Cloward Piven Strategy:

The Cloward Piven Strategy: In The News: November 2011 

Robert Stacy McCain, in The American Spectator gives us the following words of wisdom:

"Obama's invocation of "the American people" and their "frustrations" might permit some other conspiracy theorists to suggest -- with far better evidence -- that the protesters camped in Zuccotti Park are part of a deliberate effort by the president and his party to undermine the free enterprise system. Several conservative commentators have interpreted "Occupy Wall Street" in light of Saul Alinsky's radical maxim: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." Others see the anti-capitalist mobs in the context of the "Cloward Piven Strategy" to foment a crisis that would bring about a socialist revolution. This suggestion cannot be lightly dismissed. One of the architects of that 1960s-era strategy, Professor Frances Fox Piven, is an active supporter of the movement and told a public-radio interviewer: "I think we desperately need a popular uprising in the United States." Piven also denounced the financial industry at a Sept. 29 rally in New York where, in a bizarre call-and-response speech, she told the crowd: "You've heard people say they're greedy, and they are greedy. You've heard people say that they are thieves, and they are thieves. But they're also cannibals, because they are eating their own."

You can read the full story here.

The Cloward Piven Strategy: Yet Another View

The Cloward Piven Strategy is a system invented in the late '60s, by two Social Democratic members of the faculty, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, at Columbia University and the purpose of the Cloward Piven strategy is the economic demolition of the United States by overloading the system to usher in a system of income redistribution and thereby bring down the poverty levels (supposedly). They opined that, many Americans who were entitled for welfare were not receiving the benefits and a welfare registration drive would have a catastrophic effect on local budgets, triggering a crisis at the state and local levels that would serve as a wake-up call and bring about a popular consensus for the government to implement a national solution to poverty.

The Cloward Piven Strategy focuses on compelling the government to take action at the federal level to help the poor. They explained that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare would result in bureaucratic disruption in welfare authorities and financial disruption in local and state governments that would intensify existing divisions among elements in large cities: the remaining white middle class, the working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To curb further infringement of that historic alignment, a national Democratic administration would be forced to advance a federal solution to poverty that would take precedence over local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas.

The stated goal of this strategy: to wipe out poverty by instituting a guaranteed annual income might is seriously questioned by many because the ideals of individual, social and economic liberties have deep roots; even activists may be unwilling to call for national programs to eradicate poverty by the outright distribution of income.

Impact of the Cloward Piven Strategy:

As per the newspapers published in 1971 and 1977, Cloward and Piven themselves, argue that the mass riots in the United States, especially between 1964 and 1969, did lead to a massive expansion of welfare recipients, but not to the guaranteed-income program that they had hoped for. Political scientist Robert Albritton disagreed, writing in 1979 that the data does not support this thesis. He offered an alternative explanation for the increasing number of welfare cases. And some commentators have held the Cloward Piven Strategy responsible for the near failure of New York City in the year 1975.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck expressed that the Cloward Piven Strategy had helped to influence Barack Obama's economic policy. On February 18, 2010, he said that, "you have got total destruction of wealth coming... It’s the final phase of the Cloward Piven Strategy, which is collapse of the system." In the magazine, "The Nation" it is stated that Beck holds the Cloward Piven Strategy responsible for "the financial crisis of 2008, healthcare reform, Obama's election and massive voter fraud."

The Cloward Piven Strategy: The Government’s Perfectly Orchestrated Plan?

In the late year 2000’s financial crisis, the United States Government crafted some very interesting strategies, but nothing compares to this blast from the past and the current hot topic, the Cloward Piven Strategy. Outlined in 1966 by two married Columbia University professors, Cloward and Piven, the Cloward Piven Strategy paved the way for what some believe is happening in the political world today.

Why the controversy?

Barbknecht defined it perfectly; he stated that “the goal is to overthrow capitalism by overwhelming the government bureaucracy with entitled demands. The created crisis provides the impetus to bring about radical change” (Page 6). The texture of the tactic if implemented will leave healthcare, energy, education, fiscal, tax, regulatory reform and private economy sore from redistribution of incomes.

Redistribution of incomes is evidently an equation to more loss of jobs but such a policy does allow the government to centralize all finances and manipulate the United States more easily. This not only applies to Americans, remember other countries depend on the U.S. Government’s finance and order. Add another factor to the equation; if the U.S. Government is able to control all those aspects worldwide, it means they have everyone’s full subordination. Sounds like the New World Order conspiracy.

