Obama’s Use of Gangster Tactics in Politics – Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky based his methods on the operation of Al Capon’s mob. Barack and Michelle Obama both said that he intended to use these methods in politics. We have probably never had a politician in the United States, who uses such tactics of a criminal gang of murderers to advance his personal power.

“Community organizer” is just a polite term to describe in Obama’s case a political agitator and a provocateur. In Ryan Lizza’s March 19, 2007 article in The New Republic, “The Agitator: Barack Obama’s Unlikely Political Education” it is reported that both Obamas stated that Barack intends to apply Alinsky techniques to politics.

The Agitator by The New Republic

When he first ran for office in 1996, he pledged to bring the spirit of community organizing to his job in the state Senate. And, after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, his wife, Michelle, told a reporter, “Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.” Recalling her remark in 2005, Obama wrote, “I take that observation as a compliment.”

In this interview of Saul Alinsky, his life with the Chicago mob is described. Alinsky was made an honorary member of the mob. He was made aware of their crimes and participated in their orgies for a couple of years. He was an accomplice in many of their crimes during this time, including murder.

Playboy – Interview with Saul Alinsky

A gang operates like a satanic cult and a secret society, with the chief Capo being the top “god.” There are no moral rules or limits, except what is in the interest of the gang. For this reason and for the purpose of pure provocation Alinsky dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals” to Lucifer, who wanted to be higher than God. That is the basic ethical standard for Alinsky’s methods, in which Obama was a trained professional and also taught to others.

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.

From Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals.”

Like Obama, Al Capone was sometimes called a modern-day Robin Hood, because he projected a nice appearance in public and did numerous good works, such as open soup kitchens for the poor, in order to cover his criminal activities and build public political support.

Alinsky makes his involvement with the mob sound like a relatively harmless lark and he always taught his students that it is more practical to assume a mainstream appearance. However, with cult doctrines there is a public side which is presented to outsiders and a more sinister, secret side that only the inner circle know. This is the case with both Alinsky and Obama, there is a lot more to them that you do not see in public. What we know about their public side is already not good! Alinsky taught that the only goal of his methods was to gain power. That means the ends justifies the means.

Achieving power is justified by any means necessary. Many want to project their own middle class, mainstream values on Obama, because he assumes a harmless demeanor as Alinsky taught. Given his background, it is extremely dangerous to assume that Obama shares the values of the mainstream public. Many naive, politically-correct, goodie-two-shoes Americans cannot even imagine malicious intent on the part of a politician, especially if he happens to be black. This was the great benefit to his string-pullers of putting him in office that many would be totally blind to his intentions.

PLAYBOY: Did you continue your life of crime?

ALINSKY: Crime? That wasn’t crime — it was survival — But my Robin Hood days were short-lived; logically enough, I was awarded the graduate Social Science Fellowship in criminology, the top one in that field, which took care of my tuition and room and board — I still don’t know why they gave it to me — maybe because I hadn’t taken a criminology course in my life and didn’t know one goddamn thing about the subject — But this was the Depression and I felt like someone had tossed me a life preserver — Hell, if it had been in shirt cleaning, I would have taken it. Anyway, I found out that criminology was just as removed from actual crime and criminals as sociology was from society, so I decided to make my doctoral dissertation a study of the Al Capone mob — an inside study.

PLAYBOY: What did Capone have to say about that?

ALINSKY: Well, my reception was pretty chilly at first — I went over to the old Lexington Hotel, which was the gang’s headquarters, and I hung around the lobby and the restaurant. I’d spot one of the mobsters whose picture I’d seen in the papers and go up to him and say, “I’m Saul Alinsky, I’m studying criminology, do you mind if I hang around with you?” And he’d look me over and say, “Get lost, punk.” This happened again and again, and I began to feel I’d never get anywhere. Then one night I was sitting in the restaurant and at the next table was Big Ed Stash, a professional assassin who was the Capone mob’s top executioner. He was drinking with a bunch of his pals and he was saying, “Hey, you guys, did I ever tell you about the time I picked up that redhead in Detroit?” and he was cut off by a chorus of moans. “My God,” one guy said, “do we have to hear that one again?” I saw Big Ed’s face fall; mobsters are very sensitive, you know, very thin-skinned. And I reached over and plucked his sleeve. “Mr. Stash,” I said, “I’d love to hear that story.” His face lit up. “You would, kid?” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Here, pull up a chair. Now, this broad, see . . .” And that’s how it started.

