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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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- Studs Terkel, 1912 - 2008
- Worryingly Overconfident
- Reagan's Chief of Staff Endorses Obama
- Some Thoughts From A GT12 Icon
- Happy Halloween From Barry O
- Psych or Psychedelic?
- Gramp's Song?
- Where We Could Be
- Where We're At
- Before There Was Joe The Plumber
- Where We're At
- Good looks help women candidates, men not so much
- Bruce Springsteen posts Halloween song on Web site
- Joe the Plumber hires Nashville publicity team
- Bravo finds more to fashion than `Project Runway'
- Palin looks past Tuesday to her political future
- Agreement in Colo. lawsuit helps purged voters
- AC/DC's Johnson 'overwhelmed' by CD's success
- What's That Spell
- Election sure to change face of Senate
- Democrat could win House seat once Cheney's
- AP EXCLUSIVE: Obama ahead or tied in 8 key states
- McCain struggles for Pa. upset; GOP doubts grow
- Obama jumps on McCain adviser's health remarks
- White-wash
- Don't Read This
- Rush Makes Sense
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- Who's Tested?
- Enough!
- Obama Campaign Will Not Accept Fox News Bullshit
- What We're Looking For
- Palin '12 Watch
- They're Busy In Ohio (I Guess)
- Be Scared
- Bad Signs
- We Love Joe
- They've Had Enough - In Indiana
- The Closing Argument
- With visits and money, Obama narrows race in Mont.
- FACT CHECK: McCain persists in exaggerations
- Sen. Stevens guilty on all counts, career in peril
- Assassination plot targeting Obama disrupted
- Chuck Who?
- Fla. woman grows dreads to nearly 9 feet
- Obama stirs up supporters in Colorado
- Alaska's largest newspaper endorses Obama
- Calif. woman allegedly abducts dog over barking
- Colo. couple get marijuana with order of tacos
- Former Grateful Dead keyboardist Saunders dies
- Report: Iranian president has fallen ill
- Pennsylvania GOP disavows inflammatory e-mail
- More questions about voting roil Indiana county
- Young voters could rock the polls this year
- WHY?!?!?!?!!??????
- Obama to campaign for first time with Bill Clinton
- Biden a reliable running mate amid the stumbles
- AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
- Hat Tip To Tom Of Austin:
- Who's Most Popular?
- Tracking Into The Weekend
- If Sarah Ruled The World
- Bail Outtahere!
- Karl Rove: Obama Supporter
- So Who Is Michele Bachmann?
- Consorting With Dictators Who Torture Without Prec...
- Christianists Having A Bad Season
- Clearly, It's A Family Trait
- Librul Eleets Find What They're Looking For
- Obama says grandmother may not see Election Day
- + $23,500
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- As Mavericky As Any Chicago Pol
- All War, All The Time
- The Wassila Project
- John McCain Is Running Against A Democrat and A Bl...
- Opie, Fonzi and Sheriff Andy Want To Talk To You
- SarahTina ... For The Last Time?
- McCain has terse response on Palin shopping spree
- McCain will depart from election-night tradition
- Guns N' Roses to finally release `Democracy' album
- Shatner upset Takei didn't invite him to wedding
- Must Have Been Thinking About Cindy ...
- Forgotten
- What Am I Missing?
- Poll Stuff
- Miller-Russertization
- Erratic
- San Francisco weighs decriminalizing prostitution
- Obama takes on national security in Va. swing
- Al-Qaida-linked Web site backs McCain as president
- Spreading the wealth? US already does it
- Obama's grandmother fights to see him elected
- AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids' travel
- Can You Name This Man's Grandson?
- Again With The Judgement
- The Importance of Judgement
- US drops charges against 5 Guantanamo prisoners
- Ex-Chicago cop arrested in 1990s torture scandal
- Obama says McCain offers 'willful ignorance'
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