Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals

Published in 1971, Saul Alinsky's classical community organizing manifesto was the subject of Hillary Clinton's senior thesis. It is also claimed to be the inspiration behind many of Barack Obama's actions.

Obviously, for anyone familiar with the organizing work that Alinsky did in Chicago and elsewhere during the middle of the last century, he knew a lot about how to bring people together for social change. Rules for Radicals captures a lot of his thinking on how to organize people, much of which is still valuable.

I was first interested in Rules for Radicals when I saw the image above.

This is exactly what we have seen over the past 40 years so I decided to read the book.  I wanted to be able to better identify when its strategy was used against the American people. 

Also, I wanted you to save ten hours of your life.  You're welcome.

Main salient points to follow:

• Due to the publishing year it's filled with Vietnam War references and the actions of hippy activists.  

• "You have to work within the system you want to change." Alinsky's entire introduction hammers this point of personal responsibility home.  It's the duty of the citizenship to be active participants in ruling themselves.  "Those that aren't an active participant will be ruled by those that are."  Wait, am I going to agree with Saul Alinsky?  

• Dogma and Ideology are that they are bad because no one should ever claim that all their answers are correct.  Doing so would make it easy for your entire movement to be disproven and rejected.

•  Rules for Radicals doesn't push a socialism ideology. In fact, Alinsky notes that this could be a blueprint for revolution to lead change in any direction.  This was a surprise to me.  I assumed he was a socialist because the liberal progressives have used his blueprint of change effectively to that end.

• This whole book is the ideology of change.  Much of the book talks about how to be effective in community organizing while manipulating people.  If you're agitating against the establishment, use the Letter of the Law approach.  Hold officials accountable to the absurdity of the laws they pass.  He also urges the manipulation of the community and provides many ideas on how to get your idea passed while making others think it was their idea.

• Alinsky spends too much time on 'means and ends'.  It doesn't matter how you get something done, the ends justify the means.  Even the death of a few people are marginalized when a revolution is occurring.  Power and fear are always necessary and shouldn't be forgotten throughout any campaign of change.

• Always be Agitating.  "In the beginning, the organizers first job is to create the issues or problems."  You can't wait around for something to react to.  Many times we must create problems, or perceptions of problems, for community organizers to solve.

• In order for effective change, you must engage in continuous agitation.  You must always be switching between various problems.  You don't want a problem to be solved or final public consensus to be reached.  If it is, that solution or issue will be pushed to the back of the public's daily life.  Always be agitating.

• The establishment will always label something as 'dangerous' before it seeks to control it.  The last 50 years we have seen this play out as more and more Federal Departments are annointed.  We have seen the government regulation of agriculture, education, energy, airline travel security and even Uber and AirBNB. All under the guise of 'danger to the consumer'. Just wait for the War on Cash.  We've already seen them say that 'only drug dealers use large bills' and 'cash is the fuel of the black-market'. Honestly, you know they're trying to sway public opinion when they start associating something with 'terrorism', 'crime', 'child predators' or other heartstring tugging.

So how do we combat this effective progressive agitation?

Our first weapon is information.  Call it out when we see it.  Call out the immoral tactics.  Call out the abuse of inaccurately creating social problems.  Call out the divisive nature of media and government along social, racial, class and religious lines. Call out biased news reporting and holding the 4th branch of government accountable to facts and logic.
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Do not be deceived.  Revolutions do not go backwards.
​     - Abraham Lincoln 19 May 1856

If you want to read more, check out ​Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution by David Horowitz ​below.  Also Six Alinsky Rules That Explain Obama’s Words and Deeds located here.

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