In a recent interview on RT, Chris Hedges, host of that networks’ program On Contact talked with D.D. Gutenplan, editor of the Nation, about the rise of populism in this country. It is a movement against both parties and the media whom, they explain, lost themselves to corporate interests.
Focusing on labor issues and organizing during the 20th century, the discussion led to Saul Alinsky and his legacy. Embraced heavily by Democratic party operatives including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Alinsky’s tactics, according to Gutenplan, had a weakness.
If you read Rules for Radicals, you may notice the basic principle of the book is the ends justify the means to bring about change. It is strangely rooted in one of the greatest oxymorons in literature. Alinsky dedicates the book to Lucifer — whom he acknowledges is the symbol if not embodiment of evil — as one to emulate to bring change for a just society. Logically, that makes no sense. In fact, he even teaches how to attack the church in the same way that Lucifer does in popular Catholic teaching. That is a tactic the Democrats continue to use against Catholics and have been for the past twenty years.
D.D. Gutenplan explains to Chris Hedges that more and more people seeking populist movements discovered that Alinsky’s method of organizing, by default, is…
