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Does the work of Saul Alinksy influence any of your beliefs?

Has Saul Alinsky influenced your beliefs?


  • Total voters
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12? There's no way.

Around the age of 12, I heard this guy ranting and raving about how inflation is a hidden tax and how the federal reserve is owned by the Rothchild family. I didn't know anything about the mechanics of inflation or the federal reserve, but I did kow that the guy sounded like a maniac.

Never really thought of those issues again until I was in college.
 
My (real as tested by professionals, not some fly by night internet thing) IQ is in the high 140s to mid 150s (multiple tests over a few years), I am more than capable of making these types of decisions at an earlier stage in my life than most people are.

Impossible. Your profile says you live in the "deep south". Everyone knows that we ain't nothing but ignorant rednecks.
 
Around the age of 12, I heard this guy ranting and raving about how inflation is a hidden tax and how the federal reserve is owned by the Rothchild family. I didn't know anything about the mechanics of inflation or the federal reserve, but I did kow that the guy sounded like a maniac.

Never really thought of those issues again until I was in college.

That was likely just the individual in question sounding loony ;)

He was right in regards to the FED's ability to control the ebb and full of deflation/inflation. They can and do.

Whether they are run by outside forces...you decide.

http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FedReserve
 

I suppose the next poll should be: "Do you hold all the same exact views today that you hold in High School or College?"

I guess some conservatives do, thus its unfathomable to them that anyone else might not.:roll:
 
Impossible. Your profile says you live in the "deep south". Everyone knows that we ain't nothing but ignorant rednecks.

Not everyone down here.
 
Why not post the 'Rules for Radicals' for comparative purposes?

Here is the complete list from Alinsky.

* RULE 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.)

* RULE 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.)

* RULE 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.)


snip

http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals

Sounds like politics in the age of persuasion.

Your guy luntz' catch phrase is "its not what you say, its what they hear." Bald cognitive manipulation is the product he sells.
 
A few of our posters seem to think that anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan is a acolyte of Saul Alinksy. Has the writings, work, or anything that Saul Alinsky did at any point in his life from his birth to his death influenced your beliefs in any way at all?

One flaw in the ointment here.

I don't think many people are aware of the genesis for the causes they have come to believe in, or even the methods used to promote them. We are taught math skills in elementary school, but few remember the mathematicians who discovered the equations.

If your poll asked whether doing X, Y, and Z, is a good method to continue to bring about social change, your Alinsky connection might be better identified. People may be quite unaware the methods used by some groups and causes were first proposed by the man.
 
I suppose the next poll should be: "Do you hold all the same exact views today that you hold in High School or College?"

I guess some conservatives do, thus its unfathomable to them that anyone else might not.:roll:

:shrug: you asked who had heard of him, suggesting that he was unimportant, or a bogeyman glenn beck had conjured up. It's worth pointing out that, in fact, many of the leading names on the left did indeed study him and his methodology at some length.
 
I am part of the internet generation. I'd never even heard of the guy before the 2008 election.
 
:shrug: you asked who had heard of him, suggesting that he was unimportant, or a bogeyman glenn beck had conjured up. It's worth pointing out that, in fact, many of the leading names on the left did indeed study him and his methodology at some length.

It would also be worth noting that many of the leading names of the right did indeed study his methodology at some length. Newt Gingrich springs to mind as some one who not only studied his methods, but expanded on them.
 
It would also be worth noting that many of the leading names of the right did indeed study his methodology at some length.

It certainly would. But I think not until recently?
 
It certainly would. But I think not until recently?

I doubt that just recently would be true, but I cannot prove it. Alinsky is notable as some one who was good at organizing. Political wonks study things like that. It would be foolish not to in fact.
 
I doubt that just recently would be true, but I cannot prove it. Alinsky is notable as some one who was good at organizing. Political wonks study things like that. It would be foolish not to in fact.

I don't know. I can't think of many examples popping up, like it is possible to list off for those on the left.
 
:shrug: you asked who had heard of him, suggesting that he was unimportant, or a bogeyman glenn beck had conjured up. It's worth pointing out that, in fact, many of the leading names on the left did indeed study him and his methodology at some length.

And you know full well his work has been supplanted by 45 years of research in the cognitive neurosciences.

That the new way of fomenting desired change is to exploit glitches in cognition. To take advantage of how our hardware works to make us feel good or bad about a subject or person based on the desires of the client.

Allinsky is SO 1970.

Anyone who wants to get a look at the new face of manipulation is suggest looking up Luntz and Lakoff. Their work is far more relevant to the modern landscape, and a perusal of Lakoff's work will reveal that "allinsky" itself is a cynically used "frame", demonizing the efforts of the left. Summoning negative feelings like a wizard summoning a demon.

But you know all this l. We've been down this road before. Its part of your field of study.
 
I don't know. I can't think of many examples popping up, like it is possible to list off for those on the left.

I doubt that many on the right would readily admit to it, especially since he is now somewhat villianized by "the right". Logic and common sense kinda suggest that many did. We do know that both Adam Drandom, the head of Freedomworks, and Dick Armey have passed out copies of Rules for Radicals to their workers, and the Tea Party movement looks very much like an Alinsky type grassroots group(oh lord do they, something which would embarrass so many of them).
 
Right around the Contract with America.

Good example actually. When referring to Gingrich, I was more thinking the GOPAC tapes, but yours works well, and is much better known.
 
Truth be told, it's still on my list of "to read." So no.
 
Why not post the 'Rules for Radicals' for comparative purposes?

Here is the complete list from Alinsky.

* RULE 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.)

* RULE 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.)

* RULE 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.)


snip

http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals

Here's something to think about.

Anyone who has read and learned from Niccolo Machiavelli or Sun Tzu finds much of Saul Alinsky in better form.
 
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Good example actually. When referring to Gingrich, I was more thinking the GOPAC tapes, but yours works well, and is much better known.

The "never speak ill of another republican" and gingrich's "power words" list are both cynical manipulations.

If your side never criticizes itself, and the other side does, it must mean your side is actually right and there isn't just a ban on criticizing each other on your side.
 
The "never speak ill of another republican" and gingrich's "power words" list are both cynical manipulations.

If your side never criticizes itself, and the other side does, it must mean your side is actually right and there isn't just a ban on criticizing each other on your side.

The "power words" was my specific original thinking. Ironically, I did read the list and learned from it. Newt is right, how you speak about something does influence others. The idea that we should not learn from some people is one of those ideas I never could understand. Why is it somehow terrible that people learned from a successful community organizer?
 
Interesting but Ill bet those who influenced you were in fact influenced by Alinsky. Theres nothing new under the son.
I would bet Alinsky influenced more people on right than on the left. I never heard of the guy until a conservative told me about him.
 
I would bet Alinsky influenced more people on right than on the left. I never heard of the guy until a conservative told me about him.

Half of the college freshmen and sophomores out there had been exposed to Alinsky's thoughts through the works of philosophers from hundreds of years ago. I don't quite get the allure.
 
It's all about getting to those conservatives who remember the civil rights era and Alinsky. They tie those "values" to Obama the "community organizer" to rally them against him because he represents everything they were told to hate.
 
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