Similarly, the Cloward Piven Strategy theory focuses in the same direction as New World Order conspiracy theories. This involves secret societies who conspire to dominate the globe, using authoritarian methodologies. Dependence upon the new government is essential, and individuals who do not adhere to the new policies must survive alone, which is virtually impossible because the government dominates everything.

Implementation of such a conspiracy must involve careful analysis and strategy, for that reason, the U.S. Government presents it as something positive. After all, no government is going to say outright that they want to dominate the world. Picture a world scrambling for the Government’s provision and a dictator in the center that they must worship. Sounds like the rebirth of Hitler's Germany? Perhaps.

References: Barbknecht, Gary. We the People: An Action Guide. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing, 2010.

The Cloward Piven Strategy: Another Overview

The Cloward Piven Strategy is a political theory which was developed by Francis Fox Piven and her husband, Richard Cloward, in the late 1960’s. This strategy, which was designed decades ago, is in force today, and the ultimate goal of the Cloward Piven Strategy is the economic destruction of the United States.

Those who advance the Cloward Piven Strategy believe that the downfall of the United States will be manipulated through an economic crisis, and implementation of the strategy is driven by a hatred for capitalism and a desire to replace it with a socialist state. Current masterminds of this strategy, include radicals and socialists in power and authority in the Congress and the White House, whom proponents of the Cloward Piven Strategy characterize as radicals and socialists. The political parties on the far left have been and are the driving forces of the plan.

As evidence for the viability of the Cloward Piven Strategy at work, adherents to the theory site increasing government intervention and the growth of the welfare state, including Barack Obama’s “healthcare plan.” The activities of the now-infamous ACORN enterprise and the SEIU (Service Employees Workers Union) are also attributed to the strategy.

One strong proponent of the existence of the Cloward Piven Strategy at work is Glenn Beck, the television personality who, among other things, claims that the current administration, through allies and surrogates, is registering the dead to vote, and to vote for socialist-leaning people and policies, and even former New York City Mayor Rudy Guliani, has made allusions to the Cloward Piven Strategy.

Those who believe the Cloward Piven Strategy is the ultimate basis for much of the activities of the current government also believe economic and social chaos are being strategically orchestrated by members of the far left, especially those in power whom they say have clear ties to the strategy. They site policies of the past and present, from the financial “stimulus” bill to” healthcare” to the Dodd-Frank bill and theorize that all of these policies were meant to fail; and for the Cloward Piven Strategy to work, failure of these efforts is essential to bring on the economic chaos and ultimate social strife necessary to lead to a socialist state.

Cloward Piven Strategy: Registering The Dead To Vote

Yes, thanks to the Cloward Piven Strategy, the dead aren't just registered to vote. The dead are voting. After all, as Cloward and Piven both eventually learned, you can't overwhelm and collapse the system unless your people are in power and you can't place your people in power without the consent of the voters; and one sure fire means of obtaining the consent of the voters is to manufacture votes.

In this video, Glenn Beck touches on the real reason why Bill Clinton and the Democrats pushed and subsequently passed The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as The Motor Voter Act. You'll also see video footage of the NVRA signing ceremony. Guess who is in attendance? None other than Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The Clinton White House invited them to the ceremony and Bill Clinton shook both their hands.

No matter what the political elites may have told us, the real purpose of the NVRA was to make voter fraud easier and more accessible. Can anyone say ACORN? Can anyone say SEIU union thuggery? Is it simply a coincidence that Wayne Rathke, the founder of both organizations, was a disciple of Cloward and Piven? Does any sane person believe that ACORN's voter fraud activities were not part of a much larger plan?

But the plot thickens. In 1982 Cloward and Piven founded Human SERVE (Service Employees Registration and Voter Education Fiund)... yet another organization that would employ the Cloward Piven Strategy, and, in coordination with ACORN Cloward and Piveny conceived and put into place programs that would serve as the precedent for the NVRA… just one vehicle that makes it possible for the radical left to engage in systemic voter fraud across the nation. Watch Beck and get the answers on how NVRA fit into the Cloward Piven Strategy.

Frances Fox Piven And The Cloward Piven Strategy:

If Frances Fox Piven is not the mother of the Socialist movement in America today, she is most certainly its dowager aunt; and as the co-author of what is now commonly called the Cloward Piven Strategy, she is most certainly one of the most influential figures of the radical left along with her now deceased husband, Richard Cloward, and other heros of the radical left such as Saul Alinsky and George Soros.

