The next chapter attempts to justify the means used by radicals by pointing out that means/ends differ according to your perspective.

Of course the ends don’t always justify the means. If you want someones land and they will not sell, you could kill them and maybe have better luck with their heirs. But those means could never be justified.

Alinsky tries to confuse the issue to the point that unjustifiable means can be justified. They cannot.

Throughout the 2008 election, Obama constantly distanced himself from Jeremiah Wrights teaching and relationship. Obama would often state that the many years he spent in Wright’s church were unimportant or inconsequential to the Presidential election. He made the same disassociations from Bill Ayers. I think it patently ridiculous and even deceptive to suggest that your background and worldview have no bearing on your political views. On the contrary, a candidate’s worldview (especially presidential candidate) is probably THE most important thing for the voting public to understand.

“The coming conservative revolution — because according to the Hegelian/Alinsky model, there will be another revolution to counteract this very imperfect one — will also be imperfect. But being rooted in Judeo-Christian values, it will be built not on cynical exploitation and enslavement of voting blocks, but on individual worth, freedom, and responsibility.”

I don’t know if you meant this to poke fun at the political manicheans or not, but I think part of the toxic views of Alinsky and other Marxists is their acceptance of history as completely deterministic a la Hegel. Man is a ultimately a pawn. Victory is inevitable, see, because history and the angels are always on their side. Everyone else is expendable and a slave, kind of like humanity as portrayed in “The Matrix.” That is the source of their optimism, the inevitability of things. A fatalism that’s only dark for their enemies. I think it unwise for conservatives to fall into the same mental trap.

The political religionists have no understanding of a personal God, and therefore deify history. It is a convenient way to justify corruption and barbarism, and it should be noted that this view has its roots in the errors, that is heresies, of Judeo-Christian culture. For an excellent book on the topic see Norman Cohn’s “The Pursuit of the Millennium.”

I look forward to reading more.

For anyone who missed his recent speech in praise of Marxism, the Jeremiah Wright quote can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ceJ-RYb39c

On page 10 in my copy, Alinsky quotes Abraham Lincoln: “Be not deceived. Revolutions do not got backward.” Much as I like Lincoln, this is simply false. One need look no further than places like Chad, Somalia, and rural Afganistan and Pakistan where an Islamic revolution has taken those cultures back to the 6th century, not forward.

I find it fascinating that Alinsky promotes dualism. This allows him to set up false dichotomies–either/or situations (Haves/Have Nots, Doers/Do-Nothings) which betrays a lazy or immature intellect unable or unwilling to admit that life is not just black or white.

Alinksy creates a duality between his own views and Machiavelli’s The Prince. Both Alinsky and Machiavelli develop an art of political manipulation with the operative word being “manipulation.” Knowing that Rules for Radicals will be read primarily by middle class college kids and guilt-ridden liberals who do not qualify as Have-Nots, Alinksy creates a special class for them: the “Have-a-Little, Want Mores.” Appealing to their idealism and egos, Alinsky tells them that the “greatest leaders of change in past centuries (Moses…Martin Luther…Thomas Jefferson… Nicolai Lenin…M. Gandhi…)” belonged to the Have-a-Little, Want More class. If you follow Alinsky’s radical rules and become a tool of the revolution, you too can be next great world leader! [sarc off] Never mind that you’ll more likely end up just being a pawn and a useful idiot.

Alinksy’s list of “great leaders” is also revealing. He juxtaposes leaders of more “peaceful” religious, social and political revolutions (e.g., Moses, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi) against people who have instigated and/or led some of the world’s bloodiest revolutions (e.g., Robespierre, Lenin, Fidel Castro and Mao). This is a cynical attempt to sanitize the roles of these murders and thugs. Obama’s radical friends like the Mao-worshipping Anita Dunn have obviously drunk the Kool-Aid.

Alinksy’s statement “If the young were writing our Declaration of Independence, they would begin ‘When in the course of inhuman events….” is nicely echoed in Jeremiah Wright’s recent rephrasing of the National Anthem ” … land of the greed and home of the slaves.

Sad, but true.

“College student activists in the 1960s and 1970s sought out Alinsky for advice about tactics and strategy. On one such occasion in the spring of 1972 at Tulane University’s annual week-long series of events featuring leading public figures, students asked Alinsky to help plan a protest of a scheduled speech by George Bush, then U.S. representative to the United Nations, a speech likely to be a defense of the Nixon Administration’s Vietnam War policies. The students told Alinsky that they were thinking about picketing or disrupting Bush’s address. That’s the wrong approach, he rejoined — not very creative and besides, causing a disruption might get them thrown out of school. He told them, instead, to go hear the speech dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and whenever Bush said something in defense of the Vietnam War, they should cheer and wave placards, reading ‘The K.K.K. supports Bush.’ And that is what the students did with very successful, attention-getting results.”

On the National Education Association’s recommended reading list for teachers: Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer with — you guessed it — Rules for Radicals.”

Why alarming? This is what education is all about.

like an angry spoiled brat getting back at all those who he could not compete with ..you’d think I was describing that narcissist obama.