Hillary, Obama and the cult of Alinsky

Tehran Times ^ | February 15, 2008 | Richard Poe

[3AngelaD]

Most Americans never heard of Saul Alinsky. Yet his shadow darkens our coming election. Democrat frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both worship at the altar of Alinskyism. In a 1971 book called Rules for Radicals, Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.

In his native Chicago, Alinsky courted power wherever he found it. His alliance with prominent Catholic clerics, such as Bishop Bernard Sheil, gave him respectability. His friendship with crime bosses such as Frank Nitti -- Al Capone’s second-in-command -- gave Alinsky clout on the street.

In our book The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, my co-author David Horowitz and I trace the rise of Alinsky’s political influence since the 1930s.

He excelled at wooing wealthy funders....Alinsky once boasted, “I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday...even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.”

One Alinsky benefactor was Wall Street investment banker Eugene Meyer, who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. Meyer and his wife Agnes co-owned The Washington Post. They used their newspaper to promote Alinsky....

During the Sixties, Alinsky wielded tremendous power behind the scenes. When President Johnson launched his War on Poverty in 1964, Alinsky allies infiltrated the program...

Alinsky’s crowning achievement was his recruitment of a young high school student named Hillary Rodham...They remained friends until Alinsky’s death in 1972....

Fresh out of law school at age 26, Hillary received a prestigious appointment to the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate investigative team in 1974. She got the job on the recommendation of Peter and Marian Wright Edelman...Marian Wright Edelman also happens to be an Alinskyite, having served on the Board of Trustees of Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation.

Many leftists view Hillary as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to do and say whatever it takes to gain power.

Barack Obama is also an Alinskyite. Trained by Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation, Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project. Later, he worked with ACORN and its offshoot Project Vote, both creations of the Alinsky network.

Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer.

That Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama share an Alinskyite background tells us two things. First, they are leftists, dedicated to overthrowing our Constitutional system. Second, they will go to any length to conceal their radicalism from the public. That is the Alinsky method. And that is today’s Democratic Party.

[3AngelaD]

Truly scary.

[kittymyrib]

And excellent material for political ads. Too bad the GOP isn’t running someone who could win against these Lefties.

[OPS4]

Truly Communists have been invading our institutions both in the private and public sectors since the end of World War 11.

They also are doing the same in Europe. The plan was launched to the Public when in the 60’s Nikita Kruschev on INternational T.V. pounded his shoe on a table and said,
“We will bury you from within”.

This Presidential vote, will determine if Niki wins or loses, McCain 2008, or pay the consequences, my fellow American’s!

[Greg F]

Very scary indeed. We still haven’t convinced most of middle America the media is biased, much less that this sort of threat is real and not a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory.

[StatenIsland]

Thank you for posting this.

Word-for-word, it should become a Republican mantra for the next nine months, and, imho, serve as a rallying point for all Americans behind the otherwise reprehensible John McCain.

[Sacajaweau]

Hillary is still wearing the same suit from way back then...

[3AngelaD]

A write on Andrew Sullivan's website says:

The principal difference between Hillary and Obama is not race or gender at all, but Saul Alinsky.

I overstate the case, but it is worth noting that where Clinton wrote her thesis on Alinsky's organizational theory, Obama lived it. Where she rejected it as "quaint" and moved on to law school and hitched her wagon to Bill's star, Obama went to the church basements of Chicago; that experience brought him to prominence at Harvard. Hillary became a master of the knife fight, Obama guerilla warfare. Hillary's weapon is influence, Obama's is people.

[3AngelaD]

Both Mrs. Clinton and Obama have repeatedly refused to answer questions about their Alinsky alliance and activities. They consistently stonewall. They need to be pressed.

[crazydad]

God man this is all making more and more sense. The antichrist is coming but is it in the form of a radical woman or a radical closet jihadist?

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Sure its scary and it has been in progress for 70+ years.

.... my co-author David Horowitz and I trace the rise of Alinsky’s political influence since the 1930s.

Do a search for Communist Goals and The Frankfurt School and learn how much they have accomplished and how they did it.

[Puppage]

Most Americans never heard of Saul Alinsky

Most Americans couldn't tell you who The Speaker of The House is.

They could, however, tell you who's in the running for American Idol.

[The Forgotten Man]

This began long before WWII. The communist infiltration started prior to WWI and was promoted by Woodrow Wilson. it has continued throughout our history and most of the "travelers" reside and have resided in the State department as well as other components of gubment.

It is reaching a point of no return and electing any democrat will advance the cause by a quantum leap....

[JaneNC]

I think McCain can win against either of them.

[The Forgotten Man]

Not unless he grows a pair. And, make comments with respect to hillary as “She has integrity”. McCain will be a roll over unless he becomes a junkyard dog and I don’t see it....

[Ann Archy]

Most Americans can’t name the VP...let alone their Senator, Rep, or Governor, but they DO know the name of the AMerican Idol contestants!! PATHETIC

[OPS4]

Well said, just watch the people give answers to the question’s about leaders, on Jay Lenno!

