On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Chris Maisano <cgmaisano at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To me, the biggest reason why the Alinsky organizing model doesn't seem to
> have accomplished much to change power relations is because it focuses on
> choosing campaigns that are "winnable" and avoiding the supposed pitfalls of
> "ideology." Because of this, the big issues come off the table before any
> activity even occurs and activists learn to continually trim their sails to
> accomodate to "reality," as we have seen in the flawed strategy many liberal
> and "progressive" groups adopted around healthcare reform. The Alinsky
> approach is also completely allergic to any kind of systematic theorizing or
> long-term vision, and because of this groups like IAF, ACORN, and anyone
> else who adopts a similar method can't tie individual struggles to a larger
> goal of transforming society. It's a really frustrating point of view to
> deal with, and in a lot of ways it's a perfect "left" politics in a
> neoliberal, postmodern period - metanarratives like Marxism are bad, local
> is good, radical change is impossible, etc.
>
>
>
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