This is a continuation of quotes from Saul Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals, along with my commentary.
This is part 5 of 6 parts. Also see:
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 1
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 2
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 3
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 4
- Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 6
On with the quotes:
The basic tactic in warfare against the Haves is a mass political jujitsu….since the Haves publicly pose as the custodians of responsibility, morality, law, and justice (which are frequently strangers to each other), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations. No organization, including organized religion, can live up to the letter of its own book. You can club them to death with their “book” of rules and regulations. This is what the great revolutionary, Paul of Tarsus, knew when he wrote to the Conrinthians: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth.” (Page 152)
Alinsky leaves out the final words of the verse, 2 Corinthians 3:6, as well as the context of the passage – Israel having the Mosaic Law but not seeing Jesus of Nazereth in it. Paul actually affirms the Mosaic Law later on in the same chapter (verses 15 ,16). So Alinksy is taking the verse entirely out of context and implying a meaning which isn’t there.
In Chicago the Haves slipped badly when both a judge and a district attorney muttered that the book of regulations banned attempts to induce the absence of public school students, and growled ominously about an injunction against all civil rights leaders taking part in the development of the boycott….Now was the time to start an intensive campaign of ridicule, insults, and taunting defiance, daring the district attorney and the judge either to live up to their regulations and issue the injunctions or stand publically exposed as fearful frauds who were afraid to put the law where their mouths were….the last thing the establishment wants is to indict and imprison every single civil rights leader….At this point, now that the civil rights leaders had the powerful weapon of the book of the laws of the Haves, they would have to stand fast publicly- once again taunting, insulting, demanding that the judge and the district attorney “obey the law,”… (Page 153)
It is ironic that Alinksy is talking about fighting for a justifiable cause – desegregation of public schools in the 60′s – but advocating tactics of ridicule, insults, defiance, etc. Yes, school segregation was ended, as it should have been, but it wasn’t ended because of subversive behavior on the part of civil rights leadership. Also note that Alinsky uses the phrase, “the book of laws of the Haves”. The implication is that Alinsky had no respect for the law, and saw it only as a tool of the Haves for perpetuating power.
The reaction of the status quo in jailing revolutionary leaders is in itself a tremendous contribution to the development of the Have-Not movement as well as to the personal development of the revolutionary leaders….Jailing the revolutionary leaders and their followers performs three vital functions for the cause of the Have-Nots: (1) it is an act on the part of the status quo that in itself points up the conflict between the Haves and the Have-Nots; (2) it strengthens immeasurably the position of the revolutionary leaders with their people by surrounding the jailed leadership with an aura of martyrdom; (3) it deepens the identification of the leadership with their people since the prevalent reaction among the Have-Nots is that their leadership cares so much for them, and is so sincerely committed to the issue, that it is willing to suffer imprisonment for the cause. (Page 155)
At the same time, the revolutionary leaders should make certain that their publicized violations of the regulations are so selected that their jail terms are relatively brief, from one day to two months. (Page 156)
Alinsky sees purposely getting jailed for short periods of time as a calculated way to manipulate his followers.
Life goes on, new issues arise, and new leaders appear; however, a periodic removal from circulation by being jailed is an essential element in the development of the revolutionary….To gain that privacy in which he can try to make sense out of what he is doing, why he is doing it, where he is going, what has been wrong with what he has done…the most convenient and accessible solution is jail…. The prophets of the Old Testament and the New found their opportunity for synthesis by voluntarily removing themselves to the wilderness. It was after they emerged that they began propagandizing their philosophies. (Page 156)
Once, though- and in rare circumstances even now- sit-downs were really revolutionary. A vivid illustration was the almost spontaneous sit-down strikes of the United Automobile Workers Union in their 1937 organizing drive at General Motors. The seizure of private property caused an uproar in the nation. With rare exception every labor leader ran for cover- this was too revolutionary for them….Lewis, gave them their rationale. He thundered, “The right to a man’s job transcends the right of private property! The C.I.O stands squarely behind these sit-downs!”….The lesson here is that a major job of the organizer is to instantly develop the rationale for actions which have taken place by accident or impulsive anger. Lacking the rationale, the action becomes inexplicable to its participants and rapidly disintegrates into defeat. Possessing a rationale gives action meaning and purpose. (Page 163)
Alinsky is advocating making up rationales for actions where there is or was no rationale.
Accident, unpredictable reactions to your own actions, necessity, and improvisation dictate the direction and nature of tactics. (Page 165)
The organizer should never feel lost because he has no plot, no timetable or definite points of reference. A great pragmatist, Abraham Lincoln, told his secretary in the month the war began: “My policy is to have no policy.” Three years later, in a letter to a Kentucky friend, he confessed plainly: “I have been controlled by events.” The major problem in trying to communicate this idea is that it is outside the experience of practically everyone who has been exposed to our alleged education system. The products of this system have been trained to emphasize order, logic, rational thought, direction and purpose. (Page 165)
I have two thoughts on this point. First, I wonder that Alinsky thought so little of order, logic, rational thought, direction and purpose. My second thought is that now that our education system is run by many whose world view runs closer to Alinsky’s than to that of your average person fifty years ago, it’s no mystery that those graduating from our education system today know so little of order, logic, rational thought, direction and purpose.
