YULE LOVE THIS! EXOTIC, RARE & EXQUISITE! THE PROFESSIONAL RADICAL: CONVERSATIONS WITH SAUL ALINSKY (COPYRIGHT 1965) . . . SOME FUN QUOTES, THAT WILL MAKE YOU THINK, ME TOO! I JUST WANTED TO MENTION, BOTH BY WAY OF BEING FLATTERED, BUT CONCERNED--I HAD DINNER AT THE FLATHEAD COUNTY AREA ON AGING, BOTH YESTERDAY AND TODAY . . . GOOD, HEALTHY FOOD, FOR SENIORS. BUT, I WAS QUESTIONED FOR MY AGE, WITH THE STAFF, COMING BACK TO ME TWICE, TELLING ME I DIDN'T LOOK LIKE I WAS 60 OR OLD ENOUGH TO COME TO DINNER THERE. I ASSURED HER, THAT WAS A COMMON PROBLEM, BUT, I ASSURED HER, WITH ABOUT 4 PEOPLE EATING THERE BOTH DAYS, WHO KNOW HOW OLD I AM, BEING ONLY SEVERAL YEARS OLDER THAN ME, AND WHO HAVE KNOWN ME FOR YEARS, SINCE COMING TO THE AREA, LATE FALL OF 2012! I HAD MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE IN MY PURSE, SINCE I HAVE BEEN BLOCKED FROM OBTAINING COPIES OF ANY OF MY OTHER I.D., AND ONLY HAVE THAT, AS PROOF, BECAUSE A PROFESSIONAL AGENCY, GOT IT FOR ME, CIRCUMVENTING GOVERNMENT, OR MOB, OR SUPER MOB, INTERVENTION, WHO WATCHES ALL COMPUTER ACTIVITY, MONITORS PHONE CALLS, BLOCKS TEST MESSAGES AND EMAILS, ON A DAILY BASIS! BOTH YESTERDAY AND TODAY, I WAS CUT OFF FROM INTERNET ACCESS AT THE AOA, AND MY GUESS, IS THAT, STAFF, WHO FOUND MY APPLICATION OF SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, TO START COMING TO LUNCHES, SAT SILENTLY BY, HAVING MADE A REAL ISSUE OF MY AGE, ONLY TO LEARN THAT I WILL BE, 61, AS OF DECEMBER 17, 1954, WHETHER I LOOK LIKE IT OR NOT! BUT, FROM MY ENEMIES PERSPECTIVE, HOW CAN MY SISTER, RACHEL, AKA, ME, WHO IS 53 YEARS OLD, BE COMING TO THE SENIOR CENTER FOR DINNER? SHE CAN'T . . . SO, BLOCK ALL COMPUTER ACCESS, SO MY APPEARANCE AND ATTENDANCE, CAN BE COVERED, LIKE MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE HAS BEEN, FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS! YESTERDAY, WHILE I WAS TYPING MY BLOG, SOME STRANGE, NOTE CAME UP, SHOWING THAT, ON COOKIES OR THROUGH THAT ACCESS PROGRAM, 16 PEOPLE ON ONE COOKIE HAD ACCESS, AND 11 PEOPLE ON ANOTHER, HAD ACCESS, OR SO, THAT IS HOW I READ IT! 27 PEOPLE, ARE ON THE GRAVY TRAIN, GETTING A DISTRIBUTED CUT OF MY BLOG MONEY, BEING DIVERTED, ONCE I WRITE, THE BLOG IS SCANNED, AND COMES OUT AS IF, IT IS BEING WRITTEN BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN MYSELF! NO, ALL 736 OR SO BLOGS, ARE ALL WRITTEN BY ME, OR ORIGINALLY WERE, SOME, THROUGH THEFT, MAY HAVE BEEN EDITED, PUT THROUGH COMPUTER PROGRAMS TO ALTER A WORD OR TWO HERE OR THERE, GENERALLY, WITH LITTLE CHANGE, AS I HAVE CAPTURED THESE BLIPS, THAT HAVE PERIODICALLY, COME UP ON MY SCREEN, I AM SURE, UNINTENDED FOR, THE AUTHOR'S EYES! BUT, SOMEWHAT DISCONCERTING, AS BEING QUESTIONED ON MY AGE, WHICH IS, LIKE I SAID, COMPLIMENTARY, BUT, ALSO HAS ADDED TO GRIEF, SAYING I AM TOO YOUNG TO HAVE DONE ALL THAT I HAVE DONE, OR TOO YOUNG TO HAVE HAD MY CHILDREN, STARTING WITH MY OLDEST DAUGHTER, WHO IS 40 YEARS OLD--I WAS ON MO STANDARD BRIDE TIME, A TEEN MOM, NOT THROUGH A TEEN PREGNANCY, TOTALLY VIRGIN! AND GOING ON DOWN, TO ELLIOT, MY 32 YEARS OLD ROCK STAR, GOD'S REVOLVER, THE DITCH AND THE DELTA

My IP Number Today at the Flathead Area on Agency Lunch, As I Was Blocked From Connecting To Their Internet, Was . . . 0.0.0.0., So, As the Writer of Bad Ass Con Law Chick Blog, I Was Totally Cut Off! And How Many Other Times?

WHAT THE FUCK, EVER!

The Professional Radical!  I Could Totally Relate to the Jail Statements!  LOL!  Been There, Done That!

HAVE TROUBLE, WILL TRAVEL!

