Wal-Mart makes Obama and Alinsky proud with their community organizing!

From William McGurn in the WSJ...

When it comes to community organizing, maybe the Wal-Mart crowd has a thing or two to teach our president. And in the hometown of the father of community organizing, the late Saul Alinsky.

After an epic struggle, a unanimous city council gave its blessing to only the second Wal-Mart in the city. But the vote just before Independence Day paves the way for as many as 24 stores in the coming years—and as many as 10,000 new jobs. Alderman Anthony Beale, who represents the Ninth Ward where the new Wal-Mart will be located, says the vote "gives my people hope." "This the beginning of a new era," he told the Chicago Defender, the city's black newspaper. "I am filled with joy."...

Until very recently, unions, preservationists, people who just don't like business, etc., would not have had a hard time keeping out a nonunion, big-box retailer....So what changed? Most obviously, the economy did....

How Alinsky would have reacted to all this is not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, he had strong roots in the union movement. On the other hand, he always said that community organizing was supposed to be about helping communities agitate for their own choices....

For all the would-be Alinskys out there, which form of community organizing is likely to deliver real hope and change to struggling neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward: the mostly government programs that young Mr. Obama fought for—or the jobs and opportunities that come from the kind of investment Wal-Mart will be making?