Recently, in response to criticisms by former FOX News host, Glenn Beck, Frances Fox Piven went on Amy Goodman's Progressive talk radio show in a vain and deceitful attempt to disavow the socialist label and said that it was "crazy" to call her a socialist. However, it's a matter of record that Frances Fox Piven served as the vice-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and, in 2003, she was named an honorary chairman of the DSA, an distinction only bestowed upon the cream of the crop among radical socialists... an honor that she only shares with seven others.

Frances Fox Piven was born in Calgary Canada in 1953, immigrated to the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1953. She received her Ph.D. in 1962 from the University of Chicago. Frances Fox Piven collaborated with her spouse, Richard Cloward, until his death in 2001 and together, they mentored many of the present-day movers and shakers of the radical left.

In May of 1966, Cloward and Piven co-authored an article for The Nation titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" which advocated increasing enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse the system under its own weigh and thereby provide a catalyst that would open the door for the government to institute a variety of socialist reforms to quell the ensuing violence from the disenfranchised in society.

While some would dismiss Piven's theories as crackpot ideas, even the casual observer of the news will have a hard time denying that variations of her theories are already playing themselves out in Greece and Britain where professional agitators have successfully manipulated events and organized violent riots in the streets.

And yes, while Frances Fox Piven will publically decry violence, she is undoubtedly a leading advocates of violence as a means brining about social change.

Stanley Kurtz of National Review writes: "Calls for the escalation and manipulation of violent rioting have long been central to Piven’s strategy. Her 1977 book with Cloward, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, detailed the rationale behind the infamous crisis strategy of a decade before. ... At the heart of the book, Cloward and Piven luxuriously describe instances of 'mob looting,' 'rent riots,' and similar disruptions, egged on especially by Communist-party organizers in the 1930s. Many of those violent protests resulted in injuries. A few led to deaths. The central argument of Poor People’s Movements is that it was not formal democratic activity but violent disruptions inspired by leftist organizers that forced the first great expansion of the welfare state."

And Frances Fox Piven is still advocating violence as a means of brining about radical social change. In the December 2010 edition of The Nation, she writes: "So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs? After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn't the unemployed be on the march?"

Piven continues: "An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees. ... We should hope for another American social movement from the bottom—and then join it."

Her own words damn her and her extreme agenda. As she puts it: "Left academics may be pondering the end of the American empire and even the end of neoliberal capitalism, and—who knows—in the long run they may be right."

In the long run, we can only hope that Frances Fox Piven is wrong.

Back in 1998, as he was still trying to deal with the fallout over a successful implementation of the Cloward Piven Strategy (which literally brought New York City to the verge of bankruptcy back in the 1970s), Mayor Rudy Giuliani specifically referred to the Cloward Piven Strategy as a cause of the economic turmoil an malaise that plagued the city.

Giuliani: "This wasn't an accident. It wasn't an atmospheric thing. It wasn't supernatural. It was th result of policies, choices, and a philosophy that was embraced in the 1960s and then enthusiastically endorced in the city of New York."

Glenn Beck postulates that the implementation of the Cloward Piven Strategy in New York (which manifested itself through overloading the welfare rolls of the city) did not succeed because the American people came to distrust the welfare state and that proponents of the Cloward Piven Strategy decided that, in order to succeed, those who would go about implementing the Cloward Piven Strategy, needed to be in government.

Beck goes on and points out that Obama's failed stimulus bill was written, in large part, by the Apollo Alliance, a George Soros funded left-wing organization under the leadership of one Jeff Jones who was a member of Bill Ayers' Weather Underground. Didn't Barack Obama start his political career in Ayers' living room?

Tarp? ACORN? ObamaCare? Frank and Dodd? Beck connects all the dots. Watch the video and it will become clear that the Cloward Piven Strategy simply takes the vision of Saul Alinsky and condenses it into a concrete plan.

We do know that Cloward taught at Columbia University from 1954 until his death in 2001 and we know that Obama attended Columbia University from 1981 through 1983.

But we may never know the answer to the question posed above because that period in Obama’s life remains shrouded in mystery and Obama has done just about everything in his power to keep it a secret.

Is a possible Obama Cloward Piven Strategy connection one of the reasons why Obama keeps this period of his life shrouded in secrecy?

According to the New York Sun: "The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript, despite an academic career that led him to Harvard Law School and, later, to a lecturing position at the University of Chicago. The shroud surrounding his experience at Columbia contrasts with that of other major party nominees since 2000, all whom have eventually released information about their college performance or seen it leaked to the public."

