Posted on 10/16/2008 12:54:28 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan
Conservatives are, IMHO, soon to be in the decided and percecuted minority. It is accordingly time to utilize methods from the Radical Left playbook "Rules for Radicals" to further our agenda.
My suggested targets are: Harry Reid (vulnerable), the owners of Google (soft and naive), and the president of Time Warner (useful).
Here are the Rules:
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.)
My goal is disruption.
They point back, we reorganize.
Count me in. If Jim will allow it, it’d be great to be a group within a group on FR.
I know what you mean. I keep two things posted on my desk. A list of all the logical fallacies and a print out of the U.S. Army’s Operations Field Manual No. 33 of Propaganda Techniques. I think these are a must for political junkies/ FReepers, and I’m pretty sure most politicians from both sides use the propaganda techniques a LOT.
Ever notice how politicians never answer the exact question they’re asked? Straight out of the propaganda techniques handbook.
Like Rush says, “never let the other side force you to accept their premise in the first place.”
I have an unfocused idea.
I am a task-specific leader (an engineer). If people have some concrete ideas of who, what, when and where or want to take over, please do so.
No egos here.
1) Always remain polite, calm, and collected - Your anger and rudeness can be used against you.
2) Stay focused - Liberals will try to change the subject. If that doesn't work, they'll "uh.....uh....uh...." ( Oboma uses this one all the time) until the listener forgets what the subject actually was.
3) Be persistent - Keep bringing them, politely and calmly, back to the subject.
4) NEVER allow yourself to become angry - because personal ridicule will be their last resort. Acknowledge their right to their own opinion, and once again bring them back to the original subject.
5) Use their iown set of rules against as often as possible - When they become enraged, THEIR anger can then be used against them.
Thank you. I’ve been doing the same thing here in Alaska.
Alinsky didn’t understand that his rules CAN be used against him as well as for him. Implementing those rules can be done with truthfulness and honor. Here are a few examples that I’ve done in the past several years:
- Whenever I’m confronted with an affirmative action statement, I always check “other” and write in “human being.”
- When I meet a liberal who complains about Christians, I tell them that they need to be tolerant of diverse viewpoints.
- Whenever someone calls McCain old or stupid or forgetful, I call them out for bigotry and hatred against the old or call it “elder abuse.”
- If a liberal tells me that they’re confused, I just roll my eyes and tell them that “you just don’t get it.”
- When a gay rights activist tells me that they deserve the “right” to marry, I tell them they have no right to impose their morality on other people who disagree with them.
And on and on. Use their words back at them. Never give up. Use humor and ridicule. Alinsky isn’t for leftists any more.
Keep up the good fight.
The ideal recruits are people with time on their hands:
Retirees and college students.
I know my mom in that category.
“We can make their lives miserable”
Oh, lets do!
Small things are good.
I want front page news.
A truckload of horse sh!t dumped in the lobby of Newsweak in Manahattan, for example.
Clever stuff, non-violent. Make them laughstocks.
Newsweek
251 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019 (Map)
Phone: 212-445-4000
Fax: 212-445-4425
Or their underlying presuppositions.
"If you were a good mother, you would ______."
So if you don't agree with them, you're a bad mother!
"Even a person like you would _____."
So if you don't agree with them, you have a huge L written on your forehead!
"Everyone agrees that _____"
Who is this "everyone" they're talking about?
Watch for the beginning of those sentences. "If you really cared , you would____." If you don't, then you obviously don't care.
This is called rhetoric. Men are often very good at hearing it, but woman usually don't catch on. It's a form of verbal manipulation or abuse.
It took ten years, but I got my 70 yo mother to switch from being a life-long democrat to a Republican this year. It was a huge leap for her.
Now I’m working on my 95 yo Grandfather!
I agree. Egos won’t help us here. Leftist groups are very interlinked even if you don’t always see the link. There are no doubt pressure points if you can find them. It’s always about finding the cracks.
I won’t say much more here. Expect a freepmail here in a few.
I used to drive my openly gay RINO congressman crazy by asking him Yes/No questions and then, after he tapdanced around his talking points, making him actually answer yes or no. I would always craft the question to cause him the most embarassment when he answered it in a way that would further reveal his liberal mindset. It used to infuriate him and turn many people against him. His townhalls, right before he announced his retirements, had turned into screaming matches and protests with local Republicans leading the attacks against him.
Liberals have no foresight. Debate consequences rather than agendas. You'll put them outside their expertise.
Watch for the beginning of those sentences. "If you really cared , you would____." If you don't, then you obviously don't care.
is the Insinuation Technique and uses the insinuation device known as, ta-da!..a Leading Question. This where the "propagandist may ask questions which suggest only one possible answer..." right out of the manual.
Sigh...good times. Snort!
ping
ping
I agree with the ideas here. Get people together and use directed, concentrated effort to fight them tooth and nail like they do to us. It doesn’t make us “radicals.” And unlike them, we don’t need to lie about everything always.
I’ve been thinking for a while that the way to take things back is not to try to rely on the individual states to nominate good conservatives and back them against the particularly destructive members of Congress from their state. There just are not enough resources and concentration to mount serious efforts across the entire country with every election.
Instead, perhaps, conservatives across the country should focus on a few specific representatives and senators and have everyone from all over pour their resources and effort into knocking those people out in whatever state they’re in. Picking off two or three every two years. These individuals have great influence and destructive potential on a national level so I say they’re fair game to everyone. The diffused effort approach is not working.
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