cliffs of Dover. It seems to me that we are all being prepared for far worse things to come. I don’t trust them. I’ve seen and heard it all too often with smooth words from pontificating politicians. Why should we all change the way we live because they made a mess of things with their greedy ‘City of London’ square mile, never mind the lack of control of the banks?

A Big Speech for a Big Society by Big Brother!

I suppose this comes under the heading of Social Engineering by the Tory party. Teams of blue rinse and florid faced Tories touring the streets looking for sites to build their private enterprise energy generators for both electricity and gas production, eco friendly of course. The Isle of Egg nonsense should’ve rang a few alarm bells.

I am uneasy about many things besides this Monday morning briefing by the PM. Stand by for the media side taking. The BBC should be interesting later today.

Oflife

In the early 1990s, as a Brit who through nothing but chance won the (US) green card lottery, I got to interview in a gruelling process at the US Embassy in London. I recall it was raining, and I arrived from the airport in a t-shirt and shorts, with no umbrella, so arrived soaked. (I had to fly from Palo Alto to the Embassy specially!) What I went through is why the Americans are such hard workers and come with a sense of honor that is missing from more socialist societies. I had to sign a document that said the following: a) I was and had never been a member of the communist party. b) I did not have AIDS. c) I was and had never been a Nazi. d) I would be able to provide for myself in the US. (IE, not be a ward of the state.) With a product of my entrepreneurial skills under my arms (a modified computer that I took to the embassy), I gladly signed the document - after a male doctor tested me for various diseases using a method well known to any fans of Fletch. "Moon river!" :)

So, I returned to the US, green card in hand, and never in 9.8 years did I cost the country a penny. And I paid my taxes too. (I did borrow and incurre debt, but not at a cost to the nation.)

I wonder if that would ever happen here in the UK, so we could flood the nation with a more dignified populace who would be ashamed to ask for a penny from others - unless injured or bereft and therefore justified to draw upon the state.

Frank P

journeyman (9.55pm)
Eric Hester (10.04pm)

Yes; moreover it was reported during our recent General election that Anita Dunn was advising David Cameron.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7041971.ece

Very likely - nay, almost certain - that Alinski was discussed, given the blurb on Conservative Party blog.

Can't understand, given all that, why Melanie says "I don't think he knows about [Alinski's goals]." What's up, gal?

Maybe it's presumptuous to think that the content of these blogs is brought to the attention of Cameron; but Alinski has been discussed ad nauseum here, not least by Melanie. I have repeatedly drawn attention to Trevor Loudon's NewZeal blog which for the past couple of years has filleted Obama's connections with the far left (including Anita Dunn's role). Glenn Beck has hammered those connections home again and again, with the help of David Horowitz and others. There a plethora of evidence on video out of their own mouths, not to mention the official documentary stuff outed by Loudon. He's a red chaser; driven, eccentric, but thorough. How could Cameron not be aware of this? This Magazine purports to be a conservative magazine - surely those charged with advising Cameron, if not the man himself would at least research the allegations.

The only question that remained for me, was whether or not Cameron was playing the double game employing subterfuge to pick up votes intending to swing right when elected. I voted Tory on that dubious premise (fearing that I was being conned - but taking a flyer as there wasn't another horse in the race that could go the distance). One could be generous and say that because his ruse didn't work and not enough votes were forthcoming he's now having to make the best of a bad job. Hmmn.

That no longer washes. This government is clearly closer to Alinski than Thatcher, conservatism is dead, not pretending to be dead. We are in the grip of yet another stage of then modified socialist revolution. Get used to it folks. I can see no realignment of politics in the near future that is likely to take us away from exponentially expanding internationalist socialism. Cameron is in the US to link arms with Obambi in the Long March. All the rest is posturing. I shall regard any report of a spat between them, over BP or any other distraction, as a smokescreen to cover the LM link-up. Two different looking peas but out of the same pod - Academia's leftist cerebral laundry. Big Society my ass, Big Brother more like!