The New York Times writes that Obama "suggests in his book that his years in New York were a pivotal period: He ran three miles a day, buckled down to work and 'stopped getting high,' which he says he had started doing in high school. Yet he declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years."

A pivotal period… and yet, the media has found only a handful of people who even remember knowing Barack Obama at Columbia… he was a man of mystery even then.

Did Cloward and Obama’s paths cross?  Was Obama one of the many young radicals they mentored on the Cloward Piven Strategy over their long careers? Is it not, at least, within the realm of possibility that Obama was exposed to the Cloward Piven Strategy while at Columbia and that Cloward and Piven may have exerted an indirect influence over the young Barack Obama?

Again, we can only speculate… but we do know that Obama’s ties to the spawn of Cloward and Piven... those who are known to employ the Cloward Piven Strategy, are surprisingly deep-rooted and far reaching.

And, moreover, when you examine Obama’s policies, vis-a-vis, the Cloward Piven Strategy, the parallels are frightening. 

It’s painfully apparent that Obama and those who employ the Cloward Piven Strategy are fellow travelers and Obama’s ties to this radical left-wing movement are clear.  At the very least, he is truly “one of them.”

We do know that Obama received training from the Industrial Areas Foundation, started by Saul Alinsky, and that that Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method. It is well within the realm of possibility (in fact, it would seem to be almost certain) that Obama taught others the Cloward Piven Strategy.

And we know that Obama’s history with ACORN and SEIU (both founded by Wade Rathke, the protégé of the Cloward-Piven protégé George Wiley) is a veritable indictment in and of itself. 

According to TheAmericanThinker.com: “[Obama’s work ] as a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns -- both with money and campaign workers; it is doubtful that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is doubtful he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.”

Here's another Cloward Piven Strategy connection. We also know that Barack Obama essentially started his political career in the living room of Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. Ayers and Rathke, of course, go way back.  Both Rathke and Ayers were movers-and-shakers in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Coincidence?  Unfortunately, there are simply too many dots to connect. This much is clear. With explicit training in goals of the socialist left, the election in his pocket, and a financial calamity playing out on day one, Obama was presented with the perfect opportunity to put the Cloward Piven Strategy into motion

For a full version of this report on the Cloward Piven Strategy in PDF, please go to the bottom of this page.

And Cloward and Piven Begat Wiley… And Wiley Begat Rathke… And Rathke Begat ACORN… And ACORN Begat Obama:

Many people have never heard of George Wiley. If the name is unfamiliar to you, it’s a name that you should come to know.

Wiley was a militant radical who founded the Syracuse chapter of CORE (The Congress for Racial Equality) and quickly ascended in the ranks and became the second-in-command of the national organization.

Eventually becoming disenchanted with the traditional–nonviolent approach CORE advocated, Wiley organized another group, PRAC (the Poverty Rights Action Center), in 1965.

PRAC ascribed to the confrontation tactics of Black Nationalism and, seeing a rising star in their midst, Cloward and Piven recruited Wiley to head their effort to implement the Cloward Piven Strategy and flood the welfare rolls of targeted city governments across the nation.

Wiley was tailor-made for the job of implementing the Cloward Piven Strategy. He was a charismatic organizer who could rally people to the cause and he had a proven record of being able to get the job done.

In June 1966 Wiley led a nationwide protest which targeted the welfare offices of cities across the country. The success and attention garnered by the success of this event inspired Wiley to found the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in 1967.

DiscoverTheNetworks.org writes: "Wiley's National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) held its founding convention in Washington DC, August 25-27, 1967. Closely following Cloward and Piven's recommendations, Wiley and his followers invaded welfare offices -- often violently -- bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law 'entitled' them. Regarding Wiley's tactics, The New York Times reported in 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.'"

Using increasingly violent tactics… mass demonstrations… vandalism… and threats of physical intimidation, the NWRO incited a human stampede that played an invaluable role in helping to bring down a city with one of the world’s most vibrant economies… New York City.

DiscoverTheNetworks.org again: “‘The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams,’ writes Sol Stern in the Manhattan Institute's 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.'"

DiscoverTheNetworks.org goes on to say: “Wiley and his welfare radicals terrorized social workers all over the United States, but their greatest success came in New York City. Newly elected in 1966, arch-liberal Mayor John Lindsay knuckled under to every demand from Wiley's NWRO. New York's welfare rolls had already been growing by 12 percent per year before Lindsay took office. The growth rate jumped to 50 percent annually in 1966. ‘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,’ writes Sol Stern in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal.”

