In the recent past, The Herald ran a column by Matthew Corritore '09 ("Why conservatives should love community organizing," Oct. 17) that examined conservatives' aversion to community organizing. Unfortunately, the piece conflated opposition to Obama with opposition to organizing and neglected to mention why organizing gives conservatives pause.
First, many conservatives supporting McCain and Palin (and opposing Obama and Biden) do not deride community organizing in and of itself. They only claim that Obama's experience as a community organizer does not qualify him for the American presidency.
The column also seemed to suggest that conservatives laud Palin simply because she was a small-town mayor. In fact, very few conservatives would support all small-town mayors based on their title alone. Nevertheless, even a small-town mayor has credentials that a community organizer lacks. While community organizers may have good intentions, they legally cannot provide official representation and are not legitimate political operators.
Corritore misleadingly compared Obama's community organizing days to Palin's terms as mayor. Obama's supporters glorify his time as a community organizer because, quite frankly, they have little else to glorify. While some crazed supporters can name obscure pieces of legislation that Obama has sponsored here and there, he does not have a long track record as an Illinois and United States senator.
Palin, on the other hand, has held two other prominent leadership positions: as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation commission and governor of Alaska. Corritore completely overlooks these facts by exclusively emphasizing her time as Wasilla's mayor.
National politics aside, Corritore's characterization of community organizing is deeply flawed. He claims that community organizing is not radical by nature, and is a harmless, civilized way to better individuals.
This skewed conception of community organizing comes straight from Saul Alinsky, the man widely considered the father of community organizing. I would like to draw attention to Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," a document appropriately considered the official handbook for community organizers.
A cursory reading of these rules shows that community organizing is, at its roots, anything but civilized. Alinsky's rules constantly invoke militant imagery; He paints community members as soldiers and envisions the community as an army.
Alinsky himself would say, "the first step in community organization is community disorganization" (meaning that the future organizer should first instill some sort of resentment amongst the neighborhood about the issue in question). After this is done, "the organizer tries to create a mass army that brings in as many recruits as possible."
In addition to promoting hysteria, Alinsky also values deception. In Rule 1 he advises organizers that "power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do." The last cornerstone of Alinsky's strategy centers on the creative use of fear and the power of threats. Rule 9 proclaims "the threat is more terrifying than the thing itself." To demonstrate this dangerous principle, Alinsky once spread word that hoards of Chicago's poor would occupy and vandalize the bathrooms in O'Hare airport. To avoid national embarrassment, Chicago officials regrettably caved into his demands and created a ghetto organization that Alinsky's soldiers had been demanding for some time.
Alinsky's rules are riddled with militant, anti-establishment language. If community organizing were as friendly as Corritore suggests, why would its father fill his handbook with words like "tactic," "fear," "weapon," "army," "opponent" and "attack?"
The cornerstone of Alinsky's philosophy revolves around the fact that the current establishment is the "enemy," and the apparently good-natured community organizer needs to develop an unrelenting army of soldiers to force change.
There is nothing democratic or individualistic about this philosophy. It requires everyone (excepting the organizer) to submit themselves to the infantry, vying for a "higher cause."
Anish Mitra '10 is creating a mass army.
