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SAUL ALINSKY
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
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by LAMAR W. HANKINS These days, I don't often think of Saul Alinsky, but now that Alinsky's name
has been used to slur President Obama in frequent speeches by self-promoting historian Newt
Gingrich, it's time to look at who Alinsky was and the values ...
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SAUL ALINSKY
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
These days, I don’t often think of Saul
Alinsky, but now that Alinsky’s name has
been used to slur President Obama in
f r e q u e n t s p e e c h e s b y s e l f-promoting
historian Newt Gingrich, it’s time to look at
who Alinsky was and the values he stood
for. Gingrich obviously knows little about
Alinsky, who died almost 40 years ago.
Certainly, the only two things Barack
Obama and Saul Alinsky have in common
is that both lived in Chicago and Obama
did some work as a community organizer,
but he was hardly the sort of community
organizer Alinsky was.
At recent campaign stops in Florida, Gingrich said, “We need somebody who is a conservative and
who can stand up to him (Obama) and debate and who can clearly draw the contrast between the
Declaration of Independence and the writings of Saul Alinsky. . . . The centerpiece of this
campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky. . . .
President Obama believes in Saul Alinsky’s radicalism[and] a lot of strange ideas he learned at
Columbia and Harvard.” Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of reality.
In 1970, I was able to participate in a small community organizing training session in Austin
conducted by Alinsky. Although I never worked full time as a community organizer, I found his ideas
profoundly democratic, egalitarian, compassionate, realistic, and in keeping with every enlightened
attitude expressed in this nation’s founding documents.
Without doubt, Alinsky saw himself as a radical, but not in the revolutionary or pejorative sense of
that word. Alinsky wanted to get at the root of societal problems, not overturn our democratic
system of government. In fact, Alinsky believed in and practiced democracy more fervently than any
candidate now in the race for president.
Alinsky had the same vision and love of America found in Walt Whitman’s poetry. What Whitman
was to poetry, Alinsky was to making democratic institutions serve the interests of the 99%. In the
first chapter of his seminal book, “Reveille for Radicals,” published in 1945, Alinsky warmly
identified with the diverse masses of the American people. He wrote that “During Jefferson’s
lifetime the words Democrat and Radical were synonymous.” Democrats and Radicals were the
few “who really liked people, loved people – all people,” no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, and