Who Is Saul Alinsky, And Why The Obsession?

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Great article in the CSM...

Wherever Newt Gingrich goes these days – stumping in Florida, arguing on televised debates with fellow Republican presidential hopefuls, jotting down notes for his umpteenth book – he carries with him a scary but useful ghost: Saul Alinsky.

The radical community organizer (gone now these 40 years) is the specter on which Barack Obama has modeled his life, Gingrich warns. It’s no coincidence, he says, that both Alinsky and Obama were from Chicago or that the President passed up far more lucrative possibilities to become … a community organizer.

“The centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky,” Gingrich said in his South Carolina primary victory speech, a charge he finds constant ways to repeat. “Saul Alinsky radicalism is at the heart of Obama,” he said on CNN.

So who was Saul Alinsky?

www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2012/0128/Who-is-Saul-Alinsky-and-why-is-Newt-Gingrich-so-obsessed-with-him

[djAdvocate]

here is the Examiner comparing GINGRICH to Alyinsky recently. seems to be a popular tactic. which either indicates that Alinsky is not so bad, or the right is losing it's mind:

When he claimed victory in South Carolina on Saturday, Newt Gingrich declared that, "The centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky."

But if any candidate is using Saul Alinsky's playbook in this campaign, it's Gingrich himself.

In his seminal 1971 work, "Rules for Radicals," left-wing community organizer Alinsky laid out his method for instigating change. Many of the tactics he spoke about -- such as exploiting resentment and pitting oneself against the establishment -- have become a central part of Gingrich's strategy for securing the Republican presidential nomination.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, Gingrich attributed his South Carolina victory to two things. The first was the economic pain that people were feeling. He then continued, "The second, though, which I think nobody in Washington and New York gets, is the level of anger at the national establishment."

Gingrich's clashes against the establishment are classic Alinsky.

"The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy,'" Alinsky wrote in "Rules for Radicals." He went on to reveal that, "Today, my notoriety and the hysterical instant reaction of the establishment not only validate my credentials of competency but also ensure automatic popular invitation."

Though Gingrich has spent several decades profiting from being part of the Washington establishment, the fact that he's been attacked by so-called "elites" has become self-validating.

And the way he scolded CNN moderator John King in last Thursday's South Carolina debate followed Alinsky's 13th tactical rule, which states: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Alinsky argued that a faceless target such as City Hall, or in this case, the mainstream media, isn't as powerful of a target as individual person. And by "freeze it," he meant that whoever the target is shouldn't be allowed to pin the blame on somebody else.

King, as Fox's Juan Williams did in the prior debate, allowed Gingrich to personalize his attack on the media. And when King tried to claim that it was another network, ABC, that had aired the interview with his ex-wife that had prompted the question about whether he had ever sought an "open marriage," Gingrich froze the target.

"John, it was repeated by your network," Gingrich hollered. "You chose to start the debate with it. Don't try to blame somebody else."

After weak showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich's campaign was on life support. So he resorted to unleashing an aggressive attack against Mitt Romney's wealth and career at private equity firm Bain Capital.

Many prominent conservatives and Republicans pounced, seeing it as an attack on capitalism itself. Even Rudy Giuliani, somebody who has had harsh words for Romney (his opponent in the 2008 GOP presidential race), likened Gingrich's tactics to Alinsky's.

But though they angered many on the right, the attacks undermined Romney's electability argument -- which had previously been his main asset in the GOP nomination battle.

Gingrich has continued his class warfare strategy in Florida, referring to Romney on Wednesday as somebody who was "liv(ing) in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and making $20 million for no work. ..."

It may be odd for somebody claiming to be a conservative to employ the tactics of the left, but Alinsky wrote an entire chapter on the arbitrary ethics of when the ends justify the means, noting that, "generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics."

GOP nomination fights are often described as battles between Rockefeller Republicans and Goldwater Republicans. In 2012, Gingrich has brought us the Alinsky Republican.

Philip Klein is senior editorial writer for The Examiner. He can be reached at [e-mail].

[Deleted]

From what I've read Alinsky writes more about methodology than ideology so his tactics are well-suited to anyone who feels themselves to be disenfranchised.

[djAdvocate]

Jan 30, 2012 10:31:06 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

From what I've read Alinsky writes more about methodology than ideology so his tactics are well-suited to anyone who feels themselves to be disenfranchised.

precisely. the methodology could just as easily be used for the Tea Party as for OWS.

