blog! “Book Review: Rules for Radicals- A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky”
★★★★☆
My good friend Suw alerted me to this venerable book by repeatedly ranting "What is your theory of change???" online.
If ever there was a moment to yell "WHAT IS YOUR THEORY OF CHANGE???" that moment is now and we…
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#BookReview #politics
@Edent from my copy:
"The basic requirement for the understanding of the politics of change is to recognize the world as it is. We must work with it on its terms if we are to change it to the kind of world we would like it to be. We must first see the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.
We must see the world as all political realists have, in terms of 'what men do and not what they ought to do," as Machiavelli and others have put it.
p12
1/2
@Edent
The section on communications is timeless.
"Further, communication is a two-way process. It you try your ideas across to others without paying attention to what they have to say to you, you can forget about the whole thing.'
p. 81
Rules for Radicals, Saul D. Alinsky.
2/2
@Edent Note: it is entitled "Reveille for Radicals" on Libby (the library book lending system). You can also search by author.
@dan613 that's an entirely different book.
@Edent Oh no! Oh well, I have it on hold.
A friend recommended this after the election; I'd had it on my shelf for >20 years and never read it, assumed it would be a lot of very-left ideology. It has almost NONE of that. It's all practical advice about getting some power from a bottom-level start.
It's clear that Roy Cohn practically memorized this book and taught it all to Trump. Read it yourself and tick off all the boxes that Trump has clearly ticked himself: be seen as a "dangerous enemy", easy victories, the works.
What do we want?
CHANGE!
When do we want it?
IMPERCEPTIBLY OVER MANY YEARS, SO THE RICH AREN'T SPOOKED AND PROPERTY PRICES DON'T FALL!