{"id":330,"date":"2003-05-05T00:08:05","date_gmt":"2003-05-05T05:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=330"},"modified":"2003-05-05T00:08:05","modified_gmt":"2003-05-05T05:08:05","slug":"saul-alinsky-rules-for-radicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had Rules for Radicals<\/a> referred to me by several people and sources, on both sides of the political spectrum. It’s billed as a canonical work on political organizing.
\nAlinsky published the book in 1971, after over three decades of organizing in impoverished and powerless communities.
\nThe political philosophy, from a leftist of Alinsky’s times, can be shredded any number of ways, and it’s not worth bothering.
\nWhat’s interesting about the book is the material on tactics.
\nThe book gives interesting historical context for the confrontational, theatrical 60s activist tactics. I was always puzzled by the demonstrations and teach-ins among the left when I was in school. These rituals seemed unlikely to change anyone’s mind, and seemed more like excuses for the like-minded to party or commiserate. Michael Moore comes from the tradition of provocative activist theater — bother and confuse the powers that be, and they might notice and relent.
\nThe communities Alinsky worked with had nothing, and the powers-that-were were not listening. Shock tactics worked at the time. The powers-that-were did notice, and did give in.
\nAlinsky himself makes the point that tactics need to change with the times, and expresses frustration that his followers borrowed his tactics, rather than his principles. By 1971, Alinsky notes, sit-ins had lost the power to shock and persuade, and calling cops “pigs” didn’t do anyone any good.
\nMany of Alinsky’s principles themselves are sensible. Communicate within the experience of the people you’re talking to. If they don’t have the experience, create the experience. Stay within the experience of your community, and work outside of the experience of your opponents. Build a group on multiple issues. Build tactics on the opportunities and choices in front of you.
\nBut Alinsky’s experience is bounded by his work with the poor and powerless. He would come in, help a community solve some desperate problems, and then head on to the next battle. Once the unions, or an African-American community (name the group) gained power, the next step is to use that power. Alinsky never stayed long enough, it seems, to understand the set of tactics to use if you are more than powerless.
\nPerhaps you demonize the enemy if you’re fighting against the meat-packing plant that offers a perverse parody of health care<\/a>. But if you use those tactics in neighborhood disputes, you may “win”, but your neighborhood loses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had Rules for Radicals referred to me by several people and sources, on both sides of the political spectrum. It’s billed as a canonical work on political organizing. Alinsky published the book in 1971, after over three decades of organizing in impoverished and powerless communities. The political philosophy, from a leftist of Alinsky’s times, … Continue reading “Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prDRq-5k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}