Obama's Political Mentor - Saul Alinsky

About: Discover the Networks - Obama profile

Saul Alinsky was also Hillary's mentor & she wrote her thesis on his methods. I want to deconstruct O's biography & other material available on the web with references & this piece of software http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/ in order to shine some light on him & discover where & what his real principles & character are without the spin he puts in it with his campaign website & his biography.

Wikipedia biography - early childhood & official biography
Memoir - Dreams of my father
Other - Saul Alinsky one of his mentors
Short linked biography in Discover the Networks
other links linked to the above

Community organizing was Alinsky's model among others.

Identified a set of very specific rules that ordinary citizens could follow, and tactics that ordinary citizens could employ, as a means of gaining public power
Created a blueprint for revolution under the banner of "social change"
Two of his most notable modern-day disciples are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
See demo bio here

Both a biographical timeline and a character & principles (mental-political evolution) timeline of Obama are anticipated, if I get .

<== Alinsky

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Mark de LA says
Rule #9 has been used to suggest chaos (Rodney King ??)if Obama does not get the nomination in Denver in August. All other things being equal.

Mark de LA says

source: ... At the heart of the Alinsky method is the concept of "agitation"-- making someone angry enough about the rotten state of his life that he agrees to take action to change it; or, as Alinsky himself described the job, to "rub raw the sores of discontent."

... Here again the methodology may be effective in gaining power, but for what? Government is not the source of answers. Government is not who you want to have to turn to except in a limited set of circumstances (international relations, building roads, disasters, etc.). Can you think of anything government does well except collect your money? They have fucked up public education; they have fucked up energy; they have fucked up the economy; they have fucked up the so-called "War on Poverty"; & in the case of Katrina, a disaster, they fucked up emergency relief. They have really fucked up Social Security - can't even depend on that.

The end still does not justify the means; & the means does not justify the end! BOTH the means & the end must be justifiable!

Mark de LA says

M 2008-05-19 06:20:05 10112

M 2008-05-19 06:16:21 10112

I wonder if the fainting girls at O's rallys is just more agitprop than anything real

I know Global Warming & the price of oil is!

Mark de LA says

Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules.

Mark de LA says

This is what comes first to my mind when I hear of a community organizer

source: ...
In the Alinsky model, "organizing" is a euphemism for "revolution" -- a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America's social and economic structure. The goal is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted -- a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation. Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that status quo's complete collapse -- to be followed by the erection of an entirely new system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal "changes" are needed.

... (remind you of anyone?)

Mark de LA says
#HRCAlinsky

Mark de LA says
Early pdf organized in text only https://archive.org/details/RulesForRadicals/page/n193/mode/2up

Obama's Political Mentor - Saul Alinsky

About: Discover the Networks - Obama profile

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