In the New Republic, John Judis has an insightful analysis of Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer and his rejection of organizing (tip to Instapundit).
Later, after becoming a student at Harvard, Obama spoke at a conference about organizing, rejecting many of Alinsky's central ideas:In truth, however, if you examine carefully how Obama conducted himself as an organizer and how he has conducted himself as a politician, if you consider what he said about organizing to his fellow organizers, and if you look at the reasons he gave friends and colleagues for abandoning organizing, then a very different picture emerges: that of a disillusioned activist who fashioned his political identity not as an extension of community organizing but as a wholesale rejection of it. Indeed, the most important thing to know about Barack Obama's time as a community organizer in Chicago may not be what he gained from the experience--but rather why, in late 1987, he decided to quit. . . .
Obama attempted to put these principles into practice in South Chicago. Kellman and Kruglik's initial objective was to revive the region's manufacturing base--and preserve what remained of its steel industry--by working with unions and church groups to pressure companies and the city; but those hopes were quickly dashed. Indeed, during his three years in South Chicago, Obama was constantly having to scale back his objectives as one project after another faltered. First, he got community members to demand a job center that would provide job referrals, but there were few jobs to distribute. Then, he tried to create what he called a "second-level consumer economy" in Roseland consisting of shops, restaurants, and theaters. This, too, went nowhere. At that point, Kellman advised Obama to move elsewhere. "Stay here, and you are bound to fail," he told him.
But Obama remained. Next, he began to focus on providing social services for Altgeld Gardens. "We didn't yet have the power to change state welfare policy, or create local jobs, or bring substantially more money into the schools," he wrote. "But what we could do was begin to improve basic services at Altgeld--get the toilets fixed, the heaters working, the windows repaired." Obama helped the residents wage a successful campaign to get the Chicago Housing Authority to promise to remove asbestos from the units; but, after an initial burst of activity, the city failed to keep its promise. (As of last year, some residences still had not been cleared of asbestos.) In waging these campaigns, Obama's organization added staff, gained adherents, and won church support, including from the congregation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But it failed to stem the area's overall decline. "Ain't nothing gonna change, Mr. Obama," says one resident quoted in Dreams from My Father who grows disillusioned with the Developing Communities Project. "We just gonna concentrate on saving our money so we can move outta here as fast as we can."
Publicly, however, Obama did not appear discouraged. He continued to train other organizers for the Gamaliel Foundation.
He had a litany of criticisms of Alinsky-style organizing that he wanted to put forward. He objected to community organizers' dismissal of charismatic leadership and of movements. Instead of making the point directly, he recalled a friend telling him of an IAF trainer who complained that "movements are rotten with charismatic leaders." Obama said his friend had responded, "That's nonsense. We want a movement. I would love to have Martin Luther King here right now." Obama argued that charismatic leaders and movements bring "long-term vision," and that community organizers cannot be effective without such vision.
Obama also criticized community organizers' "suspicion of politics." "The problem we face now in terms of organizing is that politics is a major arena of power," Obama said. "That's where your major dialogue, discussion, is taking place. To marginalize yourself from that process is a damaging thing, and one that needs to be rethought."
Before he was done, Obama had rejected the guiding principles of community organizing: the elevation of self-interest over moral vision; the disdain for charismatic leaders and their movements; and the suspicion of politics itself.
I've been thinking a lot about some of these issues. After Michelle Obama's speech where she said that, when she met him, Barack was talking about “The world as it should be,” not settling for “The world as it is.” Some have pointed to the source of these phrases: Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. But Alinsky insisted that people focus on the world as it is. In essence, Barack reversed Alinsky's teaching by focusing on the world as it should be: the vision thing.
Left to his own devices, Barack Obama is an extremely thoughtful guy, who often reworks and synthesizes the influences he absorbs. If one looks at Obama's current education proposals, he has jettisoned most of the left-wing Bill Ayers-style ideas that the Annenberg Challenge pushed in the mid-1990s when Obama was its chair — probably because they didn't work.
The most radical of Obama's current education ideas is his proposal for mandatory universal service by school children. While many in the left-wing democracy education movement favor universal service, Ayers seems to embrace this idea less than most. Ayers is more iconoclastic (and idiosyncratic) than someone like Obama. Ayers does emphasize bringing the community into the schools and vice versa, but (from what I've read) a massive federal community service requirement is not really his style.
And — as radical as mandatory community service issue is — it is favored by many on the political right as well as in the political center. It is both radical and politically mainstream. Even John McCain has in the past at least entertained the idea of mandatory national service. I have been unable to determine so far how much experience Barack Obama has actually had with mandatory service, so I don't know whether his support for mandatory service results from experience or a lack of experience.