[stayput]

The leftist media are mystified as to why Newt Gingrich is conjuring up the specter of the long-dead radical “community organizer” Saul Alinsky (1909–1972). The Christian Science Monitor is arguing that those in the Tea Party are the real Alinsky followers. Just for the record, Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the handbook for a leftist takeover strategy, included this dedication:

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… 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.”

This is hardly Tea Party fare.

Liberals are always feigning ignorance about the sources for their radicalism. They ask, “What’s the Communist Manifesto?” every time someone points out that one of its planks is a progressive income tax, the very thing liberals champion.

The American Left is trying to destroy our nation in hopes of building a new one by undermining its core values. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals has been one of the playbooks for the radical suit-and-tie revolution.

It was Alinsky who wrote, “Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing — but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.”[1] Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are students of Alinsky’s methods.

Hillary had met Alinsky at a Methodist church outing when she was a teenager. They were impressed with one another. In late 1968, Alinsky offered Hillary Rodham a job working for him. She had insider aspirations. She wrote her senior thesis on Alinsky in 1969: “There is Only the Fight . . .”: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.



While Alinsky believed that “the system” could only be changed from the outside, Hillary believed it could be changed from the inside. She, and many others like her (e.g., husband and wife team Bill Ayers, co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group and Bernardine Dohrn, a former leader of the Weather Underground), took Alinsky’s “radical” methods and made them mainstream.

Enter Barack Obama:

“Seventeen years later, another young honor student was offered a job as an organizer in Chicago. By then, Alinsky had died, but a group of his disciples hired Barack Obama, a 23-year-old Columbia University graduate, to organize black residents on the South Side, while learning and applying Alinsky’s philosophy of street-level democracy. The recruiter called the $13,000-a-year job ‘very romantic, until you do it.’”

Those pushing for an overthrow of the establishment in the 1960s through violent means learned a lot when their radical agenda failed to accomplish their stated goals and turned the majority of the population against them. In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky proposed a different strategy:

“Power comes out of the barrel of a gun!” is an absurd rallying cry when the other side has all the guns. Lenin was a pragmatist; when he returned . . . from exile, he said that the Bolsheviks stood for getting power through the ballot but would reconsider after they got the guns. Militant mouthings? Spouting quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, which are as germane to our highly technological, computerized, cybernetic, nuclear-powered, mass media society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport?”

The radicals knew it would be necessary to capture the institutions without ever firing a shot or blowing up another building. Roger Kimball captures the tactic well in his book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America: “The long march through the institutions signified in the words of [Herbert] Marcuse, ‘working against the established institutions while working in them’. By this means — by insinuation and infiltration rather than by confrontation—the counter-cultural dreams of radicals like Marcuse have triumphed.”[2]

The rest, as they say, is history.


Read more: Who is Saul Alinsky and Why is Newt Saying Nasty Things About Him? godfatherpolitics.com/3420/who-is-saul-alinsky-and-why-is-newt-saying-nasty-things-about-him

[Opti]

Jan 31, 2012 0:27:53 GMT -5 @stayput said:

The leftist media are mystified as to why Newt Gingrich is conjuring up the specter of the long-dead radical “community organizer” Saul Alinsky (1909–1972). The Christian Science Monitor is arguing that those in the Tea Party are the real Alinsky followers. Just for the record, Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the handbook for a leftist takeover strategy, included this dedication:

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… 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.”

This is hardly Tea Party fare.

Liberals are always feigning ignorance about the sources for their radicalism. They ask, “What’s the Communist Manifesto?” every time someone points out that one of its planks is a progressive income tax, the very thing liberals champion.

Just because a plank of the Communist Manifesto is a progressive income tax does not mean anyone who agrees with it got it from there or agrees with the rest of it.

Some righties are apparently intellectually challenged and I guess believe the rest of us are too.

I'm not sure any of the quotes you give are true and I so hate to read the book just to find out what the alarmists here are whining about. Not sure if your quote about Lucifier is true, taken out of context or ignored by most as irrelevant. The one thing we are seeing is the religious right abandoning their desire for a man who
lives family values as part of his life to avoid something that apparently scares them more - a Mormon or the fact his healthcare
was implemented first and used as a model for the federal bill.

Its a dilemna. Running Clinton out on a rail yet being willing to elect someone who was an active hypocrite at the time who says he repented but yet used the excuse that he did it for his country or
electing Romney while screaming about the leftness of Obama when
Obama can be seen legitimately to be a mashup of two Republicans - Bush and Romney.

