>Doug responded to me:
>
>>Oh Alinskyism has spawned lots of organizations, for sure. But what have
>>they accomplished politically?
>
>er, lots of housing units,
Where, exactly? And how many?
>a requirement in Baltimore
>and NYC that more than minimum wage be paid,....
Churches and unions had at least as much to do with this as ACORN.
>Plus a general increase in the feeling that city hall
>can be fought, itself an important outcome.
This is the claim I always hear, but the evidence for it is pretty sparse on the ground. New York's city hall is now surrounded by concrete blocks, and no one is fighting it. Perhaps things are going better elsewhere. But from what I hear, almost every city in the U.S. is gentrifying (or trying to) and criminalizing the homeless.
>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?
The orgs I know firsthand are the ones in NYC, and they're creatures of the Ford Foundation, bank CRA grants, and city contracts.
>>They've been powerless in the face
>>of reaction
>
>You'll have to be a bit more forthcoming about that
>one. :-)
Ok, if these orgs were so effective, why are American cities being transformed into housing pens for the poor and fantasy theme park playgrounds for tourists?
>> 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?
Well isn't that part of the point? That these fractured, grant-dependent organizations are absolutely powerless against mighty Kapital? And that their ideology of localism is a positive obstacle to their doing anything about it?
>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 said anything about AIDS or global warming. Your style of argument is to invent your own ludicrous opponent. I said that these orgs were powerless to fight welfare reform and gentrification, which presumably are exactly their chosen terrains of struggle.
>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.
No. I'm all for nonreformist reforms, reforms that make a serious difference and also make some serious political inroads. I'm saying that Alinskyism has failed miserably at even meliorating the position of the urban poor. I'm tempted to say that by keeping the fed funds rate low for years and tolerating a 4.3% unemployment rate, Alan Greenspan has done more for poor people in the U.S. than a generation of community activists, but that might be inaccurate.
>>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!
No, that's small-scale housebuilding. I can't remember the percentage, but doesn't HUD say that something like 20% of US households have a housing problem? That would require building and/or refurbishing millions of units - and making sure that the occupants have enough money and social cohesion to pay the rent and keep putting one foot in front of the other. There aren't enough Amish to go around for that task.
>To me, there are truths that draw folk forward and
>others that hold them back. I don't think much of the
>latter.
What are truths that hold people back?
Doug