Living in Taiwan for more than a decade, I've been lucky to have a small handful of right-leaning email correspondents Stateside. All through the Bush years they kept my inbox battered with Fwds showing what was on their minds. And they're still at it. Recently there's repeated reference to and articles about "Cloward-Piven." I finally responded to one Forwarder: "Hey, you don't actually believe this nutty theory, do you?"

I post the correspondence below. Don't know how I did in my response. As you'll see, I had to go out on a limb of sorts to make my point. My challenge was not to argue for or against Obama's policies, but simply to point out how and why the Cloward-Piven conspiracy theory is nonsense--specifically, Obama's moves so far don't match what the theory would predict.

Sorry if this diary is deemed useless. If, however, it raises the issue of how best to respond to the ever-growing paranoia of many Americans during these difficult years--a paranoia that gives the Tea Party movement half of its steam--it might have been worth posting.

Dear Eric,

Regarding the articles I sent you on the Cloward-Piven Strategy, I honestly believe it's what Big B.O. is following. The main reason I believe it is because his decisions defy all common sense if they are to serve the welfare of this country.

The amnesty for illegals is enough to prove that. He wants to bring in 11 million illegal aliens. Why would anyone want such a travesty for this country. We can't even take care of our own people as is.

His ridiculous bailouts. They in no way helped our citizens. They merely served to bolster big government and help to bankrupt this country.

His refusal to allow the clean-up of the oil spill when even other countries were lined up offering help. Who could do that if they loved their country? Refusing to allow this has caused our economy to suffer. Businesses are closing because of this and he is therefore handicapping our country.

His insane healthcare bill that gives the government unbelievable control and handicaps those who have worked hard for their futures. This also makes the dependent more dependent and weighs down people like me who can hardly afford their own healthcare.

His work to help form Acorn, a foundation created by this Cloward-Piven group. He strongly advocates all groups like this... Seiu etc.

Yes, I want you to type what you call reasons that this Clo-Piv Strategy can't be true, because I do not believe it isn't so.

I could go on and on, but I don't have time to gather my thoughts and type more now. All of my above examples line up with the strategy he studied under this group at college. To me, when any president makes decisions that make absolutely no sense toward the bettering of our country and actually go counter to all logic, there is something amiss.

Best,

T-----

* * *

Dear T-----:

Truth to tell, I'm not sure there's much use writing in response to your belief that this "Cloward-Piven Strategy" is determining Obama's policies. There are things you list in your letter in support of the theory that make no sense at all. So how am I to argue against them? But it's true: in key places, there's no logic in your argument. I'll just take one and leave it at that: bailouts.

According to the media goofs promoting it, the Cloward-Piven Strategy is an overarching step-by-step scheme to undermine capitalism and replace it with authoritarian socialism. The scheme is to create intentional crises that lead to unsustainable financial burdens on government, then making larger government necessary: for example crises that will force the government to nationalize banks or major industries, or, for another example, the creation of huge numbers of wards of the state dependent on welfare who can then be counted on to support the new (and growing) leftist power as their lunch ticket. Okay--that's the theory. How would you judge Obama's performance so far--in terms of his doing what the theory says he should?

When Obama took office, the U.S. was in the middle of its most serious financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Most major U.S. banks were literally on the very edge of going bankrupt. Obama's policy was to push for huge bailouts--government money to temporarily back the banks so they wouldn't disappear. Did the policy work? Did the banks go under? So far they haven't. Did Obama push to take over any of these banks by nationalizing them (which is what a communist or socialist would have done)? No, he didn't. Wall Street is still a nest of privately run companies. In fact, if he is trying to follow the "Cloward-Piven Strategy," Obama has made serious errors.

If I were a Cloward-Piven radical in Obama's shoes, what would I have done upon entering office? Follow me closely:

I'd have come out very strongly insisting the financial crisis was NOT the fault of hardworking Americans--it was the fault of Wall Street fat cats. I'd have stressed the corruption and outrageous financial games Wall Street had started playing during the years of deregulation. I'd have said to America, "You pay your bills, you work hard and balance your monthly budget, I am not going to allow your tax dollars to be thrown in the gutter of these corrupt Wall Street corporations. The CEOs that have not been too crooked--their companies will survive. Others may not." In short, hardworking Americans were not going to have to bail out Wall Street. (Note that speeches like this would have been wildly popular across a huge swathe of the population: the hatred of Wall Street CEOs was at a fever pitch.)

I would have promised the average American faced with losing their job or their home a swift series of government programs to help them get through the tough times. In short, this is where the tax dollars would be slated to go.

I would thus have let the major banks suffer the mess they'd gotten into, with the result that many of them would have gone under.

Of course allowing so many financial institutions to go under would have had catastrophic consequences for American business as usual. As a "Cloward-Piven radical," however, I'd have foreseen that and wanted it that way.

With no credit available and no major banks to count on, many American companies would have gone bankrupt by now. And as they go bankrupt, they lay off millions of people. Heh heh heh! Now we're talkin'!

