The Alinsky Tactics – Rule by Rule – Part Six – Rules 6 & 7

Obama with Campaign Manager David Plouffe

Rule 6:   A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

Rule 7:   A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

~Alinsky, Saul Rules for Radicals

How many times can you call the Republican Party the Party of no? How many times can you blame George Bush? How many times can you call your opposition racists for disagreeing with you? How many times can you claim all Conservatives are stupid? How many times can you claim the Tea Party is violent, with no evidence to back it up? How many times can you say the economy is like a car in a ditch and the Republicans are drinking slurpees instead of helping get it out?

At first blush, based upon the record of the Obama Administration and its defenders over the course of his first two years in office the answer would seem to be a very large number indeed. The number is not, however, infinite. Eventually, the people defending you will tire of the same threadworm arguments being regurgitated ad nauseum.

In other words, if you want to keep the dogs happy and ready to attack on command, you better throw them some fresh meat from time to time. People may genuinely believe to the core every single principle for which you stand, but if they are forced to defend those principles using the same tactics over and over and over again they will eventually lose their edge and the argument right along with it.

It is critical that people enjoy what they’re doing. The concept that a happy workplace is a more productive one is not new, nor is it without as much if not more merit in the political realm, so expect the Democrats to make some dramatic turns in their approach between now and November of 2012. Already, we are beginning to see more and more of a move towards painting anyone who disagrees with Obama, not merely as racists, but as birthers – a concept much more insidious in that inherent in the implication is that Obama is “not one of us”. It is a diabolical way for Democrats to claim Conservatives, and particularly Tea Partiers, look at Obama as “one of those people”.

Yes, they drove some memes into the ground to their own detriment. After all, the failure to develop a new strategy before the midterms did not end well for Democrats, but make no mistake about it the end game for Democrats was never the midterms, it was always 2012. Assuring Obama’s reelection maintains the all-important veto to protect Obamacare, provides at least the possibility of a swing in the Supreme Court, and will usher in the reckless abandon of a lame duck President who seemingly will stop at nothing, and listen to no one who stands in the way of his ideologically driven agenda.

Get ready Conservatives – the game’s about to change.

Note: I have begun here to keep the posts about the rules briefer both for readability and because a book is in the works that will contain more exhaustive material.

Go to part 5 Go to part 7

The Obama Strategy: If You Can’t Go Through Congress, Go Around Them

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Barack Obama does not like to take no for an answer. Progressives, in general, are so convinced of their own superincumbent acumen, and equally persuaded of the abject fatuity of anyone to their political Right that they seemingly find a way to justify anything they do as being for our greater good.

And so we find ourselves with the formidable task of somehow stopping this Administration’s end-run around Congress to accomplish what they believe, even if few others do, is right for America.

The threats to our liberty and to the very existence of Constitutional, Congressional oversight are legion, but the mention of a few should be ample motivation for freedom loving Americans to burn up the lines to the White House and their elected representatives – the very representatives who are presently allowing themselves to become obsolete.

Surely with the resounding disapproval by both Congress and the American people Cap and Trade would have to be considered dead, wouldn’t it? One might think so, but there are no failed Obama policies, only the constant creep of Government by unelected bureaucrats who rule by regulation. The threat of the EPA pushing Cap and Trade through regulation is real, so real that a Bill was recently introduced to stop the EPA from doing just that.

What other pet projects of the Left have been dead on arrival at Capitol Hill? You know, the place where people actually have to answer to their constituents (See last November)?

Congress isn’t buying, but the Left longs for a way to control the media. Some would argue that outside of the Fox News Channel and Conservative talk radio that this point might be moot, but they would be forgetting the single greatest weapon we’ve got to preserve our liberties – the Internet. And now they are coming for that. A recent Wall Street Journal article outlines how net neutrality, a concept that has no chance of passing Congress, is in the process of simply being pushed through by regulation.

