Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Book Report: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinski

Well, after reading this book off and on for months, I finally sat down and read it to the end. Were it not for all the wailing of the most extreme right, I never would have even heard of this guy. Admittedly, I still don't know a lot about him and I don't know that I will go in search of finding out. That said, what he talks about in this book does not seem to line up with the image painted of him. He does not preach Marxism, or communism or any other far left philosophy in this book. Certainly, he is a shit disturber supreme who seems very interested in constantly waging a battle to keep decentralizing power. In the book, he uses examples of groups he has agitated on behalf of and predictably, they were the poor and the blacks of the 1960's. This of course put him in conflict with the group who held the power in those days. We all knew who that was and when you consider that, it starts to add some perspective to the demonizing he is getting today.

More then anything, this book is an excellent description of political power and on that basis alone it is a very interesting read. Alinski, in my opinion, probably leans a bit left, but the main theme I kept sensing in what he was saying is everything is about power. With power, you set the rules; without power, you live by them. This is not revolutionary and if anything, Alinski is just one in a string of many through history who have understood this and chosen to side with the have nots rather then the haves. Surprisingly, after all the stuff I had read about Alinski before I read this book, I expected a lengthy dissertation on what he believed the world should look like. On that score, he doesn't deliver. Near as I can tell, no matter what his political leanings were, I took away that he believed that any centralized power base should be challenged and kept in check. Of course, this is what I believed prior to reading the book so I would not be surprised to see that others take a completely different outlook away from reading this book.

What is kind of funny about reading this is that every single major tactic he preaches to use has become the stock and trade of every political operative of relevance today. Here is one link that has a nice collection of things from the book all in one spot http://larvatus.livejournal.com/244426.html  I have no idea what the rest of of that site is about. As I read through Alinski's spin on tactics and rules, I could not help but see the direct links to today's grassroots movements of various groups. The right has embraced the tactics of Alinski as surely as Obama allegedly has and it's working for them as well as it did for Alinski. Here is a link to an article by William F. Buckley Jr. from 1966 about Alinski that I think is pertinant http://www.nationalreview.com/nroriginals/?q=ZmM0OWY5OGJkYmExNDBkOTNjNWM5YTRjNWEzYzVmNzc Reading what Buckley says, I tend to agree, Alinski seemed to LOVE struggle and while he did seem to wrench power away from the haves, it seems a twist of tragic comedy that those in power are now using the same tactics to wrench it back. Everything goes full circle I guess.

9 comments:

  1. Outlining his strategy in organizing, Alinsky writes:

    There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoyevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default.[2]

    Wiki..

    Sound like Obama?

    "RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty."

    Global Warming

    RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

    Sequester...

    “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions."

    MSM, Obama pawns

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  2. ""RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty."

    You use global warming, I use guns.

    “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions."

    Tell me with a straight face TD that this is not the standard operation procedure of every political campaign today. Of course you can find this in Obama as much as you can find it the operatives of every Republican candidate in the last election.

    Ah yes, the old and favorite enemy, the MSM. You have learned your Alinski well.

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    1. Just for fun list a few of the Pub operatives you speak of, it is too easy for me to list the well defined democratic Alinski, give me some examples, facts of course, thanks

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    2. Nicely done TD, you have properly used Alinski's fourth rule of tactics: The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

      So, you are asking me to live up to a standard that you yourself seldom live up to when you do a drive by post and refuse to engage in the discussion of your post. Operatives, to me, are the ones who carry the water and say the shit that simultaneously fires up the base and frees the candidate from having to say what the base wants to hear, but is not popular to the mainstream. To me, this includes to countless people in the media, on both sides, who day after day launch attacks that personalize and polarize the "enemy"

      Karl Rove was good at it working for Bush.

      Newt himself did it by calling Obama "The Food Stamp President".

      Paul Ryan said Obama has put us on the road of debt, doubt and decline (as if none of that occurred before he took office).

      Sarah Palin - "Obama's shuck and jive schtick with these Benghazi lies must end."

      John Sunnunu- "I wish Obama would learn how to be an American"

      Now, if you agree with these statements TD, I guess you can say they aren't personalizing and polarizing. But, again, whether you agree or not with the claim, I don't think you can deny the polarization of them. These are samples I found by simply typing in so and so slams Obama. I'm not going to bother spending my entire day finding an exhaustive list you will just dismiss anyway. And, since I have already noted that I believe these tactics to be the stock and trade of every political operative today, don't bother posting me a list of counter slams that you cut and paste from zerohedge or some other site. I don't deny it.

