Fighting the good fight
NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews "Dave Kahane", the pseudonym for Hollywood screenwriter Michael Walsh, on how conservatives don't get the left.
An excerpt:
"LOPEZ: How important is Saul Alinsky, really and truly, to understanding the Left today?
WALSH: Critical. I arrived in Rochester, N.Y., to attend the Eastman School of Music just three years after he arrived in the aftermath of the 1964 riots to organize the black community under the banner of an organization called — you guessed it — FIGHT. Alinsky preached a “progress” that was essentially nihilist; tearing things down was his specialty. He’s one of the most contemptible figures in modern American history, a man filled with bile against civilization who masked his maleficence with the fig leaf of“good intentions.” He also created the classic leftist whipsaw: Destroy an institution (“because it’s wreckable, okay?”), but replace it with nothing; that way, that the people you are “organizing” will always have something to complain about.
Let’s also not forget, by the way, that although Obama is famously an Alinskyite, so also is Hillary Clinton, who’s busily positioning herself as the “sane” alternative to BHO II for the 2012 primaries. But she wrote her college thesis at Wellesley about Alinsky — titled “There Is Only the Fight” — which ought to tell you all you need to know about her.
LOPEZ: Your first rule involves,among other things, knowing your enemy’s weaknesses. Who is the enemy and what are his weaknesses right now?
WALSH: Depends on whether you’re asking me or Dave. The Right’s weakness is its continued willingness to reach across the aisle, to extend the olive branch, to hold out the hand of friendship — insert cliché here. It wants to be liked instead of feared, which is why the Left happily continues its demonization of the Right with no pushback. The Left’s weakness is its utter lack of humor and its inability to see that there’s no there there: The entire Marxist edifice is an evil pipe dream cooked up by a stateless psychotic living off the capitalist system of Victorian England and scribbling madly in the British Library. Put it into practice and I’ll show you the Soviet Union. No, wait! The USSR is on the ash heap of history."
Thanks, David.
An excerpt:
"LOPEZ: How important is Saul Alinsky, really and truly, to understanding the Left today?
WALSH: Critical. I arrived in Rochester, N.Y., to attend the Eastman School of Music just three years after he arrived in the aftermath of the 1964 riots to organize the black community under the banner of an organization called — you guessed it — FIGHT. Alinsky preached a “progress” that was essentially nihilist; tearing things down was his specialty. He’s one of the most contemptible figures in modern American history, a man filled with bile against civilization who masked his maleficence with the fig leaf of“good intentions.” He also created the classic leftist whipsaw: Destroy an institution (“because it’s wreckable, okay?”), but replace it with nothing; that way, that the people you are “organizing” will always have something to complain about.
Let’s also not forget, by the way, that although Obama is famously an Alinskyite, so also is Hillary Clinton, who’s busily positioning herself as the “sane” alternative to BHO II for the 2012 primaries. But she wrote her college thesis at Wellesley about Alinsky — titled “There Is Only the Fight” — which ought to tell you all you need to know about her.
LOPEZ: Your first rule involves,among other things, knowing your enemy’s weaknesses. Who is the enemy and what are his weaknesses right now?
WALSH: Depends on whether you’re asking me or Dave. The Right’s weakness is its continued willingness to reach across the aisle, to extend the olive branch, to hold out the hand of friendship — insert cliché here. It wants to be liked instead of feared, which is why the Left happily continues its demonization of the Right with no pushback. The Left’s weakness is its utter lack of humor and its inability to see that there’s no there there: The entire Marxist edifice is an evil pipe dream cooked up by a stateless psychotic living off the capitalist system of Victorian England and scribbling madly in the British Library. Put it into practice and I’ll show you the Soviet Union. No, wait! The USSR is on the ash heap of history."
Thanks, David.
All tied together neatly with a big bow! Clever-sounding to the choir. One talking extremely about the perceived extreme other. Both doing it with some truth intact. Opposite bogeymen. Clever.
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I remember an interview with Christopher Hitchens. The interviewer asked him if he would rather argue with a liberal or a conservative. He said without hesitation a conservative because, though he disagreed with them, they used reason and when the argument was over, it was over. The liberal, on the other hand, he said was vicious, ignored reason in defense of their position, and held long grudges. The best way to settle it is case by case, point by point.
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CH is another glib, clever fellow who can on occasion mesmerize with wit, tie it in a bow. How much wine did he have down by the time he said that? (That would be the insider's joke.) Are you familiar with his conservative brother, Peter? Years back, the brothers would appear once in a while in a special show with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN. Very interesting shows. Royal Navy brats, if I recall. Peter may have written for The Telegraph.
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This is a serious question-- I don't know (or don't recall) the answer: We have been talking about Alinsky for over two years now, maybe...who brought it up? B.O.? An opposing candidate? MSNBC? Fox? A "realer" press organ? (Did he highlight it in his book or something else he wrote...was it highlighted by a supporter or opponent after they read it?) It's become a harangue.
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Bud - I will research this more carefully but I believe it was President Obama in his book. Developing. . .
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