Who The #@#k Is Saul Alinsky? — Page 5

I think people just need to have an agreed upon sense of what history is important, and what is not. I suggest using Mitt Romey's definition of "ancient history," since he seems to be a painfully nice if robotic man, hardly any sort of radical.

If anyone asks him today about the 1994 race for Edward Kennedy's seat in which he told a gay newspaper in Boston that he would be "to the left of Senator Kennedy on gay issues," he scoffs at them for bringing up "ancient history."

Since that was even more recently than 1992, I would suggest that Obama be given the official Romney "Ancient History" Pass and let this thread die its natural death.

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Mikey, all that your link proves is that he taught law at the University of Chicago. It does not say anything about him teaching about Alinsky. I doubt it would fit in their curriculum.

From INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY:
"• Obama also taught Alinsky's "Power Analysis" methods at the University of Chicago."
https://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=599154&p=1&ibdbot=1


Also, Obama himself tends to negate your, "It was 25 years ago and is not longer important" theory in this article by Ryan Lizza for The New Republic:

"Obama has made his organizing days central to his political identity. When he announced his candidacy for president last month, he said the "best education" he ever had was not his undergraduate years at Occidental and Columbia or even his time at Harvard Law School, but rather the four years he spent in the mid-'80s learning the science of community organizing in Chicago."

"When I began to suggest links between his organizing work then and his current (200 campaign, he interrupted: "I think there is. I don't think you need to strain for it." He was at home talking Alinskian jargon about "agitation," which he defined as "challenging people to scrape away habit," and he fondly recalled organizing workshops where he learned the concept of "being predisposed to other people's power."

"Organizing remained central to Obama long after his stint on the South Side. In the 13 years between Obama's return to Chicago from law school and his Senate campaign, he was deeply involved with the city's constellation of community-organizing groups. He wrote about the subject. He attended organizing seminars. He served on the boards of foundations that support community organizing. He taught Alinsky's concepts and methods in workshops. "

"n 1995, Obama shocked his old friend Jean Rudd by telling her he wanted to run for the state Senate. Back in 1985, Rudd, then working at the Woods Fund--a Chicago foundation that gives grants for community organizing--had provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. When Obama returned to Chicago to practice law, he joined the board of Rudd's foundation. Now he was going to the other side. "That's a switch!" she told him. Obama insisted that nothing would change. "Oh no," he said, according to Rudd. "I'm going to use the same skills as a community organizer."

"In fact, Obama had already been applying Alinsky's core concepts--rigorous analysis of an opponent's strengths, a hardheaded understanding of self-interest as a fundamental organizing principle, a knack for agitating people to act, and a streetwise sense of when a raw show of power is necessary--to situations beyond the South Side."

" "It's true that the notion of self-interest was critical," Obama told me. "But Alinsky understated the degree to which people's hopes and dreams and their ideals and their values were just as important in organizing as people's self-interest." He continued, "Sometimes the tendency in community organizing of the sort done by Alinsky was to downplay the power of words and of ideas when in fact ideas and words are pretty powerful. We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal.' Those are just words. I have a dream.' Just words. But they help move things. And I think it was partly that understanding that probably led me to try to do something similar in different arenas."

All can be found in this article:
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/bobamasunlikelypoliticaledu.html

Jay Carney is asked about Obama's ties to Alinsky.
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: But the President's background as a community organizer is well-documented in the President's own books. So his experience in that field obviously contributed to WHO HE IS TODAY. (Emphasis addd by me)

Monica Crowley appearing on The O'Reilly Factor:
CROWLEY: Ok, let's -- first of all, let's keep in mind who Saul Alinsky was and how he directly influenced Barack Obama. Saul Alinsky wrote "Rules for Radicals" in '71 and dedicated it to LUCIFER-- it wasn't Murray Lucifer. He dedicated it to Lucifer. This is the Godfather of the leftist movement. Barack Obama - - and it came out of Chicago -- Barack Obama when he got to the University of Chicago actually taught Alinsky 101 as a course there. So let's not try --
O'REILLY: So that's what it was called.
CROWLEY: -- it was basically called Alinsky Tactics 101. Barack Obama actually taught it.

Karl Rove and Newt Gingrinch. Don't you get the feeling every day is a fart-in with those two?

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I'm still stuck on "Who gives the tiniest of sh*ts?"

Except, I suppose, Newt Gringrich. And, clearly, mikey.

Ancient history. Like Romney's left of Kennedy gay agenda and his pro-abortion stance.

An-cient his-tor-y.

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So now you're done with the subject, correct, mikey?

Updated On: 2/1/12 at 09:05 PM

YWIW, that's a great question. But I'm not the one to ask.