We’ve written about and referred to Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals frequently here, since so much that happens with refugees and community disruption seems to hark back to what Alinsky wrote. Today Jim Geraghty has an article called The Alinsky Administration on National Review Online. He begins:
Barack Obama never met Saul Alinsky, but the radical organizer’s thought helps explain a great deal about how the president operates.‘Relationships Built on Self Interest,’ an idea illustrated by a diagram of the flow of money from corporations to the mayor.”
Alinsky died in 1972, when Obama was 11 years old. But three of Obama’s mentors from his Chicago days studied at a school Alinsky founded, and they taught their students the philosophy and methods of one of the first “community organizers.” Ryan Lizza wrote a 6,500-word piece on Alinsky’s influence on Obama for The New Republic, noting, “On his campaign website, one can find a photo of Obama in a classroom teaching students Alinskian methods. He stands in front of a blackboard on which he has written
The conclusion Geraghty draws is that the goal for Obama, following Alinsky, is power above all and everything is subordinated to that.
Obama is a pragmatist, but a pragmatist as understood by Alinsky: One who applies pragmatism to achieving and keeping power.
….Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama’s decision-making; an Alinskyite’s core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power.
….As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it — including invite Rick Warren to give the benediction at his inauguration, dine with conservative columnists, and dismiss an appointee at the White House Military Office to ensure the perception of accountability.
What is amazing to me is that while many people, mainly conservatives, saw Obama’s lack of principle and lust for power very early, most people, including some “conservative” pundits, still don’t see it. But it’s the same kind of people who see what the idealism of liberals does when it plunks down refugees in the middle of an unsuspecting community who also see Obama for what he is. God bless them; they will be the saving of this nation, if we are to be saved.