How to Foil Progressive Tactics

The Progressive Playbook… Rules for Radicals

Ever wonder why the left tells bold face, provable lies? They are following the advice of Saul Alinsky, who wrote the book, Rules for Radicals in 1971. He was a mentor of Hillary Clinton, who wrote her hard to find college thesis on his tactics. Our President, Barack Obama, not only knows “The Rules,” he taught them as a community organizer for The Developing Communities Project in the early eighties in Chicago.

Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, is to politics, what Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, is to fighting. Anyone who does not know them, is at a disadvantage in a political discussion.

In 1971, Saul Alinsky, a radical Marxist community organizer from Chicago , wrote a classic on down and dirty, take no prisoners, grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. It provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics.

Alinsky begins this way: What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. 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. Indeed a recent post from the far-left anarchist blog instructed it’s followers to “take away property from the ‘rich’ in any way you can”.

One of Alinsky’s guidelines was “conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action”. In other words, the ends justify the means, you can lie, cheat, steal elections and smear your opponent. Because your cause is just, all that matters is that you win.

Another of Alinsky’s tactics was to go on the offensive when caught in a compromising situation. In other words, if you are caught red-handed stealing money from a cash register, accuse whoever caught you of spying on you. This explains why Hillary claimed the Lewinski scandal was not only not true, but was manufactured by “a right wing conspiracy” out to get her husband.

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they will not try.

The organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.” This explains why the Progressives continued to say Bush stole the 2000 election, despite the fact that the New York Times reported on November 11, 2001, that after a six month recount by the Times and others, Bush won every way they counted.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

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. This explains why the Mainstream Media always has a tight photo of a small leftist protest group. Time Magazine had no inclination to include the Tea Party in their year in pictures, because they didn’t want to recognize the first 10,000 who gathered on the Capitol in July of 2008 but still didn’t recognize the 1.7M who gathered there in 2009.

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.” This explains why the left always pretend to be outraged and demand that their opponents resign over the slightest infraction, while continuing to commit those very infractions themselves which they ignore.

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. This explains the way they get their ‘news’ from entertainers and shock jocks, not from reality.

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.” This explains the relentless attacks by the ACLU and others on traditional American values, business and conservatives.

Rule 9. The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. Examples are ginning up plans to jam phone lines at a radio station or stage counter protests or commit violence or theft.

Rule 10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.” This explains why when Gore debated Ross Perot on Larry King, he constantly interrupted him to upset him. And why the left tell bold face, provable lies… it infuriates and flusters the person they are debating. Don’t take the bait.

Rule 11. 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?” This explains why the left never have a solution and only speak in platitudes (does candidate Obama come to mind?)

Rule 12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. This explains why sympathetic media are trying to identify the ‘leaders’ of any movement — so they can attack them at the head.

Remember, there are no leaders in this movement — each of you are a committee of one. Always do what is right no matter.