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Subscribe to RSSAt some point during Monday night's Republican presidential debate it won't be a surprise if Newt Gingrich brings up the name Saul Alinsky.
Gingrich brought Alinsky up three times in his victory speech in South Carolina on Saturday night and discussed him again on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning.
Gingrich said in his victory speech “the centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky.”
Gingrich said while he and his supporters “draw our understanding of America” from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, Obama “draws his from Saul Alinsky, radical left-wingers and people who don't like the classical America.”
Who is Saul Alinsky and why does Gingrich seem so fascinated by him?
Born in 1909, Alinsky was a political activist and community organizer who spent his life teaching people in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, Rochester, N.Y. and other cities to organize and protest against pollution, dysfunctional public schools, and other urban problems.
By the late 1960s Alinsky had become nationally famous. As a student at Wellesley College, Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis on him in 1969.
After the Detroit riots in 1967, Michigan Gov. George Romney (father of Mitt Romney) consulted with Alinsky on ways to help poor people organize their own economic development efforts. After Romney met with Alinsky, the New York Times reported that George Romney “said he endorsed any legitimate legal movement that was intended to rectify social injustices.”
Obama worked as a community organizer for an Alinsky-inspired group in Chicago in the 1980s before he went to Harvard law school.
According to a 2007 profile of Obama by Ryan Lizza in The New Republic, Obama “taught Alinsky's concepts and methods in workshops” during his days as local politician in Chicago in the 1990s.
In Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals he explained the tactics that organizers should use to fire up poor people and channel their anger. Alinsky offers axioms such as “Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat.”
He urged his followers to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…. One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
Alinsky died in 1972 but, as of Monday, his book ranked number 11 on the Amazon.com’s best-selling political books list, perhaps due to the free advertising Gingrich has provided.
Gingrich’s linking of Obama with Alinsky is not much different from the ridicule that Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin poured on Obama back in their speeches in 2008 at the Republican convention when they used the term “community organizer” as a kind of punch line.
But they didn’t mention Alinsky by name.
Gingrich, on the other hand, has brought up Alinsky’s name in many of his speeches and interviews in the past few years.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on the day Obama signed the health care bill into law in 2010, Gingrich said, “What has surprised me has been the combination of sort of Springfield, Illinois corruption with Chicago machine-style politics with Saul Alinsky's radicalism.”
In another Fox interview on Election Night 2010 Gingrich told Greta Van Susteren that in 2008 the American people had no idea “that what he was going to try to do was move to the left with the Chicago machine-style politics implementing a Saul Alinsky-style of radicalism. And if he had been clear about that, he'd have lost the election of 2008.”
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More right wing bulls#!t!
Republican strategists at work.
2008 strategy:
Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers, Bill Ayers. Dadgummit, that didn't work. Obama got elected anyway!
2012 strategy:
I know what went wrong. Bill Ayers was too "American" sounding of a name. This time let's go with something more "ethnic". Something that can be said in a sinister tone like what we did with only saying Obama's full name with a snarky "Hussein" emphasis. Let's pick something really subversive sounding. I've got it. It's perfect. Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky, Saul Alinsky,...
wrong again the kiss obamas @$$ media didnt ask enough question about his terrorist buddy ayers and also his radical buddy van jones or his racist preacher of 20 years rev wright or his buddy soros who likes to collapse economys but it will all come out again and you wont be dealing with mccain who didnt press it these repubs will ... newt will kick obumas @$$ in a debate and demand his college transcripts to show what a radical loon he really is ....... and if obuma is so great then he will say ok to newt 7 three hour debates right ....lol ... nope because he a &^&^
Whether a person's name is "ethnic" or not, why is it wrong to evaluate the person based on their stated principles, goals, ideology, and actions? Why is it that we cannot seem to let somebody's actions and words speak for them without coloring it with their ethnicity?
Saul Alinski was an American hero. Raised in a poor neighborhood in south Chicago he made it his life's mission to integrate minorities, seek better housing and jobs for the poor and encourage everyone to vote. At the end of his life in 1972 he was trying to mobilize the middle class to fight against their growing loss of a stake in the American dream. He was not and was never a socialist. He believed that America had come under the control of the very wealthy, the corporations, and the corrupt politicians. Gingrich is a crooked liar who preaches hate, division, fear, and ignorance in order to enrich himself and gain power for himself and his wealthy donors.
american hero ...lol
Saul Alinski was my 2nd cousin. He was no hero - not in our family anyway. He was as radical as one could get and not be a Communist. His mother and my grandfather were brother and sister. I guess I pretty well know what his beliefs were .. he spoke them loud enough whenever the family got together. Unfortunately, my father, a good Democrat, was so incensed by his radicalism, that he threw him down a flight of stairs and out of our house!
Too bad he didn't break his neck. It would have save the counrty a lot of pain!
I'm interested in Alinsky's fascination with archaeology while at the U of Chicago. Where can I follow up on that?
Helping and empowering people, inspiring them and motivating them to get involved in politics to get what they need and want - how un-American. I guess Newt sees it differently.
Romney is a more stable, wise, judicial, and effective leader. He is most electable. Romney is the best choice for our nation.
Whatever one might think about Saul Alinsky is essentially immaterial. President Obama is not Mr. Alinsky, he is not a disciple of Mr. Alinsky. Neither is he Mr. Ayers, or Rev Wright. He is the President of the United States of America. Duly elected by the American people in a free and open election. He is running for re-election not as any of these previously mentioned individuals but as himself. His actions have been reasonable, moderate, temperate, and well thought out. He has been confronted with a myriad of extremely difficult situations primarily the result of eight years of the Bush policies and has tried to find solutions. If one does not like those solutions then vote for the opposition, however please do not continue with the absurd notion that he is guilty by association of being a socialist, or communist, or something worse.
Perhaps Gingrich is influenced by another radical of the 70's, George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party. The KKK was also active while Gingrich was in his formative period, and in Georgia, very significant.
However, Obama is creative, not destructive, and is a man of vision, integrity, and concern for people. Republicans have their dogma, whether it works or not, for repeated failure. So, smear, fear, character assassination, and lies are their only area of ideas and creativity.
No Affinity1,
Obama has no vision. He is very divisive, promoting class warfare in every speech. Obama has no integrity and is a serial failure.
That would be bad enough, but the real problem with this fool is the fact that when he fails, he always costs the rest of us Trillions of our hard earned dollars.
We don't want him, and we certainly can't afford him anymore.
Joseph, If you really believe that maybe you should educate yourself to the facts because every point you made is delusion upon a grand scale and is not support by the truth.
I was going to start with a point by point basis...but when i re-read your post I know I would be wasting my time.
Keep believing the half truths presented by the Republican Party and you will be living under a bridge begging for scraps.
In August 1967 the FBI created its Rabble Rouser Index (later known as Agitator Index) and Alinsky was added to it.
The Index was initially designed to capture background information on individuals “who have demonstrated by their actions and speeches that they have a propensity for fomenting racial disorder.” [FBI SAC Letter 67-47].
A subsequent SAC Letter (67-70) stated:
“A rabble rouser is defined as a person who tries to arouse people to violent action by appealing to their emotions, prejudices, etc.; a demagogue. You will note that under prior criteria the Rabble Rouser Index
served as an index only for individuals of national prominence with particular consideration given to those who travel extensively and was limited to those fomenting racial disorder. It is the intent of this expanded criteria to have within each division as well as nationwide an index of agitators of all types whose activities have a bearing on the national security. This would include, for example, black nationalists, white supremacists, Puerto Rican nationalists, anti-Vietnam demonstration leaders, and other extremists.” …
The Bureau’s concerns about Alinsky were summarized in 2 memos in 1972, from which I quote excerpts below.
