ALINSKY: THE MAKING OF AN IDEALIST

Saul Alinsky (1909 – 1972) was a Communist and community organizer who wrote Rules for Radicals. He had also been the mentor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Alinsky’s final interview, just before his 1972 death, was quoted in the new film about his life, “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”:

·       “If there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell,” he tells Playboy magazine.

·       “Hell would be heaven for me,” he explains. “All my life I've been with the have-nots. Over here, if you're a have-not, you're short of dough. If you're a have-not in hell, you're short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I'll start organizing the have-nots over there.”

·       Asked why, Alinsky states, “They're my kind of people.” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-film-shows-a-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing-still-a-threat

Why would the “have-nots” be his “kind of people?” And what if they got a good-paying job that enabled them to climb up into the camp of the “haves?” Would they no longer be his “kind of people?” Why would the difference of a few extra dollars turn a friend into an enemy?

I think that there is only one way to understand this rigidity. Alinsky was, as are so many others, driven by jealousy and hatred of the “haves.” The Communists had hated the “haves” so much that they regarded them as “parasites” which had to be eliminated.

However, we are all vulnerable to such feelings and are tempted to hide them behind an idealistic framework such as a concern for the poor. Sadly, when idealism is driven by these repressed emotions, it takes destructive paths. Consequently, we no longer have the welfare of those we are trying to help in mind, but our own disguised agenda. Just look at the 100,000,000 slaughtered by the various Communist regimes seeking to create their “workers’ paradise!”

The idealist and revolutionary, Mao Tze Tung, is reported to have exterminated 45 million of his own people in order to create his ideal society. How is it that this self-sacrificial idealist could have been the inspiration for such horrors? I think it is because he was unable to confront his dark-side, which, as a result took control of his vision.

Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine, reported that, in 1957, Mao stated:

·       I’m not afraid of nuclear war. There are 2.7 billion people in the world; it doesn’t matter if some are killed. China has a population of 600 million; even if half of them are killed, there are still 300 million people left. I am not afraid of anyone.

What can explain such callousness and blindness? Clearly, it was not a concern for others that had been speaking, but his own hatred and jealousy.

How can we guard ourselves against this fate? How can we face our underlying darkness? We need courage. It was only the assurances of the love and forgiveness of the Savior that enabled me to confront the truth about myself.