As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system.
We now have a president trained as a community organizer by a disciple of the man who created community organizing. Saul Alinsky, who died in 1972, was born January 30, 1909. This Friday will be his 100th birthday, and it seems an appropriate time to commemorate the man and his work. The words with which I began are from the prologue of perhaps his best known work, Rules for Radicals, which was originally published about a year before Alinsky's death. I will discuss the man and his work below the fold. And if you want to celebrate I will also tell you about an event in Chicago where you can go to honor this giant of 20th Century America.
Let me start with the event, a kickoff birthday lunch at the University of Chicago Quadrangle Club on January 30, Alinsky's birth date. For the birthday bash, Alinsky friends, associates and others will be at the Quad Club, including Saul's son, David, who is coming in from Boston; Saul's classmate at the University of Chicago, Leon Despres, will be one of the speakers (Len will be 101 in February); the syndicated columnist Gee Gee Geyer is coming in from DC and will also speak, as will Bishop Arthur Brazier, the first President of The Woodlawn Organization and others who are part of the Alinsky tradition. Those interested should contact Sandy Horwitt, who not only wrote this biography of Russ Feingold, but previously has to his credit Let them call me rebel : Saul Alinsky, his life and legacy. Those interested and able to attend to should contact Sandy immediately. Space is limited, but if you are interested in attending, please contact him for more information at (shorwitt at aol dot com) [and replace the word "at" with
'@' and the word "dot" with '.' and omit the spaces - you know the drill].
This event is the kickoff of a year long celebration of Alinsky. Throughout 2009, there will be forums and conferences around the country focusing on the community organizing tradition past, present and future, from Alinsky to Obama and beyond. There is a national board advising the effort, coordinated by Sandy Horwitt, which covers the waterfront politically. Not only is the aforementioned Georgie Anne Geyer, a noted conservative writer, on it. So is Nicholas von Hoffman, from the other end of the political spectrum. Among the other notables are Ernesto Cortes, and several other from the Industrial Areas Fund; others from places like the Woods Fund; the Woodlawn Organization; the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (for the part of Chicago in which Sinclair's The Jungle was set and in which Alinsky began his work in Chicago); and quite a few university types. There is even one high school government teacher who lives in Virginia and teaches in Maryland, but he unfortunately will not be able to attend this kickoff event for two noteworthy reasons: it is a mandatory workday for teachers at school, as we must be there for meetings and to ensure that our grades are in, and the evening before is my wife's birthday, and that takes precedence, even over honoring Alinsky.
Let's say you don't know Alinsky, and you'd like to know more, about why he is so important. Well, I would recommend Horwitt's book, but in case you are impatient, let me offer a brief summary of the man, and a few more quotes from his later work.
Alinsky was more than a bit of an odd bird. He was born and raised in Chicago, and there is no doubt that he was very much a leftist, although he was far less concerned with ideology than he was with methodology and results. He studied criminology as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, during which time he actually became somewhat friendly with Al Capone and some of his associates, about whom in later years he would offer tales, some true, some embellished, to entertain his listeners (and perhaps aggrandize his own stature).
Because of Obama's connection with the Alinsky legacy, working in the same neighborhoods where Alinsky developed some of his methods, Ryan Lizza of The New Republic did an extensive piece on the Alinsky connection, from which it is worth quoting several paragraphs:
Born in 1909 to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Alinsky had prowled the same neighborhoods that Obama now worked and internalized many of the same lessons. As a University of Chicago criminology graduate student, he ingratiated himself with Al Capone's mobsters to learn all he could about the dynamics of the city's underworld, an experience that helped foster a lifelong appreciation for seeing the world as it actually exists, rather than through the academic's idealized prism. Charming and self-absorbed, Alinsky would entertain friends with stories--some true, many embellished--from his mob days for decades afterward. He was profane, outspoken, and narcissistic, always the center of attention despite his tweedy, academic look and thick, horn-rimmed glasses.