Ralph Pattison

In Australia the left seem to be aiming for Centralisation. I have heard that town councils should be done away with and that the State governments should be taken over by the Federal Government. It would be so much cheaper! We are still in the Dreamtime down here. This is serious.
I am still confused as to how the term "Liberal" has become such a term of abuse. I always thought of myself as a kinda liberal sort of guy. We used to call ourselves 'Dope smokers of the Right' but times have changed and 'Liberals' have become intolerant, illiberal controllers. We saw the best of it in the 70's and we did not see this coming.

Derek Pasquill

Zombieland Coalition sleepwalking to dhimmocracy and the Islamic Terror.

Big Society? Big Brainwash more likely.

David Bouvier

Aileen Park - that would be 45-50% of the population holding 90% of the wealth. The top 10% have a touch over 50%.

I wonder if it is possible to use Alinsky's methods to pursue conservative goals.

Anyway, what is clear is that Cameron seems to want to make a serious attempt to "turn the clock back" in terms of reinvigoration of personal and civic initiative and liberty and stripping back the dead hand of the welfare state.

It will I am afraid require some baby steps - the sorched earth approach would have severe short term consequences which many would probably not consider acceptable. And which would probably lead to electoral and hence policy failure even if you considered them ok.

Mr. Mabutoh Afunfa

The welfare is handicapping the African community in Britain, specially the Africans from the muslim countries it makes them not integrate, they don't worry about learning or working it creates problem it makes people lazy and religious, not everyone is like me I work 8 to 8.

Simon Stephenson

"Of course I don’t think he (David Cameron) supports Alinsky’s goals. I don’t think he even knows about them."

It's just a thought, but your esteemed editor may be able to throw some light on this. On 11th April, Fraser Nelson posted on this blog (*) a notification that he would be conducting an interview with Mr Cameron the following morning, and asked CoffeeHousers for suggestions as to what questions he might ask him. One of four that I suggested was:-

How does he react to the vitriolic comments made by Gerald Warner, Ed West and Melanie Phillips, amongst others, about the Saul Alinsky inspired "Big Society" presentation which he gave earlier this month?

I'm at a loss to find a report of what went on at this interview session, but if Fraser did actually ask my question, there can surely be little doubt that Mr Cameron is fully aware of the Alinsky background to his Big Society idea.

* http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5905378/what-would-you-ask-cameron.thtml

John Richardson

"Can't understand, given all that, why Melanie says "I don't think he knows about [Alinski's goals]." What's up, gal?"

...a confused Frank P. @1:15pm

Myopic ?
Try this...

January 4, 2010
'In search of the work ethic'
Daily Mail, 4 January 2010

When M.P. had found working poor (foreign) people in our country, she spotted that...

"But here was the rub. They all came from countries without a welfare safety net. Their cultural ‘work ethic’ was arguably formed by fear of destitution — [and in this country their desperation to work, not to mention their poor English, exposed them to exploitation].

So I was left with the uncomfortable question of whether the work ethic is only created by fear of the awful consequences of not working."

Yes, such innocence is sweet. However, our country is falling to bits.
We really don't need this. It becomes dangerous after a short while.
Maintaining, in the face of both documentary evidence and the 'blindingly obvious', that Mr Cameron does not know what he is doing. Or why he is doing it. Or what the consequences will be is not helping.
Lisbon was serious.
The 'Green' taxes on economic activity are serious.
Letting more criminals go free is serious.

So I am left with the uncomfortable conclusion....

Dixon

"Communitarianism" is, in spite of MCs views on the matter, THE quintessential Blairite ideology. It is about the ultimate manifestation of social control, by ones "peers" rather than The Peers. This is exemplified by its traditional expression through organisations such as the Salvation Army, which is more about "winning hearts and minds" for Jesus through superficially selfless acts of generosity than even the British Army is about winning "hearts and minds" by allowing themselves to be used for target practice by the Taleban.