One area where Obama has had lots of experience but where his trademark thoughtfulness has failed him is private-public housing projects. His best friends and supporters built and managed public-private projects that failed miserably. One of the projects was one Obama worked on as a lawyer (Rezko was involved). Yet that project and one other run by one of his closest friends and advisors, Valerie Jarrett, deteriorated literally just hundreds of yards from his office on the west wall of the University of Chicago Law School. He could look out his window and see these projects as they declined. Yet he is proposing a lot more of the same.
Yet Obama's support for public-private housing projects is an exception. Usually, Obama learns from the failures of his reform proposals. Generally, he is a pragmatic idealist.
People should not confuse Obama's personality with his political orientation: by personality, Obama is the most reasonable, thoughtful, moderate person on either national ticket. He is definitely NOT an ideologue. Yet by political orientation, Obama is the most liberal or progressive candidate to be a party nominee for president in at least a half century — probably ever. That explains why he is in essence a radical incrementalist.
Thanks for a thoughtful post. Is Obama proposing "more of the same" in terms of the old-style high-rise type projects, or is it more of a mixed use, scattered site kind of thing? Although I don't have the time at work to check it out right now, my sense is that there are newer models that are showing some success.
I find that highly unlikely. People like volunteer work. They don't want a government bureaucrat telling them where to volunteer or where to volunteer their children. And believe me, church volunteer work will not be permitted under these proposals, but a bunch of left-wing non-profits and "community organizers" will get a big boost of free forced child labor. No thanks.
21. So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.
under which is it a negative attack on McCain. Am I missing something, or did you just do really badly on the LSAT? :)
Also, as an aside, the definition of "sarcasm" is:
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This sar·casm (sär'kāz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
3. The use of sarcasm. See Synonyms at wit.
Your proposed definition is nowhere to be found. ("Sarcastic" is defined in terms of this definition.)
So I think when you say that Palin was notably "cutting" and "witty", you are saying exactly what everyone else is saying: her speech, especially her attacks, were highly sarcastic.
But that depends entirely on what "fail miserably" means. If it means Obama's friends and associates were not successful in getting their hands on lots of taxpayer money, I suspect it didn't fail miserably at all.
I quoted all statements that were critical of the other party. I excluded all statements that were complimentary. The implication of the statement quoted is that it would be news to John McCain b/c McCain rejects Barack Obama's assertion.
If he were not being critical of McCain, why mention him at all in that statement? Unless McCain is incorrectly implying otherwise, it would make no sense to mention McCain.
I disagree. People like the concept of volunteer work. People also like the concept of forcing These Kids Today(tm) to "give something back to the community" rather than playing video games, and "teaching these young ruffians the value of service to a cause greater than yourself." They may even like the idea of their kid doing so. They may not like the reality of the program when it operates upon their kid, but that realization comes much, much later.
In Seattle, we put some form of pressure on developers generally to build some percentage of low-income housing into every project. It seems to work fairly well. The market incentives (greedy algorithm, for you tech folks) are against any individual developer doing this.
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For non-techies, the a greedy algorithm is any problem-solving method in which each decision made is the locally optimal decision. These are usually relatively easy algorithms to produce, and the hope is that a bunch of locally-optimal decisions result in a globally-optimal outcome, or at least close.
This reminds me a lot of the "theory of markets". The problem is, while greedy algoritms are often great or at least good, in some cases they fail miserably. The Wikipedia article above cites problems where the greedy algorithm produces the uniquely worst possible solution.
I interpret that to mean there are cases where it makes sense for government to augment the market's "greedy algorithm" with pressures that tend to result in a more globally optimal outcome.
I don't know much about Jimmy Carter, but I don't think it likely that he'd have Chicago economists on his economic advisory team, an understanding of market economics, or that he had an extensive record of collaborating with Republicans on legislation. Obama does.
It might be more apt to say that Obama is one of the few sincerely ideological politicians to be nominated for president in the last half century, meaning that he has a clear set of core beliefs that motivate him to seek the office.
The Boston Globe explains the problem.
Hypo: Give a developer $5 million to build (or renovate) a building. After the building is done, he takes a huge profit and leaves the building in its own corporation (an "island"). He does not leave enough money in the corporation to keep up the building in good repair (or he takes excessive fees for management).
So in a few years, the building runs down, the corporation goes under and the building is sold to the state or recapitalized with another grant for renovations, and we start the cycle again.
