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Alinsky's Rules For Radicals
Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.
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. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
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. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.
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.
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. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
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. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.
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.
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2006
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June
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- Will He take Up Natalee's Cause?
- But Who Will Find Natalee's Killer?
- Always Informed, Always Thoughtful
- For The Republicans, Not A Set Back But An Opportu...
- David Addington, Cheney's Brain
- A Hefty Assignment On A Dark Prince
- Mother Nature Sends Her Greetings To The President
- Signs of Progress
- Hey! I Hate! I Hate Beecuzz I Luv
- Bad For Democracy, But Maybe Good For Democrats
- Public Service Announcement
- Now that I'm Older, I Guess That I Can Understand...
- Andrew Discovers Hypocrisy (and worse) In The Cath...
- One Of These Three For Me
- Arif Mardin
- Three Turks And A Jew Walk Into A Bar....
- No title
- Screw The Link, You Need To Read This.
- No title
- One Vote Away From Total Implosion
- I Am A Big Tobey Maguire Fan
- And, Of Course, The More-Than-Obligatory Post-Para...
- The Mighty Gay Army Marches On. I hear that once ...
- Representing the legendary Republican Supporting C...
- Miss New Town Alano Club. This, apparently, is wha...
- Our Pres.... not so popular.
- I have no idea what these people were representing...
- I'm developing a real affinity for South American ...
- Why Can't I get My Band On A Float? Why can't I g...
- Halsted and Waveland, looking North
- Chicago Pride!
- I say, that for shear balls this guy took first pr...
- And He was concerned about the welfare of all the ...
- But, see, Jesus was with us
- Obligatory Pride Week Desperate Grab At Celebrity ...
- Obligatory Pride Week Cultural Activity
- Wotta Coincidence!
- Time To Change This Tradition
- Tradition: Americans Change It When It Needs To Be
- And Of Course, There's This Guy
- Why Can't The Democrats Get Guys Like This?
- Pride Week Obligatory Broadway Musical Memory
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- First Raise in Minimum Wage in 9 Years Fails again...
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- More Reasons To Hate Lieberman
- GT12 Official Pride Week Political Foto-Spread
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- People In Glass Houses Catch-Up Post
- But Some Mavericks Are Real Heroes
- Proof That Reputed Straight Shooters Are Just Tools
- I Guess He Jumped The Camel
- Why Has It Taken Two Years To Say This?
- ...So Don't Even Try, OK?
- Did Anyone Really Think That This Would Happen?
- Not 'If', But 'When'...
- No title
- More Hot Girl-On-Girl Action?
- Just a Thought For Friday
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- Convening Against The Queers
- It's The Stupidity Stupid
- Not Enough Pictures Today...so, another homage to ...
- If Kerry Had Karl
- Peter Daou Warns...
- Targeting Reagan Democrats
- As For Our Side....
- It Won't Work Again?
- Well, It's Worked Before
- A Day That Will Live In Infamy
- Now What's The Matter With Kansas?
- No Words
- "I'm a Uniter, Not Divider"
- Tell Your God To Ready For Blood
- Huff Po: "Warner the Clear Winner of the Pre-Iowa ...
- Crazy Train?
- "God rest the souls of that poor family... and pus...
- The Gore Movement
- Good News For Women ... News That The Christian Ri...
- Paris Hilton Tax Lives To Fight Another Day
- Third Party Piffle
- Time Wounds All Heels
- Coulter = 10(Colbert + Finley) - Heart ?
- Two Can Play At That Game, You Preppy Eedjeet
- Well, that Was Quick
- Starting To Do What Has To Be Done
- Billy Preston 1949 - 2006
- If Only It Were Simply Child-Rape Or Complicity In...
- No Hurry In The Heartland
- Another Fallacious 50
- I Guess He didn't Love God Enough
- Not A Well Woman
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1 comment:
Nice idea with this site its better than most of the rubbish I come across.
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