Thanks.
A couple of quick reactions. No, I wouldn't say you're wrong. One of Jackson's initiatives after the Rainbow was financial literacy classes, mostly through churches, kind of a self-defense class against the credit card industry. Which is sort of typical of where that stuff goes when everyone's relying on foundation grants: More sophisticated victim-blaming, when it's not more sophisticated charity.
I would say that the whole Alinskyite complex--far from a source of strength--is one of the sources of exactly the problem you identify. (They hope we'll mistake militance in behalf of small reforms for radicalism.) Alinskyism is all about promoting short-term pragmatism and underestimating (and when necessary suppressing) people's ability to more deeply understand their long-term interests and possibilities. Pragmatism, the ideology, takes concrete form by organizing around small wins rather than big ideas.
>The Rainbow Coalition's influential Left strategist Vicente Navarro
I wish he were more influential.
Jenny Brown