Obama explains part of the Cloward-Piven revolutionary strategy. Cloward and Piven were radical professors at Columbia University, supposedly where Obama attended some college and graduated.

FRANCES FOX PIVEN: “At the heart of our argument in both books was the threat of disorder: the power of collective rule breaking. We argued that when people rose up and broke the rules which normally governed their behavior—like paying rent, or submitting to welfare conditions—they could impact social policy. When we first made this argument in the 1960s, it had an apparent truth to it: no matter where you looked, people were marching, rioting, and interrupting the system in which they were involved. It was a kind of strike writ large, and here I mean strike in the broadest sense. Even people who didn’t have steady jobs, who couldn’t do what we ordinarily think of as a labor strike, were able to sit in at the welfare office and organize mass claims for welfare benefits. They were equally capable of clogging the system.” …

“The strategy that we proposed in that essay, and that we’ve proposed in many other contexts, as in rent strikes, for example, is one of disruption. To understand its relevance today, you have to step back and look broadly at social life: at the complex system of cooperation and rule abiding behavior that underpins key social functions. Society is a scheme of cooperation—but that means that nearly everybody has to play their role, not only in factories, but in our schools, our healthcare, and our housing systems. Conversely, everyone has the power to withdraw their cooperation. Protest is effective when people recognize that they play a crucial role in larger social patterns and institutions. I think that remains very much relevant today.”

“One of the ways that people, poor people, have been silenced in contemporary American society is through systematic humiliation by American political leaders. That has of course been true since long before the 1970s, but can’t last forever. At a certain point, people come to realize that their role can become a lever through which they can shape public policy.”…

“I think that protest is more likely to arise in an electoral situation, in which elected leaders are worried about the allegiance of large numbers of people at the bottom. For a long time, there has been a tendency by activists to think that electoral work precludes protest. But really, in American history, protest itself has been much more likely when we’ve had some sort of foothold in the electoral system by the same groups that are the potential constituents of the movement.”

“I think it’s therefore more accurate and illuminating to think about the ways that protest and electoral politics build off of one another. Protest is more likely to be successful when at least some elected officials express sympathy for the plight of the discontented and the disenfranchised. If they’re ignored, or spat upon, or insulted, that is likely to subdue them and crush their aspirations. I think you can see that in the Civil Rights movement, for example, and you can see it in the labor movement. The Civil Rights Movement had elected allies in Washington DC, senators and congressmen who were responsible to voter constituencies that were Black or Hispanic. So there is a complimentary relationship between electoral power and protest power.”

https://www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/frances-fox-piven/

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