The developers get rich (Rezko, Jarrett), the buildings fall apart, the people live in slum buildings, and givernment money pays for it all.
Terrible system. Yet Obama is proposing to siphon off money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fund a lot more of these projects.
Say Jim, did you add on to this post after it was up? I don't remember that bolded part being there when I made my initial post. and it doesn't seem to fit the rest of the post.
After leaving here I was reading slate, which has an article by Thomas Geohagen on community organizing, in which he says Obama does not appear to have the temperment of a community organizer. Here's the link -
http://www.slate.com/id/2199473/
Geohagen wrote an article back in the 1980's that had one of my favorite titles of all time- The Angst of an Aging Activist: My God, I'm 40 years old and Reagan is President.
One shouldn't confuse "weak" with "liberal." Carter was mostly the former.
IMO, McGovern was the second most liberal nominee.
No. The earliest American politics thing I experienced was GHB v. Clinton, and I was a youngun then.
Uhh, Jim. I am pretty sure that you knew that wasn't his point. Obama said that he and McCain (ie "we all") put country first. McCain had clearly stated that Obama put his political ambition ahead of his country (a clearly negative attack). So Obama responds, "No, not true, both you and I John McCain both 'put country first,'" And you termed that a "negative attack." You are obviously smarter than that (thus, I would disagree with "randal" that you failed the LSAT). So, I think "randal" got the better of you. I think you know that. And I think you reacted by avoiding the issue, and attacking a straw-man.
It would be a good thing if you just admit that you are for the McCain/Palin ticket. We all have our biases. You seem to want everyone to believe, however, that you are impartial. I don't know why that is.
Again, no. The "new Democrats" emerged after the Dukakis defeat in 1988. Fact. I wouldn't disagree that Carter ran as a relatively "moderate" Democrat in 76. But there was NO, none, zero, "new Democrat tradition" in 1976. Just didn't exist.
I don't understand this hypothetical. Would anyone really be so stupid as to give all the money to the developer up-front and expect them to do the management as well? Seems like the solution is easy - give the developer enough money to do the development and nothing more, and come up with another plan to manage the property. If there's no plausible plan for successfully managing the property after it's developed, better to figure that out before paying the developer at all, yeah? I can't imagine anyone (with $5million to play with) being that short-sighted...
Social action won't affect change without a tipping point, a critical mass of new attitudes _and_ institutions, and in retrospect, it is utterly unsurprising that the South Side didn't rise out of poverty and dysfunction. Obama learned what young idealists that go into teaching or social work learn, and he's better for it. That his instinct was to civic engagement, to respect people with a wildly different set of experiences than himself, to keep an open mind, and to serving the public good, reflect well on his character and judgment. There is no one best paradigm for change, as Obama learned, hence, he isn't ideological by nature. Perhaps McCain isn't either, for different reasons, but in both cases it is a refreshing change from the blind dogma of Bush &Cheney.
Obama has progressive values without adherence to a "liberal" policy set. I don't agree with Jim's conclusion, however nicely packaged in something other than contempt. Obama is no radical. Yet, this more detailed look at community organizing isn't flattering, even in context, and, much to my chagrin, is probably the most effective critical political post on VC in some time. Made Bernstein look like the hack he is, you have.
I usually post and revise in the first few minutes after posting. Things look a bit differently on the page than in the entry window. And some html signals (such as bolding) often don't format properly (it screws up automatic paragraphs), so I usually post and then repost a couple minutes later adding some formatting. I usually make a few small wording changes as well. In other words, the first version appearing on VC is usually the penultimate draft, a couple minutes prior to the final draft.
Less often I add some new text. This time I added the last two paragraphs. I added them in part b/c I thought the prior last sentence sounded more negative than my actual views or intention. The new last paragraph is something I've been meaning to do a separate post about for at least a month.
After the post has been up for a while, perhaps 10 minutes, I consider the post "final" and then note all changes with brackets or with a specific "Update," except for (1) obvious typos and (2) very occasionally very slight wording changes (but only if someone has not yet attacked my prior wording).
ROFL, I found this video and it is really funny to watch.
For one thing, this was in an Anderson Cooper interview, not his Convention Speech, so let's not be misleading. "O" has no history of being sarcastic at all so I think the analysis has to go to it being an honest mistake - which isn't a lot better. If it's intentional, he's really good at passing it off. I was watching this air I guess it was Monday evening, I didn't notice it at all.