The results of this implementation of the Cloward Piven Strategy were earth-shattering. Some have already forgotten… and some never knew… that New York City was literally on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975. The Cloward Piven Strategy had WORKED!

New York City was, quite literally, BROKE.  As the Cloward Piven Strategy prescribes, it had collapsed under the weight of its own social welfare system and the city was a breath away from filing for bankruptcy protection.

The New York Times, quoting Howard J. Rubenstein, the publicist and former media adviser to former New York mayor Abe Mayor Beame, wrote: "Mr. Rubenstein said, 'The public had no inkling of the depth of the problem.' 'Few knew,' he said, that the city's outside counsel, M. Ira Millstein of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, had filed for bankruptcy for the city on Oct. 17, 1975, and that police cars were standing by to serve the papers on the city's chief creditors, the banks.'"

And this implementation of the Cloward Piven strategy had far-reaching implications. Some might even argue that the crisis in New York almost succeeded in bringing down the nation. New York asked the federal government for a bailout. New York, after all, was too big to fail. Fortunately, President Gerald Ford said no and, left with no alternatives, the people of New York made tough decisions and eventually dug out of the hole. Disaster was averted but the episode clearly illustrates the genius of the Cloward Piven Strategy.

Vast numbers of people, who receive newly garnered government aid, can be leveraged into becoming voters and activists who have an obvious incentive to keep their government benefactors in office and push for even more incentives… SHOCK-TROOPS FOR THE THUGOCRACY... shock troops to implement the Cloward Piven Strategy.

Millions of people, who are otherwise disinterested in the process, become utterly dependant on the government and thereby motivated to secure the continuance of their newly acquired “rights” … their “right to housing” … their “right to income” … their “right to health insurance” … (none of these “rights” is enumerated in the Constitution by the way) through political action… sometimes violent political action… is the implementation of the Cloward Piven Strategy starting to sound familiar?

If you’re starting to think that elements of the Cloward Piven Strategy sound very similar to the rhetoric of Barack Hussein Obama and the tactics employed by radical organizations like ACORN… and SEIU you’re already connecting the dots.

As a matter of fact, there is a direct connection between Cloward and Piven and ACORN and the SEIU. The fact that these organizations employ the Cloward Piven Strategy is no accident. Just as Cloward and Piven begat George Wiley… Wiley begat Wade Rathke… the man founder of ACORN and SEIU. In fact, Rathke was Wiley’s protégé… specifically tasked to further implement the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

According to TheAmericanThinker.com: “ In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income ‘rights.’ Shortly thereafter they changed ‘Arkansas’ to ‘Association of’ and ACORN went nationwide.”

As you are surely aware, ACORN went on to become one of the most powerful rackets on the radical left simply by employing the Cloward Piven Strategy. ACORN influenced policy on housing and illegal immigration, but it is their fraud ridden push for relaxed “voter registration” where they have incited perhaps the most damage to our democratic system.

According to TheAmericanThinker.com: “It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.”

And Cloward and Piven are directly connected to Rathke as well. In 1982 Cloward and Piven founded Human SERVE (Service Employees Registration and Voter Education Fund)... yet another organization that would employ the Cloward Piven Strategy.

Along with ACORN they conceived and put into place Cloward Piven Strategy programs that would serve as the precedent for the “Motor-Voter” laws… just one vehicle that makes it possible for the radical left to engage in systemic voter fraud across the nation.

DiscoverTheNetworks.org again: “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.”

You can download a PDF version of the full report at the bottom of this page.

In The Beginning… There Was Cloward and Piven:

Dr. Richard Cloward met his wife Francis Fox Piven (in later life, an honorary Chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America) when they were working on a project called “Mobilization for Youth;” an outreach program aimed at gang members on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  Piven became Cloward’s coauthor on a number of projects (including the Cloward Piven Strategy) and the two collaborated for the rest of their careers.

Perched in the elitist halls of Columbia University’s School of Social Work, Cloward (with Piven at his side) formulated Cloward Piven Strategy, a plan to empower the radical Left and impose a socialist economic reality by purposefully recruiting massive numbers of the poor unto our nation’s Welfare rolls.

