Newt Gingrich thinks it was a mistake for Sarah Palin and Rudy Guiliani to mock Barack Obama’s experience as a community organizer because it made Obama’s radicalism seem trivial and “Obama is not a trivial person.”
“Obama is the most serious radical threat to traditional America ever to occupy the White House.” It would have been better if Republican leaders “had gotten up and said, here is what [Obama] was teaching, and they had taken the audience through the five principles of [radical organizer Saul] Alinsky.” Such a discussion “would have sobered the country. It wasn’t a funny thing. It was a profound insight into how radical Obama is.”
There are a couple of things to unpack in here. First is obviously an examination of what Gingrich really means by “traditional America.” The term calls to mind Sarah Palin’s racially-loaded “real Americans” line, but Gingrich is speaking in the context of Saul Alinsky’s teaching. It’s hard to separate Alinsky for race-issues because the heart of his work was advocacy for the needs of those living in black ghettoes, but Gingrich could be more concerned about Alinsky’s philosophy and methods than his work on the behalf of African-Americans.
Whatever Gingrich truly means, his seemingly insane comments about the president are consistent with the nationwide movement of Republican governors and legislators to disenfranchise as many people in our ghettoes as possible. This is being done by new laws that require state-issued photo identification cards at polling stations. These laws obviously make it impossible to vote if you don’t have a driver’s license, passport, or ID card, and the highest concentration of such people are young blacks and latinos in our inner cities who do not drive or travel abroad and have no need for a state-issued ID card.
Nearly everyone I employed during my time at ACORN lacked a state-issued photo ID. Many of them had a photo ID, but they were usually issued by a high school or technical school. One of my biggest problems in hiring people was getting the required documentation, including a Social Security card. This is just how our inner cities are, and if you think poor urban people should have the same right to vote that you enjoy, you should oppose these photo ID laws vigorously.
There was nothing radical about ACORN when I worked there. We were focused on getting poor urban blacks registered to vote so that their voices would be heard and, hopefully, politicians would be elected that would be sympathetic to their needs and concerns. The Republicans went after and destroyed ACORN because they did not like how successful they were in getting out the urban minority vote. It’s all part of their larger voter suppression effort, first made famous in Florida during the 2000 elections.
Because Saul Alinsky worked to give voice to the dispossessed, the Republicans see him as a fearsome and radical person. Alinsky certainly embraced the “radical” label, but I don’t think he was any more radical than Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. In other words, unless you think we should go back to Jim Crow it’s probably time to reassess Alinsky’s radicalism. On racial issues, at least, the country has accepted his wisdom. Except, increasingly, that seems to no longer be true. The Republicans are now pursuing a Jim Crow-lite voter suppression strategy. That used to be mainstream. But in 2012, I think it’s radical.
So, really, it’s not the president or Alinsky who are radical threats to traditional America. It’s Gingrich and the Republicans who are trying to overturn forty-five years of civil and voting rights. Newt can spout off as much as he likes, but I know what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.
“This is just how our inner cities are, and if you think poor urban people should have the same right to vote that you enjoy, you should oppose these photo ID laws vigorously.”
Or, going the other way, we could ju-jitsu the effort and push for a national enrollment system where every citizen is automatically and permanently registered upon turning 18.
But of course, we’ll never do that since we have to protect “states’ rights” to disenfranchisement and the political parties themselves’ right to horde and wield voter rolls like weapons.
You’re at your best when you talk about your time with ACORN, BooMan. I’d love to hear more about your experiences.
what do you want to know?
Not anything specific. I mean, if someone asks “How was your trip to Europe?” I’d just tell stories of my time over there. To same with this…I’m not asking for anything specific, I just think it’d make a good diary series — “My time at ACORN” or something.
The Republicans went after and destroyed ACORN because they did not like how successful they were in getting out the urban minority vote.
Boo:
You are wrong!! ACORN couldn’t have been destroyed with out complicity from the Democrats. After all, who controlled both the House and Senate when ACORN was de-funded? It’s one of the most shameful things Pelosi ever did as Speaker.
You don’t blame a mark for getting conned by a professional con man.
You do blame a mark for being continuously conned by the same con man for 30 years and running…
You don’t blame them for complicity.
The charge made against the Democrats was “complicity.”
They were not “complicit” in this injustice. They got conned.
Once there was this hunter, out in the forest, hunting bears.
