OK. so there's freaking and floundering and finger-pointing on all sides. That's one set of natural reactions to a deep setback. Others are looking for the quick fix, the perfect "frame" maybe. A lot of us now are emerging from the immediate post-election horror/anger/depression and getting ready to take a long hard look at where things stand. Me? In a crisis, I usually get back to basics.
My political background began with community organizing. It's an unglamourous, usually unnoticed form of activism, it rarely gets on TV, to outsiders the stories of community organizing might seem humdrum.
But if you're one of the people involved, if you're standing up, often for the first time, taking on the powers-that-be on something that directly concerns the well-being of yourself, your family and your community, it can be a life-changing, and life-affirming experience.
The best practices in modern community organizing are summarized by legendary Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky in his 1971 classic
Rules for Radicals. I have kicked off a series examining the principles Alinsky outline over at Liberal Street Fight.
Here I'm simply going to give you Alinsky's bullet points, in hopes that some people see relevance in them, and may find them worthy of consideration and discussion. If you want a more detailed introduction to Rules for Radicals with copious excerpts, check out my post at Liberal Street Fight. In weeks ahead I will be doing additional installments at LSF looking at each of these points in detail. But, with no further ado, Saul Alinsky's 13 rules of tactics:
1 ) Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2 ) Never go outside the experience of your people. It may result in confusion, fear and retreat.
3 ) Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat.
4 ) Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules.
5 ) Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6 ) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7 ) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8 ) Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9 ) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10 ) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11 ) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12 ) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13 ) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
There was a reason the Dean campaign, and its grassroots messages resonated so deeply with me. Community organizing teaches one lesson more than any other. That lesson: "You have the power."