• reckless wit and cool detachment
• city set on edge--screams of rage, moans and groans, ruins of power structure dictatorship based on slum dwellers (Chicago, race, labor, tenant, immigrants, etc., 1960's)
• techniques of lynch mobs
• unlike his critics--Alinsky really believes in democracy!
• a personal relationship cannot substitute for a power relationships!  (Alinsky met with Mitt Romney's dad, George, when he was President of General Motors, dealing with labor dispute issues)
• the making of a an anti-fascist . . .
• a man's right to a job, transcends the right to private property
• I learned that you had to look at life, in a flexible, fluid way
• you have to have a sense of humor to survive--in doctrinaire people have no humor
• once your on top, you want to stay that way, you learn to eat at the best restaurants, fly first class, but the next thing you know, these things are essentials.  Your imprisoned by them . . .
• It that screwball ever shows up again, tell him I'm out!
• When you find yourself completely caught, subjugated, crushed in this kind of situation, you have a choice of two ways out: One way is to  blow your top--you say, "Who ever asked me to come into this world anyway?"  And you wind up killing your wife and your kids and yourself.  You read about these things in the papers.  The other way is what 99 per cent of the population does--you rationalize.  You say, "Go fight City Hall.  It's a tough world, tough for everybody.  And this isn't too bad.  I get my relief check regularly, and maybe my number will come up in the numbers, or my policy ticket--anyhow, it could be worse.  I'm better off than that guy down the block." And you just exist.  You keep all your anger, all your feelings pent up inside you.
• When you're in the field of action you have to do your thinking on the run.  You don't have time to figure out whether what your're doing really makes sense.  You don't acquire what the Greeks called, real experience.  IN order to get experience out of living and action you've got to go off by yourself and digest it.  Wise men in the old days knew this.  So they went off into the wilderness to think for a while.  Well, my wilderness turned out to be a jail in a Middle Western city where I was organizing people living in a miserable slum. . . . I had a very good deal in that jail--I din't suffer at all.  I had a private cell; they treated me very nicely.  (LOL!)
• Now there 's no place that is better designed for reflective thinking and writing than a jail. . . . I wrote my book, Reveille for Radicals in that jail.  Sometimes the jailers would tell me to get out when I was in the middle of a chapter.  I'd tell them, I don't want to go now; I've got a couple of hours' more work to do.  This really confused them.  But after a while they got used to it.  (I love it!)
• . . . But, I know that once you reach that point of accepting your own death, you no longer care much whether you're important or not important.  I've frequented the cemeteries too long--I know that that's it.
• I rarely reply to critics.  The reason is not the obvious one--that if I were to spend my time replying to critics I wouldn't have time to do anything else.  The real reason is this, and I try to get it across to my staff: once you become concerned about critics, subconsciously it's going to affect your actions and thinking the way you're thinking now, you're going to start pausing and wondering, "What's Harper's Magazine going to think about it? . . . And the hell with them, you know.  I told Silberman when he first came in to write about us in Fortune , "I don't care what you write.  It isn't going to make a bit of difference. . . . So the critics are going to read it?  They DON'T COUNT! (emphasis added)
• one of the worst crimes that has been committed on us, in quoting that line from Shakespeare, about who steals my purse, steals trash, but he who takes my reputation takes everything.  This is a damnable lie.  There's been more corruption because people were concerned about their reputations rather than their purse.  I think being concerned about their reputation is one of the worst prisons you can have.
• Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern for it; but I suffer the misery of devils, where I to make a whore of my soul . . .--Tom Paine.
• . . . churches were a big dominate role in civil rights
• Smugtown U.S.A. is a good name for that place.
• It those big fat-cats downtown write papers and calling Alinsky a dangerous, no good son of a bitch, then he must be alright!
• Mark Twain once said that an ethical man was a Christian holding four aces.  If you've got that, you can afford to be ethical.  The ethics of means involves a lot of things, such as who is the judge, the times, and whether you're winning or losing.
• All evening on TV you can watch plays where all the good guys win and the bad guys get killed.  Then you come to the ten o'clock newscast and your punched right into the real world where the good guys get killed.
• better to die on your feet, than live on your knees!
• If man has opportunity and the power to use that opportunity, then I'll bet on him to cross any bridge,  no matter how tough or seemingly hopeless it may look.  As a matter of fact, I've already bet my life on it.
• As an antidote to local apathy, Alinsky, launched an anti-pollution drive which moved into high gear after the city was suddenly darkened by what one columnist called a blanket of floating filth. When Mayor Daley denied that the pollution problem was serious, Alinslyu rejoined, What the hell does he breathe with--his ears.  LOL, this was in 1968 or around there!
• We talk about the black days of infamy.  So it's natural for them to react by saying, black is beautiful.  In the end they'll see that black is beautiful and ugly.  White is beautiful and ugly.  Every color is beautiful and ugly.
• Who ever heard of Jewish boys being arrested?  And they promised the police sergeant their boys would be punished plenty when they got home. My mother didn't take me home.  Instead she took me to the rabbi--I was very devout up to about the age of twelve.  The rabbi started telling me how wrong I was and I defended myself.  "They beat us up," I said.  "So we beat them up.  That's the American way.  It's also in the Old Testament: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  Bet the hell out of them.  That's what everybody does."  The rabbi answered, "You think you're a man because you do what everybody does.  Now I want to tell you something the great Rabbi Hillel said: Where there are no men, be thou a man.  I want you to remember that.  I never forgot that.

See it as your duty, to right wrongs, to defend the oppressed, to see that there is justice for all . . . you will find, great joy in that!--bad ass con law chick!