Frances Fox Piven, honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, can arguably be considered the mother of ACORN. At least, her ideas and theories set ACORN, and its parent, the National Welfare Rights Organization, onto a path of creating and manipulating crisis situations to further their agenda of a more equal “distribution of wealth” in America. In other words, socialism.
It’s a path, I believe, that runs contrary to our country’s original intent. But Piven doesn’t think so. In her book, “Challenging Authority,” she quoted both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
What I found most bizarre was the apparent disconnect in Piven’s mind between individual rights and property rights, particularly the idea of acquiring as much wealth as one wishes without fear of government encroachment. It’s impossible to believe that Jefferson, Adams and the other founders – most of them very successful entrepreneurs – could have envisioned or approved of a massive national government that siphons property and economic rights from private citizens.
The American Revolution they led was by no means a social revolution. It was a group of North American economic elites breaking away from an oppressive central authority in London. The leaders of the revolution had no interest in sharing their wealth with the masses. Most of them did not even favor extending the vote to common laborers.
It’s well documented that the founders were suspicious of a powerful central authority. That’s why they fought to rid themselves of King George III. That’s why they experimented for several years with a national confederation that had virtually no central government at all. They would be horrified at today’s progressive agenda, the very agenda Frances Fox Piven has been so successful at articulating and implementing for the last 40 years.
Her transition from describing the kind of society Jefferson envisioned "sturdy men who could stand on their own" to her description of how that fits the progressive mentality "we've become a very unequal society where very few people own everything" showed one of two things. She is either trying to be duplicitous in her speech or she is an example of a well educated imbecile.
And, Brother, is she OLD!
The money they are spending, this road better be marble,silver, and gold plated….or at least something that will withstand the extreme temperature.Now we know where all that asbestos goes that they take out of all the old school buildings.
This woman could be Helen Thomas' long-lost sister! Egad.
I have very few words to say her other than Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell.
Good point, Enough. And her line of logic as to how Jefferson was more in line with her way of thinking was faulty. Jefferson would be doing back-flips in his grave if he knew this woman was invoking his name.
The one thing about socialism is that people like her are usually the first to be dealt with by those that finally seize the power.
Where you are not objectively wrong, your logic is spurious. I assume when you write "Washing" you are referring to "George Washington." Unless you have at your disposal some historical reference which scholars lack, the statement "Washing[sic] was a Diest" is without foundation.
As to the names of G-d, you're argument is laughable. Pious Jews avoid most names besides "Hashem" when casually speaking of the creator. The name one uses to refer to the Creator does not, absent obvious intentions of disrespect or contempt, reflect on the piety of the individual.
You clearly have much invested in the illusion that the founding fathers were not religious men. So be it. But your prejudice has little bearing on historical fact. I have little to gain rhetorically with the observation that the founders where most all Christians (look at my name again). I say it simply because it is the truth.
Jefferson did believe in taxing the rich
First off, lern 2 spel or uze spl chek. Second, as much as your ilk protest to the contrary, all ( ALL ) of the founders were Christians to one degree or another. In fact I have been in a church in Virginia built in the early 1600's in which five of the founders worshipped at different times. A METHODIST church, not Anglican. These men were willing to risk the hangman's noose for their POLITICAL views. Don't you think they would have risked much more than that for their religioussones? I believe that is self evident for thinking folk. It is only the few that want to FUNDAMENTALLY change America that argue that the founders were not what they were. Re-writing history is a hallmark for Marxists. Read for yourself and learn the truth.
When she used the words "concentration of consumption" I automatically thought of the extreme environmental issues,
that this woman obviously considers, and she also must believe in social engineering . I mean really, what can we expect from someone like her?
What can we expect from someone that has a much different belief system then many of us? They don't consider God and his plan for his children, and his plan of salvation. They build there own belief system from man'.s educational system.
Her and the progressive agenda is really only one aspect of a much bigger agenda and that being global governance and making the earth our god. They don't believe in God! And they want to control the population and in their minds preserve earth and to try and create their own salvation. Think of the tower of babel.
I might also add that some of us believe that the woman in revelation represents the church, and that woman sought refuge in the wilderness from the beast system which was for only a short while.
That wilderness is America and specifically The United States of America!
It wont last forever BUT it will last as long as God intends for it and we are responsible to help it last.
Couldn't explain her intellectual theology (Connivers scheme) that netted her millions, without her glasses…..Hhhmmmm….. Are charges pending yet, maybe it needs to be investigated, hidden motives seem to be apparent, she fit the red flag profile of someone exposed! A painters portrait of her, would have the look of guilt as the perceptive message of the subjects thoughts! But then, maybe I watch too many movies where those mood shots are accentuated (kind of like hers)! !! I seldom watch movies….so that can't be it… I have worked behind the stage before though, I've seen them in the making! Knowing an actor/actress and seeing an actor/actress are two different things
I hope you're not including Jefferson amongst the list of successful entrepreneurs. Here's a guy who received most of his wealth from his father-in-law including a massive amount of debt and hundreds of slaves. HIs was a profligate lifestyle from which he could never get out from under that crushing burden of debt. The meager nail factory that he had at Monticello was run with child slave labor. So yes, I absolutely agree, the leaders of the revolution had no intention of sharing their wealth with the masses — in Jefferson's case he was more interested in stealing his wealth from his slaves. Would the founders have been horrified by today's progressive agenda? Some would — but not Thomas Paine. Paine in his book "Agrarian Justice" argued for a system of social security to be paid for by a system of progressive taxation.
I hope this person will become known as the person that helped destroy America for every one including herself.
Yes these men knew their way around property rights, especially the talking human kind. I've seen Jefferson's slave quarters and his property lived in conditions we wouldn't allow for cows and pigs today.
Madison in Federalist no. 10:
"The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate… The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results;"