The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be ... . (from Rules for Radicals , 1971, page 25ish)
I really must get hold of this book! I must have borrowed it from the library at the Urban Theology Unit in the early 80s and the memory has stayed with me. Alinski's earlier book Reveille for Radicals is also worth a look. This is a too short excerpt but offers a flavour of Alinski's hard edged approached. The Industrial Areas Foundation in the United States, bases its Citizens' Organising on the work of Alinski, and is supported primarily by the churches.
Alinski's mission was to empower the poor and he wrote of 'rubbing raw the sores of discontent'. This cuts across the quiet calm ordered nature of so much of our religion. And yet he was in that same tradition as Winstanley, aware that it is the carpenters and fishermen (and the unemployed!) who make change happen, not the politicians or the millionaires.
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