There’s truth, and there’s truth.

Re: Ben Carson connects Clinton to Satan in convention address @ Yahoo News

“Her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky,” said Carson. “This was someone that she greatly admired and that affected all of her philosophies subsequently. Now interestingly enough, let me tell you something about Saul Alinsky: He wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals.” On the dedication page, it acknowledges Lucifer, ‘the original radical who gained his own kingdom.’”

“This is a nation where our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our creator [Ed. note: presumably Jefferson’s judicious use of the Deist notion of a god],” Carson continued. “This is a nation where our pledge of allegiance says we are one nation under God [Ed. note: added during the Red Scare]. This is a nation where every coin in our pocket and every bill in our wallet says, ‘In God We Trust. [Ed. note: changed to this from the original E pluribus unum during the Red Scare]’ So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that.”

Carson’s riff on Lucifer was not part of his prepared remarks distributed to reporters earlier Tuesday night, nor did it appear on the teleprompter in the arena.”

I love it when people stray from prepared remarks. The off-the-cuff (but probably well rehearsed, nonetheless) approach lends a degree of veritas that no teleprompter can ever provide. Ben “Grain Silo Pyramid” Carson spoke his truth to an audience of True Believers.

Mind you, Mr. Carson’s account here is true like me being an award winning New Orleans poet is true.

  • I’ve won awards
  • I’m from New Orleans
  • I’ve written “poetry” (haters gonna hate)

Is there any truth to me being an award winning New Orleans poet? It depends on what the meaning of “is” is, perhaps.

Let’s see Mr. Carson’s truth.

First, he overstates her youthful dedication to Mr. Alinsky. Saul Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals. And her senior thesis was about him, but before that book. There’s that much. Except her paper was sharply critical of his work to date, essentially calling his work “largely ineffective,” “inapplicable,” and obsolete.

The thesis was sympathetic to Alinsky’s critiques of government antipoverty programs, but criticized Alinsky’s methods as largely ineffective, all the while describing Alinsky’s personality as appealing.[3] The thesis sought to fit Alinsky into a line of American social activists, including Eugene V. Debs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Walt Whitman. Written in formal academic language, the thesis concluded that “[Alinsky’s] power/conflict model is rendered inapplicable by existing social conflicts” and that Alinsky’s model had not expanded nationally due to “the anachronistic nature of small autonomous conflict.”[3]

Her “great admiration” lacks a degree of serious evidence. Hillary corresponded with Mr. Alinsky and admired his work rather tremendously, it seems, but it is only seeming?

One can see her enthusiastic letter and the chilly reply from Mr. Alinsky’s secretary at the link. Chilly? “He’d maybe love you to call, but here, have some copies of reviews instead of an actual copy of the book,” is how I read that return reply, jaundiced by years of secretarial work. What we don’t know is how Mr. Alinsky knew Hillary, or how his secretary would be aware of his sentiments for her.

I have to wonder about the authenticity of her enthusiasm in that July 1971 letter to Mr. Alinsky, maybe a year after her strong criticism of his previous work. It’s tempting to see young college Hillary as a bit of a political butterfly, flitting from one thing to the next, but it was more of a stunted growth followed by a transplant. High school Young Republican for Goldwater in ’64, to college Young Republican, to a great deal of GOP participation while sympathizing with civil rights and disagreeing with the way things were going in Vietnam, to her revolt against the Republican party over Tricky Dicky’s campaign tactics and the party’s veiled racism. From there, she went on to become Eugene McCarthy (Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party) supporter,  and then to the thesis criticizing Mr. Alinsky a year later, to interning at a law firm noted for supporting radicals and being founded, in part, by Communists, which is the likely setting for her missive to Mr. Alinsky. That’s all part of the context of her political unfolding, like some unwholesome bit of origami in reverse. All of a sudden she’s on her thousandth conversation about his book Reveille.

As to how she came to Mr. Alinsky’s attention, maybe someone has a clearer picture of that than I can imagine. All I’ve been able to gather is that maybe he heard of her in LIFE magazine, which did a write-up on her for a) being the first student at Wellesley to give a commencement speech, and b) attacking the positions in the actual commencement speech and getting a long standing ovation for her troubles.

And Mr. Alinsky did indeed “acknowledge” Lucifer in his book. One can click Look Inside at Amazon and see the dedication for oneself).

“Lest we forget as 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.”

On this point, it’s important to consider that Alinsky was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, but started to distance himself from the religion at the age of 12 because he was afraid his parents were going to force him into being a rabbi. And he’s quoted as always claiming to be Jewish later in life. But he was acknowledged as being an “agnostic Jew.” Basically, a Jew by descent, but not observant, and some doubts even as to the existence of G-d. In 1987, an author named Hudson had this to say of him:

“Saul Alinsky was an agnostic Jew for whom religion of any kind held very little importance and just as little relation to the focus of his life’s work: the struggle for economic and social justice, for human dignity and human rights, and for the alleviation of the sufferings of the poor and downtrodden.”

Alinsky making that “over the shoulder” acknowledgment of Lucifer was undeniably informed by his education. The dedication, as stated, smacks more of allusion than collusion, written as an educated by the by, with perhaps a bit of a clever wink and a nod, but from the perspective of an agnostic (as evidenced by the claim that the rebellion wasn’t so much against G-d as against “the establishment”), this holds as much serious weight as someone dedicating a book on gift giving to Santa Claus. No actual belief in Mr. Claus would be required.

Now, if she had been consorting with Anton Szandor LaVey, on the other hand…

Even so, those are nuances. Taken as stand-alone facts, it’s a fair picture of Hillary consorting with Satanists.

And I’m an award winning New Orleans poet.