October 28, 2008 6:17 PM
Obama's radical mentor: Saul Alinsky
Really, with all the information available out there I need to share with you all, there are a couple things that I've let slide. One is Saul Alinsky.
The thing is, as a former radical activist, I know the movers and shakers from my own early political days. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are my age. They are from the same counterculture milieu as I. In the 60s and 70s I actually would have rolled up my sleeves and joined them building bombs in a heartbeat. Seriously. I was a sick cookie.
So I know what drives these people. And I also know that what happened was that as they grew older, they found more subtle and sophisticated ways to work toward the revolution they yearned for. The only thing that surprises me is that somehow they pulled it off. Somehow they've all shown up in critical places to form a coalition supporting the most radical and inexperienced candidate ever seen in America. Completely unrepentant and given a pass by a media complicit in shamelessly promoting a candidate and vilifying his opposition - even ordinary citizens who haven't yet learned that you aren't supposed to ask dictators questions.
Our country is on the verge of handing the reins to people who truly despise America and the common people. Who regard themselves as intellectuals who know what's best for "the masses. Who are not motivated by love but by ideology. Who see the masses as useful to their cause and nothing else. But who somehow have put forward a front man with enough charisma to convince people he cares.
I look at Obama and see a cold, calculating and cynical man who occasionally slips up so we see it. And his wife is driven by anger and ingratitude for a country that paved the way for her to achieve. These two and their cohorts have a complete disconnect with our country's history and heritage. They've already let us know that all the time leading up to Obama has been something to be despised - and that the real America will begin when he takes office.
Obama even speaks of himself as a Messiah, asserting that future generations will say that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
So I am trying to play catch up - to fill you in on the back story behind the news, the stuff you cannot get from the Mainstream Media. You've probably been hearing the name Saul Alinsky - here in a nutshell is what you need to know. And if you have time, do check out Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and Fredossa's The Case Against Obama
Obama's Radical Mentor
by Tom Minnery, senior vice president, Focus on the Family ActionObama points proudly to his years as a Saul Alinsky-style organizer in Chicago.
Note: This column first appeared in Citizen magazine.
Soon after I joined Focus on the Family in 1987, Dr. James Dobson asked me to begin raising up state-level public policy organizations to defend the family against assaults by state governments.
One of the first books I picked up for some background reading on local organizing was one by a man who had made a reputation for himself in the field of community organizing in Chicago's impoverished neighborhoods. His name was Saul Alinsky, and, frankly, the book wasn't much help. He turned out to be a Left-wing radical, and, in fact, his book was titled Rules for Radicals. My overall impression of the man was that he dealt in class warfare by appealing to people's resentments. Not our cup of tea at Focus.
Not only that, but Alinsky dedicated his book to a highly unusual figure. Here is the dedication:
Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- and which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.
I'd forgotten all about Alinsky, and hadn't even recalled that his book was dedicated to the devil, until I read a new book written by a reporter named David Freddoso, who summarized Alinsky's principles this way:
• "In war, the ends justify almost any means."
• "In action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind."
• "(Morality is merely) a rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest."The quotations are directly from Alinsky's book, and what makes the topic pertinent today is that one notable student of Alinsky's principles is Barack Obama. Obama regularly cites the several years he spent as a community organizer in Chicago, and Alinsky's book served as Obama's roadmap, according to Freddoso's own well-researched and meticulously footnoted book, The Case Against Barack Obama.
Freddoso writes that Obama "was a master of Alinsky's tactics and understood his philosophy well." I am sure that if asked, Obama would deny that he ever employed devious and immoral tactics, but the fact is that I don't believe reporters have asked him much about Alinsky, so who knows?
It seems evident that Alinsky made an impact on Obama. In his book, Alinsky described a group of lower middle-class individuals who he said were "hurt, bitter, suspicious, feeling rejected and at bay. ... Their fears and frustrations ... are mounting to a point of political paranoia."
Freddoso notes this is similar to Obama's own recent statement about voters in Pennsylvania: "It's not surprising then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
That Obama would point proudly to his years as an Alinsky-style organizer in Chicago is surprising for another reason -- it wasn't terribly successful, according to Freddoso. The South Side neighborhoods he was trying to save continued to decay despite his efforts to bring job-training and government subsidies to the people. When Obama left for Harvard and then returned to those neighborhoods, he noticed the marked decline of the neighborhoods, and wrote about it in his own book Dreams from My Father.
People wanting to understand the influences on Barack Obama would do well to get Freddoso's book, because in the mainstream media's adulation of Obama, it has left much information about him unreported, including the questionable influence of Saul Alinsky.
An informed electorate is an empowered electorate!
Read all my campaign commentary here.
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