- Joined
- Apr 14, 2008
- Messages
- 12,973
- Reaction score
- 5,701
- Location
- Huntsville, AL (USA)
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
When I took my first civic course in the fourth or fifth grade, and classmates were doing their first term paper on "Our Constitution" or "The Congress," I was writing on the communist theory of dialectical materialism, since I had read Karl Marx.
...
My job as executive director was to help state College Republicans organizations and individual chapters expand the GOP's voting and volunteer base on campus.
...
We dealt with rudimentary campaign strategy, messaging, planning, fundraising, scheduling fieldwork, and press work. Each of the participants received a massive notebook of "how-to" materials and the sacred texts of CR [Collge Republicans] organizers, such as Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', Tony Schwartz's 'The Responsive Chord', David Oglivy's 'Confessions of an Advertising Man', and Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War'. These and other books contained nuggets about how to organize and win political campaigns.
What Republican strategist made these claims in his most recent book? I ask because as recent as today and ever since Obama was elected President, we've heard Right-Wing Republicans make the Saul Alinsky/Karl Marx comments against President Obama. Newt just last night tried to re-ignite the "radical-Left" argument by mentioning Saul Alinsky once again. Yet, to think that a Republican would admit to having studied and used the very campaign strategies espoused by such a "radical Marxists" should tell the hard Right something about themselves and their party.
Alittle reseach and you will find articles that indicts the Republican party for using such "radical" tactics themselves. One such article is this one, "When the Right Embraced Saul Alinsky," by Luke Briker at the blogpost Politics Not as Usual. Moreover, the following linked articles do a good job of contrasting how the Alinshy's strategies are being implemented by President Obama as opposed to what Republicans are claiming he is doing.
Who Is Saul Alinsky?
Behind a Class Warfare Charge, Saul Alinsky’s Shadow
It's gotten to the point where former NYC mayor, Rudy Giuliani, has even condemned Gingrich for using Alnskiy-style political strategies. But you won't find a link to Giuliani's commentary on FoxNews' website. I think if Republicans were honest, they'd acknowledge not only that they've being mischaracterizing President Obama, but that they've also used these same "radical" political strategies themselves.
As to who wrote favorable about using the radical strategies of Karl Marx and Saul Alinksy in his book...
...
????
The answer might surprise some folks.
Last edited: