According to right wing fantasy land, Saul Alinsky is this exulted guru of left that we all follow with blind allegiance. After spending their college years playing Dungeons and Dragons , they really believe their own lies. I address this in my diary..
4/1/2014
No Rules For Radicals...just right
I saw a bumper sticker the other day, which read, “Rejecting Socialism is not racism! It’s patriotism!” What? That makes as much sense as, “Rejecting Sexism is not capitalism! It is liberty!” I thought about it for a while and then it dawned on me: Oh! They are talking about President Obama! They are saying, “We don’t hate him because he is half black; we hate him because he is a socialist!” Well, that makes everything kosher, doesn’t it? Not really. Listening to righties on the radio or reading their remarks on line is like analyzing political Glossolalia. The right has a history of accusing non-socialists of being socialists, going back to the red scare of the late 40s. Obama is a socialist?? Not really. He helped Detroit’s auto industry get back its feet. Maybe he’s one those Fabian socialists you read about in John Birch Society literature? Yeah, babe, them Birchers accused the Republican president, Eisenhower, of being a communist.
This red bating is just a façade for racism and Anti-Semitism. Look at the Jewish couple that got the death penalty for giving atom bomb secrets to the Soviets in the early 50’s. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were ex-members of the Communist Party and were executed on June 19, 1953 for high treason. Ask any right-winger and they will tell you: The Rosenbergs were executed for being Communists, not for being Jewish! Those righties crack me up! They hate government unless the government serves them. Time and time again, it has been proven that the Rosenbergs were framed.
So, when neo-Nazis carried picket signs that read, “Jewism is Communism!” they expressed how WASP conservatives really felt about Jews. Being passive-aggressive is nothing new with conservatism. For example, black conservatives are really conduits for white racists. You’ve got to ask yourself about the stuff black conservatives say that white conservatives could never say. The black conservative can criticize his own people and get away with it: “You lazy Negroes! Get off your lazy ass and get off of the white man’s welfare!” That goes for Jewish conservatives also! They attack Jewish lefties. They always go after George Soros, Hollywood rich Jews, and Saul D. Alinsky. But never Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino owner and a conservative Jew. He gives tons of money to the GOP.
But when it comes to the Jewish people, from Progressives to Anarchists, they are seen as part of an evil conspiracy. Not because they are Jewish, but because they are left-wingers. Saul D. Alinsky was a community organizer from the old days. He was not a communist agitator. He just wanted to help the poor, like the early 20th Century American progressives did. William F. Buckley, of all people, said this about Saul: “He is very close to being an organizational genius.” Saul wrote a pamphlet, “Rules for Radicals.” It was not intended to be a left-wing manual, nor was it a manifesto. Right-wing investigators, or conspiracy nuts, treated this pamphlet like it was the new version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The protocols of the elders of Zion were proven to be an Anti-Semitic hoax written by the Russian Secret Police. And yet, for decades, this book was alleged to have been written by rich Jews with a secret plot to control the world banks and enslave the earth.
Glenn Beck, the Tea Bag loony tunes, used to talk about Alinsky’s pamphlet as some type of plot to impress upon the left how to organize the takeover of the USA. Nope! It was intended for community organizers. Beck’s misinterpretations of Alinsky’s theoretical methods of community organizing were comical. He thought the political physics of top down or bottom up organizing was some type of command. However, it was just theory on organizing. Hardly anyone from the left read the damn thing! Most Baby Boomers were reading Abbie Hoffman’s, “Woodstock Nation,” or Jerry Rubin’s, “Do It!” Another popular book was, The Greening of America,” by Charles A. Reich. There was also, “Soul On Ice,” by Eldridge Cleaver. But, rules for radicals? Kill that noise, homey! The only people who read that book are right-wing morons!
So, who influences the modern day left? Try Gene Sharp on for size. In 1994, he released a monumental book called, “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” It was about creating a non-violent revolution. That book influenced the Occupation Movement all the way to The Arab Spring in Egypt. So, when you hear some right-winger talk bitch about Saul Alinsky…give them the one finger salute and walk away.
The right hates Saul so much that they use his organizational methods. Matter of fact, the only political ideology that actually puts Alinsky’s methods into practice is a right-winger. The right wing has poor interpretive skills. Many have the I.Q. of Larry the Cable Guy.
The right is made up of historical revisionists. When they talk about early 20th Century progressives and the Eugenics movements—which were merely about birth control for the poor—they distort the fact that the Nazis hi-jacked left wing philosophy and used it as an alibi for genocide. Lothrop Stoddard developed the right-wing Eugenics movement for white racists. It was not Margaret Sanger, who the conservatives claim was the promoter of Social Darwinism or Eugenics. When it comes to American history, the conservatives profess a highly fictional tale. Do your research when anybody makes a claim! That is critical thinking. Don’t even accept my bullshit!
Knowledge is power!