Alinsky's 12 Rules for Radicals explored by a conservative

The Patriot Room ^ | August 25, 2009 | Clyde Middleton

[clyde_m]

I've read all I need to read of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. It's a cute book, in the same manner in which a ferral cat at a distance is cute until it gets closer and you see the froth dripping from its mouth and the odd stare in its eyes, when the limp you thought was a war wound from living in the woods turns out to be a unscathed rear leg it is dragging because its synapses ain't firing like they used to. Your conclusion is immediate and without emotion: Everyone and everything will be better if you steady your hand to get a clean head shot. It's so bad that after you kill it you realize that you need to burn it so that no remnants remain. Let's cut to the chase scene and review the point of the book: The Rules.

[GonzoGOP]

The rules work equally well for a right wing group as they do for a left wing group. This is something that many of the lefties don't understand. Now that they are in power we can use all of their best tools on them.

Also by knowing the rules you can defeat them. For example never allow your group to be identified with a single individual. If the individual is taken out then your whole movement goes down the drain. And an individual is much easier to destroy than an idea.

[FlashBack]

Bookmarking!

[fr_freak]

The author of this piece sticks to ridiculing Alinsky’s rules, but in doing so he misses the biggest point: THEY WORK. Alinsky’s rules don’t work because most people in the world are smart and well-informed. They work specifically because they play to the flaws that are present more often than not in most human beings . The author can say that these rules are stupid all he wants, but these rules still work. Obama is proof of that.

[ichabod1]

Hey, Machiavelli is good too... for example:

Men Ought Either to be Well Treated or Crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot;

HE also has a lot to say about a prince acquiring a new territory may have to conquer it twice because the first time it is easier to throw him out. He uses France’s conquest of Milan as an example.

[Dick Bachert]

From “Rules for Radicals” by Obama’s hero, Saul Alinsky:

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.

QUESTIONS?

[GonzoGOP]

Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals are sort of the Cliff Notes version of The Prince. Applied rather than theoretical knowledge. But they work, especially against an opponent who doesn't expect them. Thats why we have to make everyone aware of them.

Each of the rules has a counter, but you have to be ready in advance. Trying to play catch up against someone using these rules is pointless.

For example Saul Alinsky's says to do things that your people find fun. So make their protests unfun. For example if they are planning to picket some location spread manure all around where they will be standing. Don't throw it at them, just make sure the whole area stinks. Since staying there becomes un-fun they will give up.

Above all use their rules against them. They work and work well. They may be more willing to forsake the more radical elements, but only if they know that if they don't the will be repaid in kind.

[antisocial]

Bookmark

[ctdonath2]

The author of this piece sticks to ridiculing Alinsky’s rules, but in doing so ...

He also reveals our side's biggest flaw: prolonged rational debate of THEIR talking points, allowing THEM to frame the issues and debate - and leave us wrapped up in rhetorical knots while THEY ignore us and move on to the next "rule". He demonstrates this by doing exactly that: spending lots of time taking on each point of the "rules", and sucking lots of other like-minded folk into doing the same (heck, here we are talking about him talking about them talking about how to win - WTF?).

Instead, the proper response is either "the Rules work - use 'em against them" (as one poster just noted), or just move on to whatever seems the best way to advance our axioms regardless of what the opposition does.

The essence of "Rules for Radicals" can be summarized in two simple aphorisms:
- The best defense is a good offense
- Don't wrestle pigs (you just get dirty and the pig likes it)

[x]

Act irrationally. Seems like a theme.

No. He's saying act rationally (stay within your zone of expertise, for example) but make use of emotional (i.e. irrational appeals). It's Machiavelli all over again.

These statements conflict, Saul.

Sure. You have to feel your way as you go. So you push and push and push one tactic and it works (rule 10). Then it doesn't (rule 7). So you have to come up with a new approach. That happens a lot in politics, business or war. After a while, you may get a gut feeling where rule 10 applies and where rule 7 works. It may be wrong, but it's better than nothing.

[ichabod1]

I believe that the thing people hate the WORST is to have their own tactics turned back on them. So, in basketball, if you’re playing a team that runs a lot, lots of fast breaks, you start fast breaking yourself. They’re not set up to defend that.

But the most important thing, I think, and I’ve been bad about this, is that there is safety in numbers, so we have to start showing up to protect each other.

Machiavelli is very practical, from what I’ve read, but his examples are from minor footnotes of history - France acquiring Milan, for example. I have never read about that, nor do I care to. So, I would say Alinsky is perhaps an updated Machiavelli. But, I don’t like giving him too much credit. He’s just another old fabian commie from the Gramscian school. He didn’t think of these things, there’s nothing so original here, his name just got attached.

[GonzoGOP]

I would say Alinsky is perhaps an updated Machiavelli. But, I don’t like giving him too much credit

Sometimes credit must be given to someone who explains an old concept better than anyone else. The concepts outlined by Sun Tzu, Machivelli, A.T. Mahan and Clausewitz were all well known, but those particular authors laid out the principals in a clear systematic way that allowed them to be conceived and used by the common person. Alinsky wrote the quick start guide for political protests. He wrote it in a way that the average teenager could not only understand, but put to immediate use.

Each time I see a town hall shout down, or an Obama as the Joker poster I want to emulate that scene from Patton. Aninsky you magnificent bastard I read your book.

[ichabod1]

It’s Doctrine — doctrine never, or extremely rarely, changes, but teaching can and should be updated to conform to the times. I was not familiar with Alinsky back in those days, but was very familiar with Steal This Book by Hoffman of the YIPpies.

[ichabod1]

Trouble is we’ve never come up with an effective defense against the race card so they play it again, and again, and again until it comes to mean, anything any black person anywhere doesn’t like.

[LucyT]

Trouble is we’ve never come up with an effective defense against the race card so they play it again, and again, and again until it comes to mean, anything any black person anywhere doesn’t like.

Add Alinsky's Rules for Radicals to "COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum. (Trolling 101)" ... and beat them at their own game.

[EternalVigilance]

Rules for Radicals was dedicated to Lucifer.

And he is more than happy to continue to use its tenets to “steal and kill and destroy.”

[PhilDragoo]

Do you have a link

[LucyT]

Check out this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

These are posted elsewhere on FR:

REMEMBER ALINSKY’S ‘RULES FOR RADICALS:

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 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 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.

“One of the criteria for picking the target is the target’s vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract.”

According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy.

[r9etb]

The rules work equally well for a right wing group as they do for a left wing group. This is something that many of the lefties don't understand.

It's also something that a lot of conservatives don't understand. We're at an added disadvantage, though -- unlike ardent leftists, conservatives generally have lives outside of their pet political issues. It makes us impatient and we lose focus.