Life is an adventure of passion, risk, danger, laughter, beauty, curiosity, action and a terrifying search for meaning that is often includes tragic detours to hopelessness and despair, hedonism and materialism. A cycle of intentional action, reflection, study, testing and synthesis is essential to living in right relationships. The most important action is usually the reaction.
We must develop the capacity to see the context and circumstances of the targets of our actions. They like us are acted upon by forces, systems and institutions. They are human just like us. They may however have access to more or less resources than us. If the other is stronger, we must develop a strategy to use that very strength to convert him. Attitudes, beliefs and behaviors are the products of ongoing cultural adaptations. Strategic leaders shape the development
of their culture.
The have-nots and the haves, experience life differently however both wish to survive, and neither can thrive in a power imbalance. That imbalance produces instability and adversity. Under such circumstances morality is often a rationalization of the power position the individual happens to occupy at any given point in time.
If you are a have-not, you are out to get, and your morality tends to justify that course of action. You appeal to a law that is higher than the laws of man-- the noble ideas of justice and equality. If you are a have, you are out to keep, and your morality tends to justify that course of action. This morality is focused on law, order and property rights.
The folks in the middle, have-a little-and-want-more. They often cast their lot with the haves as the have-a-littles pursue their efforts to have-more. and there they live in fear of losing the little that they already have.
This inspires a radical, realistic approach to life. Irreverence is an essential component of compulsive curiosity. Who, what, when, wear (general grammar), why (logic) & how (rhetoric). What is the cause? What is the effect? This approach emphasizes calculating probability
and is skeptical about claims of certainty.
However this radical, realistic approach does have an abiding article of faith-- a belief in people, a complete commitment to the belief that I people have the power, the opportunity to act, in the long run, they will, most of the time, reach the right decisions. Thus the function of the radical is to organize the people to recognize and exorcise their power and opportunity to responsibly exorcise their free will.
The radical evaluates the status quo with the understanding that all sacred cows are institutions that are accepted as terminal truths and serve as supporting rationales for the status quo. Irreverence includes the testing of the truth content of that which is professed a sacred. This is profaning the premises that are asserted to be holy. This requires knowledge of and exercise of critical thinking skills.
The radical is so completely identified with mankind that he personally shares the pain, injustices and sufferings of his fellow man. The radical's quest is the actualization of Judeo-Christian
values, the promise of the American Declaration of Liberty and the Constitution of the USA. This is an unending pursuit of happiness--the happiness lies in the pursuit!
The radical seeks the destruction of the material and spiritual sources of all of the fears, frustrations, and insecurity of man. The radical is completely concerned with the cause and not the current manifestation. He refuses to be diverted by superficial problems. He uses those problems to guide the people's attention to the issues they want to address.
The radical places human rights above property rights. Humans are a resource not a problem. The people are the solution. The radical relishes the opportunity to create a world where life is so precious, worthwhile, and meaningful that men will not kill or exploit other men, either economically, politically, or socially; where values will be social and not selfish; where diversity is celebrated and not condemned as deviant; a world where professions are integrated with
behavior; a world where all men are recognized as being equally created in the image of God.
The radical realist also knows that he courts disaster by going outside of the people's actual experience. You have to lead from the known to the unknown. In the ordinary lives of most, they are estranged from the guidance of social life. They do not know or care about their neighbor. They are uninvolved, unfulfilled and fearful. They have lost the capacity to think, act and feel for themselves. They have been programmed by the few to become servile.
The radical works to create a broad based organization that bridges all of the economic, social, religious, ethnic, and political divisions in a community that thrives on the active participation of
all of its diverse membership. This is an organization of organizations. It includes all religious, civic, fraternal, athletic, service, for-profit & not-for-profit organizations. The participation
is more important than the achievement. This is a people's organization. Not just an organization of institutions.
Organization generates power and the people must do the organizing and wield the power that is produced by that activity. Active participation is the primary goal because it is indispensable to any effort to produce an active, healthy, self-confident people who through their participation become informed and develop faith in themselves and their fellow man. The people will address their challenges by making and enforcing decisions. We must avoid doing for others what they must do for themselves.
All problems are interrelated. They are symptoms of the evil that afflicts humanity. We need to avoid static segmented thinking. Life is a dynamic process of relating to others. All human communities are interdependent.
Only native, indigenous leaders can build a people's organization. There are many informal leaders in every community. However their followers are often few, and the scope of their expertise is limited. Our task is to engage them in the process of organizing so they can increase the respect the command and increase the scope of their influence. The outside (professional) organize can serve as a catalyst, but only indigenous leaders can develop a people's
organization.
Organization starts where the people are; start with their traditions, prejudices, habits, and attitudes. It is rooted in life as experienced by the people. Organization will disrupt the status quo and existing organizations will respond antagonistically to this assault on their power. Thus the organizer must take the time to also recruit the indigenous organizations into the process of organizing. The organizer must communicate organization is an ad dative process. We gain strength in numbers.
People will of course be suspicious of the motives of the organizer. Honesty is the best policy. Disillusionment is a significant trap. The organizer must remember that brutality, selfishness, hate, greed, and disloyalty are the products of the evil environment that surrounds the people. Those are the conditions and forces the organizer is working with the people to confront. This confrontation in the form of the action, reflection cycle is the process of conversion.
