Barack Obama: Saul Alinsky's Fanning Resentment and Hostility

I am currently rereading Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radcials. While reading the book, I've compared President Barack Obama's actions and governing style with Alinsky's explanations of the role of the community organizer. Obama's "style" and, especially, his mismanagement of the office of the President of the United States can be understood completely when compared with Alinsky's socialist philosophy.

One example of how Obama operates struck me this morning:

[The organizer] has taken a group;...he has fanned their resentments and hostilities by a number of means, including challenging contrasts of better conditions....And so the... organizer simultaneously breeds conflict and builds a power structure.

Consider Obama's campaign and the way he has subsequently dealt with the common American problems during the Bush administration of the war in Iraq, the failed mortgage industry, a floundering economy, and the rise in deficit spending. Using Bush to "fan resentment and hostility" Obama sailed into office as the Great Community Organizer.

We have to admit, that Alinsky's tactics worked for Obama. He certainly built resentment and hostility against George W. Bush and against conservative ideology.

Yet now that we have the resentment, we have to ask ourselves, has the Obama administration brought the "better conditions" that Americans sought during the 2008 election? Consider the following:

• A spending package that increased debt spending and a federal deficit that dwarfs anything Bush did.
• A spending package full of waste and payouts to big business (like GM).
• A "stimulus" concept that failed to promote private sector jobs.
• A "surge" in Afghanistan with no end in sight.
• A health care deal guaranteed to increase taxes, raise medical costs, and hurt middle class Americans.
• A "military action" in Libya with no Congressional oversight.
• An economy still floundering and befuddling the mainstream media.

Are we really better off with Obama at the head of the US? He arrived in office using Alinsky's tactics, but his bankrupt ideology fails the litmus test of pragmatic solutions. And that, of course, fans resentment and hostility.

What did the Community Organizer in Chief expect?