What conservatives face in this battle for liberty requires the use of a new playbook. I have heard many conservatives and regular average Americans belly-aching about our inability to stop the ramrodding of socialism upon “we the people”. Our adversaries on the left side have a great ability to organize and get their message out. They have the ability to get people out to the polls. They have a way of hiding the truth behind their actions. President Barack Obama and his ilk follow a community activism playbook that seems to be paying off quickly and decisively. In my postings about Obama’s Brownshirts, I discussed a man named Saul Alinsky who is one of Obama’s mentors and I believe the President probably carries Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” around with him everywhere he goes. Here are some of those 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. (Ever notice how government and corporations try to appeal to people using economic arguments? Is this not the tactic that liberals use when they use class warfare?)
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. (Radicals avoid addressing real issues because they generally lack knowledge in those areas.)
RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (How many organizations that have been the focus of activists get blindsided by irrelevent issues?)
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. (Notice how many issues the President and Congress have been throwing at conservatives and the American people all at once. Millions have become billions and now trillions, so people are no longer shocked by the numbers and they are also completely confused with the numbers. Two hundred plus additional pages were added to the final stimulus plan making it impossible for our representatives to know what they were actually voting about.)
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. (This has been the constant refrain from the left. Ridicule of the former president became a sport of sorts for them. Ridicule of the Republicans for not voting for the porkulus bill has been the focus of press announcement after press announcement.)
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.
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (New tactics include things like taking over the 2010 Census, forming new cabinet positions and forming new task forces and corps.)
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. (Again, this is why Obama appears to be getting so much done in his first few weeks. This same kind of badgering was used against Sarah Palin by the leftist media.)
RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Obviously, this has become the main theme of the Obama administration with the constant drum beat of catastrophe and dire warnings that all is lost economically if we don’t let the government save us. The global warming/climate change threat as well.)
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 are an example of a group that used this tactic in their heyday to win public sympathy. Socialism is a negative that the government has made a positive, ie: universal healthcare.)
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.
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. (The liberals and progressives have used miniorities and the poor in this way for decades. They keep them isolated and make them feel that no one cares to obtain the left’s objectives.)
Alinsky believed in rubbing “raw the sores of discontent.” This was the President’s reason for visiting Elkhart, Indiana and Ft. Myers, Florida. Remind those people how bad they have it and how government can save them. And the people eat it up. Saul Alinsky also wrote the following statements in his book:
“Here I propose to present an arrangement of certain facts and general concepts of change, a step toward a science of revolution.”
“The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-nots on how to take it away.”"My aim here is to suggest how to organize for power: how to get it and how ot use it.”
“Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America’s white middle class. That is where the power is.”
“Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority.”
“All effective action requires the passport of morality.” No doubt this is why Obama talks about ethics and a new way of running government and yet corruption and tax cheats and other immoral characters surround him and are part of his administration. As long as he talks the good talk, then the people will believe it.
So it is obvious that conservatives have an uphill battle and the RINOs of Congress and the lack of conservativism from the Bush Adminstration have put us in a bad spot. But we can make an incredible comeback. We must go forward with a new kind of playbook that really is not new. We must pull out those founding principles and remind people what liberty is. We must continue to shine the light of truth on Obama’s and the left’s tactics and show people the complete failure of socialism. We need leaders that stir the souls of a sleeping people. We must start a new revolution, not one of blood and war, but one of information. We must debate with our fellow liberals and put them in a place where their ignorance is revealed. We must present ideas that may not be so fresh and new, but that have worked in the past. We must get people to awaken to their common sense. I hope and pray that Michael Steele will be one of those leaders that can bring us to this place.
We must open up the GOP to a place where miniorities feel comfortable because the heritage of the Republican Party is one of civil rights. We must remind the people of this. The left fears us and we know this because of the Fairness Doctrine and their desire to shut down conservative voices. We know this because they ramrod legislation without letting the public know the details until it is too late to do anything about it.
They fear us and we must use that to our advantage!
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