10 Men Who Destroy - Part I

Saul Alinsky, a native son of Chicago, was the founder of modern community organizing. “Community organizing has a very nice name,” said Boyer. “It sounds like ‘We’re going to get the community together, we’re going to organize, we’re going to plant trees, we’re going to get to know each other.’ That’s not it at all.” Alinsky had two major works published. Boyer said Alinsky picked up on the old Crowley mantra. The first, Reveille for Radicals, was published in 1946. One of the key phrases in that book was, “When it comes to a fight, anything goes.” However, whereas Crowley was looking for personal fame, Alinsky operated under the radar.

Alinsky’s second book, Rules for Radicals, published in 1971, lays the groundwork for how to gain power through undemocratic means, like stuffing ballot boxes, shaking down corporations for money through guilt, or protesting in front of banks because they don’t give out enough mortgages to the poor.

Boyer said Alinsky also coined the phrase “social justice,” a sort of Robin Hood idea of stealing from the rich to help the poor. “Alinsky wasn’t as noble as Robin Hood,” Boyer said. “He wasn’t giving to the poor. He was giving to himself.” Alinsky helped bring about Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, and over $300 billion of taxpayer money was spent. “A lot of that money didn’t go to the poor,” said Boyer. “A lot of it was funneled into Alinsky’s – quote – ‘social organizations’ back in Chicago.”

Later as the hippie movement took hold and hair grew longer, Alinsky was appalled. He wrote Rules for Radicals as a means to show the younger generation how to effectively make change. The first rule was to get a haircut. “Alinsky said you need to blend in in order to infiltrate the society,” said Boyer. “One of the key places he wanted to infiltrate was the church. He said radicals needed to penetrate the churches, pretend to be Christians, but then start spreading the idea that the church isn’t doing enough for these particular social groups.” It was through this that the Christian left was born.

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