Alinsky was deeply influenced by the great social science insight of his times, one developed by his professors at Chicago: that the pathologies of the urban poor were not hereditary but environmental. This idea, that people could change their lives by changing their surroundings, led him to take an obscure social science phrase--"the community organization"--and turn it into, in the words of Alinsky biographer Sanford Horwitt, "something controversial, important, even romantic." His starting point was an early fascination with John L. Lewis, the great labor leader and founder of the CIO. What if, Alinsky wondered, the same hardheaded tactics used by unions could be applied to the relationship between citizens and public officials?
To test his theory, Alinsky left the world of academia in the 1930s and set up shop in Chicago's meatpacking neighborhood, the "Back of the Yards"--the same wretched, multiethnic enclave that Upton Sinclair had chronicled three decades earlier in The Jungle. He created the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council, which won a succession of victories against businesses and decreased crime, while increasing cooperation between rival ethnic groups. The results were impressive enough that they were celebrated far beyond Chicago in newspaper stories with headlines like, "they called him a 'red,' but young sociologist did the job."
Lizza goes on to note the connection with Alinsky through the man who hired Obama to work in Chicago, Gerald Kellman (like Alinsky, of Jewish background).
Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in 1940, in the area near Union Stockyards portrayed by Sinclair. But he did not limit his organizing to Chicago. IAF has over the years spread to more than 20 states and several foreign nations.
It is an unfortunate fact that if you do online searches about Alinsky many of the sites returned to you are right wing, dedicated to emphasizing Alinsky's Marxist orientation and portraying him and those who followed his model as therefore somehow a threat to the American way of life. We heard much of this rhetoric in attacks on Obama for his community organizer days, and we would have heard them just as loudly had Hillary CLinton been the nominee, as she did her senior thesis at Wellesley on Alinsky (a thesis that the College has sealed from public scrutiny).
I do not claim to be an expert on Alinsky. I had at most a passing idea of his work at the time of his death in 1972. I was aware of the influence he had had on people I admired such as Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and I had seen some of the work of his followers in New York City when I lived there in the late 60s through my return to Haverford in September of 1971. I had actually not read any of his writings until the 1980s, when I was volunteering for Fritz Hollings and at one point was tentatively scheduled to speak on behalf of that Senator's presidential ambitions to a group of community organizers, and someone suggested that I needed to read Rules for Radicals before I went. I borrowed a copy which I scanned, and became fascinated. So although someone better prepared was found for that engagement, my own perspective began to be broadened.
Alinsky continued to develop his thinking over his career. Rules for Radicals was the second of his books to address his approach to organizing (his first was Reveille for Radicals published in 1946, he also wrote a book on the great Mineworkers labor leader John Lewis).
It is probably fair to credit Alinsky as being the godfather behind several key approaches to changing our society. Not only did he pioneer the kind of community organizing in which our current President participated as a young man (which very much helped shape him into the effective leader he has become) and which is the ground on which grassroots political organization is based, Alinsky was also behind the idea of stockholders giving proxies to those who would advocate and vote for matters of social justice at the annual meetings of publicly held corporations.
It is worth taking the time to learn more about Alinsky and his influence, if for no other reason than this: those on the political right fully understand the threat Alinsky's methods represent to the kind of corporate and elite control of institutions including government, which is one reason they have worked so hard to delegitimize Alinsky and all they believe they can tie to his legacy. That includes Barack Obama.
Let me offer a few quotes from his later work, Rules for Radicals. Remember, this work was written in response to the turbulence of the 1960s. where some radicals went way too far.
In words that come a few paragraphs before what I quote at the beginning of this diary, we read:
What I have to say in this book is not the arrogance of unsolicited advice. It is the experience and counsel that so many young people have questioned me about through all-night sessions on hundreds of campuses in America. It is for those young radicals who are committed to the fight, committed to life.
Remember we are talking about revolution, not revelation; you can miss the target by shooting too high as well as too low. First, there are no rules for revolution any more than there are rules for love or rules for happiness, but there are rules for radicals who want to change their world; there are certain central concepts of action in human politics that operate regardless of the scene or the time. To know these is basic to a pragmatic attack on the system. These rules make the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one who uses the tired old words and slogans, calls the police "pig" or "white fascist racist" or "futher mukkers" and has so stereotyped himself that others react by saying, "Oh, he's one of those," and then promptly turn off.
