[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

clearly stated....or clearly justified???

yeah, we need more of this in public education...


According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”[2]

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.

In a separate chapter he suggests that the 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?"

What's wrong with it?

-spence