the Powerful and the Corrupt
Power defined as “the capacity to create change.”
Saul Alinsky was a controversial community organizer and activist of the 1970’s. He wrote what became an influential book entitled Rules for Radicals, which he intended for the radical far-left activists. He also wrote Ethics of Means and Ends, both of which he claimed would help reform poor minority communities and create equality among the disfranchised people of different backgrounds. His advice and ideas, although not all original, are powerful, concise, and their unsuspected impact flowing below the normal person’s radar is becoming widespread. His objective was to develop in people the power to disrupt the status quo, sometimes a good thing. He recommends to do so by using a crisis, or create one if none is available, using the resulting backlash by pretending to speak for the disfranchised, or dissatisfied, even if from diverse groups, and then to unify them in a protest of mutual interest if they all are dissatisfied with what is to them the status quo. So far, all this would apply to the Barrio.
Saul Alinsky took it further. His radical position was to use his 13 Rules to create disharmony and chaos, to create a ‘revolution’ or disruption. In his writings, he summarizes that the future depends on constantly changing the status quo and in opposing authority, because to him, as he states it in his book, “authority is always wrong”. This can be effective in organizing any disgruntled group, because a despondent group is by nature resentful of some authority, even if some of its members may have an overall general respect for authority. How far to take it would depend on the circumstances or on the leadership. The positive effects from some of his rules may begin to fall apart in their implementation due to the accumulation of factors leading to his final aim of disrupting all authority. For example, he supports the possibility of bringing about riots and violence resulting from the promotion of a crisis. Alinsky’s Rule #12 aims to acknowledge having a plan to follow chaos, he says:
“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
although it remains unclear what he means by a “constructive alternative.” Put the dots together: his ultimate disclosed objective is to disrupt all authority, to be included in the alternative, even if he says he intends to leave such to the local group. Not for him, but at a local level, it is difficult to implement a constructive plan following an atmosphere of chaos if, and especially if, when you have fabricated or inflated a false enemy, and removed all authority, through a made-up crisis. Alinsky states that he does not care for the morality of his objectives. He states that he promotes amorality, not immorality and his intent is to win. To him, the end justifies the means, and thus, after having attracted a following that has no idea on how to manage their new freedom, if they win, it is very difficult, for them to reach a constructive conclusion.
Authority is the law, the police, parents, teachers. Disrupt them! But what can happen if you do have a good alternative? His writings should be read by every American. His 13 Rules are included within the next few pages. Also included are two of the additional eleven ‘Ethics of Means and Ends’ as he wrote them. Then, I will include my own options to make up for his deficits.
While some people argue that many of the Rules for Radicals are intended to do harm rather than good, as they promote inequality rather than equality, it must be recognized that there is a lot of power in those rules, and they should be well understood by everyone despite their inequity. To understand them well, it is critical to have a clear sense of concepts such as, “use”, “misuse,” and “abuse” of power. This is important because the author claimed he wanted his rules to help empowerment of the poor. If this lofty goal is to be true, we all should support and use these rules. Ideas included in the 13 Rules have been used since Zen and the Art of War or before, by dictators throughout history, and by some leaders in modern countries, also by some churches today.
In the beginning of Alinsky’s book, he says that he believes in democracy, carefully arguing his point, and then he expands on his relationship to authority. Later, he reveals his rules, many of which are very effective but are not supportive of democratic decision-making, and he is okay with that, because, as he says, the end justifies the means. Therefore, when he promotes negative manipulation and disruption to take control, it is not necessarily a positive plan once you take control. The result could be to replace one form of control in exchange for another, which most often results in zero gain.
He promotes the Social State. By “social” he does not mean a state concerned about society. Instead, his definition means the Estate as the authority; a social or political class specifically like the great classes of the nobility of years ago, now called the Elite, to be vested with distinct political powers. The ‘Estate’ is a throwback to Real Estate owned and controlled by the Nobility, the elite. Here Progressiveness is Retrogressiveness.
As the present system, the existing authority, is to be replaced with the new social order, - the Estate, - now the population needs to fight all over again this new authority. Despite his eulogy of democracy, Alinsky’s ultimate goal from the accrual of all his rules is the ultimate control by the Estate, not Democracy. Study his agenda carefully, his aim is power and control by the (Radical) Elite, of which he considered himself a part of.
