Uncensored: The Narrative Is Not a Story of Technology

Update: This essay was published on June 11 at the former site of The Field, and was censored at 9:30 p.m. ET that evening, I was told, because it mentioned "Saul Alinsky," "Andrew Kopkind," and "Rules for Radicals."

A brief press conference now ensues:

Q. "Mr. Giordano, what is your view of such McCarthyism-style censorship?"

A. "I reject it."

Q. "But do you denounce such censorship?"

A. "I reject and denounce it. I will not be party to it. I disassociate myself from those that have engaged in it. And therefore I have moved The Field to this address:

http://narconews.com/thefield

Q. Can you tell us more?

A. On Monday, I will begin to tell all. It's really a fascinating story, and a microcosm of a much larger struggle going on in the United States. Meanwhile, bookmark this site, the new and improved home of The Field.

Note: The 300+ co-publishers of Narco News, all using their real names, can comment here. To apply for a co-publisher account (and learn about what it is) click here.

Also, for the first time ever, Narco News is opening one of its blogs - this one, The Field - to comments from everybody else, whether or not you are a co-publisher. Those comments are moderated and therefore may face some delay before being seen on the site.

Here is the uncensored post, as it originally appeared...

 

By Al Giordano

The analyses and explanations have gushed from the media geyser over the past week, attempting to answer the why and the how that the Obama organization beat an entrenched political regime and replaced it as the dominant force in the Democratic Party of the United States.

And yet I have yet to read an explanation by anyone that satisfactorily captures this moment in history (perhaps thats too tall an order, still, because the moment is still unraveling before our collective eyes?). It ought to be a humbling experience for we writers to not yet be able to put the big picture into a coherent set of words. I know it is for me.

Building upon my June 5 entry, No More Drama, I'll continue to use the Jack the Ripper approach, and take it in pieces.

But of one thing I'm certain: The technological explanation offered by some colleagues does not even begin to sufficiently explain why the Obama campaign succeeded while, for example, the Howard Dean campaign of 2004 did not. If what happened in 2008 were merely a matter of Internet politics we'd be blogging President Dean's reelection campaign right now, and Ron Paul's pending Republican nomination to challenge him.

So when colleagues like Doc Searls write, "It's about the Net. And the Net is us. Its all outside, not inside," and when colleagues like Dave Winer write, "The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry," such technological wonderment sounds no more convincing to me than, say, if someone were to write, the invention of radio explains the rise of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. A half-century from now, technological explanations of the Obama phenomenon will sound a lot like that.

I met Micah Sifry, now at TechPresident, during Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign (both of us studied political journalism at the feet of the late, great Andrew Kopkind), and he has detailed authentic historic memory of Jackson's 84 and 88 campaigns, Ross Perot's in 92 and 96 and Dean 04, too.

He resurrects an April 30 video of Obama in Indiana, in which the candidate notes: "weve built a structure that can sustain itself after the campaign":

Sifry writes of the campaigns he's covered over the past 24 years:

"In each case, a charismatic candidate with a powerful message drew a ton of new activist energy into the process. And in each case, the movement and the man faced a moment of truth: is this about you, or the larger movement?

"If Obama wins in November, the question will loom larger for one critical reason: because his supporters have the capacity to self-organize on a scale never seen before in our lifetimes."

While its certain that Internet and technology in general have provided the networking and communications tools that made such massive self-organization so rapid the difference between the Obama campaign and all others before it comes down, for me, to a more human factor: that the candidate has studied, practiced and believes in community organizing.

Many commenters here have asked me to elaborate more on this suggestion. But how does one boil down a life's study and praxis into a blog entry?

As an exercise in removing the curtain that blocks a fuller view, lets pull on one early thread: Community organizer Saul Alinsky's 1971 list of 13 Rules for Radicals:

1 ) Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

2 ) Never go outside the experience of your people. It may result in confusion, fear and retreat.

3 ) Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat.

4 ) Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules.

5 ) Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

6 ) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

7 ) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

8 ) Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

9 ) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

10 ) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

11 ) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into it's counterside.

12 ) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

13 ) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

Now, kind Field Hands, as an exercise in developing the narrative, pick one, just one, of those 13 rules published 37 years ago, and use the comments section to explain how that "rule" applied, or did not apply, to the 2008 campaign so far.

Comments

Please fasten your seat belts...

...and put your chairs and tray tables in an upright position. The "no smoking" sign has been turned off.