Cloward and Piven initially unveiled the Cloward Piven Strategy in an article called “Mobilizing The Poor: How it Could be Done.”   The article was picked up and published in the May 2, 1966 issue of THE NATION and given a less explosive, sanitized and deceptive title, “The Weight of The Poor: A Strategy To End Poverty.”  

The article suggests that the poor segments of society are kept destitute for the benefit of the rich.  The poor are thrown off the welfare rolls to provide cheap labor during boom times and placated in tough economic times with just enough sustenance to “douse the fires of rebellion.” 

The Cloward Piven Strategy postulates that the only way to end poverty was to advance legislation (through militant activism designed to cause a political and economic crisis) that guaranteed an annual income for all Americans… typical socialist income redistribution. 

In the opening paragraph of the article, Cloward and Piven clearly state their premise:

“It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor. If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.”

Of course, one does not have to be a rocket-scientist (or an economist) to understand that the Cloward Piven Strategy is grossly flawed… income redistribution does not reduce poverty.

Such policies only increase the power and scope of government, stifle economies and actually encourage poverty on a larger scale.

And how did Cloward and Piven suggest combating supposed social injustice? Essentially, the present system would have to be brought to the verge of ruin so that radical change could be implemented? 

And how does one go about collapsing the system? Taking a page from the book of radical left wing community organizer Saul Alinisky, the Cloward Piven Strategy suggested putting the welfare system to work, against itself.

According to Cloward and Piven the teaming majority of Americans who technically qualified for welfare programs did not, in fact, register to receive the aid. Cloward and Piven claimed, at that time, that approximately 8 million people were receiving some form of welfare, and they believed that as many as 20 million, in total, could be mobilized and placed on the public dole. 

Cloward and Piven theorized that by mobilizing even a small percentage of the remaining 12 million to demand their entitlements, the welfare system would be swamped with more cases than it was designed to handle, obligated to dispense more money than it was able to give out and that the ensuing result of this chaos would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level."

"Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals. “When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-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.”

That’s the Cloward Piven Strategy in a nutshell.  Sabotage the system by overwhelming it… discredit the system once it is destroyed… and institute more of the policies that you used to destroy the system in the first place.

Are you beginning to see the parallels between the Cloward Piven Strategy and Barack Obama’s domestic policies?  If not, keep reading. You can download the full report at the bottom of this page.

The Cloward Piven Strategy - An Introduction:

We are living at a time when America seems to face one insurmountable crisis after another:  the financial meltdown, health care woes, illegal immigration, and an astronomical deficit. 

It seems like the America we knew and loved is on a one-way trip to eventual ruin; and as we watch our future, that was once so bright, fade into the twilight of despair, our elected officials seem to be doing nothing to regain the ground we have lost. Why? Why is Barack Hussein Obama fiddling as Rome burns… as this chaos continues to ensue?   

Then again, is Barack Obama fiddling? Is Barack Obama simply incompetent… out of his league when it comes to fulfilling his duties as President of the United States?  Or is it entirely possible that he’s not fiddling… is it possible that every move Barack Obama has made has been designed to destroy the United States… a country he clearly hates.

The unfortunate answer is the latter. The plain and simple truth is that Barack Obama is following a carefully laid out plan that was designed years ago and the ultimate goal of following this plan is the total destruction of the United States as we know it. It's called the Cloward Piven Strategy.

A plan you say?  Why would someone plan our economic demise? Why would they deliberately sabotage our economy, our livelihoods and our position in the world?

The answer is not pretty:  Radicals, who presently hold positions of power and authority in Congress and the White House, are seeking to destroy our capitalist system so that they can replace it with an insidious and oppressive brand of socialism.

And the plan the Left is following is called the Cloward Piven Strategy.

The Cloward Piven Strategy is a scheme concocted in the late 60’s by two socialist faculty members at Columbia University. Generally speaking, the Cloward Piven Strategy calls for the deliberate flooding of government systems in order to cause the government to implode under the weight of its own bureaucracy!

“Impossible!” you say! “That could never happen in America! We would never let that happen!” Unfortunately you would be wrong in that assumption.  The Cloward Piven Strategy has already been implemented successfully in one of the greatest cities in the world (New York City) and brought the city to the verge of bankruptcy. 

And the Cloward Piven Strategy is being put to work right now, as you read these very words, on a national level. The goal is to create a spiraling nightmare of a socialist economic landscape in America…. one that we may never be able to escape.

And what is even more shocking are the ties that the man who is presently sitting in the Oval Office (some say he usurped the office), Barack Hussein Obama, has to Cloward and Piven and their pupils over the years.