A country that can vote based on the headlines, the morning of an election. Or go along with whoever the MSM is touting as the potential winner by B.S. polls.

Educating the Masses, is the duty of all who do know the truth to may of the answer’s, so help us do our part Almighty God!

[Just mythoughts]

Given lord McCain’s legislative history and whose fountain he drinks from I do not see a dime’s worth of difference in his politics than either Hillary or Obama. I guess somethings are required forgetting and ignoring this political season.

[3AngelaD]

And many are not likely to ever hear. After Obama did a big interview with Univision news, somebody, not me, got on the very active Univision forum and posted all the Obama-Alinsky information. It stayed there for about two days and then Univision took it down.

[RC2]

Wait a minute.....this article comes out of the “Tehran Times”

[JimRed]

Will it ever dawn upon the radical left that their high-sounding plans NEVER WORK???

[hosepipe]

[ Most Americans never heard of Saul Alinsky. ]

True... or Antonio Gramsci.. the wise will make themselves conversant with both..

THIS election is totally about Saul Alinsky ans Antonio Gramsci..
They wrote plans A,B, and C of this election..

[Bushwacker777]

I believe they are Iranians who live in America and Europe.

[3AngelaD]

Strange, but true. The Tehran Times is an English language newspaper that prints all kinds of stuff. They credit this article to Jeff Rense’s rense.com. Richard Poe is a legitimate journalist and David Horowitz has the most impeccable of conservative credentials.

[3AngelaD]

Say what you want about McCain, he was not trained in revolutionary tactics by a notorious Marxist.

[Ben Ficklin]

"Truly scary"

The rest of the story is even more scary.

When these cultural elitists/cultural marxists took over the democratic party in the 60s, the cultural populists abandoned the democrats. Nixon brought the cultural populists into the GOP and the GOP rode the coalition between these cultural populists and the economic elitists to power.

That GOP coalition is now dissolving. The cultural populists now hate the economic elitists as much as they hate the cultural elitists.

[Just mythoughts]

Say what you want about McCain, he was not trained in revolutionary tactics by a notorious Marxist.

Really now, I think lord McCain got several years of 24/7 literal training in Marxist tactics. He certainly has not been loved by the media whores for doing what is RIGHT, but because he dressed himself in a Republican name and stuck his finger in the conservatives collective eye at every opportunity... legislatively speaking. He certainly did not get to being the top of the GOP heap by conservative votes... His title of maverick sure did not come to him for being RIGHT.

[3AngelaD]

So you think while McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam he converted to Marxism. However much I disagree with him about immigration and amnesty, I find the very idea of such a conversion very difficult to believe. In fact, I have to say that is one of the loopiest things I have ever read on this forum.

[elhombrelibre]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56626

[3AngelaD]

Sorry, but I think that is totally pointless. People who would care about that aren't going to vote for Obama anyway, the people who are going to vote for Obama don't care. It won't change anyone's mind.

These kinds of attacks, regardless of the credibility of the story or lack thereof, are not an effective way to defeat him. He needs to be exposed for what he wants to do to our country. He is vulnerable on his record, lack of accomplishments, ideas, lack of substance, motives and past affiliations. Why bother with that crap?

[PGalt]

Outstanding article. Thanks for posting. Thanks for writing, Richard Poe.

[elhombrelibre]

Well, maybe you’re jaded about the link between character and policy, but a man whose married for seven years and still smokes crack and has another man toot his horn is probably not the best candidate for president.

[3AngelaD]

I must not have explained myself clearly. I have a problem with such behavior, and don’t believe people who behave like that are fit to hold public office. But this story is not going to have any effect whatsoever on defeating him — which to me is the whole idea. Like I said, the people who will vote for him don’t care about this kind of behavior, and don’t see anything wrong with it, and the people like us who object to it aren’t going to vote for him anyway. Gloating and passing judgment feels good, but it doesn’t defeat flawed candidates, or at least it didn’t work that way with Clinton when the Gennifer Flowers stuff came out just before his first election. So, are we playing checkers, or chess?

[USS Alaska]

Given lord McCain’s legislative history and whose fountain he drinks from I do not see a dime’s worth of difference in his politics than either Hillary or Obama.

Given that statement, your thoughts are illogical.

The war and the protection of the unborn, those two ought to be worth at least a quarter.

[elhombrelibre]

Sometimes just stating the obvious is important despite the fact that some want to overlook it. Frankly, Obama’s admitted drug use and possible fellatio indulgence with a Gay man is not likely to bother many of his constituents. I realize that, but it does show the depraved level of character we’re dealing with. It helps explain why he and his supporters are indifferent to partial birth abortion. They’re amoral people seeking gratification without responsibility. That’s not being judgmental to feel good; it’s recognizing the effects of bad morals, like Edmund Gibbons once did, and knowing where it leads.