So yeah, he gets a pass because: it's an impromptu cable news interview not a prepared speech, most likely a mistake, undercuts him more than her either way, 99% of viewers (my estimate) missed it entirely, and it's not part of a sarcastic pattern. (Remember, McCain is also sarcastic when it comes to demeaning "O" - e.g. "The Obama Energy Plan: Tires", "Barack Hilton", etc.)
It's hysterical in any case, I suggest you all look here (near the end).
As I said before, I compiled every statement in both speeches that mentioned the other side and then excluded the compliments of the other side. That left attacks, strongly negative comments, and weakly negative comments such as the one you are complaining about. Further, the justification for the implicit criticism did not enter into whether to include anything. And, of course, the reason for including ALL of the negative comments and quoting them is so you can make up your own minds.
Greedy Clerk, I think you under-interpret Obama's comment about McCain. I immediately took it with a subtext of "don't get high and mighty with me, McCain." It is an art to create sentences that can be hidden behind with maximum innocence while giving maximum offense. Democrats and Republicans are both pretty good at this dance. I suggest your own bias may affect your hearing.
It is impossible to measure sarcasm, insult, tone of voice in any objective way, and Mr. Lindgren was simply trying to give some rough measure that the Republican speeches are not dramatically worse in tone, though they are accused of it. The Democrats may, in fact, be meaner by some objective measure. This is more a defensive strategy than an offensive one - not an attempt to say "you guys are sure vicious" as an attempt to deflect the criticism that the Republicans are entering into some new deteriorated territory of political dialogue. Are you really determined to go forward with the idea that Palin is significantly worse in tone than Obama? We po' folk clinging to our guns and religion might disagree.
If even someone as talented and committed as Obama can't accomplish much as a community organizer, then it suggests the limits of community organizing in most contexts, not the limits of Obama.
BTW, my favorite Alinsky job action (as I heard the story) preobably took place in the 1950s.
Marshall Fields was open to whites and blacks for shopping, but there were no black clerks. Alinsky threatened Marshall Fields that, unless they hired black clerks, every Saturday Alinsky would bring busloads of African American into Fields, not to picket, but to shop! He would turn Fields into a black store every Saturday. Fields capitulated and hired black clerks.
Yes! I think this is patently obvious and easily won! My guess is that the derivative over time of the google hits for "palin shrill" will be quite positive for the next couple months, then go down quickly after the first Tuesday in November as Palin fades from view. :)
We po' folk clinging to our guns and religion might disagree.
I agree this was a gaffe, but in that it's universally seen as a gaffe, it doesn't have much weight in a comparison of overall tone.
I also fear that the Republicans are overusing this one Obama gaffe. I noticed this during the convention. It's really hard for the Republicans to take advantage of this gaffe while simultaneously pitching themselves as change agents who are pro-gun, pro-religion, with small-town values.
Plus, they have to explain it each time, as in "Remember when Obama said blah blah blah" - when they just quote it with no context, it fits in so well with their message that with no context, it doesn't sound like a quote from the other party, it sounds like the new Republican pitch.
Not to mention that it's simply getting old, and is a constant reminder that Obama has only made one gaffe this entire campaign.
As I understand it, the brief phase of community organizing in Obama's career ended nearly 20 years ago.
No doubt that the modified grassroots (with charismatic fertilizer) tactics have worked well politically over the past 18 months overall. It's obviously well beyond "the standard radical model doesn't work."
The internet has brought a different dynamic to politics that has the potential to be empowering in a way that street politics never could. But that's probably more a factor of activating the previously contented middle class, a class that is way bigger and has way more internal and external efficacy than trying to activate a concentrated population of downtrodden.
Agreed. Thank you for putting the words in my mouth!
And what the hell is this Alinsky thing all about? Why can no one describe the "profane" Alinsky in straight-forward terms, such as: "Alinsky's goal was to slowly turn the United States into a Communist dictatorship; to this end he tried to convince various groups of poor people and labor unions to push for legislation in that direction; he did this by appealing to their self-interest -- whether valid or not -- instead of using charismatic leadership." (Maybe this is all wrong, but no one seems to say anything coherent about Alinsky so I haven't much to go on. And no, I am not going to read the guy if no one seems to have anything interesting to say about him.) Did Obama share the goals of Alinsky, or only the means? If the latter case, what were his goals? If I am right about Alinsky, then Obama's job consisted of organizing poor people (the "community") to fight for certain political causes favored by the people who were paying him (Kellman and Kruglik).
