[lbo-talk] more on the right's Alinskyism

Jenny Brown jbrown72073 at cs.com
Fri Sep 18 15:38:42 PDT 2009


Alan Rudy:
>Does this suggest that strategy is politics-neutral?

No, but in the case of Alinsky the tactics, at least, are fairly politics-neutral, in keeping with the anti-theory nature of Alinskyism in general.

Chris Maisano:
>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. [snip]

Yes, this is my take too. Also, here's a case (Alinsky) where moralism really is substituted for solidarity and self-emancipation politics. Alinskyism is what's left standing after you get rid of the reds, it's one of the children of liberal anti-communism.

Jenny Brown



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