[WS:] The problem is that O's administration started with 50% demanded nothing more and ended up with 50% i.e. zero gain - at least as far as the Bush era tax break is concerned.
Alinsky is right about compromise because he treats it as the end result of bargaining. Democrats got it backward and treat it as the starting point, so in the end they are worse off than when they started.
Despite what ideological purists may say, I see the Dem party as fundamentally inept - a classic example of what organizational sociologists call the "garbage can theory." According to that theory, organizations that do have clearly defined stakeholders, but instead consist of a hodge podge of diverse and often mutually contradicting interests (hence the garbage can metaphor) operate in the "minimum resistance" rather than "optimal results" manner. That is, the course of action they take typically is one that is least objectionable to the greatest number of most influential stakeholders rather than one that is likely to maximize the organization's resources (or its stakeholders' benefits.) However, the official justification for that course of action will typically be made in the language of efficiency, pragmatism, service quality or kindred values (or buzzwords) that the organization is normally supposed to uphold.
Republican do not suffer from that problem to the same extent, because they have a more clearly delineated set of stakeholders (the the rich 2 or percent of the population) and thus more clearly defined goals (serving the financial interest of those 2% at everyone else's expense.)
Wojtek
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> http://lbo-news.com/2010/12/16/bho-community-organizer/
>
> Maybe there really is something to Obama’s background as a community
> organizer after all.
>
> For some reason, I picked Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals off the shelf a
> little while ago. I got the book years ago, when I thought I might write a
> piece on the unfortunate influence of Alinsky and community organizing on
> the American left, but abandoned the project because I couldn’t bear to read
> Alinsky’s prose. But as it happens, moments ago I opened to this passage,
> titled “Compromise,” on p. 59:
>
> [T]o the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always
> present in the pragmatics of operation. It is making the deal, getting that
> vital breather, usually the victory. If you start with nothing, demand 100
> per cent, then compromise for 30 per cent, you’re 30 per cent ahead….
>
> I don’t want to enable the liberal trope of “too willing to compromise”
> about Obama—he’s about 40% conservative, which that critique overlooks. But
> add on 30% from the compromise, and he’s at 70%.
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