>Oh Alinskyism has spawned lots of organizations, for sure. But what have
>they accomplished politically?
er, lots of housing units, a requirement in Baltimore and NYC that more than minimum wage be paid,....
Plus a general increase in the feeling that city hall can be fought, itself an important outcome.
>Most of them have become so dependent on
>foundation and/or government support that they effectively have no
>constituency other than their funders.
I'm not sure I agree with you, either in gross or in fine. The 'constituencies' are the people being represented, surely? And I can't name any Alinskiist organisations that are on grants 'life support'. Can you?
>They've been powerless in the face
>of reaction
You'll have to be a bit more forthcoming about that one. :-)
> they were structurally incapable of doing anything to stop
>welfare "reform" (no mass constituency).
Goddess love us! They couldn't stop the Gulf War or end Capitalism, either. Do you know of any organisation that did better?
>Aside from the lack of constituency (other than foundation program officers
>and dispensers of government contracts), most of the community organizers
>I've talked wtih have no big picture analysis at all - they only care about
>their particular neighborhood, or issue, or demographic group. That doesn't
>make them bad people, but it does help explain why they've been so
>ineffective, and why they're so susceptible to co-optation.
There's a rule. It goes, in its Engineering incarnation: it's better to ship a product today with 50% of the features than to ship in 5 years with all the features.
In the goals they've set themselves, they've been highly effective. That they didn't undertake to cure AIDS or solve global warming is a rather unfair and misguided criticism.
>Who spoke in favor of "doctrinaire Marxist purism"? Not me - just ask Lou
>Proyect!
Oh aye. I do realise that, compared to folk like Louis, you're the very spit of practicality. But you do seem to have what might be called an 'all or nothing' outlook -- heavy on the principles and sweep-away-all-vestiges, but seemingly not very sympathetic to the idea that perhaps even something less might have merit today and tomorrow.
>One could make a very long list of what was wrong with the CPUSA. But they
>did do a lot in civil rights work, union organizing, and popular education.
>They were the only predominantly white organization that gave a damn about
>African-Americans before the 1960s.
Totally agree. Guthrie's famous night at the union hall with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry is a transcendent example of how to do it. But Guthrie wasn't a DMP, to use your TLA.
>
>>(I consider Alinsky to have been a
>>non-doctrinaire, non-purist marxist. A Marx's marxist,
>>as it were.)
>
>I suspect this would have surprised him.
Only because, as far as I can tell, he didn't consider himself a marxist of any kind. But I think, from what Kelley has quoted, that Marx might have done.
>Once again you seem to thing that situations and practical solutions are
>transparently self-evident. They're not. How do you approach, say, the
>housing problem - a major area for community organizations - without
>thinking about how housing patterns are related to income distribution,
>capital flows, the influence of real estate developers on local government,
>a region's place in the national and global economy, etc.?
Dunno. Perhaps one way would be the Amish approach, also used in slightly modified form by, e.g., Habitat for Humanity: a group of folk get together and build (or re-build) a house! And when they're done, they do another. And so forth. That's socialsm!
I think Alinsky's legacy org in the South Bronx used the same or a very similar technique. They've delivered hundreds of units of housing. Sure, a drop in the bucket...but not bad for a ngo (not even a quango) that has had to swim up the waterfall.
>Parasitic in the sense of extracting surplus value from the toiling masses?
>Sure, I can accept that. But that's doctrinaire Marxist purity (DMP), isn't
>it?
Perhaps by accident, but not design. :-)
(Do DMPs really call it 'surplus' value?? It's not surplus at all, in my book.)
>Hardly what I was doing - I was anticipating your reaction to my DMP. I
>think it's rather patronizing to think that the masses are too stupid to
>bear hearing the truth.
To me, there are truths that draw folk forward and others that hold them back. I don't think much of the latter.
If we say to someone 'you poor deluded, downtrodden Lump, I spit on the flag that symbolises your oppression!', what have we accomplished? The poor bugger may be deluded and downtrodden, but he's hardly going to like hearing it! And he may have shed blood for what that flag symbolises -- to him!
Where's the harm in selecting a different truth to open with? One that can be heard more easily. One that shows respect. Eh?