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Reveille for Radicals

This book is a compilation of essays that delve into a variety of social and political topics, offering a radical viewpoint on contemporary issues. more

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Saul D. Alinsky

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“Through experience you learn to see people not as sellouts and betrayers of moral principles, but as the result of ongoing processes. In the past I attacked labor leaders who started out lean, hungry, and idealistic and as they succeeded became fat-bellied, fat-headed, and cynical. I now see these people as having moved from the Have-Not's to the Have's, and that morality is largely a rationalization of the point you happen to occupy in the power pattern at a given time. If you're a Have-Not you're out to get, and your morality is an appeal to a law higher than man-made laws--the noblest ideals of justice and equality. When you become a Have then you are out to keep and your morality is one of law, order, and the rights of property over other rights.”

PeoplePowerMoralityLaborOrganized LaborHaves And Have NotsRationalizationsHavesHave Not S
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“The fundamental issue that will resolve the fate of democracy is whether or not we really believe in democracy. Democracy as a way of life has been intellectually accepted but emotionally rejected. The democratic way of life is predicated upon faith in the masses of mankind, yet few of the leaders of democracy really possess faith in the people. If anything, our democratic way of life is permeated by man’s fear of man. The powerful few fear the many, and the many distrust one another. Personal opportunism and greedy exploitation link the precinct captain, the mayor, the governor, and the Congress into one cynical family. It is difficult to find the faintest flicker of faith in man, whether one scours the Democrats, from the Southern racist politicians to the Northern corrupt city machines, or scrutinizes the decayed reactionaries of the Republicans. On the contrary, it will be found that with few exceptions all of these leaders, regardless of their party labels or affiliations, share in common a deep fear and suspicion of the masses of people. Let the masses remain inert, unthinking; do not disturb them, do not arouse them; do not get them moving, for if you do you are an agitator, a trouble maker, a Red! You are un-American, you are a radical! The past, the glorious past with all of its comfortable familiarity, was rooted in a general surrender of everyday democratic rights and responsibilities of the people. It was founded on masses of people who were and still are denied the opportunity to participate; who are frustrated at every turn and who have been mute for so long that they have lost their voices. Only at rare intervals did this quiet, peaceful, seemingly dead foundation stir and move. These upheavals were the revolutions of men fighting for the opportunity to play a part in their world, for a chance to belong, to live like men. These masses of people were and are the substance of society. If they continue inarticulate, apathetic, disinterested, forlorn and alone in their abysmal anonymity, then democracy is ended. It has been stated and restated throughout these pages that substance determines structure and that the form of economy and politics will be and always has been a reflection of either the active desires of a democratically minded citizenry or the passive torpor of a people whose innate dignity and strength have atrophied from disuse, and who will follow slavelike after a dictator. It is irony worthy of the gods that here in the greatest democracy on earth is found the least concern over the prime element of democracy — citizens who shoulder obligations and stand up for their rights. A people’s democracy is a dynamic expression of a living, participating, informed, active, and free people. It is a way of life that belongs to the people, that draws its very life blood from popular participation. Democracy is alive, and like any other living thing it either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is no in-between. It is freedom and life or dictatorship and death.”

PeopleBeliefDemocracyRevolutionMassesFaith In HumanityRadicalsPower To The PeopleBelief In The People
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