Obama and the Book Dedicated to the Devil

If you have been listening to the media, you know Obama's acquaintances have been questioned, but never fully answered. Also, you know he was an organizer in Chicago. As far as I know, that is the only achievement this man can claim besides being a young Senator who mostly votes "present" or else votes very liberal when he does show up. But I digress. What I'm addressing in this article is one of his acquaintances we haven't heard much about, Saul Alinsky.

If you want to know about Saul Alinsky, pick up his book Rules for Radicals. It has a shocking dedication:

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 — and 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.

Saul Alinsky made a reputation for himself in the field of community organizing in Chicago’s impoverished neighborhoods. He turned out to be a Left-wing radical, and, in fact, his book was entitled Rules for Radicals. This is a man who dealt in class warfare by appealing to people’s resentments.

Because his book was written some time ago, I’d forgotten all about Alinsky, and hadn’t even recalled that his book was dedicated to the devil, until I read a new book written by a reporter named David Freddoso, who summarized Alinsky’s principles this way:

• “In war, the ends justify almost any means.”
• “In action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind.”
• “(Morality is merely) a rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.”

The quotations are directly from Alinsky’s book, and what makes the topic pertinent today is that one notable student of Alinsky’s principles is Barack Obama. Obama regularly cites the several years he spent as a community organizer in Chicago, and Alinsky’s book served as Obama’s roadmap, according to Freddoso’s own well-researched and meticulously footnoted book, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate.

Freddoso writes that Obama “was a master of Alinsky’s tactics and understood his philosophy well.” I am sure that if asked, Obama would deny that he ever employed devious and immoral tactics, but the fact is that I don’t believe reporters have asked him much about Alinsky, so who knows?

It seems evident that Alinsky made an impact on Obama. In his book, Alinsky described a group of lower middle-class individuals who he said were “hurt, bitter, suspicious, feeling rejected and at bay. … Their fears and frustrations … are mounting to a point of political paranoia.”

Freddoso notes this is similar to Obama’s own recent statement about voters in Pennsylvania: “It’s not surprising then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

That Obama would point proudly to his years as an Alinsky-style organizer in Chicago is surprising for another reason — it wasn’t terribly successful, according to Freddoso. The South Side neighborhoods he was trying to save continued to decay despite his efforts to bring job-training and government subsidies to the people. When Obama left for Harvard and then returned to those neighborhoods, he noticed the marked decline of the neighborhoods, and wrote about it in his own book "Dreams from My Father".

People wanting to understand the influences on Barack Obama would do well to get Freddoso’s book, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate because in the mainstream media’s adulation of Obama, it has left much information about him unreported, including the questionable influence of Saul Alinsky.

I do not understand why Saul Alinsky has not been mentioned much in this campaign. It's obvious to me that he had a profound influence on Barak Obama.

2008 Submitted by April Lorier

APRIL LORIER - So. California. An award-winning poet, inspirational author and speaker. A survivor of both child abuse and adult domestic abuse, April inspires women to be all that God designed them to be! She first gained recognition as a children's rights crusader while successfully fighting for the passage of the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA), which was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. Her book God's Battered Child: Journey From Abuse to Leader is available on her blogs and in online stores.

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