Posted on 02/23/2015 8:51:41 PM PST by Art in Idaho
Interesting discussion by Mark of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Starts at 26 minutes, 5 seconds.
The List: (from The Best of Beck)
Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals
Here is the complete list from Alinsky.
* RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
* RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
* RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
* RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
* RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
* RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
* RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
* RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
* RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
* RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
* RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
* RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
I can attest it's hard not to be defensive with a flaming lib.
Ammo:
Barack Obama: Radical-In-Chief?
Walid Shoebat EXPOSES how Obama’s policies are part of MASTER PLAN to revive GRAND CALIPHATE
Understand that it’s not about “truth”.
It’s about Pride.
They are susceptible to the same human emotions and the predictable responses that we are.
“Are you kidding?”, “really?”, “climate change is a bigger problem than ISIS?”, “you really believe that?”. “you have know clue”, “Only complete idiots believe that”.
I idea is to undermine their confidence in their positions, not with facts but with the authority of ridicule.
Tell them that they are tools to believe what the “government” is telling them.
Exploit their nature tendency’s to believe in conspiracies.
The Progressives almost always fail at RULE 11.
They really don't have successful counter argument because they're platforms are all socialist, which are doomed to fail. That's why they're so invested in destroying America by creating crisis, class warfare - 'tear it down' and have the people begging for socialism/communism/fascism/tyranny - someone or some entity to fix it.
Between Cloward-Piven and Alinsky, Obama and his ilk hope to accomplish their ends of fundamentally transforming our 5000 year miracle, the United States of America.
We are at War with the Left.
Fight like your kids lives depend on it. . because they do.
5. .... “It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.”
I have used the word “enemy” referencing Democrats and heard objections from some here. But what would you call someone who wants to cause the loss of things that other Americans have risked their lives to preserve?
Anyway, an example of the above (”concessions”): Brian Williams.
Williams, a key Inner UniParty member and MSM operative was lambasted here and many other places and his allies were unable to save him due to the effectiveness of ridicule directed against this enemy of liberty.
Usually they take a little heat, then are back on the job.
But not this time because even Democrats looked at him and imagined him thinking out loud about fantastical Rambo exploits.
A lot like lesbian butch archetype Hillary Clinton bounding—really stretching those muscular cankles—and zig-zagging down a runway, attempting to dodge heavy sniper fire ... whoa,
hey! Like Obama and Williams, also a legend .... in her own mind. There it is.
In sum, as Will Rogers put it, “I just watch the government and report the facts.”
I tried reading it a few years ago, and couldn't finish it for pretty much the reasons you listed here. It's a view of a sick, evil mind at work. It's not even logically consistent, which is probably one reason why liberals seem to adore it.
Now I know why it seems like there's 'something every day' from Obama. It's straight out of Alinsky! 700 or some such days left? That's a Long time. . How much damage is he going to do? We sent a message to the new Congress to STOP OBAMA! There's no evidence they are taking a national emergency stonewall stand with Obama.
Don't they get it? It's one minute to midnight Congress! No, not from the outside, from the White House! STOP OBAMA'S Fundamental Transformation of our great country!
The more I think about this, our important task is to educate and inform our youth, and by that I mean kids up to to 30. The typical 20 something gets their news from 'apps' and comedy central, but, in my experience, are amenable to discussion if approached in a reasonable manner. . It takes effort on our part to 'break the ice' with them.
Bravo! It is time to dissect, slice and dice this operator’s manual for the Left. They have been running on it for 40 years. It is time we dump it in the ash can of history.
bmp
The thing about it is the book not only advocates, but admiringly promotes despicable human behavior, all the dishonorable things in life that moral parents teach their children to avoid doing.
It disgusted me. There is only one other work I have ever read that made me struggle with the value of reading it, even though I forced myself to finish it: “Dreams of My Father”.
There are those here at FR that use those tactics to silence others.
Equally stunning...
PFL
This is why the left cannot govern. They have no principles for guidance, only grievances. Much better as agitators.
Such as the double post, correct tittle FRmorality police?
Such as the double post, correct title FRmorality police?
True, I have seen it here. I have seen it everywhere, as a matter of fact.
That said, I think it is one thing to use those tactics as a result of personal failing and weakness, and quite another to hold them up as something to aspire to use deliberately to reach a desired goal.
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