Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World

by Andrew Breitbart

Alinsky summarized his strategy for instituting Marxist change in his 1971 book, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. It’s actually an excellent book, clear where Marcuse is foggy, irreverent where Adorno is stagnant, dirty and funny where Horkheimer is abstruse and boring. The book’s dedication page explains in a nutshell what was so dangerous about Alinsky—he mixed a dash of religious fervor, a sprinkle of American founding talk, and a heavy dose of “kiss my ass” into a concoction that was relatively easy and fun to swallow. The first page has an epigraph from Rabbi Hillel, one from Thomas Paine, and finally, Alinsky’s “kiss my ass” epigraph: “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 very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.”24 Only a true egoist would cite himself in his epigraph, but that was what made Alinsky so unique—his