Posted by
Corthell on Friday, January 01, 2010 9:53:39 AM
Saul Alinsky was well aware of the advantages of living in a reasonably free society like the U.S. In "Rules for Radicals," he said:
"Let us 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."
This is the Saul Alinsky I respect. He was not a wild-eyed, flag-burning, firebombing Bill Ayers type at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. As I have previously pointed out, he was pragmatic to the core.
But at this juncture, my question to brother Saul would have been, "If we already have the freedom to speak out and denounce those in power, if we are allowed to politically oppose them, why would you want to change the current system?"
Based on his words in "Rules for Radicals," I believe that Alinsky's answer to that question would have been that there are still injustices in America that need to be corrected. But his idea of "injustice" was kind of fuzzy. Like all crusade leaders, he clearly had a huge ego – an ego that made him comfortable in the role of arbiter of right and wrong.
Universal health care, environmentalism and all redistribution of wealth schemes are examples of crusades that cry out to self-anointed moralists to take charge and make things "right." This is the Saul Alinsky I do not respect – the man who constantly spoke about righting wrongs. On the surface, "righting wrongs" seems like a noble objective. The problem lies in people's differing definitions of right and wrong.
In this vein, I find the following words from "Rules for Radicals" to be helpful in psychoanalyzing Saul Alinsky:
"Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives – agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate." http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120614