As for Saul Alinsky, please refer to my previous postings (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20140610)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20140629). (Lily)
Spero Forum (http://www.speroforum.com)
Hillary Clinton has some explaining to do about Saul Alinsky, 25 September 2014
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton not only wrote a thesis about Saul Alinsky - the leftist founder of so-called 'community organizing' - she worked with him directly, as revealed by recently uncovered correspondence.
by Stephanie Block
Bill Maher’s cute, koala face screws up in comical disbelief: “Who the *^#! Is Saul Alinsky?” See: YouTube
Now, Maher knows very well who Alinsky is and it’s apparent that he admires him, but there’s an interesting point contained in the monologue. Although Saul Alinsky died many decades ago, “mainstream” conservatives take it “as an article of faith that liberals take their marching orders from someone named Saul Alinsky…somehow he has become the right-wing’s all-encompassing figure of evil.”
Very Alinskyian, that would be. Tactical rule #13 in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
To whatever degree they can successfully resurrect Alinsky from the dead and recast him as the boogeyman, as “a radical activist who controls Barack Obama from the grave”, to use Maher’s phrase, they have a very useful ideological tool with which to communicate to their base. If “Alinsky” stands for all that is Machiavellian and corrupt, anyone associated with Alinsky or Alinskyian activity is instantly understood to be tainted.
And yet, if a man had a sufficient record of doing or preaching ill, admiration for his work and thought might indeed – and should – stain his followers. Neo-nazis may have been born long after Hitler’s passing but their affection for his misbegotten life says much that is unattractive about them.
Which is why it matters that Hillary Clinton wrote an undergraduate college thesis titled “An Analysis of the Alinsky Model” and is why it matters that she had correspondence with Alinsky in 1971. See here. Clinton spent a lot of her formative energy absorbing Alinskyian thought…and it will be important to understand that if she decides to run for President.
The letters are warm and reflective of more than passing acquaintance. She anticipates his publishing of Rules for Radicals (which she hadn’t yet read) and writes, “You are being rediscovered again as the New-left type politicos are finally beginning to think seriously about the hard work and mechanics of organizing.” [sic] Obviously, she is thinking about it.
Her critique is intelligent, even as it accepts the same essential class analysis that drove much of Alinsky’s thought. The 1969 thesis shows that Ms. Clinton understood that Alinskyian organizing engages only a minute percentage of the population – 2% by the estimation of Alinsky’s supporters – while claiming to provide a voice for the disenfranchised citizen. She understood the inherent tension between organizing people around local “self-interest” and the organizer’s broader concerns.
She recognized that, although “the People’s Organizations once established engage more often in realistic than nonrealistic conflicts, their formation is largely a process of exploiting nonrealistic conflict.” Her youthful idealism assumes that, because Alinskyian organizing is evolving, these problems will be addressed.
So the real problem is not whether Hillary knew and admired Saul Alinsky as a young woman – and clearly, she did – but whether the older Hillary continues to analyze the world through an Alinskyian lens. Is she a political Machiavellian? Does she continue to support Alinskyian organizing as a political tool for progressive accomplishment – despite the fact that it has not “evolved” to be any more representative of its constituent population than it ever was. Does she continue to care about the elitist aspect to progressive organizing?
If she has evolved her own thinking beyond Alinskyianism then Bill Maher is right. Hillary’s friendship with the “Father of Community Organizing” is irrelevant. Voters need to examine her current beliefs and positions closely, whether she remains an admirer of that “radical activist” or not.
Spero columnist Stephanie Block is the author of the four-volume 'Change Agents: Alinskyian Organizing Among Religious Bodies.
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