By the late Sixties, Alinsky was leaving most of the field work to his aides and concentrating on training community organizers through the Industrial Areas Foundation Training Institute, which he calls a "school for professional radicals." Funded principally by a foundation grant from Midas Muffler, the school aims at turning out 25 skilled organizers annually to work in black and white communities across the nation. "Just think of all the hell we've kicked up around the country with only four or five full-time organizers," Alinsky told newsmen at the school's opening session. "Things will really move now."
He was right -- if his subsequent success as a radical organizer can be measured by the degree of opposition and exasperation he aroused among the guardians of the status quo. A conservative church journal wrote that "it is impossible to follow both Jesus Christ and Saul Alinsky." Barron's, the business weekly, took that odd logic a step further and charged that Alinsky "has a record of affiliation with Communist fronts and causes." And a top Office of Economic Opportunity official, Hyman Bookbinder, characterized Alinsky's attacks on the antipoverty program (for "welfare colonialism") as "outrageously false, ignorant, intemperate headline-seeking."
Now that's the best description of "community organizer" I've seen yet: professional radical.
“Now that’s the best description of “community organizer” I’ve seen yet: professional radical.”
Or, as even he himself called it: “community agitator”. He targets various groups that in his mind are being treated “unfairly” by the “system” and sows anger and unhappiness amongst them to cause them to rebel against the establishment. But he offers nothing constructive to replace the establishment - he just wants to destroy it with mobs and then move on to the next “community”. I haven’t been able to discern any consistent political or economic school of thought behind his activism other than to raise hell.
Anarchism is the closest I can come to, or some form of deconstructionism.
Should be interesting to see how things develop if Obama gets in and becomes the “establishment”. My gut tells me that at that point he will put a stop on deconstructionism agaist the establishment (him) - he’ll do that by the use of force. Or put another way, he will continue to deconstruct his opposition (us) - and this time he will have considerable more weapons at his disposal - the whole apparatus of the federal government.
We could be in for some dark times...