What were those causes? It had something to do with building a "regional community organization", whatever the hell that is. It's clear that fixing toilets and getting rid of asbestos were not ends, but rather short-term means toward some unstated ends. The whole point of Judis' article seems to be to contrast short-term means ("self-interest") which he does not talk about much, with "vision" that he talks about even less. The most bizarre part of the article is where he describes a meeting at which a bunch of these geniuses are shocked to discover that people can be "organized" to do things they (the geniuses) don't like!
57 states? 10,000 deaths in the KS tornado?
Both McCain and Palin seem more concerned about validating their own personal experiences than in engaging in a thoughtful analysis of ideas. They both also seem extremely impulsive and impatient as they try to re-shape the world in a way that makes them feel more comfortable. McCain doesn't incrementally adjust his views through thoughtful analysis of prior experience and new ideas, as has been described for Obama. Instead, McCain changes views from one strong simple opinion to an opposite one based mainly on his mood or political expediency. His return last night to more of the political maverick seen in 2000 reflects his need to re-establish the self-image he is most comfortable with now that his pandering to the right has locked in his party's nomination and sufficiently solidified the base.
My support for Obama reflects respect for his intelligence, his thoughtfulness, his decency, and his concern for helping others. I'm not bothered by his progressive tendencies, and one could even argue that anyone who is that smart and that thoughtful should have a progressive orientation.
In contrast, Jim seems to be ambivalent about Obama, respecting his reasonableness and thoughfulness but worrying about his liberal leanings. As I asked Jim in a separate post, I would love to know which ticket he has decided to support. It would help me understand the conflicting statements in his posts.
At least, I hope that's what his goal is. And not some "progressive" "vision" of non-radical non-blind dogma.
Plenty have made such a foolish argument.
The truth is that what makes a president excellent or awful is less about their ideological positions than about the quality of their judgement and the deciscion making structure they institute. Ironically, preciscely because so many people care about them, the big ideological issues tend to be the issues the president has the least power over. Practical political calculations and pressure from his own party prevent him from straying too far from the mainstream views of his party (note Obama and McCain both flip-floping to embrace aspects of their party's traditional platform) and the other party will often block these ideas from implementation. On the other hand on issues that don't have the same level of media attention nor attached ideological dogma the president has much more of a free hand. Thus it is preciscely in those areas where it's most important the president exercisce good judgement, be responsive to evidence and theory, and construct an administrative style that is conducive to good deciscion making.
I mean Bush is a perfect example of this effect. In both elections the left was screaming about his arch-conservatism and his horrific backwards views on sex education, religion, etc.. However, these views have lead to only relatively minor changes to the status quo while his major blunders occured in areas that hadn't even made the news beforehand, e.g., choice of FEMA director, pre-war planning, a management culture that discouraged brainstorming and criticism of ideas at the top.
As the myth of the rational voter points out our politicians keep the country running not because they listen to the people but despite it. Any issue emotional enough and visible enough to qualify as party-political or ideological is one where a politician's choices are highly constrained by the strong, yet uninformed and unconsidered, views of the public. It's only where the public doesn't really weigh in that a president can fully bring his judgment, intelligence and the expertise of his staff to bear.
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In fact the problem is actually much worse than this. Whoever we elect president has to be either ignorant enough not to realize how bad the popular policies really are or dishonest enough to simply lie about them. If he even wants a shot at becoming president Obama could never say that affirmitive action is totally ineffective in producing results and ought to be banned nor could McCain say that laws against prostitution/drugs/etc.. do more harm than good and ought to be repealed. This is true no matter what kind of evidence they are presented with about the issue. Given the range of issues where some plausible, reasonable answer is complete political suicide any serious presidential contender must lie through their teeth.
So if Obama and McCain simply have to lie about their views on these party politics issues it's their other judgments that seem much more important!
There's a difference between a misstatement and a gaffe.
No one believes Obama actually thinks there are 57 states. On the other hand, it would be difficult for Obama to claim he meant to say that people "prefer butter to guns, and cherish their religion" rather than "are bitter, and cling to their guns and religion". That's what makes it a gaffe - you learn something about the candidate. So "macaca" was a gaffe, and "potatoe" was a gaffe, and "100 years in Iraq" was a gaffe, but "Venesuela might shut of its oil discoveries" was not. (Although it made for a great Daily Show clip!)
Ok, how about Obama trying to identify with the people by talking about his worries about the price of arugula at WholeFoods in a state that doesn't even have a WholeFoods?
I guess you would say that is a gaffe and a misstatement. I would say the statement contained 2 gaffes. Obama can't fathom that WholeFoods isn't everywhere and even if it were, not everyone shops there (prices are higher than most grocery stores).
