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And this is some interesting facts I have read about Clinton and it also relates to Obama.
Saul Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Rodham's senior honors thesis at Wellesley College. Now, Alinsky was pretty much considered
the founder of radical left wing ideas for the poor and powerless that created a backyard revolution in the 60's. Anyway, here is a
couple paragraphs that lays the foundation of Alinsky's model.
In his Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing,
"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year . They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default.."<2>
Now this is an interesting idea and how it related to the Clinton's.
Alinsky is often credited with laying the foundation for the grassroots political organizing that dominated the 1960s.<3> Later in his life he encouraged stockholders in public corporations to lend their votes to "proxies", whom would vote at annual stockholders meetings in favor of social justice. While his grassroots style took hold in American activism, his call to stock holders to share their power with disenfranchised working poor only began to take hold in U.S. progressive circles in the 1990s, when shareholder actions were organized against American corporations.
Alinsky was a critic of a passive and ineffective mainstream liberalism. In Rules for Radicals, he argued that the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends, and that an intermediate end for radicals should be democracy because of its relative ease to work within to achieve other ends of social justice. In 1969, he was awarded the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award.
Now, the above paragraph I can relate with him and what americans have become since the 60's. Americans have become a "passive and ineffective mainstream liberalism". We are nothing like the 60's radicals.
Now, Hillary, in her thesis agreed with Alinsky except for change can come from the inside out. She believed change has to come from the outside. That I agree with.
Now, some more interesting information. Alinsky also had a significant influence on Barack Obama. Obama particularly used Alinsky's techniques while participating in Chicago community organizations in the 1980s.
What this means to me is I don't see much of a difference in the candidates philosophy and ideals. It also appears they have molded there strategy of change and direction of government after the Alinksy Model.
I hope this was helpful information for some, and, didn't come across as cheesy. It was just something that interested me and I thought I would share it with you guys.
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