1/22/12

The Highly Shaky Newt Saul Alinsky Meme




Much of the time I run on gut and logic
Logic as Peirce understood it is the biggest and least used gift of the Holy One
Newt is arguing that Obama is a Saul Alinsky radical
One of the few areas where I do have expertise is the subject of Saul Alinsky
As a Chicago journalist in the 1960s I researched and wrote the most searching examination of Alinsky that appeared in that decade
It appeared as "Saul Alinsky and His Critics" in Christianity and Crisis
the magazine founded by Reinhold Niebuhr
It was widely anthologized
Only two other persons at the time did comparable analyses
They were Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton
Both concluded as I did that Alinsky was a capable organizer at local levels
But that the country could not be changed merely by community organization
It required a national democratic effort
of the type that both these worthies undertook
Newt is off base and the most salient argument against his attempt to brand Obama as a "Saul Alinsky Radical" is to ask who Alinsky's most loyal supporters were
One of them was Marshall Field who funded Industrial Areas Foundation
The other was the Archdiocese of Chicago which was Alinsky's most staunch ally
in the city where he did his most publicized organizing work
in Woodlawn and in Back of the Yards
In Woodlawn his opponent was the University of Chicago
In the light of history one would have to call that fight a stand-off
Alinsky would have understood why 
The University was and is more powerful than TWO
And power tells
Newt and Alinsky are more close than Obama was to Alinsky
Newt will not get far if we successfully demythologize his mischaracterization of Saul Alinsky and Barack Obama
His history is lacking

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