What about Obama saying, in reference to his daughters,
"if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby"
How about an undivided Jerusalem under joint Israeli/Palestinian control? How about Iran is/isn't a threat? How about Hillary being "likeable...enough"? How about advocating raising tax rates under the hypothetical assumption that revenues will decrease as an issue of "fairness"? Saying we need to send translators (and their Star Trek universal translating devices) from Iraq to Afghanistan? Suggesting the UN Security Council take action against Russia? Announcing he's as close to Jeremiah Wright as to his own, typical-white-person grandmother?
Gaffe
What about Obama saying, in reference to his daughters,
"if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby"
gaffe: a social blunder; faux pas.
How can it be a gaffe when he is saying what he believes?
It is true that people aren't in favor of being forced to volunteer, but a great many are in favor of using force to "volunteer" others. Then they are shocked, shocked when someone votes to volunteer them.
If a company is planning on moving out, what kind of pressure can make them stay? I can't think of any that wouldn't make the company in question speed up the moving vans.
Where I live, most of these agencies are funded year-to-year under grant programs. Most of the money comes from the state, but a lot is administered by the city. This kind of uncertain funding makes it difficult to get programs started, and even more difficult to sustain them. There are lots more promising starts than successful conclusions with such a system.
It's a fundamental problem of government. It doesn't work to let administrators dole out money based on their own judgment since they tend to judge in favor of their friends and relatives. And it doesn't work to dole it out based on elaborate rules and limitations because the resulting programs are unable to adapt to changing conditions and unforeseen events.
I should think Obama should get some credit for deciding that he could get more done in the state legislature.
That's one of the things that the Annenberg files will show; that Hussein actually did very little for the Director's salary he was pulling down. It also amazes me that no one appears to be investigating the air of corruption that surrounds everyone with whom Hussein was associated while he was in Illinois.
Yes, if he actually got something done on the issues he cared about in the state legislature. Did he?
Dave N and Anon1111: you challenged my assertion that media bias is in the eye of the beholder. You challenged my ability to list as many conservative outlets as you can name liberal outlets. First, this methodology is flawed b/c there is no way to accurately label media outlets as "liberal" or "conservative," see here. Second, in the only comprehensive study of every syndicated columnist in almost every newspaper that publishes daily, it was shown that conservative views are given exposure 60% of the time, here.
Third, I disagree with their assertion that CNN is liberal; CNN or its affiliate Headline is the home of Lou Dobbs, Nancy Grace, and Glenn freakin' Beck! Also, for the life of me, I can't ascertain Wolf's nor Cooper's perspective. Fourth, I will meet your challenge (actually, it was originally my challenge) of listing as many conservative media sources as you listed liberal (note: I am not mentioning blogs, such as PowerLine or Kos):
WSJ
NY Post
Daily Oklahoman
Washington Times
Manchester (NH) Union Leader
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Orange County Register
Los Angeles Times
Chicago Tribune
The Gazette
Idaho Press-Tribune
American Spectator
American
Commentary Magazine
FrontPage Magazine
Insight
National Review
New America
Policy Review
Spectator
Weekly Standard
World Magazine
American Enterprise
- Note: both Annon1111 and Dave N can probably name more liberal sources, and then I can respond w/ more conservative sources. I think this shows something important: media bias is in the eye of the beholder because both viewpoints are well represented.
You are aware that "shrill" is in the same category of words as "uppity", right?
I believe Republicans are energetically applying Alinsky's Rule #4 on this one.
The test of extreme bias in the ultra-liberal, neo-communist media that I like to use is where in a story, if at all, they mention the political party affiliation of an evil-doer.
In most of the commie MSM, for example, they will use the word "Republican" in the headline if a Republican is involved. If it is a democrat doing evil, the word "democrat' will be buried or may not appear.
I especially liked the stories last week about Kwame Kilpatrick, Mayor of Detroit. Most stories that I read did not mention the word "democrat" and NO story that I read mentioned the fact that Kwame's mother is a democrat Congresswoman and Chairperson of the Black Congressional Caucus. For bias, think about whether your favorite outlet would mention the evil-doer's Congressional mother if the evil-doer were a Republican.
Other tests involve shootings, both defensive and offensive. The lefty media has orders to not cover stories about citizens who successfully defend themselves against bad guys with guns. Another test, of course, is whether a criminal who is an illegal alien is identified as such.
There are some rear view mirror tests. One was the look of absolute terror on the face of Dan Rather as he had to report the results of the 1994 Congressional election. And, of course, that's why I'll be switching between Ken Olberman and, probably, CBS, on November 4th, to see that same look.
