Obama and the Alinsky method: Fact or Fiction? I'm researching this. Anyone?

[secondwind]

nutjobs are accusing Obama of being a Socialist, they point out all the reasons they think that way.

Alinsky's "method" is what is most mentioned. I don't see any proof that Obama taught this method in the classroom, but that is their claim.

Does anyone know more about this?

[Mass]

1. What would be wrong with teaching Alinsky?

I remember that the same claim was made about Hillary Clinton and her thesis about Alinski, and I could not figure out why people would avoid studying a great community organizer?

I dont have the answer concerning Obama, just trying to understand why it would be a problem?

[secondwind]

2. they link Alinsky to Communism and Socialism. I also don't see anything wrong with Alinsky,

but I never heard that Obama TAUGHT Alinsky methods in school. Am trying to find out if he did.

[Radical Activist]

3. Alinsky wasn't a communist.

Its unlikely that Obama taught Alinsky in his law school classes. I doubt it had much application to Con-Law.

But Obama did help ACORN and Project Vote do training sessions on community organizing in Chicago. Alinsky would likely have been referenced in those classes. As an organizer and State Senator, Obama worked with organizations that Alinsky started, such as the Woodlawn Neighborhood Organization.

It's easy to see the influence community organizing philosophy still has on his political approach and ideology, but not in the red-baiting way that conservatives would like it to be.

[secondwind]

5. thanks, I'll use your comments, if I may.... :-)

[Radical Activist]

7. Of course. One note.

I was looking for references and its a shame that you can only find the right wing stuff about this. I could find good articles before the ACORN and Project Vote hysteria. It's sad to see people run away from it and let the right wing tell their version of the story.

When I was looking, I found the Obama rumor-debunking site that said he was never hired to be an organizer by ACORN. That's true. He was contracted to represent them in a voting rights law suit. He also volunteered to teach some ACORN training sessions as a non-employee.

I'll post a link if I find one but I'll have to go through pages of google links to cookie-cutter right wing blogs.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. The right still drones on and on about Wright, Alinsky, Ayers etc.

It's really very pathetic.

Now they're trying to say the oil spill is Obama's Katrina...basically acknowledging the fact that Bush was a huge screw up.

They got nothing.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. Alinsky is part of the basis of what the right sees as the vast left wing conspiracy...

You are going to have to go out and read stuff on the right to understand what their delusions are.

What The Heck Is The Alinsky Method?
Being Used To Destroy Our Freedoms>

Rules for Radicals

In a nutshell they think that Obama and all Democrats are using Alinsky's methods of agitation and community organizing to change the U.S. form a God fearing, freedom loving, Capitalist worshiping free society to a Socialist driven, Nazi led, Marxist inspired Communist Socialist cess pit of slaves.

They are loons.

They begin by stating that Obama is a socialist, and then try making everything he does into a plot. Actually Obama is less a socialist than Reagan, who was once head of the Screen Actors Guild, a union/socialist organization if there ever was one.

[Radical Activist]

8. Here are two articles.

I can't find the one I'm really looking for but this may help. The first is the glowing 1993 article about his work with Project Vote that a lot of the right wing blogs go on about as though its some kind of scandal.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/

This Nation article speculates what an Alinsky style inauguration might look like and gives some insights into how that philosophy influences Obama's approach to politics.
http://www.thenation.com/article/peoples-ball

When Organizing for America launched it was very obviously a community organizing style campaign, just like all of Obama's election campaigns have been. Whether it will really operate that way is an open question, but the approach is there.
It's just a shame that so much of the activist left is too preoccupied with being outraged at the latest Senate compromise to see what's going on and participate. It's a very different approach than communism so it's no surprise that the more authoritarian left and Marxist thinkers have never been able to "get" Obama.

Rules for Radicals is an excellent read. Pick it up sometime. You'll learn something about organizing and maybe some insights into Obama.

[secondwind]

11. many, many thanks!

[Radical Activist]

9. Alinsky was what the Tea Party pretends to be.

Issue based, grass-roots efforts to empower people to take power back from the elites. ACORN tried to unite middle class and low-income people to work together and build a common power base. Conservatives don't want an anti-authoritarian, populist left alternative for people to get involved in. That's what happened in the New Deal era and conservatives don't want a repeat. That's why ACORN had to be destroyed and why Alinsky is red-baited.

[madamesilverspurs]

10. First time I heard Palin reference Alinsky

I was thinking that was proof that somebody else writes her stuff. Even if she'd ever heard the name it's doubtful that she knows or understands anything about the man or his work. It's as though the meme-makers on the right through any log they can find onto the fear fire to keep it going.

Around here I've run into a couple of people upset that our local college offers a degree program in socialism. It does no good to point out that the subject matter is sociology, not socialism; for them, they are the same thing. Rather than wasting my time trying to change their minds I offer to instruct their kids in appropriate social behavior, that really freaks them out. Beyond weird that anything with the word 'social' in it is now patently un-Murkin.

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