Our biggest threat is fascism, not Saul Alinsky

A recent guest writer on Nov. 20 regurgitated Donald Trump's discovery of Saul Alinsky (died 1972) who was an activist for the poor and marginalized people. He wrote a book called "Rules for Radicals" published in 1971 on how community organizers can successfully unite people into an active grassroots organization with the power to effect change on a variety of issues.

Isn't it a good thing to have issues resolved by citizens' activism instead of our government doing all the work? Maybe this book can serve as a guide to resolve shooting violence in Philadelphia? The right has no plans on how to reduce firearms deaths while removing a city ordinance, resulting from GOP court filings, to override Philly gun bans at children's recreation centers. Yet there are gun bans in the PA Capitol building and county court houses. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who was elected by the people, was impeached by members of the PA House GOP for the very problems that the GOP helped cause.

This guest writer claims this is the left playbook because the book questions the money spent on the lunar space program when there are large numbers of U.S. citizens on welfare. The guest writer claims this is socialism and is the bible for Dems. I call it a logical opinion questioning U.S. spending priorities. The guest writer claims Barack Obama and Joe Biden use this book as their strategy. If so, why is NASA going back to the moon?

Where does humanity and morals fit into defining U.S. priorities? What is socialism? Is the left always wrong (black) and the right is always correct (white)? The answer is no and no. We live in shades for gray. The very definition of representative government is socialism where we elect people to fill roles to resolve problems that cannot be fixed on their own. Willingness to give up roads, bridges, parks, schools, military, libraries, government agencies (CDC, NIH, FBI, CIA, etc), Social Security, Medicare, etc…makes us non-socialists. Until then, we are all socialists.

Our biggest threat is fascism. It revealed its face on January 6th by weaponizing a mob which came close to overturning our democratic republic by attempting to steal certified electoral votes from seven states and replace them with fake electors from these same seven states; including Pennsylvania, as signed by Lou Barletta and 19 others. Why aren't they arrested on charges of insurrection in violation of US §2383 with penalties of up to 10 years and/or $10,000?

Hank Schrandt lives in Newtown.

This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: Our biggest threat is fascism, not Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'