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Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky Quotes

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Famous Saul Alinsky Quotes

“Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives - agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.”

IfsMenWayNeedsValuesPassionChallengesStepsSecurityProduceCrossesClimatePatternsCurrentsFamiliarBridgesRevolutionaryShakesPassiveNew WaysDiscontentPrevailingAffirmativeOrganizerRules For RadicalsAgitateDisenchantment
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.”

IfsMeanEndsFatherDifferencesSuccessfulHeroSucceedJudgmentEthicsOutcomesPatrioticSpellsFoundingTraitorSuccess Or FailureRules For Radicals
Book:Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
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“The organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society.”

IfsKindTodayPoliticsEconomySecurityMovementIdentityTypeProtectLaborOrganizedLiberalismEmployeeCollectivesCapitalistEmployersPremisesBargainingLabor MovementOrganized LaborCollective BargainingCapitalist Economy
Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“It should be borne in mind that the target is always trying to shift responsibility to get out of being the target. There is a constant squirming and moving and strategy . . . on the part of the designated target. The forces for change must keep this in mind and pin that target down securely. If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible.”

IfsShouldTryingMindMovingForceNumbersResponsibilityImpossibleAreasOrganizationStrategyConstantTargetPermitPinsAlways Trying
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.”

IfsFirstsMeanCommunityStepsOrganizationPatternsFirst StepsArrangementsDisruptionRules For RadicalsDisorganizedDisorganization
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is. ... Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority.”

PeopleIfsWayWarActionAmericaValuesWhiteClassMiddleOrganizationMajorityDecadesMiddle ClassRebelRejectedBourgeoisMaterialisticDegeneratesRules For Radicals
Author:Saul Alinsky
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