Subscribe to Israpundit Daily Digest

Leave a Reply

7 Comments / 7 Comments

  1. Checking Wikipedia, I found out that “Rules for Radicals” is the title of a book by Saul Alinsky describing his methods of “community organizing.”This is a quotation from Wikipedia summarizing Alinsky’s self-described community organizing” methods: “Alinsky saw community structure and the impoverished, together with the importance of their empowerment, as elements of community activism, and used both as tools to create powerful, active organizations.[6] He also used shared social problems as external antagonists to “heighten local awareness of similarities among residents and their shared differences with outsiders”.[4] This was one of Alinsky’s most powerful tools in community organizing; to bring a collective together, he would bring to light an issue that would stir up conflict with some agency to unite the group. This provided an organization with a specific “villain” to confront and made direct action easier to implement. These tactics as a result of decades of organizing efforts, along with many other lessons, were poured into Rules for Radicals to create the guidebook for community organization.[3]
    On the 4th fly-leaf page, after a dedication to Alinsky’s wife Irene and quotes from Rabbi Hillel and Thomas Paine, is the following text:
    Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins— or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

    This “dedication” reveals who and what Alinsky was. The satire ” 8 rules for radicals” accurately describes Alinsky’s actual objectives.

    I don’t feel entirely comfortable saying something that resembles what the “as a Jew” crowd say. Nevertheless, I am deeply ashamed that this s.o.b. was a fellow Jew.

  2. @ Ted Belman: I can see it now, too.

    By the way–this is not what Alinsky actually wrote. It is a satire. Alinsky did write “8 rules for radicals.” But this is not his actual text. However, the satire is well founded in the facts of radicals actual behavior and objectives.