Heres a better idea for freeing up entrepreneurialism and independence at the grass roots level...sack a million council regulators. Every department from EHO to planning needs to be cut to a stump.

The cost of having that million on benefits would be way less than the salaries they now earn. And they would be out of our hair, allowing us to get on with our business.

Of course, that raises a point, how can the Tories cut benefits and at the same time cut public expenditure? The latter is going to create massive unemployment which will limit the former. Unless they declare "let them eat cake". And we know where that leads.

Thucydides

“Maybe it's presumptuous to think that the content of these blogs is brought to the attention of Cameron”. No, Frank P, I’m sure that the green ink-style witterings of a handful of clapped out reactionary old farts is the first thing that our prime minister turns to each day. Apart from anything else, what other source does he have for the hilarious jokes of your relatives?

E Hart

Not since the invention of drivel by the Sumerians have so many be duped by so few for so much. Never mind, Dave is is one of us - a fellow suffer in the New Britain - a land fit for charlatans, the unemployed, indentured labourers and career politicians of private means.

I give the sap a year and half before the whole preposterous edifice crumbles into a pile of incoherent gibberish. Nothing good can come from empty-headed drivel. He's managed to fool the British people once to get elected - he's unlikely to get another chance.

By the way, a welfare society is what you get when private capital votes with its incompetence; gets nobbled by the banks; runs off to cheaper climes where unit costs are lower; doesn't invest...

What Britain does especially well is developing highly successful industries which it then allows to slide into the economic abyss through bad management and lack of sustained investment i.e. short-termism. It is convenient to blame militant trade unions but the truth of the matter is that most of these industries were already on the slide before they became militant. For example, the Longbridge plant in the Midlands was using a lot of plant dating from before WWII - and that was in the late '70s. In contrast, the Germans retooled with Marshall Aid and they still have their own car industry. I wonder why?

If you want to know why Britain has become over-reliant on the state - look no further than shipbuilding, cars, motorbikes, trains, machine tools, heavy plant, electronics, engineering expertise, civil engineering, merchant shipping...

If you don't produce anything that you can sell - how on earth are you going to develop a successful liberal economy?

The reason why the Germans are still a major economy is that they invest in precisely these things.

Frank P

Ahhh! The queer, wrestling, bubble and squeak has returned.

Thought you had retired with a back-strain after a feisty fisting frolic, Thucy.

But you're quite right - as I sort of intimated, it is perhaps too much to expect Cameron to be the least interested in the opinions or fears of the common conservative voters; particularly the ones who weren't members of the Bullingdon Club, where no doubt coarse jokes, like the memes of my naughty niece, are verboten.

Tarka the Rotter

HairyNoddy is right - we are denied a chance to vote in an EU Referendum, we cannot have an English Parliament...so much for democracy

Augustus

David Cameron's 'Big Society' is nothing more than a modish, tree-hugging, modernisation process designed to go in any direction as long as it's seen to be squarely in the post-Thatcher era. But why be suspicious of Thatcher's Christian values? It is the growing erosion of those social virtues that underpinned the common decencies that society once took for granted that is at the root of the explosion in anti-social behaviour that makes so many citizens daily lives a misery. As Christian belief has declined across society, these very social virtues are no longer practiced by a growing minority, with devastating consequences for those who are affected. David Cameron may have made a difference to the Conservative party, but is is the wrong difference.

Thucydides

Frank P,

You do yourself a disservice: the Bullingdon Club are as obsessed with arse activity as you seem to be (was a funny experience during national service or something?).

Tom Brown

Very suspicious of this - I was a school governor for several years and left in the end. Govt/LEA were just angling for free management by volunteers and then hemming us in with rules and obligations. We had no real power. Big society? No thanks. I want to control what I pay for.

Frank P

Thucy.

"You do yourself a disservice: the Bullingdon Club are as obsessed with arse ..."

That, dear boy, was my point. Your irony machine seems to be stuck on 'send only'.

