This has been around before, but it is worthwhile repeating. Something to think about.

Saul Alinsky died about 44 years ago, but his writings influenced those in political control of our nation today.

Recall that Hillary wrote her college thesis on his writings and Obama wrote about him in his books.

Died: June 12, 1972, Carmel-by-the Sea, California

Education: University of Chicago

Books: Rules For Radicals, Reveille For Radicals

Anyone out there think that this stuff isn't happening today in the U.S.?

All eight rules are currently in play.

"How to create a social state" by Saul Alinsky:

There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important.

1) Healthcare-Control healthcare and you control the people.

2) Poverty-Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt-Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun control-Remove the ability to defend themselves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare-Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing and Income).

6) Education-Take control of what people read and listen to, take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion-Remove the belief in the God from the government and schools.

8) Class warfare-Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take taxes from the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Does any of this sound like what is happening to the United States? Alinsky merely simplified Vladimir Lenin's original scheme for world conquest by communism, under Russian rule.

Stalin described his converts as "useful idiots." The useful idiots have destroyed every nation in which they have seized power and control.

It is presently happening at an alarming rate in the U.S.

If people can read this and still say everything is just fine...they are "useful idiots."

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."

-- Bill Campbell

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Good quotations:

"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep." Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos speaking on Larry King Live

"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees." Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

"Half of this game is 90 percent mental." Yogi Berra

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." Last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

"Well done is better than well said." Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The average person thinks he isn't." Father Larry Lorenzoni

"Sometimes it is not enough that we do our best; we must do what is required." Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

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Fall of a Republic: A warning from Scottish historian Alexander Tyler circa 1787, regarding the fall of the Athenian republic:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilization has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back to bondage."

Gary Rust is chairman of the board of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian, as well as a member of the editorial board.