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    3. Max, tactics aside, Obama has made a complete joke out of every issue that is the Chicago way, diminish your enemies with falsehoods and get the über liberal mms to jump on the band wagon. I cannot seriously list one thing he has accomplished since he was elected. He spends our tax dollars on private outside the scope of work junkets, he is arrogant beyond all scales of measure and has embarrased every world stage he's ever disgraced and has failed this nation in countless ways.

      God save the king!

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    4. TD, you hate Obama. Every comment you make is an affirmation of that. Name one president, in your lifetime, who you believe actually spent our money wisely. As for your comment here, again, diminishing the enemy with falsehoods is standard practice today. Just go the fact check after any debate or major speech given during the last election cycle and the count of falsehoods is enormous. Even when the falsehoods are not outright lies, they are something much more insidious, they are half truths or they are facts that are arranged in such a way to give a completely opposite view of what those facts actually mean.

      Your comment about his alleged arrogance is a polite way of saying he is uppity. That, is the real reason behind why so many people hate Obama. In my lifetime, (born in 67), there has been a near complete unwinding of the ability of the middle class to both participate meaningfully in the economy and to move up in it. However, whereas at one time an asshole like Alinski sought to use his tactics to give power to have nots, we have gone full circle to seeing the haves use these tactics to finally finish destroying the mentality that you should be able to feed your family and have mobility IF THAT"S WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO DO. Look at our debate here TD, instead of talking about anything that might be a solution, we are fighting a truly stupid and useless battle to establish who, in the political world, is the biggest asshole Alinski imitator.

      You win TD. Obama IS the enemy. Enjoy whatever meaning that gives you.

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    5. Well Max, Obama isn't the real problem, global warming is, don't you get that, even the military is concerned! We the people need to stop the economy dead in its tracks, dismantle coal plants and pay what they pay in Europe for gas! The left and the loons that run it are so covered in dirt they have no choice but to lie about everything. The only fact Obama can claim is that he got Bin Laden, whoop fuckin e! Obamacare is showing its true colors this week, have you tuned in on that? Pay attention now and then to what this last four years has done to this country. I tire beyond belief of the crap that comes out of the mouths of democrats in the senate. Feinstein vs. Cruz lol o fucking lol. You have a budget you live by? I do, why can't Dems get it done, do you really live outside your budget year in and year out? My five year olds can do simple math, why can't you? Why can't Obama sign a budget that cuts the crap out and stops funding pipe dream MSM BS? Why can't Obama get his own fricking party to pass a budget, why don't you get that Obamacare is for the crony health providers that financed his campaign, them and Wall Street own Obama and you know it, once a Chicago thug politician always a Chicago thug politician.

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    6. "I do, why can't Dems get it done, do you really live outside your budget year in and year out?"

      TD, we have not lived within a budget since before Reagan was president. It's great and all that Republicans find fiscal religion when a Democrat is POTUS, but they never live by it when they are in charge. The deficit, which was trending out of control at the end of Bush's presidency, has been coming back down. Admittedly, the budget thing is not my issue. Why? Because it's always smoke and mirrors. No sooner is a budget signed then lawmakers start to find ways to spend money off budget. It's not about the money for the right, it's about ending social programs they hate.

      BTW, it's just more Alinski TD. The demand for a budget is the demand to freeze, polarize and personalize. Once a budget is in place, people like yourself can scream, LOOK AT HOW MUCH MONEY IS BEING SPENT ON THE HOAX OF GLOBAL WARMING. LOOK HOW MUCH OF MY GODDAM MONEY IS BEING SPENT ON FOOD STAMPS. ACK!.

      As for healthcare TD, I see enormous waste every day. Compliance with medicare is a big part of it, and so is doing needless procedures to bill insurance companies for. Do you really believe insurance companies are unhappy with the ACA? If it's so bad for his crony providers, AKA doctors, why did they contribute? something doesn't add up there. Aside from your vitriol at Obama, I'm not oblivious to the things you are railing about such as spending and so on. But, you are convinced nobody but the nebulous left and their evil MSM are to blame. Good luck with that.

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  3. Wasn't Saul Alinski the guy who co-wrote "Do The Locomotion"?

    Lol ...

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