Why the right likes using Alinsky? Apparently it makes good fear mongering press for the faithful base. Newt the ultimate insider didn't get where he is without being a great people manipulator.
I wonder what the sell will be when he's caught cheating again?
His repentance didn't take or he cheated for God?(Not sure if I cheated for my country line will work again on the faithful but it
might.)

[usaone]

This line of attack didn't work in 2008 when no one new who Obama was.

What makes you think it will work this time?

[tallguy]

So let me get this straight. Saul Alinsky writes a book, basically a strategy book about organizing. It is so well-received as an instructional text that both sides use it. It is in fact given to many Tea Party leaders to help them organize, and no less a conservative authority than William F. Buckley calls Alinsky an organizational genius. Gingrich himself uses the strategies far more than Obama, who he is continually trying to tie to Alinsky.... Is that about right?

What would make Alinsky's book different than Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Both are apparently brilliant strategy books. The Art of War was read by Mao, the Viet Cong, American military leaders, American business leaders, and others from likely every field and country in the world. Does the fact that people on both sides read the same book mean anything? No, of course not. So why should anyone read into it that somehow Obama is a radical?

Or another example. There is a great scene in the movie Patton. George C. Scott, surveying the battlefield after a victory. "Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I READ YOUR BOOK!" Rommel's book had in fact been read and studied by both German and Allied commanders. Does anyone seriously try to make the case that Allied commanders are secretly Nazis because they read a German officer's book? Of course not, but that seems to be the level of logic used by the Republicans tying Obama to Alinsky. Doesn't it?

[djAdvocate]

Jan 31, 2012 5:46:26 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

Those bleeping pinkos who threw all the tea into Boston Harbor...screw 'em. Hang Jefferson, Franklin and all those other radical nuts too.

Radical isn't always bad, and Conservative isn't always good. It depends on WHAT you want to preserve or destroy.

bingo. and repressing radicalism is rarely good, i might add.

[djAdvocate]

Jan 31, 2012 5:31:59 GMT -5 tallguy said:

So let me get this straight. Saul Alinsky writes a book, basically a strategy book about organizing. It is so well-received as an instructional text that both sides use it. It is in fact given to many Tea Party leaders to help them organize, and no less a conservative authority than William F. Buckley calls Alinsky an organizational genius. Gingrich himself uses the strategies far more than Obama, who he is continually trying to tie to Alinsky.... Is that about right?

What would make Alinsky's book different than Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Both are apparently brilliant strategy books. The Art of War was read by Mao, the Viet Cong, American military leaders, American business leaders, and others from likely every field and country in the world. Does the fact that people on both sides read the same book mean anything? No, of course not. So why should anyone read into it that somehow Obama is a radical?

Or another example. There is a great scene in the movie Patton. George C. Scott, surveying the battlefield after a victory. "Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I READ YOUR BOOK!" Rommel's book had in fact been read and studied by both German and Allied commanders. Does anyone seriously try to make the case that Allied commanders are secretly Nazis because they read a German officer's book? Of course not, but that seems to be the level of logic used by the Republicans tying Obama to Alinsky. Doesn't it?

being educated is apparently the same as being a terrorist to some.

oh, and that was a frooging brilliant post, mate:

[djAdvocate]

Jan 31, 2012 0:27:53 GMT -5 @stayput said:

The American Left is trying to destroy our nation in hopes of building a new one by undermining its core values.

it could just as easily be said that the American Right is trying to destroy our nation in the hopes of building a new one by undermining it's core values.

and equally false.

both sides (with a few rare exceptions) are trying to work toward a more just future. they just differ in how they view social justice. it would be nice if we could stop demonizing one another, but i guess that is a lot to ask.

there is far too much piety in this debate, and far to little reason, imo.

[Don Perignon]

Gingrich is using Alinsky as a "boogeyman", because he knows that spreading paranoia will take him much farther than being honest and forthright ever could or would.

[Deleted]

Jan 31, 2012 14:34:14 GMT -5 Don Perignon said:

Gingrich A Politician is using a macguffin Alinsky as a "boogeyman", because he knows that spreading paranoia will take him much farther than being honest and forthright ever could or would.

Fixed it for you.

[billisonboard]

Jan 31, 2012 1:44:28 GMT -5 Opti said:

... Not sure if your quote about Lucifier is true, taken out of context or ignored by most as irrelevant. ...

