Alinsky's second chapter "Of Means and Ends"

"Alinsky's second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult moral dilemmas, and his 'tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends' is: 'you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.'  He doesn't ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary. He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that 'Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.'...

  

       "The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were:

• ego ("reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God"),

• curiosity (raising "questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern"),

• irreverence ("nothing is sacred"; the organizer "detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality"),

• imagination ("the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing"),

• a sense of humor ("the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule"), and an

• organized personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his actions only "as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.'...

 "'The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems,' and 'organizations must be based on many issues.' The organizer 'must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.'"

 

(Source)  

• Notes from an article by Phyllis Schalfly titled "Alinski's Rules: Must Reading In Obama Era," posted at www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318470857908277 (2-2-09)
• AboveTopSecret