By CHRISTOPHER MANION
Shortly after the November 2008 presidential election, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta hailed Obama’s victory as “a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome.”
A lovely sentiment? Indeed. But unfortunately, that wasn’t Obama’s plan. Yes, he could have inspired Americans to make the archbishop’s hopes a reality, with a peaceful country unified in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all. But the seasoned community organizer had something quite different in mind. And he’s been thinking it for a long time.
As CEI’s Matt Patterson wrote in 2012, “Obama was schooled by disciples of [Chicago radical Saul] Alinsky himself, including Mike Kruglik, who remembered Obama as ‘the best student he ever had,’ a ‘natural…undisputed master of agitation’.”
That’s right. Obama the agitator did not appear out of nowhere. A generation of Alinsky disciples had prepared the way for him. And a lot of them were members of the Catholic clergy, even the hierarchy.
Notre Dame sociologist Gary Adler writes that much of Alinsky’s “early organizing work was made possible through financial and vocal support of Catholics in Chicago.” Phyllis Schlafly even tracked down the very first grant that Alinsky acolyte Barack Obama received — it came from the archbishop of Chicago.
Alinsky’s very first priest trainee was Chicago priest Jack Egan, a local boy whose radical activities caused John Cardinal Cody to shut down his operations.
But as that door closed, another opened: In 1970, Notre Dame President Fr. Ted Hesburgh appointed Egan as his “special assistant.” For the next thirteen years Egan served as an unofficial “ombudsman” for Joseph Bernardin at the U.S. Catholic Conference. He also oversaw the early development of the Campaign for Human Development — a classic, secular Alinsky-style outfit that has so little “Catholic” about it that the USCCB later put “Catholic” in its name.
Hesburgh, Bernardin, Obama. . . . Has any teacher had an impact on American politics and culture as powerful as that of Saul Alinsky?
Consider Obama. Decades ago, Alinsky told an interviewer, “Now it’s up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.” He developed the ideological foundation for a generation of Marxist activists who later recognized Barack Obama as their perfect prophet.
Alinsky concentrated on Chicago, but Obama had bigger plans: He made America his target for agitation, stoking discontent and fomenting hatred and division wherever he could.
Archbishop Gregory sought to “overcome . . . the problem of racial discrimination in the United States,” but Obama’s goal was the opposite: rub raw the discontent. Perpetuate it, don’t heal it.
Fakes, Frauds, And
Their Devoted Fans
Unfortunately, agitators on the Left have found actual causes of discontent to be in low supply, so they often have to make them up. Reports of nooses hanging on trees, swastikas painted on doors, and racist attacks on college campuses in recent years have received widespread attention in the national media. However, when the alleged victims are exposed as liars, the media megaphone suddenly becomes mute.
Naturally, the most popular hoaxes in recent years have included allegations of crimes committed by supporters of Donald Trump. The most notorious case was created by one Jussie Smollett, a black homosexual actor who reported to police three years ago that he had been attacked on a Chicago street at 2:00 a.m. by two white men wearing masks.
Smollett claimed that his attackers yelled racist and homophobic slurs, battered him, put a noose around his neck, and yelled, “This is MAGA country,” while soaking him with bleach.
The allegations received immediate and widespread attention from the media and many other usual suspects.
Kamala Harris wrote that “Jussie Smollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. . . . This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”
Bernie Sanders wrote that “the racist and homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett is a horrific instance of the surging hostility against minorities around the country.”
Joe Biden wrote that “what happened today to Jussie Smollett cannot be tolerated in this country. Homophobia has no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”
Last Thursday, a Chicago jury found Smollett guilty on five counts of making a false police report. Testimony at the trial revealed that he had paid his two “attackers,” had planned and staged the attack, and had done it all to gain favorable publicity. His alleged attackers testified against him at trial, along with five police investigators.
The horrific story that dominated headlines for three years will disappear quickly. And Smollett might as well: He might spend several years in prison — and many Chicagoans would cheer if he does.
Chicago’s Problems
Aren’t Over
Smollett’s case is strange indeed, and one of its more curious aspects involves Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney. She is a classic radical, and embodies the success of the third generation of Alinsky’s Chicago progeny. Elected with sumptuous donations from Marxist billionaire George Soros, she has acted in concert with other Soros district attorney beneficiaries from Virginia to California, releasing violent criminals early and refusing to charge countless others.
(Of note, Milwaukee’s John Chisholm, another Soros-financed DA, released the serial felon Darrell Brooks on $1,000 bail just days before Brooks launched his racist attack on Waukesha Christians last month. In defending his permissive bail policy, Chisolm said, “Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody? You bet. Guaranteed.”)
But as Bill Clinton would put it, “Hey, so what?? That’s old news!!”
Soon after police arrested Smollett, a grand jury charged him with sixteen crimes. Whereupon Foxx dropped all the charges. That prompted the Chicago Chapter of The Fraternal Order of Police to call for Foxx’s removal. She refused, but was forced to recuse from the case — apparently when her curious communications with a former Michelle Obama staffer regarding the case were made public.
A special prosecutor was then appointed. He refiled charges against Smollett in 2020, while accusing Foxx of “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures,” and tried the case this month.
Of course, those “abuses” and “failures” were all core values in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
And The Left Never
Apologizes
On December 7, Black Lives Matter published a statement by Dr. Melina Abdullah, director of BLM Grassroots and co-founder of BLM Los Angeles. Abdullah attacked the Smollett trial as a “white supremacist charade,” conducted by “judges and juries operating in a system that is designed to oppress us.”
Smollett was “a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom. . . . Black Lives Matter will continue to work towards the abolition of police and every unjust system,” she added.
Black Lives Matter endorses the destruction of the family. It celebrates abortion. Its leaders have grifted hundreds of millions from unsuspecting donors. They have incited riots, looting, and destruction that destroyed countless lives. The majority of their victims lived in predominantly black neighborhoods.
And yet, Cardinal Gregory’s colleagues in the hierarchy continue to revere Black Lives Matter and resonate its condemnation of “white supremacy,” while ignoring the thousands of blacks that are killed in major cities every year.
Why? Because they are killed by other blacks.
And every one of our bishops continues to ignore the racist massacre of Christians in Waukesha.
Saul Alinsky lives.
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