So, who the heck is Saul Alinsky? And who the heck knows who he is? And given the fact that 99 out of 100 people, being generous here, haven't got a clue who he is, why is Newt Gingrich throwing his name around like it's a piece of common confetti?
Saul Alinsky was a Jewish community organizer who lived between 1909 and 1972. There is no connection between Barack Obama and Alinsky, except that Obama was briefly a community organizer. Hilary Clinton, apparently, wrote her undergraduate thesis on the guy. Machiavelli for the poor, is how he is described by CNN. He was a non-Marxist radical. Quintessentially American, in fact. A radical who was eschewing Marxism -- doesn't get more American than that!
But lets face it, who in Gingrich's audience has a clue about this? No one. Why does he say this then? It is the same red meat he is throwing at the audience with regard to race -- Obama, "the food stamp President." He can say that so that he doesn't have to be overtly racist, or at least so that a racist audience can feel comfortable imbibing what he is saying. But where there is racism, can anti-semitism be far away? The answer is no. This is an appeal to the old populism; where Obama isn't simply an African American radical, he has also to be sold as a European social democrat. How better to do that than to throw around the Jewish name of a largely forgotten radical?
Of course, one of the great things about this kind of bating is that it actually resurrects the names of people like Alinsky. For, in fact, he would speak to the 99 percent. He would speak to the Occupy movement -- which is, unquestionably, to speak to an American audience. The result is that we are not Newtered by the rhetoric, as the Grinch would want -- perhaps we can be empowered. Long live, Saul!!
Saul Alinsky was a Jewish community organizer who lived between 1909 and 1972. There is no connection between Barack Obama and Alinsky, except that Obama was briefly a community organizer. Hilary Clinton, apparently, wrote her undergraduate thesis on the guy. Machiavelli for the poor, is how he is described by CNN. He was a non-Marxist radical. Quintessentially American, in fact. A radical who was eschewing Marxism -- doesn't get more American than that!
But lets face it, who in Gingrich's audience has a clue about this? No one. Why does he say this then? It is the same red meat he is throwing at the audience with regard to race -- Obama, "the food stamp President." He can say that so that he doesn't have to be overtly racist, or at least so that a racist audience can feel comfortable imbibing what he is saying. But where there is racism, can anti-semitism be far away? The answer is no. This is an appeal to the old populism; where Obama isn't simply an African American radical, he has also to be sold as a European social democrat. How better to do that than to throw around the Jewish name of a largely forgotten radical?
Of course, one of the great things about this kind of bating is that it actually resurrects the names of people like Alinsky. For, in fact, he would speak to the 99 percent. He would speak to the Occupy movement -- which is, unquestionably, to speak to an American audience. The result is that we are not Newtered by the rhetoric, as the Grinch would want -- perhaps we can be empowered. Long live, Saul!!
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