Comments | level_head: Saul Alinsky's Mentor

level_head

Saul Alinsky's Mentor

Dec 01, 2010 00:13

Saul Alinsky has been something of a hero to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton wrote her thesis on the fellow, was offered jobs at his institute, and did fund raising for that same institute as First Lady. President Obama taught Alinsky's courses and still, as President, pushes Alinsky's Rules for Radicals ( Read more... )

politics, people(hillary clinton), history, people(barack obama)

Comments 6

marmoe December 1 2010, 15:24:51 UTC

Interesting find. A quick search on the web shows that the Alinsky quotes are taken from a 1972 interview with Playboy magazine (links to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 at progress org). Parts 4 and 5 cover Capone's mob. Haven't come around to read the rest, but I think you will find Alinsky's solution of how-not-to-go-hungry-in-the-1930's to be ... enlightening (at the top of part 4).

level_head December 1 2010, 18:00:50 UTC

Yes, I see it. Apparently stealing from people isn't crime if you need something they have.

He resented the interviewer even calling it crime.

And his first "community organizing" being teaching a bunch of people how to steal from others in an organized way ... well, it seems unsurprising. And he seemed happy with it as a young man, and decades later during the interview.

The Left thinks Alinsky is brilliant the same way they think Marx is brilliant. In the words of a song popular here in the US: "That don't impress me much."

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eric_hinkle December 1 2010, 16:54:59 UTC

This may sound bizarre, but I think I'd prefer Scarface Al over a utopian idealist convinced that their dream world is worth any amount of lost lives.

This is not aimed at you or Mister Alinsky or anyone else, just thinking about a comment by C.S. Lewis about preferring gangsters to utopian tyrants.

level_head December 1 2010, 19:31:14 UTC

Saul Alinsky managed to have a foot in both camps. I don't think of him as a "utopian" -- "political gangster" is probably more appropriate. But this is a poor defense, as gangsters are local phenomena typically -- and Alinsky's imprint has been worldwide, as a sort of "practical" Karl Marx.

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rowyn December 1 2010, 18:40:15 UTC

Everybody has a story that they tell themselves, a story that explains how what they're doing is right and justifiable.

level_head December 1 2010, 19:00:02 UTC

Saul Alinksy had already worked out his stories-to-self by the time of his seeking out the Capone gang, from the links that Marmoe provided.

They seem to boil down to "I NEED it, so it's okay to steal it." Not long after, he had mass-produced this ideology into a system.

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