And the little bit of content that is present in the passage is certainly false: We're supposed to believe that if citizens wanted to decertify their labor union, then Alinsky would help them? That Alinsky would help one street gang defeat another? Some people claim that "community Organizers" do things like helping people get government landlords to fix their broken toilets. But if this were the case, then the rhetoric in this passage is completely inappropriate. Why should someone lecture us to appeal to people's self-interest, to not use charisma, to stay behind the scene, to build an organization with staying power -- if what we're trying to do is get some [expletive deleted] toilets fixed?
I wonder if Alinsky's own writing is this deliberately obfuscatory? I'm guessing it is.
In the late spring, I was leaning toward voting for McCain, but was still quite uncertain.
The universal service requirement, which I had not known about until July, caused me to decide (for now at least) that I intend to vote for McCain.
The self-help model of the Alinsky program teaches against following charismatic leaders (who come and go, often leaving little tangible accomplishment behind) and aligning with politicians, who often use people to achieve their own goals, not the people's.
Alinsky believed that humans respond to their own self interest rather than conscience or morality.
In other words, Alinsky saw the Virtue of Selfishness. Alinsky -- "Red" or Randite?
Do you have $23.84? Amazon has a special offer to buy both Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals, by Alinsky.
Do you really think that this universal service requirement is sufficient of an issue to sway your vote one way or the other? If Obama is elected and this requirement fails miserably (and it will take some time to get it going in the first place), the electorate will vote Obama out in four years.
For independents, who are willing to vote both Republican and Democratic - don't you think we should give the other party a chance now, considering the failed policies of the past 8 years? If the Democrats don't do the job, we can vote the Republicans back into the White House in 4 years.
h/t Beldar, who has a still expanding list of 40+ informative, well measured posts, a primary focus on Palin.
As I've already explained (9.6.2008 12:37am), I no more want to learn about Alinsky by reading him than I want to learn about waterboarding by experiencing it personally. I was hoping some third party could coherently explain him to me. By the way, even the titles of his books appear to be obfuscatory. What is a radical? If he meant "communist" or "extremist" or something else he should have said so.
Iowa grows an incredible amount of arugula. He was noting, with some relevance, the disparity between the price farmers were receiving for the crop and the rising price in the store.
You can't always buy the campaign hype.
There are lots of good reasons to vote against Obama, but it is safe to say "laziness" is not among them any more than his middle name, which you also appear to think should influence one's vote. VC and its posters make this a superior blog because for the most part people are interested in issues and facts, rather than, as we say in the law, "mere abuse." You may oppose Obama because you think he is "lazy" and has a foreign-sounding middle name, but I believe that will find little traction here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPFPBmzRrQ
This type if thing happens more often in Government-financed projects. Government provides little oversight - typical.
When private companies provide funds, they often require 'reserves' be set up to pay for things that they are concerned might be underfunded by the developer / owner of the project. Most typically the reserves are for insurance and taxes, but they sometimes require reserves for "replacement" - the industry term for on-going upkeep and maintenance.
Now we're finally getting to the bottom of this whole Alinksy thing. He was "a radical in the mold of Thomas Paine" and "heavily influenced by his study of the Talmud" (and inspired by a saying of Hillel). So now I have to read not only Alinsky but also Paine and the Talmud, and everything will become clear.
I think I understand the goals of Moses and his means of achieving them (at least the movie version). Alinsky, however, ...
He doesn't meekly accept the status quo.
And Thomas Paine was decidedly more in the spirit and mold of the French Revolution than of the American.
Alinsky was - and decidedly do - in the mold the New Left, a highly pragmatic revolutionary - and a revolutionary first and foremost - not c. 1776, but c. 1968 - and that frame of reference is significant. As this biographical piece indicates,To place this in a still more contemporary light, those "fatally flawed" conceptions (i.e. social/political dogmas) are the same type of dogmas that subtend the analysis hi-lighted in a link provided in David Kopel's recent "Obama, Heterosexism and Capitalism" post, specifically in this comment.
Has Obama offered up anything like McCain's wage insurance proposal? I mean this from his acceptance speech:
That's pretty progressive (liberal), no? Anyone know if Obama has made a similar proposal?
A piece that relies on the unsourced work of a Richard Poe, as well as J. Edgar Hoover's Masters of Deceit, ghostwritten when there was a Commie under every bed. Can you find a well-sourced explanation of Alinsky, i.e. one that does not principally rely on work from other right-wing talking point sites?