Communists were using many of those concepts before Alinsky clarified them as he did. Few people understand that communism is run by the power hungry, self-proclaimed Elite who knows precisely what to do once the control is taken, promoting the use of his 13 Rules to get the power for themselves and others. But if it is up to any group to establish their long-term goals, then what is wrong with rules that help bring about change?
The answer evolves slowly. His first rule is “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have,” - again, from Zen and the Art of War 2,000 years ago. Effective as it may be, it is based on deception. So, if you win, who won? The 500 people “they think you have” or only the 50 you factually have? Democracy is based on one person, one vote, every vote counts. That is why it is called Democracy. This may seem like a small matter at first but notice how it creates an invisible wedge between truth and a convenient falsehood. Rules are tactics, but they can also represent an ideology. If truth is based on reality, to fake by appearance is not a proper ideology.
As Jefferson once said,
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.”
This can be justified easily under amorality: “if it works, what’s the difference?” And here we see the power of the beginning of sublimation of goals. It is a very slippery slope based on bluff!
Notice, and save for later, that in Alinsky’s first rule, he uses the word “enemy.” Enemy is by nature a divisive word, part of divide and conquer. For us, was the City an “enemy”?
Even if we used this tactic with the closure of the swimming pool, public fountain, and the Mayor’s Convention, our approach took a different turn. I believe in truly sharing power. To do this, you must seriously consider which type of power is beneficial and assure that everyone shares access to it; power defined as “the capacity to create change.” Power based on reality and within the law. Power to change the law for a better one, if need be. Power not to favor some groups at the expense of others. Share individual power, the capacity to create change in self-sufficiency, in and with others. If you win for 500 people, let it be 500 real people who win, who know why they won, and who know clearly what they won, and what to do with it. They will then have the capacity to create change in their own life and who are ready to build on their winning. If you only have 50, get those 50 to educate 500 hundred more.
If the existing status quo favors only a few, then change it for a status quo that favor everyone. It is simple but extremely difficult due to the greedy human nature of us that hangs on to the status quo. Believe it or not, it includes dealing with jealousy, envy, as well as greed.
Challenging, yes! But life is a struggle, it creates tension, which can lead to equilibrium or be an equalizer. Therefore, Black Power, Brown Power, or White Power are all perversions. Equal power for all humans or equal access to power is the only answer, which is Democracy in a Free Market with no monopoly picking and choosing the winners. You get to where you are looking at. This is the reason justice has a blindfold. If you claim that our justice is not truly equal yet, I agree, and that is one of the reasons for this book. As you read them carefully, these Rules use effective tactics to change power from the OPPRESSED to the MANIPULATORS - or ELITE - but at the expense of zero gains to the oppressed.
Communists in their ongoing use of many of these tactics have made formidable gains to the detriment of entire populations. A key performance on their part is to turn people against each other. Zero gain to all.
Below are the 13 Rules as he wrote them with his own comments. You may think the worst rules are #5, and #13, but in fact, the worst of them all is #2.
The 13 Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky (1971)
1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.”
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. It results in confusion, fear, and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.”
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety, and uncertainty.”
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy. They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing and will even suggest better ones.”
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don’t become old news.”
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.”
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.”
10.“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.”
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.”
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.”
The Worst Rule of All
At first, the following rules may seem innocuous. I have used many of them throughout this narrative without having known them at the time, but I also used others of my own invention. I have indicated both throughout the book as end notes so that anyone who wishes to do so can compare them further at the end as alternatives.
The 13 Rules have elements of common sense, however….
Let’s read again these 13 rules, first with a sense of morality and the second time with a sense of amorality, or immorality, and notice the difference in results, especially #13. It is ingenious how your moral perspective changes the whole picture, which is part of the sublimation of goals syndrome. As you experience success with these tactics, you begin to give in to the amorality methods, but these are tactics, not strategies or goals The notes in parenthesis below are mine.
SUMMARY RULES FOR RADICALS (And my notes) Read this with an amorality perspective.
At first reading, they appear to be very simple! That will change. The last two rules in his book “Ethics of Means and Ends,” which deals with ideology, states in #10 “You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments” and #11 “Goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, of the Common Welfare, Pursuit of Happiness, or Bread and Peace.” In other words, deceive, deceive, and deceive, and make it look holy.
Alinsky had the sense to put his finger in everyone’s eye. He considered himself a radical, and he had this to say in his book, “a liberal is a person who puts his foot down firmly on thin air."
