Why do right wingers have this ongoing conniption fit over Saul Alinsky

I have to confess the I never even heard of the guy until he became a talking point in winger circles.

Personally, I'm a Noam Chomsky head.

Alinsky's approach is not my idea of the right way to conduct politics. I loathe ad hominem attacks, chanting, slogans and all that nonsense and think it does nothing to advance liberal causes, but rather dumbs them down.

Conservatives say they are complaining about him, but at the same time their complaints are generally a fig leaf used to justify their explicit adoption of such tactics.

Bing-fucking-O.

Well, that explains a lot.

It's wingerism 101.

"Therefore", anything bad that can be said about Alinsky also applies to Obama.

they think their discrediting your beliefs by labeling them "of the others"

today. And he had a sense of humor.

themselves. They studied what he did and tried to apply it. They are never consistent with any idea.

Alinsky lived on the Street, probably before that term came into widespread usage. He had little use for the "Ivory Towers" folk who thought/think idealogical purity was more important than winning. Politically he was like the famous football coach who claimed winning wasn't the most important thing, it was the ONLY thing.

Since his "causes" usually revolved around real people with real issues (he helped Caesar Chavez for example) criticisms of his techniques (the famous fart initiative comes to mind) always struck me as being annoyingly elitist. Alinskythought doesn't appear in many political texts (though he did write several books on the topic) but to the powers-that-be it always seemed a very dangerous approach. There was little polite discourse and a lot of street action and who knew where the people might go when the leash was dropped.

As to leftist/progressive critics of his techniques, I'm always reminded of the closing pages on his unauthorised biography of the UMW's Lewis. The narrator, an unrepentant lefty, runs into one of the union "leaders" in his fancy suit, heading for his fancy car.

We have to look the part, the guy explains, if the bosses are going to deal with us.

Alinsky didn't buy into that, which is one reason many progressive "leaders" find offense with what he said and did. To me, the one thing about Obama that did give me hope was his training, supposedly by the group set up to spread Alinsky's ideas. Life is full of disappointments.

back 50 years to find a liberal who can scare anybody. That, for some reason, is Alinsky, probably because he wrote things they can quote and pretend an association with Obama remarks.

Excuse me, nobody under the age of 60 ever heard of Alinsky.

They want to red bait, but nobody even remembers what red-baiting is. So they just invent lame stuff. they don't care. Even the lamest crap turns into weapons to throw at Obama--once it is run through the RW propaganda mill.

bet not more than 5% know anything about him. But, byGOD, they know he is bad. Cause Sean sez so!

I like Chomsky, too; but Alinsky organized poor people to make demands on the system, while Chomsky wrote about problems with the system.