Bret,

I did some research on the whole Alinsky legacy and while I think it is much ado about nothing, I think I understand what terrifies you. You’re likely white, relatively affluent, part of the power structure (symbolically speaking) that exists in America. A power structure that designs policies to benefit its own members (such as financial bailouts, military-industrial ties, etc…) is threatened by any talk of mobilizing those who have been left out.

Ironically, perhaps the best way to ensure Saul Alinsky’s teachings are embraced by the underprivileged masses would be to elect a staunch conservative government that eliminates the meager handouts they get now. Eliminate medicare, social security, food stamps, and all the other programs conservatives hate and let’s see just how fast and easy it would be to mobilize the poor, the minorities, and the immigrants so that we quickly become those who are underprivileged. I’d be scared too if I was part of that power structure.

My apologies in advance if I have inaccurately pegged you as part of the ruling class.

Rob M.

Actually, no … I think that it was a good thing to continue to follow the policies that had us mobilizing those who have been left out. I mean, I think it was the very essence of genius to piss away billions (trillions?) of dollars in sub prime mortgages in order that minorities (“Those who have been left out”) could have what they didn’t earn. Hell’s Bells … my interest in mobilizing those who have been left out is so high, I am calling my Congressman to tell him I want him to support a program where those who have been left out can be given free money in order to purchase Yachts, personal Jets, and peanut butter factories.

In just such a way all the guilt I’m feeling over being white and part of the ruling structure can be atoned for as I join the poor minorities in the fricking hell hole that such dumb-ass enlightened, and Statist inspired policies, that you imply should be pursued in order to empower “those left out, will create. Those who have been left out will be sure to feel better by the fact that they have been joined in their misery by the white people who formerly oppressed them.

If you must know I was born and reared hillbilly Redneck, about as far from any “power structure” as you’d like to name. I think the things that you advocate in order to mobilize those left out are moronic in the highest degree and only serves to enslave those you think you’re trying to help. In short, I can not find the right words to express the contempt I hold for your ideas.

The link from which I drew this from is

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/09/black-confederates.html

The guy who wrote it is a guy named Steve.

From what I’ve read, black voters will be voting for Obama by overwhelming margins. This is regardless of their social views. And, apparently, most black pastors will follow suit.

The only reason for this is vicarious symbolism: he’s one of us. We succeed in his success.

Such a motive is sinful. At best, it reflects a lack of spiritual maturity and commitment when commitment is put to the acid test.

1.) The social views of blacks, if we are to take voting habits for the Democratic party as an indicator, has been uniform for quite some time regardless of the color of the Democrat at the top of the ticket. The Black candidate Obama may get a few more percentage points of support among the Black community but not enough to suggest that voting habits of Blacks in this election is anything different from other elections.

2.) It is not ethnic or racial identity as ethnic or racial identity that is sinful per se. It is certainly understandable that “blood is thicker than water.” What is sinful and what the vicarious symbolism reflects is that the people group in question (with notable exceptions), as evidenced by their voting habits, incarceration habits, crime habits, and welfare habits have rejected Christ. Their joint voting for Obama merely reinforces the reality of that rejection.

There is also an acute irony to this form of racial solidarity. It’s the flipside of how many white Southerners responded in the ramp up to the Civil War.

1.) There is nothing ironic about racial and ethnic solidarity. It seems that White people are the only ethnic people who don’t practice it.

2.) Second, White Southerners, during the ramp up to the Second War for American Independence, were responding to a mortal threat from an enemy who were threatening to destroy them and their way of life. The irony in this case lies in the reality that Blacks are involved in a racial solidarity in commitment to destroying their people by their voting for people who legislate policies that are destructive to the Black community.

For example, because I’m a Calvinist, I’ve read Southern Presbyterian theologians like Thornwell and Dabney. They came of age during the antebellum era. And when they had to take sides, their choice was sadly predictable.

What is sadly predictable is that this writer has only read the court historians, and as such he is clueless about the various motives that inspired Southerners.

Now, both Dabney and Thornwell were brilliant men. So they deployed many ingenious arguments to defend their position. I’m sure they were sincere.

But, to an outside observer, it’s obvious that their position had little to do with their arguments. It came down to racial identity. To social and emotional attachments. Their ethnicity and social conditioning blinded them to the evident injustice of the institution they were defending.

The Southerners did not defend themselves against the onslaught of Northern tyranny with the primary purpose of defending the institution of slavery, just as Northern tyranny was not committed to ending the institution of slavery at the onset of the war. If men like Dabney and Thornwell did have social and emotional attachments, they had social and emotional attachments to a culture that was largely Christian. Are the social and emotional attachments of the Black community to B. Hussein Obama and the Democratic party social and emotional attachment that are largely Christian?

Ironically, black Obama voters are the mirror image of the Confederates—where race trumps faith. The sin has come full circle.

Yes, I would say they are a reverse mirror image. Whereas White Southerners united together in order to resist tyranny, Blacks are uniting together in order to embrace tyranny and slavery.