Rule #2. . The very worst of them all is Rule # 2. Besides the obvious common sense of this rule, the fact is that it holds the key to stagnation, strangulation, and enslavement. "Never go outside the expertise of your people." Encapsulated in eight simple words is hidden the Machiavellian intent to keep people as ignorant as when you found them, but now organized under your control. I cannot say enough about how despicably misleading, cruel, tyrannical, and enslaving this is despite the careful wording, and the apparent, but misguided wisdom of its intent.
As his book explains, rule #2, “if you go outside the expertise of your people, you enter territory where they can easily get confused and disoriented.” Better to keep them in territories where they are comfortable with you and continue in their ignorance. If they obviously do not have the knowledge of how to use power positively and constructively, then to go from no power to ignorant but brute group power is not a guarantee that things will improve. Only those edging them on, will retain the power.
Too many people dissatisfied with the system, look favorably on Alinsky, without fully understanding what he is all about. What looks like simple rules, go very deep. In fact, deep enough to transform countries and deep enough to undermine democracies. I like his contribution on how to get certain important things done. It has helped me understand some dynamics, although most of it is common sense. He pinpoints a weakness in our system’s treatment of the underrepresented, as democracy does require attention to the needs of those who cannot win the majority vote[xxxvi], those who are consistently underrepresented, but I deplore his ultimate aims. When people start by praising democracy and then propose un-democratic, manipulative tactics, I smell rats. His rules and its radical followers have done almost as much insidious damage to the advancement of communities, of equality, and of justice, as Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler - even if he never physically mass murdered anyone like those did.
HAVE AND HAVE-NOT. Alinsky’s philosophical outlook was: “Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little but Want More.” According to Alinsky, the ‘have a little but want more’ are the middle class, whom he considers despicable “individuals that stick to tradition, obey authority, and prevent change.” Remember he said, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Also divide and conquer. That is what he is doing here.
His stated intent is to demonize both the middle and upper classes, claiming that they have no passion for radical change. They have it too good. He states that “it is up to the organizer to do his best to stir up dissatisfaction and discontent” among the Have-Nots. In other words, this means that if the poor move to the middle class, they now become the enemy. Therefore, this vicious cycle of keeping the poor people poor is the only alternative to keeping Alinsky happy. Again, if the poor trickles up and becomes non-poor they then become despicable. According to him: This is the Evil Circle of Alinsky Philosophy, a philosophy that it would seem, has been adopted by one particular political party. Was he ever poor while writing this? No. Alinsky states, “one must couch one’s positions in the language of morality.” He doesn’t mean here to ‘be’ moral, only to “couch” it in the “language of.” In other words, “Fake it”. He promotes as a tactic to ignore the issues! The media strategically does this a lot, and if someone is finding solutions, prevent them from succeeding by creating a crisis on them, and “clothe it with moral garments.” We had people trying to do this to us in the Barrio and the TBA. We were improving from mediocre to great the lives and the homes of the people in the Barrio, but they ignored that, they avoided the issue, and stirred discontent.
We see the promotion of negative behavior in the news when they harp about groups rioting and burning their own neighborhoods. Black Power has used this trick to their advantage and will expand on it into the future, building case after case on emotions and not on facts. What happens when you focus on where you don’t want to be? And then what? That is where you end, violence. If that behavior is all Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, and Lincoln had ever done when they had their opportunity, what a sad mess would have become of North America!
Ray said once to me, “When you see on TV that businesses are set on fire, beware, communism is moving closer.” I didn’t believe him then. But let’s dig deeper.
By badmouthing the middle class, Alinsky downgrades the most motivational, practical powerful force accessible to the poor to get out of poverty, which is the goal to reach middle class safety. The only reason for demonizing the educated middle class is because that is the strength of capitalism and the power behind the USA. Small businesses are also the power behind the U.S. economy. The enemies from within must stifle it with regulations. He, they, want to control people to keep them poor. No middle class. Only the poor and the elite.
If the consequence of these rules by Alinsky are effective, we will see a decline in the growth of the middle class in this nation in years to come, an increase in the number of the poor as victims. We will see small business going broke, energy deteriorate, schools failing the children, regulations strangling businesses, people getting money not to work. The goal will be to slow down and accept no economic progress as natural for this country. “Get used to it.” If the essence of American culture is to constantly improve, then these rules attempt to create the opposite effect; #13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Rules for Radicals are very effective, but its foundations are twisted. I will offer an alternative replacement, a guideline for pulling out of this mental manipulation that leads to slavery. What alerted me that Alinsky promoted poverty to justify his own existence is that applying his rules works to tear down, not to build up. Look at each one, one by one, except for 6 and 12. His goal is not to promote democracy, but to snuff it. Rule #13, "Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it," destroy authority. Is that Democracy?
