Rules for Radicals | 
 enlarge | Author: Saul Alinsky
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $8.17
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Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 2740
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0679721134
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.484
EAN: 9780679721130
ASIN: 0679721134
Publication Date: October 23, 1989
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
This primers tells the "have-nots" how they can organize to achieve real political power for the practice of true democracy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 Good service on a tough subject November 23, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The item arrived as promised with accurate and quick turnaround. I haven't gotten around to reading it because I'm not sure I can stomach it, but I have only a beef with the author, not with the seller.
 A real eye-opener November 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a must read for all to understand radicalism and how their goals are achieved. This book was essentially the blueprint for the Obama campaign. Saul Alinsky and his views are admired by both Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Are you kidding me? November 15, 2008
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is a man who dedicated his book to satan?
a man who was so off base with society.
this book allows for the decline in western civilization, he is or i should say was, the fecies of our species.
If you have a brain in your head you will leave this one alone!
 History of a significant approach to political matters October 24, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book is clearly written and summarized by the title. Alinsky, the doyen of Chicago style community organizers, argues that whether the ends justify the means is to be decided by the immediate circumstances. He provides several examples where he answers "Yes" to the question of whether the ends justify the means, showing how means some might consider "bad" served "good" ends. An interesting read whether or not you believe the tactics of recent and current Chicago style community organizers are consistent with Alinsky's guidance.
Alinsky's rules for destroying capitalism have succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. October 16, 2008
37 out of 58 found this review helpful
So successful have radical front groups such as ACORN been, that it may not be long before the very same tactics can be used against the radicals themselves. Saul's tactics of intimidation, civil disobedience, threats, veiled threats, strikes, boycotts, lying, bluffing, more lying, fixing elections, infiltrating all layers of government, media manipulation, fear, smears, ridicule, hit & run tactics, humor and "dirty pool tricks" of all kinds were always intended for the "have nots" to use against the "haves." Now that the radicals have actually gained so much power, they are no longer the "outside have-nots" and the very same strategies they used to gain power can be turned on them. While the radicals will have succeeded in forcing most multi-national corporations to move their businesses and jobs off shore, their socialist policies will no longer be able to raise enough taxes to produce the Socialist, Communistic Utopia that was promised.
It will be interesting to observe taxpayer revolts where suddenly almost everyone is showing no taxable income. It will be fascinating to see millions of formerly middle class citizens suddenly and all at once decide not to pay their real estate taxes. It will be enlightening to see government offices swamped with citizens applying for every possible entitlement all at the same time and over and over again. The unemployed will simply refuse to work full-time. Tax payer lawsuits will overwhelm the court system and the IRS. While the majority of citizens have willingly paid their income taxes in the past believing they owed it to their nation for it's freedoms, the critical mass of real fairness will quickly be reached and the majority of the formerly law biding citizens will start to cheat on a massive scale. The American way of life isn't going to go down the drain peaceably and the voters, once they figure out how they have been tricked, will be ready for another revolution to restore the freedoms that they so easily surrendered to smooth talking snake oil salesmen.
When both sides start applying these rules for radicals the resulting polarization will be more pronounced than anything the United States has ever experienced other than the Civil War. This is an excellent primer for Americans to read to better understand how they have been tricked, and how to go about returning the favor to those who did the tricking. The black markets and underground economy may smother the legal economy and unreported cash and bartering will once again become king.
I found insightful some of the author's opinions of how shallow liberals are and how they must be treated with kid gloves and only included in quick, easy, symbolic actions because of their short attention spans and because of their low tolerance for even modest sacrifice. He considered them mostly radicals in theory and talk only. His sage advice not to try these tactics in Russia, China or Havana unless the radicals and all their friends wanted to be tortured and killed was enlightening as well.
Old Saul was obviously depending on the fact that freedom of speech would not be entirely eliminated in America because if the radicals managed to destroy free speech, they might find themselves on the wrong side of a Cuban-like dictatorship. He obviously didn't plan on causing so much damage to American Corporations that they went bankrupt. He didn't want to kill the golden goose, he just wanted to own and control it.
This is a fascinating read for political junkies. It's amazing how the same tactics may so easily be used to turn the tables on the folks originally employing them. One of the most interesting parts of the book to this reviewer was how to use humor to defeat your enemies. The idea is to make them a laughing stock. Humor can be utilized to make points much more effectively than straight, serious discussion. One only has to watch the late night talk shows and SNL to see how powerful humor can be in influencing elections, especially in this era when many people no longer read the print media and get much of their news from the jokes of their favorite late night talk show hosts.
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