Expect some turbulence in the coming days. It's going to be one hell of a show!

Oh My.

Glad you're safe, Al. That's numero uno. I look forward to hearing about it all.

Maria

new pastures, I guess

Hi Al,

Glad we found you (Oona++). Where you are, I choose to be, as well.

oops

the above pastures comment by me, amyvdh

Getting the word out

Can someone who has an account with DailyKos post over there and let people know where to find Al? I just signed up for an account, but can't post for 24 hours. We need to let people know. I just found out through Barry Crimmins a www.barrycrimmins.com. I'm following you Al.

Glad you are okay

We have missed you. I will reserve judgment but my initial though is how the heck could Saul and Rules for Radicals be censored? It is totally standard reading in the community organizing world....

Love the new place!

I was on the inside
When they pulled the four walls down
I was looking through the window
I was lost, I am found

Walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
If you walkaway, walkaway,
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
I will follow

"I Will Follow" - U2

Thanks for the heads up, Al!

I'm relieved you're okay

I was worried something happened to you, so I'm relieved that someone tracked you down and let us know where to find you! You are my oasis of sanity.

It's hard to believe that censorship exists in the Western World, but the beauty of the Internet is that we can just go someplace else.

1972

Saul did a great interview with Playboy in 1972. Sorry I don't have a link.

Playboy Interview

Here's a link to the start. Links at the bottom of each page carry you through to subsequent pages.

http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky2.htm

missed your words

linked to then quickly bookmarked. You are a pleasure to read.
Thanks.

Oh MY GOD!!!!

I cannot believe this!!!

I was first introduced to your blog by my brother and every time I had my chicken little syndrome slapping me in the face I would rush to your Blog and calm down after reading your articles and getting some awesome perspective..until a couple of days ago you went AWOL and I needed your dose of anti-chicken littling galore and I could not find you!!!!!!!!!!!

It was pure dumb luck that I found out what was going on from the Obama website and one of the users posted the story about you and giving us this link!!!

"Phew" is all I have to say and keep smacking us with the TRUTH!!!

anonymous comments now with name

Hello Everyone. Just to let you know that you can comment with a name now. That way there won't be a million "anonymous" posts.

Al

Thank goodness.

moving the field

Disturbances in the Field, I guess. I'm very surprised, and am wondering what the heck happened. I don't understand at all the censorship issue. The Field with Al was my first read every day and kept me totally rationale during the primaries. I'll now come here and forget the original Field site.

intrigue

wow, such intrigue.
I would really like to know the whole story from joining ruralvotes to the exit. if possible.
with Hillary gone, Al gone, Tim gone, the energy level had sunk very low. but now Al is back.
thanks

Brilliant post

Brilliant post Al.

Please, do fill us in with respect to what happened.

Your analysis is cogent, the more intelligent will follow your reporting.

How do we get you to Denver at this point?

Be safe, keep blogging.

And you write so well

and Al, you write so well! Makes it easy to read, and alive. Glad to find the Field again tonight, whew.

Welcome back and I'm glad to see your integrity intact

I'm really sorry that you had to go through whatever bumps you did, but I'm also happy that you're safe and more than happy to follow you to narconews.

I have been contemplating how at first the organizing / enemy part didn't really resonate with me. The idea of community organizing and pulling people together to fight the power certainly does.

But, when I think about the success Obama has had rallying people against "the system" and the corrupt divide and conquer politics, it does actually make sense in terms of #13 and then things working all the way down. What I like about it is that you can trace this back to his moving 04 convention speech -- there are no red states blue states but united states. He's taken that message and tweaked it for the campaign trail to be "fighting against those who slice and dice us and keep us from seeing our shared interests in things like the economy, environment, and so on".

This to me, put the Clinton machine on the defensive right away, as that's the politics they know how to play. The more they played it, the more he was able to say, "and that's the problem with politics, right there."

Glad to have you back!

This is a test take 2

This is a test take 2

Glad I was able to find your

Glad I was able to find your new digs Al. Deb has been less than forthcoming, deceitful actually about what happened to you. Refusing to answer questions in comments while firmly claiming the mantle of the defensive crouch to Field Hands not happy with the new and unexplained "cross posting" arrangement.

There are posts about Obama and Alinski in the New Republic. Kopkind might call himself a "radical journalist", but he certainly worked for some of the most establishment publications in America. I just really cannot believe this nonsense.

Hey Al.