Why do we have to infer that Barack Obama has "rejected" the radical ideas of Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers, et al.? Barack has done things to implement those ideas. What has he done that shows that he rejects them? Besides moving on up the political food chain? If his goal were to make things better for the South Chicagoans, then he'd use his new insight and try a different approach. The most obvious route would be security, small cap loans and incentives to revitalize the area, but those "market" solutions are ideologically incompatible with his worldview. While we're at it, we can infer that he doesn't understand market economics, despite the superfluity of advisers.
I'm beginning to think that the Far Left adore Alinsky, that they refuse to give a coherent description of what he was trying to accomplish, and that they get very angry indeed if anyone accuses him of being of the Far Left. (Kind of like how advocates of racial quotas go ballistic whenever anyone describes a racial quota as a racial quota. (Sorry, I couldn't resist saying this. I hope that "racial preferences" does not become the new arugula in this thread. ))
But I could be wrong. I too would like to see coherent discussions of Alinsky from other sources.
What facts, specifically, are you denying or in any sense refuting? Do you have anything other than sneers and an ad hominem based dismissiveness to offer?
There are eighty-eight (88) references in the biography, most of them are to Saul Alinsky's own works. Only two of those 80+ references are to Hoover's cited work and those two references - as with the three references to Richard Poe quotes - are not in the least controversial.
E.g., a Richard Poe quote notes "Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties."
E.g., similarly, a Hoover reference notes "[Alinsky] advised organizers and their disciples to quietly, subtly gain influence within the decision-making ranks of ... institutions, and to introduce changes from that platform. This was precisely the tactic of "infiltration" advocated by Lenin and Stalin. As Communist International General Secretary Georgi Dimitroff told the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935:Iow, not only are they non-controversial statements and references, the Hoover excerpt is substantiated with a direct quote from the ComIntern's 1935 World Congress, the final World Congress held by the ComIntern, reported on by Leon Trotsky, here. An excerpt from Trotsky's own report is itself intriguing, emphasis added:By contrast, you offer a sneer - you offer an unthinking, tout court dismissiveness.
I mean, an incremental healthcare reform isn't very radical. His plan is way less liberal than Clinton's '93 plan, and I don't think you'd call Clinton a radical.
Marty A: can we try to avoid the blowhard rhetoric? Also, can you try to supply a source to support your suggestion that the media only mentions the political party of conservative wrongdoers? I realize that Powerline and Instapundit play that game, but that doesn't make it so. Personally, I have never noticed such a double standard, and it seems far fetched to suggest that there is some vast conspiracy to hid the occasional criminality of democrats.
You'd think so.
The right has successfully -- and impressively -- turned the words "liberal" and "left" into stigmatized labels that are viewed as synonyms for "radical" and "communist," (a good discussion of the phenomena is here). This is so entrenched in to our political discourse that Alan Colmes feels the need to repeatedly say "I am proud to be a liberal" and people have even wrote books on the subject, here. This demonization, of course, does not exist for conservatives, and as was rightly mentioned above, the right as managed to convince the public that every democratic presidential candidate is the most liberal politician ever, e.g. here.
Jim Lindgren has fallen prey to this phenomena. I won't purport that Obama is down-the-middle moderate, but his positions belie Lindgren's unsubstantiated conclusion that he is some flaming radical liberal (I will admit, however, that Lindgren has helped perpetuate an impressive strategy -- repeat the "most liberal ever" rhetoric so many times that it becomes true; I wish democrats would develop such a strategy!). Examples...
1. Supporting the bill that gave immunity to the telephone companies for their criminal wiretapping. This is a non-liberal position on one of the defining issues of the Bush administration, and one would expect a radical liberal to oppose such a bill
2. Supporting off shore drilling. It is true that this position was spurred by some critique by the public. However, Lindgren's proposition is that Obama is liberal for his political means -- not his personal means -- and thus the adoption of this position severely undermines Lindgren's conclusion because it is the result of his political orientation. This is one of the defining issues of our time, and one would expect some radical liberal to hold a different position.
3. Obama supported (alongside Independent Richard Lugar) a bill aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear materials. Bush has signed this bill into law! Such spending on national security seems inconsistent with the popular idea of radical liberalism.
4. Obama supports same sex civil unions, yet opposes same sex marriage (but, to be fair, he does oppose a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage). This is hardly a radical, far-left position.
5. Studies classifying Obama as the most liberal Senator are flawed and have been critiqued. In fact, other studies have ranked Obama as the 10th most liberal Senator, and McCain as the 8th most conservative Senator. This is hardly radical, and if it is, then McCain is also a radical. See here.
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