As the hunter approached a clearing in the forest, he saw a bear. One of the biggest bears he’d ever seen. So he crouches down behind a largish rock, takes careful aim with his shotgun, and fires. After the smoke clears, he runs down tothe clearing, and the bear’s body is gone!
He searches the clearing, but to no avail. Then there’s a tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. The hunter looks around, and it’s the bear! “You just tried to kill me, didn’t you?”. Says the bear.”Uh, no. No I didn’t”. The hunter, taken aback by a talking bear, lies.”Yes you did. Don’t lie, or I’ll rip your arms off” “Uh, yeah, yeah I did.” “Alright”, says, the bear, “I’ll let you go if you do one thing for me.” “What’s that?”, inquires the hunter. “Give me a hand job.” “What??” “On your knees” So, the hunter obliges, and leaves the clearing.
Well, the hunter’s pissed-off. “Humiliated by a bear!”, he thinks to himself. “I’ll teach that bastard”. He runs to the local town, and buys an Uzi sub-machine gun, and runs back to the clearing. The bear is still there, basking in the sun. “I’ve got you now, bear”, the hunter says to himself, andopens fire from behind the rock.
Again, after the smoke clears, the hunter runs down to the clearing. No bear. Tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. Gulp. “You just tried to kill me again, didn’t you?”. Says the bear. “Uh, no. No I didn’t”, lies the hunter. “Yes you did. Don’t lie, or I’ll rip your legs off” “Ok! I did.” “Alright”, says, the bear, “I’ll let you go if you do one thing for me.” “What’s that?”, inquires the hunter. “Drop your pants and bend over” “No way!” “Ok. Prepare to get your legs ripped off.” “Alright! I’ll do it, you bastard” So, the hunter obliges, and leaves the clearing, walking rather gingerly.
“I’ll fing get the bastard this time”, the hunter thinks to himself, and buys a rocket launcher. He runs back to the clearing, and blasts everything into oblivion. Trees are on fire, rocks are broken, the ground is scorched. Again, after the smoke clears, the hunter runs down to the clearing. No bear.
Tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. Gulp. “You’re not here for the hunting, are you?”, says the bear.
The great irony of the demonization of Alinsky is that his Rules for Radicals apply equally well to any group, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum. Read his power tactics and tell me that they don’t described the modern conservative/tea party apparatus:
The reason the wingnuts hate Alinsky is that he was fighting for poor blacks. Period. And anything else they say is just modern window dressing.
There is nothing Lite about Gingrich’s Jim Crow tendencies. He won his first election with race baiting in a time in which Southerners were beginning to adjust to the post-civil rights era. He an Ronald Reagan legitimized the fergit hell’ers at just about the time that they were completely marginalized.
You could drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with Newt’s meanness, craziness and sloppiness (it’s often hard to tell where one stops and the other begins). Having said that, let’s at least be clear among ourselves about Alinsky.
Although Stokely Carmichael himself pointed to Alinsky organization like TWO in Chicago and FIGHT in Rochester as among the best examples of what Black Power would look like, Alinsky got started organizing working-class white ethnics in the Back of the Yards in Chicago in the 1930s.
He was influenced by the CIO (pre-Communist purge edition), and basically tried to apply their theory of organizing to where people lived. He thought “power was such a good thing everyone should have some”.
GreenCaboose neatly summarized Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” from the book he wrote frantically near the end of his life trying to provide some guidance to young activists who were frequently engaged in what Alinsky saw as self-defeating tactics and strategies. (The unwritten context for the book is that the McCarthy era wiped out a generation of organizers and leaders so that there were too few role models and mentors for those who came of age in the 1960s and 70s.)
Glenn Beck and the tea partiers boosted “Rules” onto Amazon’s bestseller list at various times over the past two years. What they don’t appear to have grasped yet (though some of them may eventually) is what Alinsky’s successors learned—how to organize for the long haul, how to build organizations that sustain over years and decades.
ACORN was one such organization (which drew as much, if not more, from the wells of George Wiley and NWRO). Republicans destroyed ACORN, but had willing accessories in a number of Democrats who didn’t like the organization (which, operating mostly in cities, often targeted Democratic politicians more than Republicans).
IAF, PICO, Gamaliel, DART, IVP and numerous independent and regional organizations still exist and are thriving “branches” of the Alinsky organizing tradition.
And yes, Booman’s organizing stories and lessons form the basis of some of his best posts.