Baron

the welfare society is what got us into the shite. It doesn’t solve any of the social problems we face for it itself is THE problem. Why should the kid learn anything at school when the welfare net never fails to offer a helping hand to keep him going; why should his mother work when the same welfare net’s there not only to cover the cost of sustenance for both, but that of the tattoos and the metallic baubles adoring their earlobes, too; why should his father find a job rather than sire more of the same brood when not he, but the welfare net’s around to take care of the lot.

the only thing that puzzles is that the majority of the great unwashed haven’t joined the welfare bandwagon. Yet.

Relugus

Our banks invest next to nothing into our manufacturing. They instead gamble money on house prices. In short, the people who should be investing in innovation are running their own private casino at our expense.

So, while world-famous companies like Apple and Nintendo rule the world, Britain just shuffles money about and produces trash.
Its certainly impossible to imagine a British company as smart as the great Nintendo.

Which leads me to Osbourne's failure to support Britain's hugely important videogame industry, which is by far the most important creative industry we have, shows the short-sighted, short-termist mentality of the British in all it's rotten glory.

The UK's Bullshit Economy, with it's greedy babyboomer house price farce, it's reality TV shite, and its second rate "that'll do" mentality, reeks of failure.

AVG

The german government will cut social welfares, and so punish the people who became unemployed because of the crisis. Instead of this, the greedy bankers and gamblers should finally be forced to pay for the mess they have caused ! Our opinion here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCYRxHz-OY0&feature=channel

Mr Melrose

Do you think Dave is really a Marxist and he is just using the 'Big Society' as a smokescreen to bring in his left policies to destroy us all? Do you think the British people are stupid enough to fall for this?

Thucydides

Mr Melrose,

No.

On the basis of your question I think that you are a bit of a wingnut who needs to spend some more time in the real world.

Mr Melrose

Dixon

As a planner - Architect I was interested to see your proposals that planning should be 'cut to a stump' and a million (why stop there!!!) thrown on to the dole so that you can 'Get on with Business'(Shudder!)

Are you proposing that the knowledge base covering planning policy, building regs, Design codes, landscape assessment, placing of wind farms etc etc are transferred to the private sector, or just dispensed with?

I cannot understand the right-wing obsession with throwing people out of work, like it's a good thing to have millions more on benefits, loosing their homes. How does that benefit the country at all?

I have worked in the private and public sectors and I can assure you the people there are equally talented (or untalented), not just working for the public because they can't get a job anywhere else.

Or though now of course that's not true, as both public and private sectors will shortly be equally screwed.

You may not have heard this morning (it was on BBC radio 5, so probably not) - a discussion on the merits of the author Dan Brown, who despite selling millions of books is generally accepted to be worser at writing than Ernie Wise.

An interesting point raised was that he tapped into all the fears of the 21st century - fear of technology, history, terrorists, government, secret societies etc, and most of all fear of knowledge and the professions - that 'They have all been lying to you'

You don't need knowledge or experience, just one book and some common sense.

This seems to be the thrust of this blog - The liars - Doctors, politicians, teachers, climate scientists, virtually anyone really, knowledge is nothing) being exposed by the commons sense of the free thinking libertarian. This is different to being a sceptic.

Which is why it is so easy to casually dispose of them.

What kind of country would that produce?

AVG

1. The german government will cut social welfares, and so punish the people who became unemployed because of the crisis. Instead of this, the greedy bankers and gamblers should finally be forced to pay for the mess they have caused ! Our opinion here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCYRxHz-OY0&feature=channel

Ian Hills

Great idea, Cameron! Let's go further - how about us opting out of the police precept so that we can hire vigilantes to protect our neighbourhoods? Let's take over our schools, so that our children can be taught properly again, not brainwashed with political correctness. Let's throw the drug-dealers out of our tower blocks - literally. Let's sack grubby MRSA nurses and brutal care workers. Why not grab hold of the accounts books and replace all those corrupt borough councillors? Dave, I know you didn't have this sort of thing in mind. But it's the way Britain will go.