The Second Sun: Why I Love Saul Alinsky

I don't remember where I got it, but the book "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky has sat on my bookshelf for years. Alinksy got my attention during the Obama years and Hillary's run for president. Right-wingers connected Alinsky with Obama and Hillary as if that were a bad thing.

Alinsky was a famous community organizer during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Indeed, his books and training programs did have a strong influence on Obama, who was also a community organizer in Chicago two decades later. And, indeed, Hillary wrote her senior year thesis on Alinsky and even met him a couple of times.

Right-wingers like Ben Carson, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck regularly used Alinsky to smear Obama and Hillary. Hey, with a book titled "Rules for Radicals," it was easy to try and frame Obama and Hillary as radical politicians and outside the American mainstream.

Alinsky WAS a radical, but what's wrong with that? He was a left-winger, but claims that he was a Marxist or Communist are unfounded. And, anyway, what's wrong with that? Marxists follow the teaching of Karl Marx and communists believe in communal living and sharing. Jesus was the first communist and even though cruel dictators have greatly distorted the ideals of communism, it remains a pure and noble idea. However, humans are such selfish and greedy bastards an economic system based on sharing could never work and we now have capitalism instead.

This brings us back to the point of Alinsky's goal, which was to take a little of the power back from the capitalistic establishment and give it to the poor and working class. Small wonder that capitalists and their spokespersons hate him. Why? Because the capitalists want it all. By nature they only want to give enough back to prevent civil unrest and then they horde all the wealth and power.

Alinsky died in 1972 but there are many articles and interviews that provide a glimpse into who he was. I watched Alinsky's famous 1967 interview with William F. Buckley Jr. and I can tell you that the man was fearless and totally at peace with his convictions. He could also handle criticism, unlike the current pansy living in the White House.

Alinsky operated the Industrial Areas Foundation, which, upon invitation, would go into an area and organize poor communities and help them obtain more rights and benefits from politicians, landlords, and business leaders. Even to this day right-wing organizations call this "creating dependence," but I call it "taking a small piece of the pie from a corrupt system that controls everything."

Some of his most notable accomplishments took place in his home town of Chicago and in Rochester, New York. Among his achievements in Rochester was getting Eastman Kodak to commit to a recruitment and training program to help black employment.

Helping the poor and working class is an honorable cause and I appreciate the work that Alinsky did. Known as "the father of community organizing," much of his methodology is still used today by both the Left and Right.

The Art of Organizing

When I was an organizer for the Sierra Club I was given a beautiful handbook called the Grassroots Organizing Training Manual and I also attended the Club's Training Academy. The entire core of our training was built around the campaign matrix, where we listed allies, stakeholders, and various methods for educating and influencing decision makers. At the training camp I even did mock TV press interviews. On our campaigns we would spend time determining who knows who and what group can influence another group.

A big part of Sierra Club organizing is building broad coalitions, often among diverse and unexpected groups. For instance in the Sierra Club I have worked with labor unions, hunters, and even the local Tea Party. Alinsky would do the same thing and would bring together churches, labor groups, and local community leaders to work for common goals.

Even among the liberal community there is controversy about Alinsky and his work. All I can say is that no one leader in history is perfect. You have to acknowledge the fact that people are flawed and you need to look at their intent and the overall good they contributed to society. For instance, my greatest hero is Teddy Roosevelt and some of the things he did or didn't do trouble me, but ultimately he set the standard for political progressivism and modern environmentalism. Every day I try to live by his ideals.

And, if I may digress, I'd like to talk about the second most famous community organizer, who was Cesar Chavez, the founder of United Farm Workers. Chavez once said, "The only way I know how to organize is to talk with one person, then talk to another person, then talk to another." And another one of his famous quotes: "If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him... the people who give you their food give you their heart." These statements point to the most effective way to organize — getting to know your opposition, building relationships, and listening to what the other side has to say.

Setting the Standard

I have learned that if overweight conservative white men hate something or someone, then that thing is always good. Right now the right-wing middle aged men are going after Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Nancy Pelosi — three incredible courageous women. So, a few years ago when the privileged white dudes were raging against Alinsky, well, that means he must have been a saint. They claim that Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer, which is a typical right-wing lie. However, Alinsky did have an admiration for Lucifer, who he said was history's first radical. After all, Lucifer organized a group of rouge angels and rebelled against the heavenly establishment. In the end, Lucifer won his own kingdom, making him a darn good organizer.

Conclusion

Alinsky was fighting for the rights of underclasses back in the 1970s. Since that time more wealth has trickled to the top and billionaires and millionaires are now controlling our government and are holding many political positions. The Republican Party has turned into the haven of old, greedy, rich, white men. They manipulate the naive Christian evangelicals with the abortion issue to get their votes. But billionaires couldn't care less about abortion, they only care about accumulating more power and money. If activists and organizers like Alinsky can pinprick the establishment and win a few crumbs for the poor then he and others like him deserve praise.

And, once again, I must point out the irony of Christian evangelicals denying the Theory of Evolution yet supporting it in the form of American capitalism. Our economic system is built around a vicious form of social evolution that rewards the strong and, if unchallenged by people like Alinsky, would leave the poor to die.

The following quote by Alinsky describes me in my current phase of life:

"Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in."

— SAUL ALINSKY