In a book written by Obama, called After Alinsky, he answers the question of why he stays in the poor community of South side Chicago now that his education can get him out. He basically concludes because it has to be done. He comes to the conclusion the reason the situation never improves is because the people who attain some success get the hell out of there.

In it he suggest the black churches come together to use their resources not for traditional needs but for more powerful goals. " A fierce independence among black pastors and a preference for more traditional approaches to social involvement (supporting candidates for office, providing shelters for the homeless) have prevented the black church from bringing its full weight to bear on the political, social and economic arenas of the city."

Obama makes this telling statement based on historical facts, "The debate was no longer whether to protest, but how militant must that protest be to win full citizenship for blacks."
Perhaps he is right, but I doubt he would be able to sell it to the American people.


"From an NPR transcript: SIEGEL: That clip of Saul Alinsky is from the 1999 documentary film "The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and his Legacy." Well, two leading Democratic candidates for president - Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - can trace at least some of their political character to teachings handed down indirectly from Saul Alinsky."

Obama and Hilary Clinton are followers of Alinsky's ideas and methodology. Hillary Clinton is even considered Alinski's daughter by some. A telling quote of Alinsky teachings can be represented here:


 
In a 1971 book called Rules for Radicals, Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left for scaring off potential converts in Middle America. True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.

From what I can gather Alinsky did some good things for poor people at a community level by creating a common thread between community leaders where no thread had been seen before. On the larger scheme of things his ideas become to look more like Marxist-Leninist tactics.

Personally, I would love it if the disparity that exists in America was dissolved. These social programs that are being created, such as Obama Care, are those common threads that Alinsky used so successfully  at a community level, but to use his ideas at a federal level using subversive techniques, when most people in the states are already suspicious of their government is Marxist-Leninist.

I have to wonder  as the middle class erodes, the economy is in the dumpster and distrust grows for government, is  the  Obama Administration trying to recreate the Bolshevik Revolution? The more I read about it the similarities are stunning.

However there is a distinction, Alinsky's tactics were based, not on Stalin's revolutionary violence, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of  Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci's transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.

In his book Rules for Radicals he writes:

"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10

Some quotes from this sweetheart Alinsky:

A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
Saul Alinsky

Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Saul Alinsky

Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
Saul Alinsky

History is a relay of revolutions.
Saul Alinsky

Last guys don't finish nice.
Saul Alinsky

Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
Saul Alinsky

Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.
Saul Alinsky

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Saul Alinsky

Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.
Saul Alinsky

The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
Saul Alinsky

We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.
Saul Alinsky