Jeannie DeAngelis - Community Organizing, Cairo Style

Originally posted at American Thinker

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Barack Obama prides himselfon being a community organizer -- stirring up the disgruntled in Chicago was the sole skill set that earned him the esteemed title of Leader of the Free World.

Using Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals as a road map, Barack Obama not only community organized, but taught others how to follow his lead. Young Obama instructed students that to make a statement that would inspire change, they'd have to be well-practiced in the art of street-level confrontation, picketing, demonstrating, and all-out pandemonium.

He was very good at what he did. Saul Alinsky-style organizers were taught to be "an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions" which, ironically, is exactly what the world is witnessing as the Middle East is ablaze with street-level hatred.

For days the world has watched in growing horror as the fires of animosity have spread. Yet for those wondering why Barack Obama isn't addressing more firmly the upheaval in the Islamic world, a simple answer might be that one community organizer can't very well criticize another community organizer's style of community organizing, now can he?

Back in Chicago, Barack Obama encouraged the underprivileged to take action on their own behalf by reminding the already resentful of past injustices. Wherever and whenever there's strife, there is surely what Obama called "indigenous...charismatic leadership" nearby. There's always a ringleader in the group - an individual or a team that possesses the ability to make something happen by getting "people to understand the source of their social or political problems." In this case the source of the turmoil is rooted in religious zealotry.

Either way, wherever street-level organizing takes place and regardless of the extent of the mayhem, motivating people to unrest to make a point is really nothing more than a mob leader organizing a group of angry thugs and goading them toward hostile confrontation. Sometimes the resulting action takes place in American cities like Chicago, but other times it erupts in unstable pockets in the world like the ones Barack Obama commiserated with in his book "Dreams From My Father" when he said:

"[t]he desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair."

Barack Obama explained in a chapter he wrote for a 1990 book entitled After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois that the work of a successful community organizer is to devise and map out solutions and strategies with the express goal of moving protesters to "action through campaigns that win concrete changes." In Chicago, broken streetlights were facilitators to discuss jobs, education and crime. In Cairo, poorly made videos and American infidels are the torches that ignited the flames of unrest in an already unstable situation.

Think about it -- thousands of miles away from Chicago, people -- angry, vicious people - under the banner of the late al Qaeda leader Osama 'Alinsky' Bin Laden are rallying together under the Islam black flag of "common self interest."

In the Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, and even in Libya, the means to the end may be more violent and destructive than what went down on the Southside of Chicago, but it's the same philosophy at work. In Chicago, picketing opened the door to demanding stop signs be fixed and progressed from there. In Benghazi, it started with burning American flags; an embassy was then destroyed and innocent lives were lost as ancient grievances were resurrected from the hot desert sand to make a statement against America, the Great Satan, and Isaac, Ishmael's arch enemy, also known as the nation of Israel.

Whether residing in Chicago, Washington DC, or a remote compound in Pakistan, in their efforts to "make something happen," community organizers have their own unique ways of applying conflict for change.

Although the gripes and tactics are more primitive, what is actually happening in the Islamic world is simply this: common people with a common agenda are coming together, in their own uniquely violent way, to address a common concern. In Obama's Chicago, the goal was to whip up the community to a "fighting pitch" to address political and social justice. In this case, the goal is clearly to deliver "Death to America."

Similar to Alinsky's recommendations in his radical rules handbook, Middle Eastern protesters are merely exhibiting neighborhood empowerment in a culturally innovative way. From a tactical point of view, any community organizer worth his salt would have to admit that the community-organizing stratagem Barack Obama so closely identifies with is what is now crudely on display in the Arab world.

Maybe that explains why the perpetually fundraising Barack Obama is hesitant to criticize the chaos; he recognizes that what's going on thousands of miles from Chicago is an impressive show of "collective power," where a community vision has moved our Muslim brothers and sisters to action. It could be that our Community Organizer-in-Chief, who once praised people for "reshap[ing] their mutual values and expectations and rediscover[ing] the possibilities of acting collaboratively," actually believes that throwing stones, ambushing diplomats, and burning American flags is just another kind of neighborhood effort to foster lasting change.

Jeannie DeAngelis

Jeannie DeAngelis writes almost exclusively for American Thinker and has been published on the conservative website Pajamas Media, as well as hosting a blog. See Jeannie's Blog

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RG: Barack Obama's 2012 Campaign Strategy

"The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide."
Barack Obama

President Barack Obama used the book 'Rules for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky as his textbook for training ACORN workers.

Rules for Radicals: Dedicated to Lucifer (Satan).

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... 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

Alinsky wrote, “An organizer - does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing. He (community organizer) is a political relativist.”

After Saul Alinsky died, Barack Obama was asked by the son of Saul Alinsky (L. David Alinsky) to write a chapter in the book 'After Alinsky', because Barack Obama was one of the best, if not the best pupil of 'Rules for Radicals and Saul Alinsky'.

Barack Obama's Campaign Strategy:

1) “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

2) “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

3) “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4) “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

5) “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

6) “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

7) “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

8) “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

9) “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

10) “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

11) “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

12) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

See if you can identify the 'Rules for Radicals' the Obama campaign is already using and what will be used in the near future.

RG

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