Individuals and groups exist in social situations that influence human relationships. Individual, opinions and behaviors are affected by the opinions and behaviors of others. Cultural changed is achieved by changes to the social situations that humans encounter and negotiate. Leadership is either legitimated or discredited in this process of altering social relationships. Organization expands the influence of leaders as they develop the organization. Prestige, honor and power
only have meaning in the context of a particular community. . That fact can provide the motivation to do the things that will improve the quality of life in the community.
Personal recognition of the value and dignity of the other is very important. Entreaties to join based on logic and merit is aimed at the head. Entreaties based on the heart such as personal
identification of the value of the individual (target) can often overcome objections the individual may have to working with other groups (fraternal, service, ethnic, religious, business, labor).
All existing groups have factions (ins, outs, climbers). The organizer who is recruiting that group must appeal to all of the factions.
Data Gathering as an Organizational Device:
_____________________________________________________________________
"If I had my way, this is what I would do to make my city the happiest, healthiest, prettiest, and most prosperous place in the world.
_____________________________________________________________________
Name, Date, Address"
The above ballot is widely distributed at the beginning of the organization campaign and again one year later. The quality of the responses should be dramatically improved after one year of
organizational work.
Conflict and confrontation are key components of organizational work. This is an eternal war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness. Fearful people produce fearful people. Courageous people produce courageous people. Honest people produce honest people. Character is contagious. People will live up or down the expectations of respected persons.
When another stronger organization opposes your work and they have an effective plan to defeat you, you must defeat their plan. This is done by behaving in a way that the other organization does not anticipate. Do not develop a plan to counter the other organization. Do go into a
state of utter confusion and draw the opposing force into that vortex of confusion. That will limit the effects of the opponent's superior force and plan.
Conflict and confrontation include a significant emotional charge. The more significant the challenges include very high stakes and require high levels of commitment for success. Often success is achieved more swiftly and at a much lower cost than anticipated because the opposition capitulates. However you supporters are still whipped into shape and filled with righteous indignation. You need to channel that emotion to a safe discharge. Your file of "fights in the bank" is vital to this effort. Thus you should keep track of the low priority fights that are not significant enough for immediate action and return to them when your people need an emotional discharge. This will often be months after you identified the challenge and the target
will not expect your attack.
Popular education is the principle of organization. Social relations produce shared experiences and mutual understanding of the meaning of those relationships, experiences and the definition of social challenges. Knowledge of the other individual reduces our capacity to treat him as a statistical other. Although it is not possible to know everyone in the community, it is very possible to get hundreds of local leaders to know one another on a personal basis. When these
local leaders collaborate on projects with the local leaders of diverse groups, those shared experiences alter previously held attitudes and beliefs as the new relationships develop. The local
leaders transmit these new understandings to their followers and shape the culture of the community.
The organizer must constantly search for opportunities for popular education in the community. Some topics are sensitive. Personal finances are one of those sensitive subjects. However, if the people's organization is also providing financial services (credit union) then the target expects and is receptive to discussing personal finances. The community is not a classroom, but building relationships include opportunities for educational experiences.
In this educational process it is important to remember the iron rule and do with, not for. The organizer must not provide answers but only the means for the people to find their own answers. Go with them to the public library as they request instruction from the librarian.
Education reduces isolation. In the beginning of the process we focus on the value of the individual. Then we expand our focus to include small group the individual is a member of. Then we expand to include other groups that affect the individual and his small group. This process reviles the interconnections of our relationships and social situation. Action and reflection. The developing leader seeks out information in order to accomplish specific tasks that they have
decided are important. That activity produces skills that can be used in subsequent endeavors.
Organization is really disorganization, transfiguration, transformation and conversion. The organizer is the servant who is separate and apart. In order to be part of all, you must be part of
none. A people's democracy is a dynamic expression of a living, participating, and informed, active, and free people. Democracy is a way of life that either flourishes and grows or withers and dies. There is only freedom and life or dictatorship and death. Fear and apathy are paralyzing emotions. Paralysis leads to death.
The few Americans who are actively involved in the governmental process do so largely to pursue self interest narrowly defined. They work with others in narrowly defined interest groups and the contended with other interest groups in a struggle over the correct division of the pie. The majority of American shrinks from participation they do not know how to speak with one voice for the common interest of all Americans. Our elected leaders respond to the organized voices that the elected officials hear. That is how the system is designed. We get the government we deserve/earn. The price of good government is participation. The only hope for democracy is an increase in the number of individuals and groups exerting pressure on governing officials to alter the institutions to more appropriately respond to the challenges of daily life.
Death is a plight; an inevitable feature of reality, something that we must all endure. The task of the organizer is to recognize that problems are not plights because problems can be transformed to issues and then to challenges that individuals are ready, willing, and able to resolve through public, action, reflection, confrontation, conflict, and cooperation as they develop interdependent
relationships. This is the intentional, hopeful process of shaping the development of the culture that is transmitted from generation to generation.
In a free society people recognize the legitimacy of self interest as a motivator. Life is not static. Life includes change. Change can only be effected through power and power requires organization. Issues present controversy, which require confrontation to produce resolution. Resolution requires compromise. Each resolution contains seeds of the next problem that humans can either choose to avoid or confront. Conflict is the never ending struggle of life.
Humans are not as rational as we like to think. Much of human action is driven by emotional responses. Many of our reasons are nothing more than rationalizations for our actions which are really responses to our position on the socioeconomic scale (haves, have-a-little-want-mores, have-nots). A rationalization is a form of persuasive speech (how), it is not a logical explanation (why). The organizer must be comfortable working with the non-rational actor. Logic says "we'll believe it when we see it". Faith says "we'll see it when we believe it".
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