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May 18, 2010
Obama's Alinsky: Realistic Radicals
Posted by The MaryHunter at May 18, 2010 1:24 PM
From Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution - The Alinsky Model by David Horowitz:
The most important thing for radicals, according to Alinsky, is to deal with the world as it is, and not as they might want it to be.
As an organizer I start from the world as it is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system. [From Rules for Radicals, p. xix]
This is the passage from which Michelle Obama selected lines to sum up her husband's vision at the Democratic convention that nominated him for president in August 2008. Referring to a visit he made to Chicago neighborhoods, she said "And Barack stood up that day, and he spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about 'the world as it is' and 'the world as it should be.' And he said that, all too often, we accept the disatnce between the two and we settle for the world as it is, even when it doesn't reflect our values and aspirations." She concluded: "All of us are driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do - that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be."
On a radical tip from Bergbiker.
