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The Agitator - Barack Obama's unlikely political education
The New Republic ^ | March 19, 2007 | Ryan Lizza

Posted on 09/07/2008 12:55:08 PM PDT by FreedomLives2008

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More Background on BO's Community organizing days.
1 posted on 09/07/2008 12:56:02 PM PDT by FreedomLives2008
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To: FreedomLives2008

bump


2 posted on 09/07/2008 12:58:40 PM PDT by lesser_satan (Satire today, headlines tomorrow...)
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To: FreedomLives2008
What kind of narcissist writes a memoir of their unexceptional life when in their 30s?
3 posted on 09/07/2008 1:01:37 PM PDT by AnalogReigns
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To: FreedomLives2008
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.
4 posted on 09/07/2008 1:03:09 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (OBAMA: He was a flop before he became a flipper.)
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To: AnalogReigns

Zero is starting to irritate my gag reflex!


5 posted on 09/07/2008 1:03:58 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ("Don't touch that thing")
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To: FreedomLives2008

Right. Well I had to stop reading when it described Obama politically as center-left. Who pays these ‘community agitators’ salary anyhow? Doesn’t sound like they have any real responsibilities other than to shoot off their mouths and make people feel like victims.


6 posted on 09/07/2008 1:07:54 PM PDT by MovementConservative (John Roberts and Sam Alito.... Thank you GWB)
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To: FreedomLives2008

“...at least to his 24-year-old ears.”

Apparently Obama was ALL EARS!


7 posted on 09/07/2008 1:09:39 PM PDT by GatĂșn(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)
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To: FreedomLives2008
Moreover, on the eve of Obama's arrival, Harold Washington had overthrown Richard J. Daley's white ethnic machine to become the city's first black mayor.

I'm not that familiar with Chit-cago history- how many black mayors have they had since?

8 posted on 09/07/2008 1:16:55 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: FreedomLives2008
“But Wright was a former Muslim and black nationalist...”

Very interesting.

Thanks for posting.

TNR is doing the investigative reporting that WaPo and Slimes have refused to do.

9 posted on 09/07/2008 1:20:20 PM PDT by mojito
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To: IllumiNaughtyByNature
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.

Reminds me of North Vietnamese self-criticism sessions.

10 posted on 09/07/2008 1:20:51 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: FreedomLives2008

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change.”

A racist from the very start.


11 posted on 09/07/2008 1:26:19 PM PDT by chainsaw ( No racist radical Muslims in the WH)
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To: FreedomLives2008
So what were his specific achievements again???
12 posted on 09/07/2008 1:29:29 PM PDT by Tempest (The devil and the media have sided with Obama)
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To: Cindy; Jeff Head
The first and most fundamental lesson Obama learned was to reassess his understanding of power. Horwitt says that, when Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: "You want to organize for power!"

Galluzzo shared with me the manual he uses to train new organizers, which is little different from the version he used to train Obama in the '80s. It is filled with workshops and chapter headings on understanding power: "power analysis," "elements of a power organization," "the path to power." Galluzzo told me that many new trainees have an aversion to Alinsky's gritty approach because they come to organizing as idealists rather than realists. But Galluzzo's manual instructs them to get over these hang-ups. "We are not virtuous by not wanting power," it says. "We are really cowards for not wanting power," because "power is good" and "powerlessness is evil."

What a contrast to this:

II Corinthians 12:7-10: "And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me--to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He had said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

No wonder the these creeps view Christianity as an obstacle.

13 posted on 09/07/2008 1:43:07 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: FreedomLives2008
Thanks for posting this.

It's downright chilling.

14 posted on 09/07/2008 1:56:34 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: piasa

“...what a contrast...”

Yes and you pointed it out perfectly in this word picture.

Thank you piasa.


15 posted on 09/07/2008 1:57:45 PM PDT by Cindy
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To: MovementConservative

Community Organizers used Saul Alinksy’s “Rules For Radicals” as their game plan. Main aim was to infiltrate the public schools with “outsiders” for radical reasons. It seems the NEA used a similar text book!

I found a number of questionable statements in this article, the question of Obama’s birthplace for one.

That Obama came up through the corrupt Chicago political machine certainly should not set well with the American voter.


16 posted on 09/07/2008 1:59:13 PM PDT by Paperdoll (Duncan Hunter for Secretary of Defense!)
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To: FreedomLives2008

Thank you VERY much for posting this fascinating piece. I somehow missed it last year.

After reading this- it shows me once again, that Obama has socialism running in his veins- it’s how he was indoctrinated and trained- and if we look at the ground game his campaign has- and the smear tactics, it’s all based on Alinsky’s Rules.


17 posted on 09/07/2008 1:59:56 PM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet-McCain/Palin 08)
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To: FreedomLives2008

Thank you for posting. This author intends it to be a glowing account of Obama as a community organizer, but he is so blinded by his leftist ideology that he doesn’t realize how scary this stuff is to “normal” Americans. How can we condense this relationship between Obama, Galuzzi and Alinsky so people understand that what he is doing is agitating through the political process so he can destroy all they hold dear and rebuild America as a socialist utopia?


18 posted on 09/07/2008 2:24:26 PM PDT by Defiant (I prefer a Lewinsky in the White House to an Alinsky. The first blows, but the latter really sucks.)
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To: SE Mom; FreedomLives2008

I agree, great post....

I got a new and different picture of Obama out of this.

He is shrewed, calculating, power hungry, Macchiavellian, incredibly ambitious ...and not to be underestimated.

But I don’t have a clue where his heart resides - he will do or say anything to get power, but once he has it I don’t know what he’ll do with it.

A lot like Bill Clinton, but more ruthless and smarter.

I know this, now that Palin has energized our base, over the next couple of months we’re going to see the dirtiest, knock-down, in-the-mud, political wrestling match of our lives.


19 posted on 09/07/2008 2:31:03 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: aquila48
He is shrewed, calculating, power hungry, Macchiavellian, incredibly ambitious ...and not to be underestimated.

I don't really see him that way at all. I see him as a guy who had everything come easy because he was fairly intelligent and black. The I see a guy, like Bill Clinton, in the right places at the right time and a political machine who felt they could use to create a narrative.

I just see him as taking advantage to what, up to this point, came fairly easy to him. A tool.

Interesting that both he and Clinton had absent fathers and probably the anger, resentment and motivations that can cause in young men.

20 posted on 09/07/2008 2:34:49 PM PDT by riri
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