The first FBI memo pertains to a Jack Anderson column about Alinsky published in The Washington Post on June 24, 1972:
“Review of Bureau files reveals Alinsky has not been the subject of any surveillance or active security investigation by the FBI. Alinsky was the subject of discreet, preliminary inquiry by Bureau in 1944 due to his being considered as possible juvenile delinquency lecturer for FBI National Academy. He was not recommended
for this position as information developed that his wife was associated with a communist group, to wit, the Jackson Park branch of American League For Peace and Democracy. (This group has been designated per Executive Order 10450). Bureau files reveal Saul David Alinsky, white male, born 1/30/09, of Chicago, Illinois was Executive Director of Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), established in 1940, to organize and train indigenous personnel for community organizations. He was also active in activity concerning poverty-type problems in the U.S. In connection with his activities, he associated with communists, communist front groups, and extremists.”
“Information concerning these latter associations came to the Bureau’s attention through sources providing coverage of the specific subversives or extremists with whom Alinsky had association. Examples of these associations include: his appearance as speaker at Socialist Workers Party (SWP) meeting, Chicago, 2/10/56, (SWP has been designated pursuant to EO 10450); his active support of SWP functionary James Kutcher who was fired in 1959 from Veterans Administration due to subversive membership; his giving main speech at Foster Club meeting of Southeast Section of Communist Party (CP), held at Chicago 3/61; his meeting
with black extremist Stokely Carmichael in Chicago 1/67, reportedly to assist Carmichael in organizing in ghetto areas; and his affiliation with poverty-type programs such as the Woodlawn Organization in Chicago, which employed youth-gang leaders who were involved in violence.”
A second FBI memo dated 7/26/72 states:
“Alinsky has developed approximately 44 social action organizations in various cities throughout the country and has furnished organizing tools as well as organizers for many communities that have asked for them through his work with the IAF…Alinsky had called for the use of such methods as rent strikes, sit-ins,
and pickets to gain his objectives and the results obtained have been the subject of considerable controversy. Alinsky has been referred to as a radical but not as a revolutionist. He reportedly has had a long association with communists in attending affairs sponsored by communist front groups in the Chicago area in the 1940′s and early 1950′s. A Chicago Police Department source advised on 1-10-68 that Alinsky has characterized himself as a ‘professional radical’ and has stated: ‘The only way to upset the power structure in the community is to goad them, confuse them, irritate them and most of all, make them live by their own laws; if you make them live by their own laws, you will destroy them.’ He also referred to himself as an ‘agitator who loves to rub raw the sores of discontent’."
I been saying that for years.
If you were to make the Republicans, and for that matter all congressmen, abide by and live by the rulles and laws thay sanction against us.....the middle class....ummm for example my tax rate is seriously higher than Romney's they would not survive or at least they might change for the good.
Make no mistake people They have declared war on the middleclass.
Also I have been called Saul Alinsky so many times I think of it as a badge of courage to make changes in society.
Newt is a hypocrite!!!
When he attacks a questioner or critic and demonizes them, that is straight out of the Saul Alinsky play book.
I am surprised - but I guess some people don't know that Netanyahu's extremmist right wing coalition has been pursuing land grabs in the West Bank. That's why he refused the peace in 2010 proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Barak and supported by President Peres and the Israeli Kadima party. Tzipi Livni of Kadima offered to support Netanyahu in parliament if he would go for peace "if only to hold his shaking hand" while he signed the peace. The Fatah negotiator agreed to the peace in principle. Israel would have gotten most of Jerusalem including the settlements in east jerusalem plus the settlements along the border. The Temple Mount would have been autonomous and Palestine would have gotten the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. Mubarak would have sold the peace to all the Arab countries (less than the 1967 borders they asked for in 2002 and 2007 for peace) and to a majority of the Palestinians. Netanyahu declined in favor of more land grabs by his extremists coalition partners. Recently they have been attacking mosques, attacking Israeli troops and attacking more liberal Jews (e.g. a woman who wanted to ride in the front of the bus - who received death threats after she refused to move).
If you want to know about Israeli read Haaretz - an Israeli paper on the webb or BBC news - both are free.
Or alternatively if you want to live in fantasy land - listen to the republican candidates other than Ron Paul.