The mythology of “history” is usually so pleasant for the ego of the subject that he accepts it in a “modest” silence, an affirmation of the validity of the mythology. After a while he begins to believe it. The further danger of mythology is that it carries the picture of “genius at work” with the false implication of purposeful logic and planned actions. This makes it more difficult to free oneself from the structured approach. For this if no other reason, mythology should be understood for what it is. (Page 168)
Alinksy has to discredit or change history itself in order to advocate his positions.
The history of Chicago’s Back of the Yards Council reads, “Out from the gutters, the bars, the churches, the labor unions, yes, even the communist and socialist parties; the neighborhood businessmen’s associations, the American Legion and Chicago’s Catholic Bishop Bernard Sheil. They all came together on July 14, 1939. July 14, Bastille Day! Their Bastille Day, the day they deliberately and symbolically selected to join together to storm the barricades of unemployment, rotten housing, disease, delinquency and demoralization.” That’s the way it reads. What really happened is that July 14 was selected because it was the one day the public park fieldhouse was clear…There wasn’t a thought of Bastille Day in any of our minds. That day at a press conference before the convention came to order a reporter asked me, “Don’t you think it’s somewhat too revolutionary to deliberately select Bastille Day for your first convention?” I tried to cover my surprise but I thought, “How wonderful! What a windfall!” I answered, “Not at all. It is fitting that we do so and that’s why we did it.” I quickly informed all the speakers about “Bastille Day” and it became the keynote of nearly every speech. (Page 168)
In the quote above, Alinsky is bragging about his deception and dishonesty.
The difference between fact and history was brought home when I was a visiting professor at a certain Eastern university….I persuaded the president of this college to get me a copy of this examination and when I answered the questions the departmental head graded my paper, knowing only that I was an anonymous friend of the president. Three of the questions were on the philosophy and motivations of Saul Alinsky. I answered two of them incorrectly. I did not know what my philosophy or motivations were; but they did! (Page 169)
Alinsky’s example seems to be trying to question, discredit or marginalize learning and academia in general. However this example, like many he gives, falls into the logic fallacy of ”argumentum ad logicam” (argument to logic), which is assuming that just because one argument given on behalf of a thing is false, therefore all arguments given on behalf of that thing are false. The examples in the book often fall into the logic fallacy of ”dicto simpliciter” or sweeping generalization as well.
In the second to the last chapter, “The Genesis of Tactic Proxy”, Alinsky develops the idea of getting regular people to assign stock proxies (designating a “proxy” means legally designating another individual to represent you as a stockholder) to radicals so those radicals can represent thousands of stockholder votes and play havoc with corporations.
Let’s see what happens when Flemington, New Jersey, with its one beat-up hotel and two motels, faces an invasion of 50,000 stockholders….But the real importance of these letters was that they showed a way for the middle class to organize….There will even be “fringe benefits.” Trips to stockholder’s meetings will bring drama and adventure into otherwise colorless and sedentary suburban lives. Proxy organizations will help bridge the generation gap, as parents and children join in the battle against the Pentagon and the corporations. (Page 178)
One can envisage the scene where a general informs a corporate executive that a $50 million order will be coming to the corporation for the making of nerve gas, napalm, defoliants, or any other of the great products we export for the benefit of mankind…”Well, look, General, I appreciate your considering us for this contract but we’ve got a stockholders’ meeting coming up next month and the hell that would blow when these thousands of stockholders heard about it- well, General, I don’t want to think about it.” (Page 179)
Another pot-shot at the U.S. Alinsky accuses the U.S throughout the book of being dishonest about our own humanist, secular, power-hungry motivations. But these are interpretations that he is projecting onto the U.S. because of his own world-view.
What will be required is a computerized operation that will quickly give (1) a breakdown of the holdings of any corporation, (2) a breakdown of holdings of other corporations that own shares in the target corporation, and (3) a breakdown of the individual stock proxies in the target corporation and in the corporations that have holdings in the target corporation….There will be a nationwide organization, set up either by myself or others, with national headquarters in Chicago or New York City, or both. The New York office could handle all of the computerized operations; the Chicago office would serve as headquarters for a staff of organizers who would be constantly on the move through the various communities of America… (Page 180)
Alinsky can’t seem to stop dreaming up outlandish ideas to use as threats to try to get an immediate advantage over someone he’s fighting. That’s all the entire “Proxy” chapter apears to be - a proposal of a wild scheme designed to put pressure on whatever target he was working on when this book came out.
Click here to continue on to Marxism, the heart of Community Organization: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Part 6
