Those who deney Alinksy's infuence on Obama and Hillary are blinded to the truth

In light of the comments made by Dan Brent to Highland Park Patch to Nancy J. Thorner’s blog post of Thursday, June 12, "Obama's Alinsky ties unheeded, point to danger ahead," (likewise shared with Patch sites in Deerfield, Northbrook, Lake Forest, Libertyville, and Barrington), a response seemed warranted to clear up Mr. Brent's misconceptions and to help others realize the truth before it is too late.

Dan Brent's comments:

"News flash, Obama has been president for almost two terms. The world has not ended. Things are getting better. The budget deficit has decreased. Health care reform is underway. The US is finally pulling itself out of wars started by others. Osama bin Laden is dead. The stock market recovered. The author you should really worry about is Ayn Rand. Her books are Holy Scripture to the Tea Party. We tried "every man for himself" and no government regulation or safety net. Two generations ago, our ancestors rejected those policies following economic and social disasters brought on by Republican administrations. Roosevelt was elected President to FOUR terms because Americans embraced his vision for the role of government, and rejected the Republicans. Why? Because they had lived through the alternative. Now the Tea Party wants us to return to the "good old days" of no government. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Tea Party wants to repeat it. Ayn Rand lived out her last days dependent on social security. Without it, she would have starved to death."

Nancy J. Thorner response:

The influence of Saul Alinsky on President Obama’s agenda was accurate and thoroughly chilling.  It fits perfectly with Obama’s assault on the “Wealthiest 1%” and their “responsibility” to share as much of that wealth with those who want it as the all-seeing government decides is “their fair share.”  The President takes a high moral tone, whereas anyone who disagrees is greedy and, by inference, evil.  Is not greed one of the seven deadly sins?

More interesting and less obvious is the constant shifting of topics and priorities by the President and his minions, always away from his current vulnerabilities. When challenged on foreign policy during the last Presidential campaign, the President shifted to “Fair Share” speeches – dozens of them, in front of willing human props. This was a thinly veiled attempt to portray Mitt Romney as “evil” because of his success in business.

David Brent’s response represented a spaghetti fight, faithful to Alinsky principles. Throw out a lot of Democratic talking points in hopes that something sticks.  Nobody is suggesting that the needy be left to their own devices. That is a straw man argument.  In fact, it was President Clinton who promoted the “workfare” concept, which was accepted and passed by both parties.  Basically, Clinton said that welfare should be a second chance, not a way of life.  President Obama abolished that principle with a stroke of his infamous pen, Congress be damned. There is always the tendency to blame bad events to the one who holds office at the time. Much of the prosperity of Bill Clinton’s term was the result of unbridled speculation in the internet business, forming a bubble which inevitably burst, but in 2001 just after George W. Bush took office.  Barely six months later, Jihadists flew three planes into buildings and a fourth into the ground in Pennsylvania, under the direction of Osama Bin Laden, whom Clinton allowed to escape on several occasions. Using an historically rare moment, Obama was able to blame the housing market collapse on G. W. Bush, taking with it several major financial institutions. What caused the collapse?  All bubbles burst eventually. However, the bubble formed largely because the Democratically controlled Congress expanded the “fair housing” principle to include those who clearly could not afford the homes they bought and the mortgages they assumed. Owning your home was a “right”, and to deny that fact was evil. The perpetrators of that colossal fraud, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, are now comfortably retired, while their penultimate fraud was the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which passed responsibility to  those institutions victimized by public policies of 2006.

Now the Democrats decry the failure of the “trickle down” theory of Reagan, whose administration brought the country out of the deep recession under Jimmy Carter’s administration. The same principle of building jobs and confidence restored the economy under GWB in less than three years following the one-two blows of the Internet Bubble and 9/11. Yet the spendthrift Keynesian economics of President Obama leaves us with a recession nearly as enduring as faced by the nation in 1930, largely for the same reasons (tax and spend). The only success, decried by Obama as “unfair” is that of Wall Street, largely because of the President’s own policies. The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at or near zero for his entire administration, making bonds and savings unprofitable. The only way to make money has been on the stock market. While stocks surge, employment lags. Companies are pared to the bone to remain profitable, while regulations have redoubled in an ill-fated attempt to restore “fairness” to the country and the “environment.” It is not enough to have restored the 9 million jobs lost between 2008 and 2010 when the new jobs pay a fraction of those lost, and there are 11.2 million more people who should be working than in 2010.

Perhaps it’s time to turn Alinsky’s principles on their adherents. It is immoral to take from those who have and give it to those who want, especially when the purpose is to buy votes. It is evil to hold the United States to environmental standards ignored by the world’s worst polluters – China and India. It is deceitful to fail to respond to honest debate by ever changing the subject. What is “fair” about a tiny fraction of the population deciding who should run an internet company.