"This is the most incompetent White House I've seen since I came to Washington."--
An anonymous Republican U.S. Senator, quoted by the Washington Post.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
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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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2007
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April
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- Monica and Kyle and Al The Torture Czar
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- Only Two More Days
- Proof That No One Watched The Democratic Debate
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- GT12 Viewing Imperative
- Victory Depends On Lying
- Some Thoughts On Accounting As Tax Month Comes To ...
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- At Least They're Leading In Something
- The Return Of Going To Eleven
- "Buying the War"
- Sam's Finale
- Chip Chip Chip
- Monica Really Has Legs
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- America Calls For Defeat, I Guess
- The Best Interview On Iraq Ever, Pt. I
- The Best, PT II
- Turnabout's Fair Play?
- Let's Start The Attack On Rudy Now
- Truly, A Thought For Monday
- A New Vista
- Seems Hard To Find Fault With This
- Don't Tell Hilary
- Even I Wasn't Saying This
- Biden-esque
- As I Was Saying - II
- As I Was Saying
- McCain To Send Self Back To Vietnamese POW Camp To...
- "So, Basiscally, If You're Not A Shit-kicker From ...
- Inevitable
- Lest You Think It Was Innocent
- Fits The Bill
- That's Rich
- The Crux Of the Matter
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- Well, He Is The Cute One
- Transparency Is Messy
- A New Mount St Helens?
- "Democracy Is Messy"
- News From The Tax Zone
- Democrats Demand Inquiry Into How They're Doing So...
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- Hey! You There With The Loaves And Fishes! Not So ...
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- Some Kind Words From Ann
- Joe-Mail?
- Just So You Get My Point
- Fairy Tales Can Come True
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- Monica Monica Monica
- Everybody just stay where you genetically are and ...
- Satan, The Early Years
- Clean, Honest, Reverent, Brave, Cooked
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- Delusion Thy Name Is Monica
- A Thousand Words
- How Do You Spell Compromise?
- New Mexico approves medical use of marijuana
- The First Version Was So Much Better
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- Thinking Of Mr G Baker
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