Thanks to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I've learned much more about Saul Alinsky than I'd like to but in order not to be confused and pulling one's hair out over what those in power are doing, studying the guy who wrote the playbook is a necessity. It also has a calming element to it in that understanding replaces the confusion that leads to frustration which too often leads to disengagement.
D.L. Adams has an incredibly insightful piece at SOIA on what is going on in the United States today and how it began with Alinsky.
The United States was founded upon the concept that “the people” rule not the elites; that is why there are checks and balances built into our system of government. The Alinsky followers, now that they hold the levers of power, are seeing a popular opposition to their endless agitations. The rise of the Alinskyites has been a rude awakening for most Americans, but it has also energized a vocal opposition.Throughout Adams' analysis, he makes reference to an interview Alinsky gave to Playboy in the months before he died in 1972. While it is long, the interview is INCREDIBLY revealing. For example, Alinsky's Rules for Radicals was based in large part on his time inside Al Capone's mob, ingratiating himself with the leadership there and applying the same type of bullying tactics to his overall strategy:
We must return to our roots, our moral, ethical and legal roots, Constitution and Bill of Rights. We must see ourselves in an historical context which the Harvard and Yale dhimmis in positions of authority will not. Our culture and our country are of great value and are worth protecting and saving. We live in a confused time, but the confusion is clearing away; it is clearing away through knowledge and understanding of the motivations of those in power.
The Alinsky ideology of nihilism and deconstruction must be repudiated. Those who are his sycophants and fellow travelers must be exposed and shamed for waging war on their own country and their own people in the name of Utopianism and endless struggle.
Our purpose is to learn through the slow, but sound, evolutionary process of trial and error, and to preserve the Constitution its sovereignty over this great land. If our leaders do not concur, if they seek to shortcut the natural process or disrupt the rule of law, they must be voted out or impeached.
PLAYBOY: Did you continue your life of crime?Probably the thing about Alinsky that has disturbed me most since learning about him was the dedication of his last book, "Rules for Radicals" to "Lucifer":
ALINSKY: Crime? That wasn't crime -- it was survival -- But my Robin Hood days were short-lived; logically enough, I was awarded the graduate Social Science Fellowship in criminology, the top one in that field, which took care of my tuition and room and board -- I still don't know why they gave it to me -- maybe because I hadn't taken a criminology course in my life and didn't know one goddamn thing about the subject -- But this was the Depression and I felt like someone had tossed me a life preserver -- Hell, if it had been in shirt cleaning, I would have taken it. Anyway, I found out that criminology was just as removed from actual crime and criminals as sociology was from society, so I decided to make my doctoral dissertation a study of the Al Capone mob -- an inside study.
PLAYBOY: What did Capone have to say about that?
ALINSKY: Well, my reception was pretty chilly at first -- I went over to the old Lexington Hotel, which was the gang's headquarters, and I hung around the lobby and the restaurant. I'd spot one of the mobsters whose picture I'd seen in the papers and go up to him and say, "I'm Saul Alinsky, I'm studying criminology, do you mind if I hang around with you?" And he'd look me over and say, "Get lost, punk." This happened again and again, and I began to feel I'd never get anywhere. Then one night I was sitting in the restaurant and at the next table was Big Ed Stash, a professional assassin who was the Capone mob's top executioner. He was drinking with a bunch of his pals and he was saying, "Hey, you guys, did I ever tell you about the time I picked up that redhead in Detroit?" and he was cut off by a chorus of moans. "My God," one guy said, "do we have to hear that one again?" I saw Big Ed's face fall; mobsters are very sensitive, you know, very thin-skinned. And I reached over and plucked his sleeve. "Mr. Stash," I said, "I'd love to hear that story." His face lit up. "You would, kid?" He slapped me on the shoulder. "Here, pull up a chair. Now, this broad, see . . ." And that's how it started.
Big Ed had an attentive audience and we became buddies. He introduced me to Frank Nitti, known as the Enforcer, Capone's number-two man, and actually in de facto control of the mob because of Al's income-tax rap. Nitti took me under his wing. I called him the Professor and I became his student. Nitti's boys took me everywhere, showed me all the mob's operations, from gin mills and whorehouses and bookie joints to the legitimate businesses they were beginning to take over. Within a few months, I got to know the workings of the Capone mob inside out.
PLAYBOY: Why would professional criminals confide their secrets to an outsider?
ALINSKY: Why not? What harm could I do them? Even if I told what I'd learned, nobody would listen. They had Chicago tied up tight as a drum; they owned the city, from the cop on the beat right up to the mayor. Forget all that Eliot Ness shit; the only real opposition to the mob came from other gangsters, like Bugs Moran or Roger Touhy. The Federal Government could try to nail 'em on an occasional income tax rap, but inside Chicago they couldn't touch their power. Capone was the establishment. When one of his boys got knocked off, there wasn't any city court in session, because most of the judges were at the funeral and some of them were pallbearers. So they sure as hell weren't afraid of some college kid they'd adopted as a mascot causing them any trouble. They never bothered to hide anything from me; I was their one-man student body and they were anxious to teach me. It probably appealed to their egos.
Once, when I was looking over their records, I noticed an item listing a $7500 payment for an out-of-town killer. I called Nitti over and I said, "Look, Mr. Nitti, I don't understand this. You've got at least 20 killers on your payroll. Why waste that much money to bring somebody in from St. Louis?" Frank was really shocked at my ignorance. "Look, kid," he said patiently, "sometimes our guys might know the guy they're hitting, they may have been to his house for dinner, taken his kids to the ball game, been the best man at his wedding, gotten drunk together. But you call in a guy from out of town, all you've got to do is tell him, 'Look, there's this guy in a dark coat on State and Randolph; our boy in the car will point him out; just go up and give him three in the belly and fade into the crowd.' So that's a job and he's a professional, he does it. But one of our boys goes up, the guy turns to face him and it's a friend, right away he knows that when he pulls that trigger there's gonna be a widow, kids without a father, funerals, weeping -- Christ, it'd be murder." I think Frank was a little disappointed by my even questioning the practice; he must have thought I was a bit callous.
"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer".Al Capone and Lucifer go pretty good together too, don't they? The secular types have continued to pooh pooh this reality by saying that Alinsky was really an atheist and this dedication is a meaningless slap at those who are religious. However, look what Alinsky's work has spawned. Look at who he endeared himself to. Look at the tactics he used. Look at what his followers have done. Atheists and Luciferians have no hope or desire for salvation. They are only concerned about the here and now and ends-justify-the means paradigms. That is also what Alinsky believed.
Check out how the Playboy interview ended:
PLAYBOY: Having accepted your own mortality, do you believe in any kind of afterlife?You would think that even the hard core secularists would be a bit freaked out by that one.
ALINSKY: Sometimes it seems to me that the question people should ask is not "Is there life after death?" but "Is there life after birth?" I don't know whether there's anything after this or not. I haven't seen the evidence one way or the other and I don't think anybody else has either. But I do know that man's obsession with the question comes out of his stubborn refusal to face up to his own mortality. Let's say that if there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell.
PLAYBOY: Why?
ALINSKY: Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I've been with the have-nots. Over here, if you're a have-not, you're short of dough. If you're a have-not in hell, you're short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I'll start organizing the have-nots over there.
PLAYBOY: Why them?
ALINSKY: They're my kind of people.
This stuff should be pooh poohed no more.
Read Adams ENTIRE ARTICLE as it does give good cause for real hope and change.
