Rules for Radicals WORKS!

Rules for Radicals ^ | 102309 | vg0va3

[vg0va3]

Rules for Radicals

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules.

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

[vg0va3]

I have been on the liberal discussion boards regarding states rights. I picked the biggest loud mouth on the board and sparked a debate. This person is huge liberal and thinks all power reigns from the Supreme Court.

I have asked questions, I have been polite, and I have not backed down from a position.

The person has become irate at me. I simply whipped out the reference to Rules for Radicals and explained I understood that they were trying to do by ridiculing my ideas (deflection). This only served to infuriate the person more. The post get more insulting.

I then whip out rule 5 and ridiculed the persons behavior while expressing my desire to better understand their position.

I then deployed rule rule 11. I then told the person to no longer address me on the board and explained to the others for I saw no benefit in continuing my conversation with that person.

All the while I am experiencing rule 6

Please go enjoy.

[ETL]

Saul Alinsky on "Change"...
From Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing:

"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

Saul Alinsky, The Latter Rain (Latter-Rain.com is a "Liberation Theology" commie-left website -etl)
http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/alinski.htm

[ETL]

From the website of the Communist Party, USA...
(prior to the election)

"The Communist Party USA views the 2008 elections as a tremendous opportunity to defeat the policies of the right-wing Republicans and to move our country in a new progressive direction.

The record turnout in the Democratic Presidential primary races shows that millions of voters, including millions of new voters, are using this election to bring about real change. We wholeheartedly agree with them."

http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/907/1/4/
_____________________________________________________

After the election....

A Landslide Mandate For Change

Congratulations on an extraordinary history making election!

We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward our strategic goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress. That all people’s movement has come to life, it is dynamic and it has the potential to keep growing.

The election of Barack Obama and a strengthened Congress creates new conditions in our country. There is now the possibility to shift gears and move forward. This new day requires us to further develop our tactics in order to continue to deepen and broaden labor and people’s unity.

There are thousands of experiences that we all have had in these momentous days, some large, some small, all of which express the enormity of change in thinking and readiness for involvement that is underway and that steels us for the battles ahead.

The tears of joy we all shared as crowds gathered to watch the election results here and throughout the world dramatize the new moment we are in.

http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/991/1/154/
_____________________________________________________

"Barack Obama told supporters that
'change has come to America' as he
claimed victory in a historic presidential election."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html
_____________________________________________________

July 1, 2009...

Change is Here, Change is Coming

Sam Webb, National Chair, Communist Party, USA:

Let me begin with a simple observation: If the last 30 years were an era of reaction, then the coming decade could turn into an era of reform, even radical reform. Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation, and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead.

We can visualize passing tough regulatory reforms on the financial industry, which brought the economy to ruin.

We can imagine the troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan while U.S. representatives participate in a regional process that brings peace and stability to the entire region.

In the current political climate, the expansion of union rights becomes a real possibility.

Much the same can be said about winning a second stimulus bill, and we sure need one, given the still-rising rate, and likely long term persistence, of unemployment.

Isn’t it possible in the Obama era to create millions of green jobs in manufacturing and other sectors of the economy in tandem with an attack on global warming?

Can’t we envision taking new strides in the long journey for racial and gender equality in this new era, marked at its beginning by the election of the first African American to the presidency?

And isn’t the overhaul of the criminal justice and prison system – a system steeped in racism – no longer pie-in-the sky, but something that can be done in the foreseeable future?

All these things are within reach now!

http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/1054/1/27/
_____________________________________________________

"We are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America"
--B.H.Obama, 2008

YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-k04caUt84&feature=related

A second video of same in case the first 'disappears' from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cqN4NIEtOY

Yahoo search results for "Fundamentaly Transforming The United States Of America":
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35&p=%22Fundamentally+Transforming+The+United+States+Of+America%22&SpellState=n-2204099546_q-bsN.LA3I3%2F%2FdGaQgkeauogAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-top
_____________________________________________________

Election Day 2008...

