Saul Alinsky
|
|
Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 Chicago, Illinois - June 12, 1972 Carmel, California) is generally considered the father of community organizing. A criminologist by training, Alinsky in the 1930s organized the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago (made famous by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). He went on to found the Industrial Areas Foundation while organizing the Woodlawn neighborhood, which trained organizers and assisted in the founding of community organizations around the country. In Rules for Radicals (his final work, published one year before his death), he addressed the 1960s generation of radicals, outlining his views on organizing for mass power. A young Hillary Clinton was a major admirer, writing her undergraduate thesis on his work and ideas.
Author of Reveille for Radicals, Alinsky encouraged controversy and conflict, often to the dismay of middle-class activists who otherwise would sponsor his activism. [1] (http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/alinski.htm) Alinsky is often credited with laying the foundation for confrontational political tactics that dominated the 1960s [2] (http://www.itvs.org/democraticpromise/alinsky.html), but late in his life he encouraged holders of stock in public corporations to lend their votes to "proxies" who would vote at annual stockholders meetings in favor of social justice. While his confrontational style took hold in American activism, for a while at least, his call to stock holders to share their power with disenfranchised working poor never took hold in U.S. progressive circles.
Alinsky was a ferocious critic of mainstream liberalism. A champion of radical propaganda tactics and propaganda techniques, Alinsky encouraged deception in organizational strategy.
| Contents |
Famous Quotations
"Power goes to two poles: to those who've got money and those who've got people."
"Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement 'which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.' They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit."
"Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives."
"The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people."
"If you have a vast organization, parade it before the enemy, openly show your power."
"If your organization is small, do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more that it does."
"If your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place."
"Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict."
"Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in." [3] (http://www.fraw.org.uk/library/002/anarchism/alinsky_radical.html)
“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 first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” -Rules for Radicals
Students of Alinsky
Published Works
- Reveille for Radicals (1946, updated 1969)
- John L. Lewis: An Unauthorized Biography (1949) ISBN 0394708822
- Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1972) ISBN 0394443411
Biography
- Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy by Sandord D. Horwitt (1989) ISBN 0394572432cs:Saul Alinsky