RYAN LIZZA: There’s a famous story. Whenever Alinsky would have a new student coming to organize, he would ask them, why do you want to be an organizer, and they would always say, well, I want to help others, you know, I want to devote my life to doing good. And he would scream back at them, no, you want to organize for power. Obama’s organizing buddy shared with me a manual that was very similar to the one that Obama used to train as an organizer, and in it, it said, we are not virtuous by not wanting power. We are really cowards for not wanting power because power is good and powerlessness is evil.
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About Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky was a 20th-century American activist and political theorist. Saul David Alinsky was an American community activist and political theorist. His work through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords, politicians, bankers and business leaders won him national recognition and notoriety. Read more on Wikipedia →