Just popping in to say hi. Will continue to read your blog. I don't care where it is as long as I get access to your insightful writing. :)

Ok it's all good. I guess at

Ok it's all good. I guess at some stage the comment box is going to remember me and my email?

Well like others I have questions (like the Denver $5000) but I guess the main thing is to settled back and enjoy the flight atm.

Oh, and this is definitely a smoking flight!

Wow

I can't believe that this post got you censored. I'm glad that you are ok, and that I found the new place.

91 other comments were also censored

I just want to say that to those of you that added insightful comments to The Ex-Field, answering my question about how the 13 "Rules for Radicals" could be seen at work in the US presidential campaign, that what troubles me even more than the attempt to censor my words (now foiled) was the censorship of yours.

But have no fear. I've got a "screen shot" of those comments saved, and we'll re-post them here shortly.

Right now our servers are a little bit stressed from all the traffic (a little icing on the latest Iron Man suit?) but our tech guys at Narco News are the best and once we get the wrinkles "ironed" out we'll get to re-posting your censored comments, too. The censorship was an attack on your words, too.

heh...

...and here I thought it got axed because of some comment I missed. I guess I'll reserve judgement till the 'facts' come out, but it does seem a bit heavy-handed. Meh...so goes the hyper-PC world. ghod-forbid we challenge ourselves to think outside of the spoon-fed drivel normally available.

I printed out the Rules

And was going to get to the post that afternoon, but whoop it was gone!

 

So now here we are.

Well hey

I love that the Field is part of Narco News now.

When are you going to put up a donate button so we can continue to fund your writing and travels?

glad to see you back in action Al

Have been utterly mystified at the response of the powers-that-be at Rural Votes, but I suppose we'll hear more about that later. Glad to have more of your writing and insight to look forward to!

glad the truth will come out

Looking forward to hearing the story. btw, the ning site tipped me off. I saw you were online. Brilliant move to create that and start to mobilize us. (I know I haven't registered yet). Communities of informed people cannot be overpowered.

Looking for the donate button

Many thanks to NarcoNews for the tech expertise and work. I'll be looking for a "Keep Al Writing" button. Was just getting ready to donate to the old one. Let's all reach into our pockets if/when appropriate.

well Al i'm wondering if

well Al i'm wondering if you still respect Deb? You gave me hell for my post saying i didn't.

To Donate Please Visit:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism

There is a box at the top right of the page that says "Support The Field" and a link on the box that says "The Field is supported by...".

Click on that and it will direct you to a page where donations can be made.

Thanks!

I just dropped a few. Will

I just dropped a few. Will it go to your 2008 election efforts or into a general bin?

Glad to know you're ok

Hi Al,

It seemed rather obvious there was some sort of falling out when you and the Alinsky post went MIA. Wanted to suggest this scenario but didn't want to be accused of spreading rumors :) However, I became even more suspicious when no one offered an explanation.

As someone said upthread, you kept me sane during the primaries and although I'm fully inoculated, still looked forward to your insightful commentary re the general election so I was disappointed when you hadn't posted new threads. Glad you're back in action.

I'm as curious as everyone else to understand why the post was deleted.

I'll sleep well tonight but please don't add a security code :)

Your integrity is unquestionable

It is clear to all of us what went down, and why. Our respect for you has only increased because of the stand you took regarding censorship. You are without a doubt an unparelled journalist and voice of truth, and I know we all will support you at your new location here, as you continue to be a voice that would be silenced elsewhere.

Whenever you need our financial support, just ask. Such people must be supported for the sake of us all.

Love with open eyes

The decision to move the site was a tough one, and had to do with journalistic freedom.

But please, this post is getting almost to the edge of hero worship.

Not to say that Al hasn't done great work there, but please don't tip over the edge. Think for yourself. The perspective of outside the box, which he has, combined with the wealth of knowledge makes his point of view valuable; but you too can think outside that box and build your own knowledge.

Well well well

Al is alive and kickin'.

I've been waiting for your latest on......

Obama's moving the DNC to Chicago
Obama's flood help
Tim Russert

and all other things

And I'll choose.......

11 ) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.

As in Clinton pushed "shame on you" and "the skies will open" and Obama broke it into "I thought that was pretty good actually"

Chiming in...

...to add my support. Al, I've been following your blog throughout the primary season - since Iowa - and my readership is due to you, not to any particular website - so needless to say I'll be following your posts here.