Under these suggestions, solutions are intended to be found by nullifying the educated - aka middle class - and pretending to empower the oppressed, as if the oppressed, perceived as victims, will know better the answers and solutions to the world’s problems. It is not power sharing, just power transferring, but transfer to whom? He offers no education on how to use power well, the only education is in divide to conquer and the use of deceit and violence to attract attention. And who ends up with the power? The Elite. In sum, his rules are to gain power for the organizer. I know this for I was tempted daily.
Can you imagine the damage to a country in organizing 1,000 organizers on using these rules? Destroying Democracy!
1,000 organizers if training another 1,000 organizers spreading throughout the nation, creating havoc, will explain how our values have changed in all aspects of society.
Remember, a key performance on their part is to turn people against each other. Whom will they transfer power to? In the US, they would become the Enemy from Within. 1,000 enemies from within, plus. When they riot and set buildings on fire, how many are outsiders, (organizers from the original 1,000) coming to ferment the locals and the news?
Consider the money that has been thrown at the homeless in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco. If money is power, the homeless in those cities must be very powerful by now indeed! Are they? Only the politicians are.
People everywhere compete for personal power. In dictatorships, you snuff the competition; Franco, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Putin, Noriega, while in democracies you compete in front of the electorate. Here the power is in the individual legal voter who chooses whom to vote for. You share the power to select whom to give temporary power to. That is how it is supposed to be. Sometimes we fail to say for how long.
Oppression comes in many different forms. Many may feel they are in oppressive relationships, jobs, or a country, but to lump all together in search of collective power does not compare with educating people for personal power that creates their own equality. Not a handout! I am saying that if you want to create damage and gain control over others, you want to use these Rules for Radicals.
Back to the Barrio and back to Rule #2: “Never go outside the experience of your people.”
The Barrio is where it is at, because of the capabilities of those still in it. Should we promote them to complaints about crumbling houses and oppression, or promote the personal commitment to repair them ourselves? And what would it take to do so?
To create change, you must carefully and strategically reach outside previous experiences while using the best previous experiences. Alinsky’s suggestion disdains “education” which is the most important activity of them all. If we in the Barrio had followed his advice: “You don’t communicate with anyone purely on the rational facts or ethics of an issue. The organizer’s objective is to demonize those who stand in the way of designs for change.” I am not making this up. He wrote that!!! What result would we then have had in the Barrio using such advice?
It gets worse! If you promote violence with people who have not found their own freedom and they remain as victims, then what? The 9th Rule is: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Now you have a violent group under your spell to threaten with! Black power!!! A one-time-only tactic becomes a strategy, and even worse, as a stratagem. Power for extortion is the result, as is fear and intimidation, divide and conquer. It makes sense to know that was Alinsky’s final objective; to weaken the nation rather than to strengthen it. But why? Not the Democracy he spoke so highly of at the beginning. Flip-flop Amorality – today’s Woke Attitude.
His Rule #5 is: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” This was tried on me by the newcomer who wrote about me to the City Councilmember, ignoring real issues and making false personal demonizing statements. In his book Rules for Radicals Alinsky says: “There can be no conversation between the organizer and his opponents. The latter must be depicted as being evil.” Look closely at interviews on TV. Don’t deal with the issue, call your opponent a Nazi. How often today do we see this strategy used?
Don’t call me an organizer if that is how an organizer is to behave. Alinsky is a petulant child with a chip on his shoulder about authority and a deep-rooted psychological void in his soul leading him to amorality. He specialized in organizing losers around him and pretend to give them a sense of false power, the power to disrupt and demonize those in power, not to share it. Notice I am using here his own advice on him on purpose!
Instead, we need to focus on the positive of the individual, develop a moral compass, and adopt a real democratic individually based power-sharing for greater individual freedom. We must find a way to eradicate corruption and start to work on new and improved RULES. We must develop these new rules to obtain real freedom, which, with some help, could become a force for good, and not a tool for evil.
Would Cachano, Bobby, Tiny, Alberto, Jose, Larry, and all the others agree with me?
I offer you a new Power-Sharing Rules for Freedom, based on the experiences in the Barrio Libre recounted in this narrative. They are based on sharing power, rather than hoarding it. These rules applies to social justice the way social justice was intended.