>This is a very important question.
>
>
>I've participated in several 'community aid' style
>organizations - one that was truly lefty in
>orientation (an effort to secure affordable housing,
>basic services and a self-propelling mutual aid
>infrastructure for homeless and working poor
>individuals/families) but most of which were more
>generally do-gooderish in purpose and structure.
Well, I don't mean do-gooderish, as you can guess. Though I don't have any problem building on people's sense that they want to do something to "help" and, in fact, this country is very voluntaristic. I haven't looked at the numbers in awhile, but people are amazingly willing to give of their time and money.
I certainly don't mean patronizing. I mean "helping" in the sense that Saul Alinksy means it in the Playboy interview: http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky2.htm
There are immediate things that need to be done. People need affordable childcare, for instance. I see all kinds of churches offering inexpensive child care and free summer bible camps. Well...? Why not? Why let the dead guy on a stick worshippers monopolize this territory? (And it sure as shit doesn't have to be a full-time fucking job. That is one thing that annoys me about left workerism: the insistence that you give over your entire life to the movement, 24/7 slavishly "organizing". Please.)
Unemployment and retraining centers. One of the things that peole inevitably learn when they try to get a job under conditions in which it becomes increasingly clear that there _aren't_ enough jobs, is that it's a _structural_ social problem, not an individual problem.
When I was studying a career transition agency and unemployment among professionals, I observed so many opportunities for consciousness raising--had someone with a lefty background been moderating the discussions. You still have to give people some sort of hope, of course. In my years of teaching college students of oppression and inequality, the worst thing you can do is expose the operations of social structure without giving them a sense that they can _do_ something about it. If you don't, they get angry, depressed, and discouraged.
>In my experience, a lack of resources and a needs
>driven mission creep are the chief obstacles.
>
>Certainly, this is a super-mundane observation but it
>shouldn't be overlooked because the resource/needs
>problem can lead to decisions that dilute efforts
>differing from merely helping people prepare to assume
>(or re-assume) their place within the American white
>collar/blue collar/no collar work matrix. Nothing
>wrong with getting people jobs of course - as things
>stand, we all need to earn money to live. But you
>would hope a left org would try to accomplish at least
>a little bit more.
WEll, the goal isn't to do things for people, but show them how they can do things for themselves. People are unemployed. You can sit around in isolation reading What Color is Your Parachute and Write a Winning Cover Letter in a Weekend. Or, you can go to a local resource center, talk to other people, get help with your immediate problem, and encounter different kinds of thinking and, most importantly, community, fellowship, connections, and (I would hope) energy and optimism.
Today is the first time I've read anything esp. lengthy about Alinksy. Clearly, of course, I've been under the influence of Alinsky-influenced activists and scholars. Not the whole Alinsky ball of wax of course. I knew just enough about Alinsky to know the basic jist of IAF and his model of organizing, but not the details. The few times I've raised his name here, it seems that Alinksy's name is mud among leftists. Or, is it just a few leftists. I can see where he might irritate some folks. I can also see why one of my mentors was fascinated with the issue of corruption and purity.
I am really curious what others think about A., if others have worked with him, historical experience, if others have worked with A's disciplines or the IAF, what were the crits then --and now. Etc.
I know Doug has a problem with Alinsky style grassroots organizing when it is too localized and antithetical to theory and the "big picture". That isn't the way Alinsky followers and proteges I've run into operate or think. And, if you read the lengthy piece in Playboy, Alinsky does address the tendency toward co-optation. I think he's right: it's inevitable. But, we can sit around with our thumbs up our ass whining that nothing's happening. Or, we can start making things happen.
The reason why I think it's important is because, when issues do become large scale and people start to realize they need to address them beyond localities, then these grass roots orgs are going to provide the infrastructure and social capital to meet the demand to turn out in force to fight. If you don't nourish that infrastructure now, we're fucked.
And no, we dont have to be dependent on Big $ Foundations. See Dean Campaign. See Moveon. One thing about Americans: we are incredibly voluntaristic and charitable. Peole will give you money if you're doing something and can show you're doing something. Look at the money people donate to bloggers for pity's sake. If people think they're getting something from it, they'll pay. If people think others are doing good work, they'll pay. You just have to ask. And ask a lot. If people think their money will go for something other than mutual masturbation societies, they'll give.
Again, dont want to blabber on too much because I'd like to hear more. And I'd really like people to read that article above and tell me what they think.
Kelley
>Here's one problem I've witnessed...
>
>Effective efforts attract demand and the demand always
>exceeds available resources of time, personnel and
>money. The strain can lead to appeals to
>mainstream philanthropies for funding. With the
>funding comes a sea change in political orientation
>and theory of action. In the twinkling of an eye,
>you're working for an organization whose model is to
>deliver aid from on high to the groundlings. The
>focus becomes how good a person you are instead of
>creating the framework of a lasting system for people
>to use and build on their own. It's only a matter of
>time before the corporate style meetings and
>obligatory fund raising dinners for wealthy donors
>drive out most of the original team.
>
>
>...
>
>
>I'd be very interested to read any posts about left
>leaning assistance orgs that have entirely avoided or
>adeptly navigated this problem as such models should
>be shared, duplicated and improved upon.
>
>
>
>.d.
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"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'