The right-wing media hates Alinsky, except when he's shaping their movement
February 01, 2010 6:14 pm ET by Brooke Obie
"Warn your kids[!] Better yet, home school [them]," because Obama is "Brainwashing America's Youth," again -- if the latest bit of right-wing fear-mongering is to be believed, that is. Several conservative bloggers have run with the "story" that Organizing for America is accepting applications for its semester-long internship program/"civilian youth brigade," in which the "shocking list" of suggested reading includes community organizer Saul Alinsky's 1971 book Rules for Radicals (the purpose of which is: "indoctrinating [your children] into Saul Alinsky's radical tactics and ideology").
If so, you'd better keep your kids away from those Tea Parties.
Tea Party leader and "the co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter" Michael Patrick Leahy has written an entire book based off of Alinsky's "shocking" work, deftly entitled: Rules for Conservative Radicals: Lessons from Saul Alinsky[!] the Tea Party Movement and the Apostle Paul in the Age of Collaborative Technologies. In his book, "Leahy argues that today's conservative radical should follow the tactics of Saul Alinsky, but apply the morals and ethics of Martin Luther King."
And Leahy is not the only conservative poisoned by what right-wing blogger Pamela Geller calls "the mother's milk of the left."
Conservative "hero" and Fox News' favorite investigative journalist James O'Keefe is also a fan. The Los Angeles Times reported that O'Keefe found an "unlikely source of inspiration" in Alinsky and O'Keefe "took to heart" Alinsky's principle to: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
Also, on Fox News' Glenn Beck, David Horowitz advocated for conservatives to follow "what Saul Alinsky argues"---i.e., "shout[ing] things whether they are true or not," and "stag[ing] a die-in" -- in order to "catch the other side off-guard" and win the health care debate.
Alinsky's "evil" has even reached all the way out to the Heartland, with The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reporting: "in Kansas City, Missouri, a group of conservative organizers will conduct a most unusual training session. They will teach the "Rules for Radicals' laid down by the god of community organizing, Saul Alinsky. The idea: learn to recognize the footprints of the enemy." Similarly, The Washington Independent's David Weigel has reported that "Alinsky has found a thriving and surprising fan club in the modern conservative movement," with "many 'Tea Party' activists say[ing] they're cribbing from Alinsky."
Yes, if Geller and the other bloggers on the right are to be believed, Obama is coming for your children through the vessel of Saul Alinsky. And in Geller's own words: "Can you imagine if the Republicans attempted such a stunt?" The mind boggles.
The ability to use short, FACTUAL phrases, twisted into a whole mythical conspiracy theory; then sprinkled with generous doses of projection-seems to be a VERY effective mind-control mechanism used for personalizing, and misinforming, or completely deceiving Faux Nooz's audience. (whose median IQ is likely low enough to convince them it's all "obviously FACTUAL")
A sad and disturbing result, at least partially, of our failing educational system....
Well, Frank Luntz is living proof of this. No matter how independent conservatives claim to be, they always seem to echo Frank Luntz bogus arguments.
The second issue I have with your article is that it uses a straw-man argument. You have set up the idea that the conservatives are worried about indoctrination of children, but they follow some of the same teachings, so it is not a big deal. Whether or not "the right" uses the same ideas as "the left", has very little to do with whether it is a good idea for youth to be exposed to those same ideas. I think one could make arguments either way. The real debate is whether it is a good idea for an organization targeting youth to have a book with questionable ethical philosophies on a reading list. These are minors, but of course parents do have the right to deny their child's participation and/or to read the book with their children and discuss the ideas there in. You have to admit though, either party involving itself in forming groups of minors has the subtle appearance of propagandism. President Obama should be empowering parents to get their children involved in activism, not enlisting the children himself. It has a poor appearance even if it has good intentions.
Like the commenter below, I never heard of Saul Alinsky until I heard Glenn Beck talking nonsense about him. It was immediately apparent that Beck was charging Progressives with doing what Beck himself was doing, which is to consider Alinsky as some kind of Prophet of Progressivism. I'm not the least bit surprised to find that the Tea Party fascists are using Alinsky. It's like everything else fundamentalists/Conservatives hate: (Abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc) they are the ones most guilty of it.