re: #87 jwb7605

Here’s more about Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”, which is Obama’s textbook for wielding power en.wikipedia.org

“Outlining his strategy in organizing Alinksy (sic) writes:

“There’s another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don’t encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let’s not let it happen by default.”

Alinsky codified and wrote a clear set of rules[3] for community organizing. His rules for radicals are now used as key tactics to learn in the training of new community organizers.