It’s a technique for convincing people who dissent that they are ALL ALONE.
If you ever go to a meeting, and they break up into “buzz groups” that then “report” to the leaders, you are being Alinskyized.
How to destroy a Nation: http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/~destroying_America.htm
Creating Chaos to Foment Frustration
One of the primary tools of communism, in destroying the existing governance structure of a nation, is to create and take advantage of chaos.
Saul Alinsky, who, in the prologue to his book, Rules for Radicals, wrote ...
Few of us survived the Joe McCarthy holocaust of the early 1950s and of those there were even fewer whose understanding and insights had developed beyond the dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxism ...
also wrote, in that same prologue ...
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution ...
People must become so frustrated with the status quo, and the inability to change it, that they are willing to take a chance on something they aren’t necessarily comfortable with.
What is the status quo? Walk into any restaurant, pub, bar, or other place where people congregate and listen ... you will hear them talking about what concerns a majority of people ... high taxes ... inflation ... wages ... lay-offs and unemployment rates ... the high cost of goods and services ... health insurance ... industry closing shop and either moving or going out of business ... crime ... as the more prevalent topics of discussion. And ultimately, the conversation comes around to the government and its role. People are becoming more and more frustrated with a government that “moves at a turtle’s pace”, is “inefficient”, and whose idea of addressing a problem is not to fix the problem, but to establish yet another task force ... council ... commission ... to look into it ... study it ... dissect it ... talk it to death ... see what others are doing about it, preferably in person, and preferably in a foreign country ... and finally, after an extended period of time, create more bureaucracy, at taxpayer expense, to create more control over the people and justify the burgeoning bureaucracy of government, while doing nothing to correct the problem.
Saul Alinsky, in Rules for Radicals, also stated that the revolutionaries must work within the system to achieve the desired result. Why would that be? How better to cause the needed frustration among the mass of the people than to work within the system to ultimately maintain and exacerbate the status quo while publicly advocating just the opposite. This is the Hegelian Dialectic in action ... thesis: an idea or premise ... antithesis: the opposite idea or premise ... synthesis: the compromise of thesis and antithesis to bring about change. In maintaining the status quo while advocating the exact opposite, frustration is created among the people such that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.
Another way of creating frustration among the mass of people is to create one crisis after another ... to the point that people do not feel secure in their persons and are willing to give up rights for security. We are watching that happen with “the war on drugs ... terrorism ... poverty ... child abuse ... domestic violence ...” Continually, there is some crisis in the budding, in full bloom, or wilting. If it isn’t holes in the ozone and environmentalists screaming “doom is upon us”, it’s endangered species and habitat ... clean air ... clean water ... conserving natural resources ... homosexuality ... discrimination ... racism ... gay marriage ... gay adoption ... gay benefits ... gay rights ... on, and on, and on ... such that the mass of people are living from one crisis to the next, to the point that their lives are so chaotic, so unsettled, the people are so frustrated, they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.
When people are willing to give up rights for security, they will, in the end, lose both. (Cicero, 42BC)
Jen
PS who knows she is preaching to the choir on this site, but still feels the need to share with anyone who is looking for good information on how to fight this thing.