Since community organizer Barack Obama was influenced by master organizer and accomplished far left shit stirrer Saul Alinsky (some commentary in this thread
http://saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=8372 ) I feel it is appropriate to discuss Alinsky (b 1909? d 1972) and his methods. The methods are widely used by the far left and special interest groups aligned with the "progressive" movement (open borders, race hustlers, environmental, "social justice", etc.)
[There should probably be some future discussion concerning the historical meanings of political conservatism, liberalism, and the progressive movement's usurpation of the term "liberal"]
I will add that Alinsky commented on some (I believe sympathetic) professors who (the general gist or idea of my recollection, not an exact quote or exact circumstance) graded political science student essays on what Alinsky's motivations were - most of the professors' interpretations of Alinski were wrong according to Alinski.
So, here is my interpretation of what I read in Alinsky's 1971 book
Rules for Radicals. which I have only read through once (and will study more closely), I understand a lot of which I didn't understand before. The book is in the tone of 1960's far left socialist activism. Alinski previously wrote other books and was training other organizers throughout the 1960's.
Alinsky seems to base his motivations on "social justice", to level the field concerning the "have nots" (the poor), "have some, want more" (the middle class) and "haves" (the wealthy). He justifies the tactics by his interpretation of history, that there is no such thing as a successful traitor because those traitors who successfully rebel move on to become founding fathers. A corporate officer once approached Alinsky and asked if could tone down the tactics some, Alinski replied that he would make a deal - that once corporations quit going after the jugular in their business campaigns against each other he would do the same with businesses he (Alinsky) targeted.
There is a prologue which seems to explain the need for guidance for young reformists since so many - frustrated and without a clue as how to accomplish change - seem merely to want to burn everything down. Most of the older, accomplished hands were neutralized in one form or another by 1950's McCarthyism.
The first chapter, "The Purpose", states that the book instructs "how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people" (after some 50 or 60 years the result seems to seize power and deny it to the people). Alinsky says that the book is not ideological, that dogma is the enemy of freedom. Those who enshrine the poor are just as guilty as other dogmatists and just as dangerous (we could probably include "race baiters", radical environmentalism, "the separatism of 'diversity'" and so on). Alinski states he presents facts and general ideas to effect change and steps towards the science of revolution.
It seems that Alinski was motivated a great deal by his perception of poverty and racism, or maybe his theory of the causes and results of poverty and racism.
This is all I have time for now, will continue with probably several more posts,