I have read and have retained my copy of Rules for Radicals. The quote does appear in my edition. It is a dedication in the front of the book.

It is a statement that is "fun" to pull out and throw as bloody meat to those who will quickly be offended by it. I encourage people to slow down and really look at what it says:

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… 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.”

The book is about undertaking effective action to effect change against a well established authority. Acknowledging one who, at least in theory, did it well makes a lot of sense. The quote at the beginning of the book also sets up the irreverent tone of the whole book well.

[floridayankee]

Jan 31, 2012 14:34:14 GMT -5 Don Perignon said:

Gingrich is using Alinsky as a "boogeyman", because he knows that spreading paranoia will take him much farther than being honest and forthright ever could or would.

Sounds like you're describing the political mantra of 2008....and 2012.

If McCain (or Obama...or Gingrich...or Bachmann...or <insert your boogyman here>)gets elected, we're doomed!!

Too many drama queens these days.

[billisonboard]

My favorite story from the book is the one about the civic minded action of improving cultural literacy of indigent individuals by purchasing same day single seat tickets which are scattered throughout the audience at the symphony and handing them out at a chili feed immediately before the event begins.

[rockon]

So if the main objective of the book is telling one how to organize people and take over or control the government does it tell you what to do once the objective has been achieved?
Have you ever wondered if the dog had a plan on what to do if he ever caught the car?
Obama may have learned from Alinsky on organizing against the government but now that he is the government he can only apply the information against segments of the people. Wonder how that will work out?

[billisonboard]

Jan 31, 2012 16:19:24 GMT -5 rockon said:

So if the main objective of the book is telling one how to organize people and take over or control the government does it tell you what to do once the objective has been achieved?
...

Yes. Make the world a better place for those born without advantage and privilege in the world.

[cereb]

Jan 31, 2012 5:31:59 GMT -5 tallguy said:

So let me get this straight. Saul Alinsky writes a book, basically a strategy book about organizing. It is so well-received as an instructional text that both sides use it. It is in fact given to many Tea Party leaders to help them organize, and no less a conservative authority than William F. Buckley calls Alinsky an organizational genius. Gingrich himself uses the strategies far more than Obama, who he is continually trying to tie to Alinsky.... Is that about right?

What would make Alinsky's book different than Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Both are apparently brilliant strategy books. The Art of War was read by Mao, the Viet Cong, American military leaders, American business leaders, and others from likely every field and country in the world. Does the fact that people on both sides read the same book mean anything? No, of course not. So why should anyone read into it that somehow Obama is a radical?

Or another example. There is a great scene in the movie Patton. George C. Scott, surveying the battlefield after a victory. "Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I READ YOUR BOOK!" Rommel's book had in fact been read and studied by both German and Allied commanders. Does anyone seriously try to make the case that Allied commanders are secretly Nazis because they read a German officer's book? Of course not, but that seems to be the level of logic used by the Republicans tying Obama to Alinsky. Doesn't it?

LOL! Exactly.

[tallguy]

Jan 31, 2012 19:42:46 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

Does anyone seriously try to make the case that Allied commanders are secretly Nazis because they read a German officer's book?

Well, if you read, ROMMEL'S book, guaranteed, you weren't a Nazi. He was famous as one of the men who tried to kill Hitler.

As I recall, he also ignored directives from Berlin, and made at least his part of the war as honorable as it could be under the circumstances. You noticed, of course, that I called him a German officer, not a Nazi officer.

[djAdvocate]

Jan 31, 2012 19:33:56 GMT -5 cereb said:

Jan 31, 2012 5:31:59 GMT -5 tallguy said:

So let me get this straight. Saul Alinsky writes a book, basically a strategy book about organizing. It is so well-received as an instructional text that both sides use it. It is in fact given to many Tea Party leaders to help them organize, and no less a conservative authority than William F. Buckley calls Alinsky an organizational genius. Gingrich himself uses the strategies far more than Obama, who he is continually trying to tie to Alinsky.... Is that about right?

What would make Alinsky's book different than Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Both are apparently brilliant strategy books. The Art of War was read by Mao, the Viet Cong, American military leaders, American business leaders, and others from likely every field and country in the world. Does the fact that people on both sides read the same book mean anything? No, of course not. So why should anyone read into it that somehow Obama is a radical?

