Hillary Clinton loves Saul Alinsky

She wrote her senior thesis about him at Wellesley College. Which is probably the reason that Newt Gingrich keeps bringing him up.  


But what is more significant is what Gingrich is trying to do by bringing him up.  Gingrich is one of the preeminent word shysters operating in today's political culture of word shysterism.  Willard Romney is right behind him snapping at his ass. But to understand just what is going on with throwing Saul Alinsky's name around, you have to get into the field of literature a bit.  And that is something that discussants at Madville Times about Gov. Daugaard's legislative plan to de-educate South Dakota youth are largely against.  They don't wan't no literacy around here.  It's superfluous to training robots in math and science for service in the corporate world.  


But to get the full gist of what Gingrich is doing, you have to go to one of the most cited, but unread and misread books in the language:  George Orwell's 1984.  The Republican Party has adopted the propaganda and mind control tactics of the totalitarian regime that rules Oceania as its official political playbook.  And Gingrich is out there to show the world that he is the best at employing the playbook. 
 
The arch-enemy of the state in 1984 is Emmanuel Goldstein.  As Wikipedia explains him, "He is the number one enemy of the people according to Big Brother and the Party, who heads a mysterious and possibly fictitious anti-party organization called The Brotherhood. Despite being a key part of the story, he is only actually seen and heard on telescreen, and may in fact be nothing more than a useful propaganda fabrication of the Ministry of Truth."



And that explains quite well what Gingrich is trying to do with Saul Alinksy.  He is trying to besmirch Saul Alinsky as an enemy of the state and then identify President Obama with him.  Both Alinsky and Obama were community organizers in the same neighborhood in Chicago, but at different times.  



Gingrich's ploy is to keep using Alinsky's name in a contemptuous, disparaging way as a pariah of the nation on the order of Hitler, or John Wayne Gacy, or Miley Cyrus to induce the gullible into accepting him as a Satanic figure.  The success of this tactic depends upon a lot of stupid, ignorant, and mean people.  And there is no shortage of them.  They are the sub-bullies who line up behind the big bully, like Newton Gingrich, out there on the playground and participate in the menacing and abuse.  The only way they can feel consequential is to persecute some person or some group.  The GOP draws its major strength from them.  (Snicker, snicker, wheeze, wheeze, gasp, gasp.)

One of the things that really ticks Gingrich and the GOP off about Alinsky is that he wrote in his book Rules for Radicals,  “The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away." He is a threat to the Haves that Gingrich wants to suck and serve.  Except for Willard Romney.  

He also said some provocative things like "if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide."  That really torques off the religious, political, and racial fanatics in the GOP. 
 


While Saul Alinsky has accomplished some significant things in organizing the poor and oppressed, I am more a bemused observer of him than a defender or follower.  He has received recognition from many organizations, including the Catholic church, for what he has done to help people rise up from oppression and poverty.  His genius in organizing communities was that he turned the anger they felt toward their oppressors into action.


Some things he advocated were amusing, but tactics I would not want to encounter.  During a dispute with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, he proposed that the protestors eat large quantities of baked beans and go to the concert and hold a fart-in.  The idea was to let their rinktums sing out to compete with the cellos.  If I went to the symphony and was met by a chorus of noisy assholes emitting the reek of flatulence into the concert hall air, I would not be happy.  I could not forgive the mink-clad woman who sat in front of me one night and let one slip, God only knows what she had been ingesting, and tarnished a performance of Beethoven with the stench, although she did provide some diversion during the intermission and gave people sitting behind her something to gossip and titter about.  

The fart-in never happened, but it did advance the discussion'


In Chicago, Alinsky proposed a piss-in at O'Hare Airport by having a bunch of well-dressed black people occupy the urinals.  This was over some dispute with the city.  It did not happen but it did result in some serious discussions and concessions at the negotiating table.  


So, Newton's objective is to paint Saul Alinsky as a nefarious, scheming scourge of the earth and identify Barack Obama with him.  For those who know nothing about Alinsky, Gingrich will convey the idea that he was a malignancy on the pristine soul of America and Obama is just like him.  For those who know something about Alinsky,  Gingrich's mention conveys that, hey, there is a fucking negra-person community organizer from Chicago occupying the presidential urinal in the White House.  Willard Romney says that 's one of the few things he and Newton can agree on.  Bill Clinton once occupied the lavatory off the Oval Office and ejaculated in it as the result of a Lewinsky, not to be confused with Alinsky, blow job.  We are told. 

American democratic politics is the model for the world.  

(Snicker, snicker, wheeze, wheeze, gasp, gasp.)