Saul Alinsky remains stuck in the craw of right wing demonology.  Like something that can’t be digested or expelled. He remains lodged there, hard edged and multifaceted, too tough to handle.  The latest testimony to Alinsky’s enduring status as an indigestible persona comes from the headline boomlet offered up by a former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani.   Willing to probe his subterranean world for public benefit, Giuliani disputes President Obama’s big love for the USA and for Rudy himself.  In the course of this internal excursion he invokes none other than The Man himself.  He called Saul.  Or rather recalled Saul.  

“Saul Alinsky,” he said, lying through his gritty teeth, “believed in basically the peaceful overthrow of the United States government…”  

So there he is - Saul Alinsky - popping out from a story of unrequited love as told by a man in need.   

What are we to make of this?  

We can only speculate along with the good former mayor about who really loves who and why.  What was Rudy exposed to early in his childhood that predisposed him to fabricate boogeymen?  What psychic damage bound him for aspirational disappointment?  Why now in the twilight remnant of a political career return Saul Alinsky to center stage in a right wing meme projectile?

Only his Shadow knows for sure.

"This, then, is the cause to which we here have bound ourselves.  It is the cause of making democracy a dynamic force -- of making it work -- of breaking the strangle-holds of undemocratic practices - of smashing the apathy which has pervaded much of our society -- of doing all this so that democracy may grow in every way -- and grow it must if it is to live."   Statement by Saul Alinsky to the IAF Board of Directors, May 8, 1942

I can't speak to Majority Leader Harry Reid's worth or wealth, but I am confused as to why my father is mentioned in Lyle Rescott's recent letter complaining about rich socialism backers ("A narrow view of money and politics," May 29).

Saul Alinsky's yearly salary at the time of his death was $25,000. Hardly a princely sum. He owned no stocks, his life insurance policy was the totality of his estate. He owned an 8-year-old Chevy and we lived in a rented apartment. I guess the mention of his name is just included as a "dog whistle" for those who need a boogie man to convince them of evil.

David Alinsky
Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-alinsky-letter-20140602,0,3525270.story#ixzz33VgShkey

Some years back Charles Koch parlayed a mid sized oil service and engineering firm founded by his father into a multi national conglomerate.  In the process he  became the sixth wealthiest individual in the world.  Among other things his firm manufactures Dixie Cups, a product he didn't invent but had the acumen to acquire, and the chemical stew patented as "Stainmaster", a mix he didn't invent but also astutely acquired.

By virtue of his spectacular wealth Mr. Koch is now entitled to a Pharonic Pulpit to accompany the more run of the mill foundation establishing, lobbying and influence peddling that flows from possession of mega green. The Wall Street Journal has confirmed his standing.  Mr. Koch is for liberty and he thinks you should be too.

About ten years ago, badgered by EPA and OSHA  governmental nobodies to clean up his industrial act,  Mr. Koch decided to up his political visibility and download hordes of cash on sympatico candidates.  Now he's into politics big time, trading barbs with Senator Harry Reid who, unlike many politicos,  doesn't think being unimaginatively rich always requires genuflection.

Mr. Koch is an admirer of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises - the Austrian School of Economics and all that.  He says they helped him understand who he was as a person and a business man.  Forget Freud.  Embrace the Austrian economists and you'll be better for it.

Guess who's a burr under Mr. Koch's Pharonic saddle?  None other than Saul David Alinsky.  Here's how he goes at him while opining in the aforementioned Journal.  

Says Koch:  "Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers."

Schopenhauer, Alinsky and the despots.  Pity the poor victim of infamous practices.

BTW, Mr. Koch, Saul Alinsky never advocated character assassination and he certainly wasn't a "collectivist".  

Take a look at this interesting piece by Ralph Benko in Forbes.  It captures decisive turns in the lives of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that rotate around vocational decisions in which Saul Alinsky and his heirs play a decisive role.  I think this piece is required reading for anyone interested in reflecting on the careers of Clinton and Obama and perhaps their own as well. 

Check out what's circulating on websites like The Blaze

BOOKS
The 10 most popular passages in Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’

noslave  posted Jan. 21, 2014 at 9:24am
"COMMUNISTS RAN AND HID LIKE COCKAROACHES DURING MC CARTHY ERA,THEN THEY CONNED EVERYBODY INTO SUBMISSION WITH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, NOW THEIR EMBOLDENED??,if each true american patriot,drags one of these people off to wareouses quietley?tortures, then deposits their carcass in a dumpster or??then we can begin to heal otherwise kepp watching the decline??ill its to late?look how far they’ve come with us being politically correct??"

Organizing for Action is one of those political phenomena that ranks right up there with fabricated hit pieces when it comes to deliberate deception.  The only honest word of the three is “for”.  The other two “Organizing” and “Action” aggressively misrepresent their meaning.  

What the Obama crowd is doing here has nothing to do with organizing.  What they call “organizing” is public relations, marketing.  What they call “action” is selling.  Linking organizing and action with marketing and selling is an attempt to mystify and in some fashion ennoble what is other wise mere advertising.  

This may not matter much given the low profile and relatively small amounts of money committed to “Organizing for Action” in an advertising mode, but it does point to a deeper duplicity in the Obama modus operandi worth considering.

Years ago, in a seminar in Texas, one of America’s leading African-American intellectuals, when asked about then candidate Obama’s much touted community organizing experience, dismissed it as “resume padding” - part of the construction of a misleading story for public consumption designed to advance a political career.  

Organizing for Action seems cast in the same mold. 

Obama Visits Soup Kitchen On Martin Luther King Day



To interpret the MLK Day photo op on behalf of the White House public relations team:   

"The Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr repeatedly risked his life and ultimately lost it to promote community service projects.  He was really a nice guy with a quaint but timely message that we all need to remember."

Thanks to you, White House pr types, for the warm and fuzzy story that will inspire my gift of a can of beans to my local food bank.  And here I thought Dr King was calling us to be the cutting edge of risky, conflict ridden political change.

…but give them a zone.

Who is the Obama crowd trying to kid with this Promise Zone thing?  Promise what?  To whom?

Just when you thought the world was safe from failed enterprise like Enterprise Zones and failed empowerment like Empowerment Zones here comes the New Promise Zones.  Oh boy, lets play gather the stakeholders again.

And I always thought recycling was a good thing. 

Downton Abbey recycles the story line of Upstairs/Downstairs. Downtown Promise recycles the storyline of Downtown Enterprise, aka, Downtown Empowerment, aka been there, done that.  

The saga of Saul Alinsky continues to unfold over forty years after his death.  He makes an appearance in places one would never expect.  Here he is in a business publication, depoliticized.  His principles are used to interpret behavior of a corporate leader in fierce competition with a slow-footed AT&T.  

I can only imagine the chuckle he would have gotten from all this post mortem attention.  After all, he craved the public eye and was way ahead of his time in using cutting edge media to advance his public image.  

At one point Alinsky wonders how organizations will be built without the aid of that establishment-bashing image he so successfully nurtured.  

The Industrial Areas Foundation has done pretty well in this regard by finding ways to engage communities, regions and states in organizing drives since Alinsky’s death.  A key reason is the strength of the leadership training protocols that Ed Chambers and Dick Harmon put in place in the late sixties/early seventies.  Without this infrastructure IAF expansion would likely have died on the vine.

It’s also worth noting that the Chambers/Harmon innovations were copied by others  aspiring to build organizational networks.