This failure of many of your younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous. Even the most elementary grasp of the fundamental idea that one communicates within the experience of his audience - and gives full respect to the other's values - would have ruled out attacks on the American flag. The responsible organizer would have known that it is the establishment that has betrayed the flag while the flag, itself, remains the glorious symbol of America's hopes and aspirations, and he would have conveyed this message to his audience. On another level of communication, humor is essential, for through humor much is accepted that would have been rejected if presented seriously. This is a sad and lonely generation. It laughs too little, and this, too is tragic. . .
. . If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in a orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out. My "thing," if I want to organize, is solid communication with the people in the community.
Also from the prologue:
Let is in the name of radical pragmatism not forget that in our system with all its repressions we can still speak out and denounce the administration, attack its policies, work to build an opposition political base. True, there is government harassment, but there still is that relative freedom to fight. I can attack my government, try to organize to change it. That's more than I can do in Moscow, Peking, or Havana. Remember the reaction of the Red Guard to the "cultural revolution" and the fate of the Chinese college students. Just a few of the violent episodes of bombings or a courtroom shootout that we have experienced here would have resulted in a sweeping purge and mass executions in Russia, China, or Cuba. Let's keep some perspective.
We will start with the system because there is no other place to start from except political lunacy. It is most important for those of us who want revolutionary change to understand that revolution must be proceeded by reformation. To assume that a political revolution can survive without the supporting base of a popular reformation is to ask for the impossible in politics.
One more quote from the prologue:
A final word on our system. The democratic ideal springs from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.
Great dangers always accompany great opportunities. The possibility of destruction is always implicit in the act of creation. Thus the greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
From the beginning the weakness as well as the strength of the democratic ideal has been the people. People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people. . .
There are a number of sites online at which you can find summaries of the rules. I am quoting from this site for my list of the rules:
RULE 1: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
RULE 2: "Never go outside the expertise of your people." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
RULE 3: "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
RULE 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up." Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
RULE 9: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists' minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
RULE 10: "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management's wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
RULE 12: 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. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Since I am posting this on Daily Kos, it seems appropriate to remind the people that Markos entitled his book Taking On the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era, and the title is a deliberate tribute to Alinsky, about whom Markos writes that
his 1971 book, Rules for Radicals, was an ode to practicality, common sense and rational activism
even as he further notes
Such pragmatism is no more remarkable today than it was in Alinsky's day.
Even as Markos argues for a different approach to change, one that is bottom up rather than directed by leaders, he acknowledges his debt to Alinsky. He is not alone in being in the debt of Alinsky: much of my own pragmatism about things political is shaped by that experience of finally reading him in 1983. I still retain an idealism of the final goal, but temper that with what is possible immediately for those people whose commitment I need to effectuate the change I would like to see. This is, by the way, very relevant to how I approach my vocation of teaching, because I have to start with where the students are, even as I seek to move them beyond the stasis of their comfort level.
Alinsky was not very far into his 7th decade when he died on June 12, 1972, in Carmel,CA. In fact, he was about 1 year older than am I as I sit on my sofa drafting this on Sunday evening. He had a major influence in shaping the country that we are still becoming. And on the occasion of the forthcoming 100th anniversary of his birth, with a President whose own life and leadership were strongly influenced by the work of Alinsky, it seems appropriate to take some time to celebrate the man and his life.
Alinksy was a serious man, but also understood the dangers of being too serious. Let me end by demonstrating that with one final quote from the Prologue of Rules for Radicals. These are the final words of that prologue, and they very much give a sense of the man. I also find them more than a little applicable to those of us here - including myself - who sometimes get ourselves totally wrapped up in the causes and candidacies about which we so deeply care. So let me make this my final, and perhaps most useful, quotation from Alinsky:
I salute the present generation. Hang on to one of your most precious part of youth, laughter--don't lose it as many of you seem to have done, you need it. Together we may find some of what we're looking for--laughter, beauty, love, and the chance to create.
To Saul Alinsky, born 100 years ago this week. We salute you, we celebrate you the man, and the work you gave us.
Peace.