TheHeretic
Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007 From: California, USA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda In all my years as a community organizer and political organizer (most of the 90s), I doubt I heard Saul Alinsky referenced in a conversation evenĀ a dozen times - probably less than 10 times, but let's say a dozen just to be generous. Because he just wasn't relevant. I believe you, Panda, but I disagree about why his name doesn't come up so often, and usually with some sort of qualifier, when it does. Saul Alinsky wrote his book without the filters being turned on. He says in the introduction that he can't keep doing the all-night conversations with the young idealists forever. "Rules for Radicals" is composed of the things that come up when the true believers gather in the back rooms. Not really for public consumption, and the darker bits, especially when he rationalizes the ethics, separate the pragmatists from the fluffy. I am not calling him Voldemort. He was a visionary, and right about a great many things, and brilliant in how he condensed and formulated the tricks of the trade into a concise, and fun, volume. I'm not sure what ever happened to my copy. I can remember the last place I lived where it was on the shelf, but that was a long time ago. His legacy is very much alive. When Michelle Obama reminisces about her husband quoting fundamental Alinsky in her convention speech, please don't tell me he is irelevant to the conversation. (The world as it is, and the world as it should be. HERE at 6:08.) Now, a common deflection of Alinsky is that his ideas are dated. That may be true right now, but his model called for steep climbs followed by plateaus. The late nights now are spent writing desperate grants, not impassioned manifestos. If it was time for the next steep bit, I'd pick up another copy, even if I do think he's completely wrong in demanding that nothing good can ever be attributed to the opposition. And who knows? A moment might come when that's the way it needs to be.
< Message edited by TheHeretic -- 2/28/2011 10:19:54 PM >
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If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced. That's why people with no sense of humor have such an inflated sense of self-importance.
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