"Today, Americans decide on whether, in the words of Barack Obama last week, to 'fundamentally transform the United States of America.'

That is really what this election is about, even though most of those voting for Barack Obama do not want to fundamentally transform America. That is Barack Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s agenda."

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29349
_____________________________________________________

[Free Vulcan]

Rules for Radicals sucks. For every move there is a countermove and getting too much enamored with Alinsky will get your ass beat.

[VR-21]

Most of this country’s entertainment industry is the embodiment of rule 5.

[DarthVader]

Absolutely, use their own tactics against them and destroy them with superior conservative ideas.

[True Republican Patriot]

EXCELLENT INFORMATION TO BE STUDIED, DIGESTED and EMPLOYED AGAINST AMERICA’S INTERNAL ENEMIES!

[1raider1]

When you see them written out it’s easy to see that they are used by the SRM everytime they interview a conservative

[investigateworld]

For even more practice, go to any FR free trade discussion....(lol)

[vg0va3]

Sounds like chess.

[Dick Bachert]

I particularly like rule #5.

Here are several examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp7lGqWRnls

[all the best]

Did anybody ever notice liberals on TV talk shows. The host will be discussing something with a conservative and a leftist. Split screen. All the while the conservative is talking the leftist smiles (big smile) while subtly shaking head from side to side. They ALL do it. The smile says “I am friendly and nice and reasonable” . The head motion says that the conservative is totally nuts. The combined effect is to say that the other guy is making me smile with all the nonsensical things he is saying and I’ll just humor him because you can’t argue with a crazy person. It is very subtle, polite and effective ridicule. The conservative tends to come off as angry.

[NewMexLurker]

Rule #11 is very slimy, and I don't think much of rule #10 either, although I might just be missing the point on that one.

Personally though, I don't see much of a problem with rules 1 through 9. They look like reasonable strategies for many competitive situations.

[alloysteel]

The point is not to get enamored of Alinsky, it is recognize WHEN these tactics are being used, and to come up with appropriate countermeasures.

Alinsky is depending on making a first strike, one so paralyzing and demoralizing that the opponent has no chance of recovery before being effectively hemmed in by the rhetorical traps so innocently entered into.

The radical does not want compromise. The mistake on the naive debater’s part is to attempt to compromise, and not realizing soon enough that your ground has been cut out from beneath you.

No resolution to this dilemma is possible. Then you have two choices: Submit, and become the vassal of the clever person who has trapped and enslaved you, or revolt with full fury and determination to end the submission.

Civility and politeness have no standing in this turn of events. The radical is not a civilized person.

[AzCountry]

I have been on the liberal discussion boards regarding states rights. Did you have to be de-loused afterward?

[vg0va3]

It is like Algore during the debates in 2000. Remember the perverted breathing?

[vg0va3]

Good points.
Thanks

[vg0va3]

There are actually 13 rules. The other two you probably wouldn’t care for either. And, I can’t say that I blame you.

It is interesting to realize that I have had it done to me and didn’t know how to react. Now, I believe I can turn the tables since I understand what is occurring.

[rae4palin]

Well done, sir (or ma’am).

[1st I.D Vet]

I do the same thing on my facebook friends discussions.

We start off with something like “glenn beck said...” and the liberal friends I have respond with very irate responses.

I simply douse them with facts and examples of liberal failures.

Facts kill ‘em.

I’ve ended so many discussions this way and its funny to see them squirm and have nothing to post in return.

I even give them the opportunity to prove me wrong and I offer to publicly apologize on facebook for being wrong and pig headed.

Of course they never respond to the facts and won’t ever peg me down...fun fun fun.

I really like finding the libs who are really really really popular and then posting on their facebook pages.
When they respond, all their lib friends see it posted to their pages.

Network marketing meets conservative values.

HOORAH!