Has anyone heard of these? I have to write a short analysis of Saul Alinsky, who organised the IAF in the 1960's.

What are your ideas about them? I know i can count on some of you ladies, a lot of the theories i am studying come from US thinkers, so i reckon is only fair to ask if any of you have had first hand experience to give me a better idea of what they are and how people perceive them.

Thanks in advance,

Maria.

By Amecmom on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 05:27 pm:

Never heard of them, or the founder. Sorry, Maria.

Ame

By Alberobello on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 05:42 pm:

Thanks Ame, maybe they are not too well known now but i just wanted to make sure. The last time asked something about my course, there were quite a few responses and they wre really helpful so i just wanted to give it a try again.

I have been researching on the Internet (just today) and have found lots of stuff but i wanted to know if any of you had any experience of knew about them.

This is a little paragraph about him i got from a website, to give you an idea:
from: The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and his promise

"By the late 1960s, Alinsky had become a folk hero to America's young campus radicals. In 1969, he set up a training institute for organizers and wrote Rules for Radicals, in which he urged America's youth to become realistic, not rhetorical radicals. In 1970, Time Magazine hailed Alinsky as "a prophet of power to the people," contending that Alinsky's ideas had forever changed the way American democracy worked. By the early '70s, Alinsky concluded that America's poor would have to ally themselves with the middle class, whom he was afraid would move to the right. Unfortunately, he never got to organize the middle class. On June 12, 1972 Alinsky died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 63 years old".

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 06:41 pm:

Saul Alinsky - a hero to lefty liberals like me. But I can't tell you a whole lot about him. I'm afraid you're just going to have to do the internet research.

By Alberobello on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 07:03 pm:

Thanks Ginny, I've got his book "Reveille for Radicals" and there are lots of info about him on the Internet but i wanted to know about the IAF because it is still an organisation in action so i wanted to now if any of you had any experience with it. Just that. Thanks anyway!

Here's a little about the IAF:
Industrial Areas Foundation

"The IAF develops organizations that use power - organized people and organized money - in effective ways. The secret to the IAF's success lies in its commitment to identify, recruit, train, and develop leaders in every corner of every community where IAF works. The IAF is indeed a radical organization in this specific sense: it has a radical belief in the potential of the vast majority of people to grow and develop as leaders, to be full members of the body politic, to speak and act with others on their own behalf. And IAF does indeed use a radical tactic: the face-to-face, one-to-one individual meeting whose purpose is to initiate a public relationship and to re-knit the frayed social fabric".