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The despair is there now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.

Saul Alinsky

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Saul Alinsky
Age: 63 †
Born: 1909
Born: January 30
Died: 1972
Died: June 12
Activist
Human Rights Activist
Sociologist
Trade Unionist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Saul David Alinsky
Despair
Social
Change
Galvanize
Sores
Organizer
Discontent
Radical

More quotes by Saul Alinsky

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The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
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In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of the common good and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed.
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Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you are free to live.
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Humor is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule.
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Change comes from power, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together.
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The only people who become disillusioned are people who have illusions.
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The preferred world can be seen any evening on television in the succession of programs where the good always wins
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Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing.
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If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them.
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Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.
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Last guys don't finish nice.
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Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
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A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
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Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
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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.
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One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
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As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.
Saul Alinsky
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No issue can be negotiated unless you first have the clout to compel negotiation.
Saul Alinsky
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Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked with as one would work with any other part of our populations - with respect, understanding, and sympathy.
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Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing - but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.
Saul Alinsky