Big Ed had an attentive audience and we became buddies. He introduced me to Frank Nitti, known as the Enforcer, Capone’s number-two man, and actually in de facto control of the mob because of Al’s income-tax rap. Nitti took me under his wing. I called him the Professor and I became his student. Nitti’s boys took me everywhere, showed me all the mob’s operations, from gin mills and whorehouses and bookie joints to the legitimate businesses they were beginning to take over. Within a few months, I got to know the workings of the Capone mob inside out.

PLAYBOY: Why would professional criminals confide their secrets to an outsider?

ALINSKY: Why not? What harm could I do them? Even if I told what I’d learned, nobody would listen. They had Chicago tied up tight as a drum; they owned the city, from the cop on the beat right up to the mayor. Forget all that Eliot Ness shit; the only real opposition to the mob came from other gangsters, like Bugs Moran or Roger Touhy. The Federal Government could try to nail ’em on an occasional income tax rap, but inside Chicago they couldn’t touch their power. Capone was the establishment. When one of his boys got knocked off, there wasn’t any city court in session, because most of the judges were at the funeral and some of them were pallbearers. So they sure as hell weren’t afraid of some college kid they’d adopted as a mascot causing them any trouble. They never bothered to hide anything from me; I was their one-man student body and they were anxious to teach me. It probably appealed to their egos.

Once, when I was looking over their records, I noticed an item listing a $7500 payment for an out-of-town killer. I called Nitti over and I said, “Look, Mr. Nitti, I don’t understand this. You’ve got at least 20 killers on your payroll. Why waste that much money to bring somebody in from St. Louis?” Frank was really shocked at my ignorance. “Look, kid,” he said patiently, “sometimes our guys might know the guy they’re hitting, they may have been to his house for dinner, taken his kids to the ball game, been the best man at his wedding, gotten drunk together. But you call in a guy from out of town, all you’ve got to do is tell him, ‘Look, there’s this guy in a dark coat on State and Randolph; our boy in the car will point him out; just go up and give him three in the belly and fade into the crowd.’ So that’s a job and he’s a professional, he does it. But one of our boys goes up, the guy turns to face him and it’s a friend, right away he knows that when he pulls that trigger there’s gonna be a widow, kids without a father, funerals, weeping — Christ, it’d be murder.” I think Frank was a little disappointed by my even questioning the practice; he must have thought I was a bit callous.

PLAYBOY: Didn’t you have any compunction about consorting with — if not actually assisting — murderers?

ALINSKY: None at all, since there was nothing I could do to stop them from murdering, practically all of which was done inside the family. I was a nonparticipating observer in their professional activities, although I joined their social life of food, drink and women: Boy, I sure participated in that side of things — it was heaven. And let me tell you something, I learned a hell of a lot about the uses and abuses of power from the mob, lessons that stood me in good stead later on, when I was organizing.

Another thing you’ve got to remember about Capone is that he didn’t spring out of a vacuum. The Capone gang was actually a public utility; it supplied what the people wanted and demanded. The man in the street wanted girls: Capone gave him girls. He wanted booze during Prohibition: Capone gave him booze. He wanted to bet on a horse: Capone let him bet. It all operated according to the old laws of supply and demand, and if there weren’t people who wanted the services provided by the gangsters, the gangsters wouldn’t be in business. Everybody owned stock in the Capone mob; in a way, he was a public benefactor. I remember one time when he arrived at his box seat in Dyche Stadium for a Northwestern football game on Boy Scout Day and 8000 scouts got up in the stands and screamed in cadence, “Yea, yea, Big Al. Yea, yea, Big Al.” Capone didn’t create the corruption, he just grew fat on it, as did the political parties, the police and the overall municipal economy.

PLAYBOY: How long were you an honorary member of the mob?

ALINSKY: About two years. After I got to know about the outfit, I grew bored and decided to move on — which is a recurring pattern in my life, by the way. I was just as bored with graduate school, so I dropped out and took a job with the Illinois State Division of Criminology, working with juvenile delinquents. This led me into another field project, investigating a gang of Italian kids who called themselves the 42 Mob. They were held responsible by the D.A. for about 80 percent of the auto thefts in Chicago at the time and they were just graduating into the outer fringes of the big-time rackets. It was even tougher to get in with them than with the Capone mob, believe me.

.

.