[JaneNC]

You under estimate the HATRED of Hillary Clinton.
If she divides the Dem party with her tricks and steals the nomination, she will lose by a landslide.

[The Forgotten Man]

No I don’t. I also do not underestimate the Clinton machine. They are ruthless and will stop at nothing. The are anarchists and socialists....

[roses of sharon]

And excellent material for political ads. Too bad the GOP isn’t running someone who could win against these Lefties

Yes, it matters not who in the UnAmerican Democrat Party is nominated, we have a nominee who has spent his career in angst on whether he should join them.

[PhilDragoo]

Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Obama was 24 years old, unmarried, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine African-American community.

Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to "rub raw the sores of discontent," in Alinsky's words.

One of Obama's early mentors in the Alinsky method was Mike Kruglik, who had this to say to an interviewer of The New Republic, about Obama:

"He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better."

The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the "realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease.

In these methods, euphemistically labeled "community organizing," Obama had a four-year education, which he often says was the best education he ever got anywhere.

freedom's enemies: the obama file

[Bernard Marx]

Truly Communists have been invading our institutions both in the private and public sectors since the end of World War 11.

If you do a bit of reading you'll discover that Communist penetration of American institutions began shortly after the 1917 Communist takeover in Russia. It really hit its stride in the 1930s and 40s with people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, John Stewart Service, Phillip Jaffe and many dozens more who infiltrated the Roosevelt bureaucracy, the media and the academy. The fact that the loyalty of some of the above is still in dispute is testimony to how effectively the revisionist "historians" have done their subversive work.

[Just mythoughts]

Given that statement, your thoughts are illogical. The war and the protection of the unborn, those two ought to be worth at least a quarter.

Now exactly what did lord McCain do from even before 911 that demonstrated his concern and awareness of terrorists being a threat. Then just when did he take himself to the airwaves and tell the liberal moooolahs to stop trying to reenact Vietnam? Allll I remember about lord McCain and this war was getting Rummy's head. Took him a few years to accomplish but he still loves to brag about his conquest over Rummy.

What has changed regarding abortion??? except a pill now is introduced as method in prevention of a said procedure. And the new wave to salvation of flesh is through embryonic stem cell research... can't say I see progress no matter what the voting record gets used to claim otherwise.

[Just mythoughts]

So you think while McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam he converted to Marxism. However much I disagree with him about immigration and amnesty, I find the very idea of such a conversion very difficult to believe. In fact, I have to say that is one of the loopiest things I have ever read on this forum.

Actually I think lord McCain has convinced himself that he is OWED that position of ultimate power and he has turned to whatever vehicle available to him to grab hold of that pinnacle of power. SOROS included and every liberal that would put his face in front of a 'live' camera feed. Just like Hillary, everything is allll about him come .ell or high water.

[JZelle]

[Eastbound]

"Both Mrs. Clinton and Obama have repeatedly refused to answer questions about their Alinsky alliance and activities. They consistently stonewall. They need to be pressed."

'Yo, Hillery! Are we on the same page or what?

Photoshopped!

[erikm88]

The real kicker is... why do people consistently trust and elect these Marxist whackos...???

[3AngelaD]

Several reasons: people don’t know they are Marxists and the media does a good job of covering it up; people have no clue as to what Marxism represents and what it has wrought in the past, because our schools are so pathetically bad; people know what Marxism is and don’t care, because they believe it and have been convinced it is a good and admirable thing {see Che T-shirts}; some people are simply not paying attention.

[John from Manhattan]

I must not have explained myself clearly. I have a problem with such behavior, and don’t believe people who behave like that are fit to hold public office. But this story is not going to have any effect whatsoever on defeating him — which to me is the whole idea. Like I said, the people who will vote for him don’t care about this kind of behavior, and don’t see anything wrong with it, and the people like us who object to it aren’t going to vote for him anyway. Gloating and passing judgment feels good, but it doesn’t defeat flawed candidates, or at least it didn’t work that way with Clinton when the Gennifer Flowers stuff came out just before his first election. So, are we playing checkers, or chess?

I agree with what 3AngelaD is saying here. This stuff might help us understand Obama, but it isn't going to mean anything to the average voter. Plus, all of the stuff is based on innuendo away rather that attacking specific flaws in Obama's positions.

[Bushwacker777]

Slick mind-manipulating public relations that would make Edward Bernays proud.

[Bushwacker777]

Check out episode 4 of “Century of the Self” (BBC production you can view free on the net at videogoogle

[JaneNC]

I cannot see a President Obama or another President Clinton happening.

I think McCain will win.

[The Forgotten Man]

Sorry, I am not a McCain supporter. None of the three is a good choice for potus. Seems like we always settle for something less by selecting the lesser of the evils. McCain is no conservative. He can say it over and over until he is blue in the face.

I must hold my principles if I intend to be true to my own idealogical beliefs. The fact that he may end up being potus proves we as a nation will select the smaller of risks. I still do not trust him....