Alinsky : Rules for radicals. A misunderstood Tool... Part 1

'…. no ideology should be more specific than that of America's founding fathers:
"For the general welfare." '

"...The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain,
and injustice..."

"...A word about my personal philosophy. It is anchored in optimism. It must be, for optimism brings with it hope, a future with a purpose, and therefore, a will to fight for a better world.
Without this optimism, there is no reason to carry on..".

Saul Alinsky 1971 rules for radicals

Saul Alinsky wrote the 'Rules for Radicals' in 1971, and has been touted as the 'leftist' handbook.
As such, it has carried with it a 'dangerous aura' by the the non left.

Hilary Clinton and Obama have both mentioned the influence it has had in their political lives.
This 'forbidden knowledge' label it has achieved is both incorrect in it's perspective, and stupid.
It is a very good book, for various reasons.

IT IS A BOOK THAT SHOULD BE READ BY EVERYBODY , that is interested in changing things.

It is NOT a politically ideological book. It is very pragmatic.

It is a book of tools to be used to achieve political aims, irrelevant of the ideology.
It is a book of tactics, strategy, and psychology, with the aims of changing the status quo.

Alinsky said he was a 'communist' with a small 'c', and as such is written from that world view.

Disagreeing with his personal view point does not mean there is no valuable knowledge within the book itself.

For example, his interpretation the classes (he calls them the thermo-political classes),
A/have's
B/ have a little, want more's
C/ have nots,
This is typical divisive communistic labels, BUT, like Alinsky himself says...

“Yet in the conflicting interests and contradictions within the 'Have-a-Little, Want Mores', is the genesis of creativity. Out of this class have come, with few exceptions, the great world leaders of change of the past centuries:
Moses, Paul of Tarsus, Martin Luther, Robespierre, Georges Danton,
Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon
Bonaparte, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Nikolai Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel
Castro, Mao Tse-tung, and others.”

While Alinsky is critical of this group, (from his own political perspectives), I see it more as an indication that the 'have a little, want mores' (the middle class) is the optimum part of the social spectrum that ignites true creativity.
He see's them as people stopping change for various reasons. I see them as the springboard for initiating change and growth.
Alinsky see's them 'holding down' the have nots, I see them as the tide of lifting the have nots out of their situation through growth and expansion and opportunity...

Alinsky states inaction is always worse than action. Inaction only reinforces the status quo.

“The basic requirement for the understanding of the politics of change is to recognize the world as it is. We must work with it on its terms if we are to change it to the kind of world we would like it to be. We must first see the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. We must see the world as all political realists have, in terms of "what men do and not what they ought to do," as Machiavelli and others have put it.

An interesting question then arises - and is addressed ..

'Do the end's justify the means?'

I recognize within myself that my own principles can stop me pursuing certain actions, as they are outside my own moral framework – i.e. the ends DO NOT justify the means.
Alinsky however, frames it quite differently....

THAT PERENNIAL QUESTION, "Does the end justify the means?" is
meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics
of means and ends is, and always has been...
"Does this particular end justify this particular means?"

Depending on the importance of the particular situation, it can be seen that this does , in fact, become a logical position.
The tricky bit with this paradigm is that it's not simple- like principles are - and requires a constant self questioning about your own moral position.

It is still something I find uncomfortable, but I also recognize extreme situations necessitate a compromise in ethics and morals.

The warrior mindset is needed in times of war...

Again, Alinsky is fearlessly logical...

“To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody.
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed;
He who fears corruption fears life.

....He who fears corruption fears life.

This knocked me on my backside, metaphorically speaking....I'm still on my backside.
Does this mean I'm still naively innocent?
I find that hard to reconcile within myself, (knowing me as I do). That being said, the impact that sentence had on me when I first read it, indicates that it's hit a target somewhere within my own psyche.
I will have to give this some thought to try and disseminate it.

(coffee break)

20 minutes later...

Having giving this some thought, I realize the reasons for my own confusion.
I do not fear corruption, I abhor it it. Instinctively.
It has to be said, I am a prisoner of my own belief system, which makes it a weakness in the information war.
By disliking it so much, it makes me predictable. And that's not good.
An inherent weakness that has to be either masked or changed... If victory is the aim, and not just lofty principles..

As Alinsky says regarding these dilemma's..(my explanations, not his)
... the more invested in you are in your cause, politically and philosophically speaking - the less the morals and ethics will come to bear..
...The more support you have from peers from your actions, moral and ethical issues will dissipate.
...Victory is more important than being ethical.
...Context matters, and the times that decisions were made, is very relevant.
...The more resources you have, (choices), the more ethics will matter.
...If the victory is not important, ethical decisions of means will play more of a role.
...Effective means will always be judged as unethical by the enemy.
...You work with what you have, and clothing them in a moral argument is a winning strategy.

To win, you must have the moral argument on your side. Always.

"You are right, they are wrong"

p.28. p29
"...The Declaration of Independence, as a declaration of war, had to be what
it was, a 100 per cent statement of the justice of the cause of the colonists
and a 100 per cent denunciation of the role of the British government as
evil and unjust. Our cause had to be all shining justice, allied with the
angels; theirs had to be all evil, tied to the Devil; in no war has the enemy
or the cause ever been gray. Therefore, from one point of view the
omission was justified; from the other, it was deliberate deceit..."

as Alinsky points out...

"..To us the Declaration of Independence is a glorious document and an
affirmation of human rights. To the British, on the other hand, it was a
statement notorious for its deceit by omission. In the Declaration of
Independence, the Bill of Particulars attesting to the reasons for the
Revolution cited all of the injustices which the colonists felt that England
had been guilty of, but listed none of the benefits. There was no mention
of the food the colonies had received from the British Empire during times
of famine, medicine during times of disease, soldiers during times of war
with the Indians and other foes, or the many other direct and indirect aids
to the survival of the colonies. Neither was there notice of the growing
number of allies and friends of the colonists in the British House of
Commons, and the hope for imminent remedial legislation to correct the
inequities under which the colonies suffered.
Jefferson, Franklin, and others were honorable men, but they knew that
the Declaration of Independence was a call to war.
They also knew that a list of many of the constructive benefits of the
British Empire to the colonists would have so diluted the urgency of the
call to arms for the Revolution as to have been self defeating.
The result might well have been a document attesting to the fact
that justice weighted down the scale at least 60 per cent on our side, and
only 40 per cent on their side; and that because of that 20 per cent
difference we were going to have a Revolution.
To expect a man to leave his wife, his children, and his home, to leave
his crops standing in the field and pick up a gun and join the Revolutionary
Army for a 20 per cent difference in the balance of human justice was to
defy common sense.

He also pointed out the paradox that if power is taken, the power takers , will then outlaw - or try to - the means by which they themselves took power!

...Ya gotta laugh...

Part 2 coming up..