Myths About Saul Alinsky (and Obama)

  [NOTE: Current latest tRTP posting:  http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2016/06/clinton-and-bengazi-vs-reagan-and.html]
Lately, right wing sources have been circulating a fictitious set of 8 "levels of control"  or "How to create a social state" that Saul Alinsky was supposed to have written, which led off with
  1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people

This myth is so thoroughly digested and accepted that answers.yahoo.com will spit it out as the answer to "What are the 8 levels of control as outlined by Saul Alinsky?" (last time checked: 2014-08-18).
Yet is very easily shown to be a total fiction.

Alinsky has been dead for over 40 years, yet the phoney connection between Alinsky and his supposed "How to create a social state" only appears on web pages from 2013 on, which probably means it is scuttlebutt generated for the post-election renewal of the war on Obama.

If you Google { alinsky "Control healthcare and you control the people" }
with a custom date range 1/1/2000-1/1/2013 you get 9 hits which all seem to not really be that old; but an unrestricted search gives 85,600 results (note that Google gives different results for different people based on their records of what you've shown interest in -- so your mileage may vary)

So, apparently nobody ever heard of Alinsky saying  "Control healthcare and you control the people" before 2013, though he's been dead since 1972.

2014 "Planning" for 65,000 unaccompanied minor aliens - though it would be the first year more than 5,000 appeared

How to create an illusion of proper sourcing:
A widespread story has appeared that the U.S. was looking for one or more contractors to help deal with an estimated 65,000 unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants for 2014 when up to now, no more than 5,000 unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants a year have been seen.

It looks like the story originated with "Conservative Treehouse".  They provided a link to the original solicitation for services on a legitimate government site.  Yes, it sure enough says "There will be approximately 65,000 UAC (Unaccompanied Alien Children)  in total".  So, impressive sourcing, straight to the government document. 

Is this a Real Project? Or What?

Whenever someone charges at the world waving the flag of truth, they almost never mean truth in and of itself; they mean some particular claim that for them burns so bright as to blot out everything else.

Trying to get a handle on truth in and of itself seems to me a lot like wrestling Proteus, or the "Old Man of the Sea", as described by Menelaus in the Odyssey. The Old Man can answer any questions if captured, but capturing him means holding on as he changes shapes from a horse to a serpent to water to fire to whatever until he is worn out if one has the strength to wear him out.

On Asking "What if Race is more than a social construct?"

A friend recently sent me to an article "What if Race is more than a social construct?" by Margaret Wente in the (Toronto) Globe and Mail more or less a review of

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History The title of Wente's article: It takes aim at a troublesome postmodern-ish tendency of the last decade or so of calling race a "social construct".  One of its major themes is a favorite meme of the right: "Why can't liberals be rational about race?" Why all these taboos on what words are proper?  Why can't we just follow science wherever it leads (supposedly)?    I can sympathize with one reaction to the "social construction" construct.  Aren't there really a lot of differences in skin color, hair, shape of facial features which we did not strictly speaking imagine?

Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk by Massimo Pigliucci

I just finished listening to the Audible.com edition of

Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk The book does quite a thorough job of covering the many ways facts and science lose out in the popularity wars.  Also, it mentioned many issues and people I've thought about over the years, and made strong connections to my most recent thinking. So I went to look at the author's blog, http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/ only to find he ended it 3 months ago (in March 2014).

Kornblith (ed) Naturalizing Epistemology, and Stich: "Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism"

I've been dabbling more and more in academic philosophy, specifically epistemology, some of which seems like it might have some use to the world.  In my 62 years, I've never been much drawn to people calling themselves philosophers, but one day many years ago, it occurred to me that, in what I was calling a "Truth Project", I was trying to do "practical epistemology" (for some idea of "Impractical epistemology" see NOTE 1 below).

A Homely Analogy for Keyneseanism

Keynes is like you lose your job because your industry went up in smoke, so you borrow money if you can to get training in a new line of work, to get a suit to go to interviews, to get a car if there's no longer work in walking distance, OR, you keep yourself busy doing productive things, prettify your house and garden, work out like you never did before.

The ThinkTank-ospere Goes Post-Modern?

This came from: Dylan Otto Krider (aka Memekiller - on facebook)

Authors of conservative alternative to the biased, crowd-sourced Wikipedia are still removing the liberal parts of the Bible - like the not casting the first stone bit. The King James Bible and more recent translations are veritable primers of progressive agitprop, according to the founder of Conservapedia.

New Hampshire Lawmaker: ‘Firearms And Ammo’ May Be Necessary, Just Like In The ‘Revolutionary War’

I am looking at a "Think Progress" article titled "New Hampshire Lawmaker: ‘Firearms And Ammo’ May Be Necessary, Just Like In The ‘Revolutionary War’", illustrated by a photo of a (probably unrelated) gun rights demonstration.

One sign held by a demonstrator reads "Dictators Prefer Unarmed Citizens".  Another says "History shows Tyrannical Governments First Disarm their Citizens".

Sounds logical, doesn't it.

Newtown Anniversary Evokes fear that "They're Coming to Get Our Guns"

On the day that Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot point blank in the head, and 19 people were shot and 6 died, the ThinkTank-ocracy's rapid response spin team laid groundwork for the three years that have followed, of preemptive strikes against anyone who might claim any connection between guns and killing. I observed some of this rapid response brainstorming myself.

The Mystery of Electricity, according to a Home-schooling Textbook.

Something that showed up on my facebook page. I'm just sort of getting the hang of this facebook stuff.

The 1,300 Page Bill that Nobody Has Read (i.e. Immigrant Reform or s744)

I've been reading, and listening to "The 1,300 Page Bill that Nobody Has Read".  As you may have heard, this is how House Speaker John Boehner referred to the Immigrant reform bill.  I'd like to briefly point out a few things, and provide a link to a downloadable audio version of the bill you could listen to in your car in about 16 hours.  Time doesn't permit me to do nearly as polished a job as I'd like, and I'm very late in the news cycle as it is, but over the weekend I hope to make substantial improvements

Jefferson said "we the people" must know enough to govern ourselves - or be unfree

Someone will accumulate enough power to dominate our lives unless we constantly seek to prevent that.  Even it this sounds impossible - we have to select and persuade people smarter and more competent than most of us to work to keep us all free and, yes, to work for the general welfare (as noted in the Constitution).

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

--Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820.

Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile, Black Swans, etc.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written a trilogy of books about the sort of human tendencies (and/or tendencies of our culture) that helped  bring about the financial meltdown and the current recession.

Feel free to order from these links. Doing so will help support Truthology 101 / Practical Epistemology

The kernel of truth in postmodernism

The kernel of truth in postmodernism, with its obsession with the modern "gaze" and "master narratives" is, if you look at the world from a Gods-eye point of view (as the universal observer as opposed to just you - in whatever weak position you happen to be in) -- whatever solutions you may think of to the worlds problems will tend to start with "STEP 1: Get control of everything".  Step 2 may be "Nationalize all wealth", or it may be "Reduce government to the functions of preventing crime and enforcing contracts", but you will never get to step 2, but be stuck making a mess of step 1 forever.