The Ellis County Press: Hillary, Obama, the Cult of Saul Alinsky!

Hillary, Obama, the Cult of Saul Alinsky!
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Editor on 09/18/2008 10:39:00


David J. Smith
Editor, Newswatch Magazine
Pt. 1
Most Americans have never heard of _Saul Alinsky._ Yet his shadow and teachings
darkens our coming presidential election.
Both Democratic frontrunners, Obama and Clinton, have something in _COMMON_.
They have drank from the Alinsky well of socialism. In a 1971 book called RULES
FOR RADICALS, Alinsky scolded the Sixties Left (Communist) for scaring off
potential converts in Middle America. He taught that _true_ revolutionaries do
not flaunt their _RADICALISM._
They cut their hair, put on suits, and INFILTRATE the system from within.
Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process.
The trick was to _penetrate_ existing institutions - such as churches, unions,
and _political_ parties.
In his native Chicago, Alinsky courted power wherever he found it. His alliance
with prominent Catholic clerics, such as Bishop Bernard Shell, gave him
respectability. His friendship with crime bosses such as Frank Nitti, Al
Capone's second-in-command, gave Alinsky clout on the street.
In Richard Poe and co-author David Horowitz's book - _The Shadow Party: How
George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the
Democratic Party_ - they trace the rise of Alinsky's political influence since
the 1930s.
He excelled at wooing wealthy financers.
Start-up money for his _INDUSTRIAL AREAS FOUNDATION_, which is a training school
for _radical_ organizers, came from department-store mogul Marshall Field III,
Sears Roebuck heiress Adele Rosenwald Levy, and Gardiner Howland Shaw, an
assistant secretary of state for Franklin D. Roosevelt. One Alinsky benefactor
was Wall Street investment banker Eugene Meyer, who served as Chairman of the
Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. Meyer and his wife Agnes co-owned _The
Washington Post._
They used their newspaper to promote Alinsky.
Agnes Meyer personally wrote a six-part series in 1945, praising Alinsky's work
in Chicago slums.
Her series, called "The Orderly Revolution," made Alinsky famous.
President Truman ordered 100 reprints of it.
During the Sixties, Alinsky wielded tremendous power from behind the scenes.
When President Johnson launched his War on Poverty in 1964, Alinsky allies
_infiltrated_ the program, steering federal money into Alinsky projects.
In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy allied himself with union leader Cesar Chavez,
_an Alinsky disciple._ Chavez had worked ten years for Alinsky, beginning in
1952.
Kennedy soon drifted into Alinsky's circle.
After race riots shook Rochester, N.Y., Alinsky descended on the city and began
pressuring Eastman-Kodak to hire more black people.
Kennedy supported Alinsky's shakedown.
Alinsky later wrote that the two men had an "understanding."