There are things throughout history that one can point to and say, “That changed everything.” Things like electricity, indoor plumbing and gunpowder.
Then there are others we can point to as simply upgrades or improvements to the original design. Things like fuel injection, the self-contained rifle cartridge or “Hot Shots! Part Deux.”
Barack Obama improved on Saul Alinsky’s teaching of community agitating – expanding it from a local to a national movement. Many Alinsky disciples evidently feel the same way – that his local agitating and disorganizing philosophy can and should be played out on a grander, national and international stage.
Interestingly, what is today called community organizing by most everyone, Alinsky called agitating. But somewhere along the line, the name agitator was deemed too negative. Gee – I can’t imagine why. So the left did what the left often does. Don’t change the narrative – just the name. Community agitator magically became community organizer. Who could be against organizing a community or just organization in general? After all – we’ve been told this all our entire childhoods, that we need to be more organized.
To be more precise, Alinsky preached that an agitator’s job isn’t to organize, but to enter and already organized community, agitate to disorganize it and re-organize it to better achieve the agitator’s goal. It was to be done with a certain amount of civility. Years ago, self-avowed communist agitator Van Jones echoed that sentiment, saying: “I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”
I heard many commentators mention Alinsky and his 1971 book “Rules for Radicals” when describing the long-forgotten and pitiful “Occupy Wall Street” spectacle from several years ago. The same has been said of the anarchist anti-Trump movement.
Yet today we are witnessing the devolution of his movement. Alinsky would not have approved of the amalgamation of dirty hippies and mask-wearing violent thugs. He taught that true “revolutionaries” should not “flaunt their radicalism.” They should “cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.”
However, the conventional suit-wearing agitators appear to be losing their influence over the mobs they were once able to control and manipulate – save but one: the devil himself, George Soros.
The suit-wearing Soros appears to prefer violent revolution. His “Alliance for Global Justice,” was behind the radical and violent “Refuse Fascism” G-20 protests in Germany.
Unlike Alinsky, Soros doesn’t seem to care if the entire system is burned to ash. He obviously believes he can control whatever Phoenix rises from it. He may be wrong this time. For decades Soros has been able to keep a leash on the rabid dog of anarchy – using them for his own ends.
Now the leash may be giving way and may eventually break altogether. If this occurs, the dog may just turn on its owner. History is replete with demon-makers who are eventually consumed by their creations.
In my opinion, at least as an outside observer, it appears that these violent radicals are out of patience. It’s as if they’ve said, “We’ve tried it Alinsky’s way – to infiltrate from the inside. But it’s taking too long. It’s time we hasten the pace and just start burning the system down.”
What we are witnessing is the death, or at least the devolution, of the Alinsky model of change through agitation.