And censoring an article, particularly without an open discussion regarding that censorship, is honestly appalling.

Glad I found you!

Hey Al,

I was worried about you until I read Oona's post on that other site with this link. Glad to see you are OK. I posted several questions, as did others along the lines of "Where's Al?" and "Is Al OK?" In addition to "What's happened to the Allinksy post?" So I am really happy to find you out that you are OK and to find the Allinsky post as well.

Now if we can only see the comments. One of the reasons I asked about the Allinsky post was because I hadn't gotten through all of the comments.

Also Al, I am one of the many field hands who contributed to send you to Denver. I hope that you will be able to use that money for the purpose it was intended.

Thanks for all that you do, I was having serious 'Al withdrawal!'

Elle

Al, Glad I found you here

Al,

I was shocked to learn that you have left ruralvotes. And boy, how did I learn that ? (Thanks Oona). How come Deb didn't have the courtesy to tell us about this ? What happens to my donation to you for the Denver convention ?

No Chicken Littling Now & Thanks Oona

Al,
Went to reread the censored post Wed. night, and it wasn't there. I got a "funny" feeling in my stomach then. Am so glad you're back and look forward to Monday's post. You are my first read of the day. Also, thanks Oona! I was so delighted with your comment (I found Al.)

This is all very confusing,

This is all very confusing, but I'm glad someone located you. I won't be able to post at a site called "narconews" at work, as I'm in government, but I'll adjust.

So Al, am I to understand that your post was censored because a pro-Obama site didn't want the word to get out that Obama was somehow like a guy who was called a Communist by some? There's a word for that: gutless. And apparently as gutless as the Clintons: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/

Enough bitterness. If I stay bitter, the terrorists--the uber-patriots, the paranoiacs, the censors--they win. And I'm damned if they're going to win.

Great article

I hadn't read this review of Hillary Rodham's thesis before. In light of the campaign that has just ended, as well as Al's recent dislocation, my head is exploding over multiple ironies.

Chief among about the campaign is how much Obama is who Hillary might have been had she taken one critical different turn; what an Obama girl young Hillary would have been; how Obama transcends the failure Rodham found in Alinsky's inability to nationalize his model; how indebted both are to Alinsky; how Rovian the Clintons are, knowing now that they have been using Larry Johnson et al to do their dirty work by smearing Michelle the very ways that Hillary feared being smeared herself - by her college thesis; and on and on. Did I mention my head is exploding?

I was wondering what

I was wondering what happened. It's unfortunate there was no notice given on RuralVotes. I thought your post was very educational and I don't understand what was so offensive about it.

If we don't sign up for a co-publisher account, do you still want us to use our real names or are our old hands OK?

Keep up the good work as always!

Wha?? Huh??

This is all very confusing, but I'm glad someone located you. Everything just went all pear-shaped over there, and it was arousing the little vestigial nub of chicken DNA buried in me. I guess I need another round of shots. Glad to be here. I won't be able to post at a site called "narconews" at work, as I'm in government, but I'll adjust.

I never saw the Alinsky post. In fact, I had never heard of him; I didn't even know that "community organizing" was a term of art. For anyone else who's confused, this MSNBC article about Hillary's senior thesis seems instructive: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/.

So Al, am I to understand that your post was censored because a pro-Obama site didn't want the word to get out that Obama was connected to someone who was called a Communist by some. There's a word for that: gutless.

Anyway, I guess that's enough bitterness. If I stay bitter, the terrorists--the uber-patriots, the paranoiacs, the censors--they win. And I'm damned if they're going to win.

The absence of a stimulant...

after extended use reveals the addiction. Found myself refreshing the old site for days, desperate for a new hit. All is better now that I've found your new home.

I must say, very odd sequence of events. Look forward to learning more.

Oh, and count me as another Denver contributor who hopes the donation wasn't made in vain.

Cheers, Al!

New Rule

No. 14: Don't censor the Rules for Radicals

No more drama, OK?

Funny how you start to rely on these web presenses... I kept thinking, first Russert, and now THIS? Glad to hear everything is getting sorted out and ready to move on.

No drama. Fired up. Ready to go.

Have we landed yet?

Oh my. This is like a flight that went into the Bermuda Triangle and came out the other side. I can finally breathe!. Looking forward to hearing more about what transpired.

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About Al Giordano

Biography

Publisher, Narco News.

Reporting on the United States at The Field.

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