Or another example. There is a great scene in the movie Patton. George C. Scott, surveying the battlefield after a victory. "Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I READ YOUR BOOK!" Rommel's book had in fact been read and studied by both German and Allied commanders. Does anyone seriously try to make the case that Allied commanders are secretly Nazis because they read a German officer's book? Of course not, but that seems to be the level of logic used by the Republicans tying Obama to Alinsky. Doesn't it?

LOL! Exactly.

seriously. wasn't that a great post?

[tallguy]

Jan 31, 2012 21:12:44 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Jan 31, 2012 19:33:56 GMT -5 cereb said:

LOL! Exactly.

seriously. wasn't that a great post?

Thanks, mate.

[stayput]

Rules for Radicals

In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote a text on grassroots organizing titled "Rules for Radicals" (Prologue). Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be -- there's that word, "change." The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

His "rules" derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer -- especially a paid organizer from outside -- must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization."

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a "mass army" that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

RULE 1: "Power is not only what I have, but what the enemy thinks I have." Power is derived from two main sources -- money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood.

(These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

RULE 2: "I never go outside the expertise of 'my people'." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

(Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, I go outside the expertise of the enemy." I look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

(This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, I send 30,000 letters. I can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.

(This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

(Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? He wants to create anger and fear.)

RULE 6: "A good tactic is one 'my people' enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.

(Radical activists, in this sense, are no different than any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't let it become old news.

(Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up." I keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, I hit them from the flank with something new.

(Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

(Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists' minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: "If I push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." Violence from the other side can win the public to my side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.

(Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management's wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." I never let the enemy score points because I'd be caught without a solution to the problem.

(Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." I cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. I go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

(This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength."

[stayput]

Of course, what Newt Gingrich is warning us about when he talks about Saul Alinsky is the remaining cadre of Alinskyites, trained in the art of dangerous Socialist politics by Saul Alinsky himself. Prime among that new Socialist cadre is Barack Obama himself.

[billisonboard]

Feb 9, 2012 20:48:31 GMT -5 @stayput said:

Rules for Radicals

...

RULE 1: "Power is not only what I have, but what the enemy thinks I have." Power is derived from two main sources -- money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood.

(These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

Actually what Rule 1 means is that "have nots" must use a tactic like people going door to door as opposed to the ability of "haves" to buy air time on television.

RULE 2: "I never go outside the expertise of 'my people'." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

(Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

Actually what Rule 2 means is that a good organizer does not ask helpers to engage in activities that they have no expertise in. For example, asking most truck drivers to give public speeches is not a good idea. Having them handle transportation issue is better.

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, I go outside the expertise of the enemy." I look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

(This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

Actually what Rule 3 means is work to force the "enemy" to engage in activities at which they aren't skilled. Challenge them to a dance off instead of dueling press releases....

[billisonboard]

Feb 9, 2012 20:59:51 GMT -5 @stayput said:

..., trained in the art of dangerous Socialist politics by Saul Alinsky himself. Prime among that new Socialist cadre is Barack Obama himself.

How old was Obama when Alinsky died?

[humok]

How Old? What does that have to do with anything. I have read several books that originated long before I was born.

[billisonboard]

Feb 9, 2012 21:43:03 GMT -5 humok said:

How Old? What does that have to do with anything. ....

Let's see:

Feb 9, 2012 20:59:51 GMT -5 @stayput said:

...trained ... by Saul Alinsky himself. Prime ... is Barack Obama himself.

[stayput]

To answer your question, Obama was 10 years old.

I too am part of the cadre, not of a single man but rather a group of men more commonly known as The Founding Fathers. I wasn't even am embryo when they past away, so what relevance does your question pose? Your argument is proof of the Liberals feign attempt to go off topic when you don't like the exposure.

Wait a minute. Isn't that part of Saul Alinsky's tactics? Hmmmm.

[billisonboard]

Feb 10, 2012 4:02:22 GMT -5 @stayput said:

To answer your question, Obama was 10 years old.

I too am part of the cadre, not of a single man but rather a group of men more commonly known as The Founding Fathers. I wasn't even am embryo when they past away, so what relevance does your question pose? Your argument is proof of the Liberals feign attempt to go off topic when you don't like the exposure.

Wait a minute. Isn't that part of Saul Alinsky's tactics? Hmmmm.

As I pointed out in my previous response(#26), it isn't an accurate interpretation of Rule 2.

You indicated a "...cadre ... trained ... by Saul Alinsky himself." (reply #25) Standard use of the English language would hold that you are claiming the man did the training of Barack Obama. I was simply pointing out the absurdity of your claim.