Usually around once or twice a week, I'll get an email or comment that ties the teachings of Saul Alinsky to Barack Obama. Certainly, Alinsky was an influence on President Obama in terms of his philosophy on community organizing. The intimation, though, was that it was much more than that. By tying Obama to the "known radical" Alinsky this proves how "radical" our current president is in his viewpoints.
So, imagine my surprise when I read this article on the Tea Party in the New York Times and saw this line.
New employees receive a required-reading list that includes “Rules for Radicals,” by Saul Alinsky, the father of modern community organizing,
Huh. That's interesting. The entire article is very illuminating regarding this "grass roots" movement.
Even more interesting is that Alinksy, in one of his final interviews before his death in 1972, worried that the middle class (Nixon and Agnew's "Silent Majority) would be driven to the right "making them ripe for the plucking by some guy on horseback promising a return to the vanished verities of yesterday" whose stated motive would be "I love this goddamn country, and we're going to take it back."
Eight years later his prophecy proved all too true. And if you listen to the Koch Foundation sponsored FreedomWorks, they are saying the same thing.
So are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
5 comments:
And so was Michelle Obama a couple of years ago.
And your point is?
From your link:
"a portrait of Ayn Rand hangs on the office walls along with one of Jerry Garcia. FreedomWorks was founded to promote the theories of the Austrian economic school"
Where do I sign up?
You say the article is 'illuminating'. What makes you say that?
dw
Yeah, I saw that and thought you would love it. I guess I don't get the Jerry Garcia thing, though. He was way left but it's probably just the way they organized their community like the article said.
It was illuminating from the standpoint of FreedomWorks being funded by the Kochs. The Kochs' father was a founder of the John Birch Society. So, it's not a "grass roots" organization and much of their philosophy is rooted in an ideology that has no practical application in reality which is something the Tea Partiers' need to understand. They are letting their anger and frustration with their own lives (and our current economic climate) cloud their judgment. They are latching on to a way of governing that will benefit the Kochs a great deal but not the 300K + people at the rally on Saturday.
I suggest you re-read the whole interview.
http://thegrove.mywowbb.com/forum1/1870.html
"All their old values seem to have deserted them, leaving them rudderless in a sea of social chaos."
Yes. Values like honesty, integrity, and justice have been abandoned. Society now involves politicians lying to the great unwashed and receiving a lifetime job, crippling (with taxation, regulation, and inflation) the few who are still trying to succeed, and rewarding those who consume more than they produce - by stealing the effort of the productive.
So, what exactly is the 'Tea Party ideology' that has no practical application? I admit, I know very little about the specifics of the Tea Party movement.
How will the 'way of government' benefit the Kochs?
dw
OT - crazed right-wing Tea-Partier stormed the Discovery Channel building... oh, wait...
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