As president I step in and start bailing out some of these major companies (as I intentionally DIDN'T bail out Wall Street), putting my flunkies on their boards of directors. Doing this, I am the savior of hundreds of thousands of jobs. In my speeches I start dropping remarks about the "dangers of unfettered capitalism" and how the market sometimes "needs to be counterbalanced" with "policies that protect the common citizen." Americans, suffering massive unemployment, accept this kind of talk.

But in fact my corporate bailouts only cover part of the economy. There are still millions of workers unemployed because their employers went bust along with the banks. These workers I now offer welfare, thus, as the Cloward-Piven theory predicts, tying them to the Democratic Party, which party, thanks to the banking crisis I didn't try to prevent, is more and more a truly socialist party.

Game over. I've taken a crisis that started during the previous administration and, playing the populist card against Wall Street, managed to watch American capitalism sink while I sat by playing the hero because I stood always with the "little guy" and the "suffering taxpayer." Watching capitalism sink under the weight of its own financial shenanigans, I further used the crisis to create a handful of semi-nationalized industries (auto, airlines, food producers, etc.) while creating at the same time millions of wards of the state who will need to count on me for the coming years for sustenance.

Something like this (1-8) is what the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" predicts Obama should do. But of course he didn't. Instead he bailed out Wall Street, because if Wall Street had gone under, the whole capitalist fleet would have soon floundered in its wake. Not only that: he made zero moves to nationalize any of Wall Street. The only things his team is pushing for in relation to the bankers are 1) stricter regulations, and 2) that Wall Street slowly pay back the money that bailed it out.

You think the bailouts did nothing to help the average American? The bailouts were a messy business, but really, it's obvious you don't comprehend what a seriously REVOLUTIONARY opportunity would have occurred if Obama hadn't pushed for the bailouts. What's more, if the bailouts were part of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, then Bush must have been in on Cloward-Piven too, because his government had started bailing out Wall Street before Obama took office.

So there's no logic in this "Cloward-Piven" theory. If Obama is out to nationalize companies, why is he doing such a lousy job of it? If he is out to create huge welfare packages for the unemployed, why, in fact, has he not done so? His policies seem aimed at saving the biggest fish first, so that the economy stays stable in a generally CAPITALIST mode. He didn't have to play it this way. He could have followed something like the game plan I lay out above.

I'm not sure if you even know it, but many on the Left are criticizing Obama for what they see as his far too moderate policies. They're angry his administration favors legislation that more or less keeps the capitalist system as is. For them, Obama hasn't been a socialist, but a milquetoast centrist. Meanwhile the Tea Party is screaming that we have Mao Zedong in the White House.

But I'm already writing far more than I intended. And all this is just to address ONE item on your list of supposed arguments this Cloward-Piven theory is correct. But I should tell you, in conclusion, the real reason it's impossible Obama is employing a Cloward-Piven Strategy.

The real reason is as follows: The Cloward-Piven Strategy, as a plan for political action, didn't really exist until a right-wing writer named David Horowitz coined the term a few years ago. It simply didn't exist. If there had really been a Cloward-Piven Strategy, you can be sure it would have been debated and discussed in left-wing journals and among activists--in other words, there would be evidence for this strategy in print. But Cloward and Piven only wrote ONE relevant article in The Nation in 1966--where they considered what would happen if all the eligible welfare recipients in New York were actually registered as such. The contents of their article were not elevated to a "Cloward-Piven Strategy" by Cloward or Piven or by the Left. But someone who worked with someone who worked with Cloward and Piven (!), Wade Rathke is his name, eventually founded ACORN. This is how the right-wing writer Horowitz who created the Cloward-Piven Strategy manages to link it to Obama. In fact the link between ACORN and the two academics is probably the ONLY reason we are now discussing a supposed "Cloward-Piven Strategy." Because Horowitz was probably working backwards, researching ACORN in order to dig up dirt on Obama. And so he goes from ACORN to an article written when Obama was, what, five years old? And he takes this one article and makes it into a supposed Master Plan of the Left when in fact the Left itself has never even heard of it as a master plan!

But you know what? As I said in my first letter, I gotta hand it to these right-wing cranks for creating and embellishing this particular conspiracy theory. Why? Because the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" looks somewhat feasible on its dumb surface. To be specific: it looks feasible as a simplistic media-friendly theory of how radical leftists might try to break a capitalist system. In reality such a strategy would probably backfire. But reality doesn't matter here, does it?

To sum up: 1) If "Cloward-Piven" is really the basis of Obama's policy, he's doing a lousy job of it (just see what he could have accomplished had he skipped the bailouts and followed my 8 steps above!). 2) If "Cloward-Piven" is an established leftist game plan, how is it that since 1966 nobody has written about it as such in the tens of thousands of pages of left-wing and Marxist political theorizing that have been published?

Now you needn't write back that Obama is a lousy president or that his healthcare reform is misguided or whatnot. Note that I AM NOT arguing here for whether or not Obama's policies are good. I'm only arguing as to the likelihood he's following this supposed "Cloward-Piven Strategy." So if you want to write in response, stay on subject.

Best,

Eric