This is merely the tip of the iceberg. With Obamacare in place, they have established the framework to control who receives what health-care, and dozens of other failed policies are now being pushed by regulation. So much for checks and balances. If we don’t stop it, so much for our freedom.

Contact Congress and the White House today, and demand that unelected bureaucrats not be allowed to legislate by regulation, and that Congress not allow itself to become an anachronism.

Empty Suit – Obama’s List of Qualifications to be President

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– Being the most Liberal Senator in the Senate
– Having zero executive experience
– Being an undistinguished, first term Senator
– Listening to a radical preacher for 20 years
– Living your life by Rules for Radicals
– Hanging out with unrepentant terrorists
– Getting sweetheart real estate deals from Chicago crooks

All Alinsky all the Time: How the Left is Goading the Right, and the Right is Taking the Bait

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“The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.” -Saul Alinsky

This is the Democratic strategy in a nutshell. I wrote earlier about the Alinsky Reaction Chain, and the current methods employed to keep conservatives off track are nothing more than a continuation of those thoughts.

Why is a race such a hot topic? Because if you’re talking about race, you’re not talking about 9.5% unemployment, a quadrupling of the deficit in one year, the corruption and failure of the stimulus, the unpopularity of Obamacare, the failure to address illegal immigration, the fact that the majority of the nation doesn’t want the Federal Government suing Arizona over S.B. 1070 or any other myriad of unpopular policies and Presidential failures.

The Left wants you to talk about race, birth certificates, obstructionism, and anything else it can think to throw at you that will cause an emotional response and make you react without even thinking about it. It’s not an accident, it’s a tactic and it’s working.

The Left will attempt to goad you into talking about any subject it can think of to keep people from discussing the nefarious schemes and abject failure of this Administration and its policies. It is your job to be smarter than that. It is your job to know when Alinsky tactics are being used against you and ignore them. It is your job to shine light on the failures and lies of this Congress and this Administration and ignore the goading designed to make you react exactly the way they want you to.

It’s not your job to defend yourself or the Tea Party or anyone else against false charges of racism or violence. In short, it is your job to generate more light than heat. Don’t take the bait! Put the pressure on the Left to defend their positions and proposals.

The Obama Administration Lied about Experts’ Opinions on Deep Sea Drilling Moratorium

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A six month moratorium on deep-sea drilling after the tragic BP explosion seems logical at first glance, but things are seldom as simple as they seem. There are many reasons to believe that stopping deep-sea drilling is a very bad idea, but even more troubling, the Obama Administration has apparently misrepresented the opinions of the experts they asked for advice on the matter.

In fact, the experts are now claiming that the report was changed AFTER they signed it. That change just happened to be a key component of the Obama political agenda – the addition of a recommendation for a six month moratorium on deep-sea drilling!

In Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s report to the President he says,

In compiling the recommendations presented in this report, the Department has drawn from expertise within the Federal Government, academia, professional engineers, industry, and other governments’ regulatory programs. In particular, seven members of the National Academy of Engineering peer reviewed the recommendations in this report.

One of those experts is engineer Ken Arnold. Arnold’s response to Salazar’s and Obama’s claims that the experts supported the moratorium was this…

“We believe as a group that the moratorium as written and as being implemented today actually has the effect of decreasing safety,” Ken Arnold

Experts tell us that if this moratorium continues we will lose the best and most technologically advanced rigs to other countries and getting rigs back will be expensive, time-consuming, and result in getting the least sophisticated rigs back first.

Not only is this moratorium actually less safe than continuing to drill, but the economic ramifications will be immense both for those who rely upon drilling for a living and anyone who buys gas. Additionally, less domestic oil means importing more oil and puts us even further into the grip of OPEC and nations that sponsor terror.

If all this wasn’t enough, perhaps the most startling disclosure is that the Secretary of the Interior changed a document that had already been signed by experts without their knowledge to promote a political position held by the Obama Administration.

It is a sad commentary on the current situation that most of you will not find this surprising. However, we cannot allow the sheer volume of egregious violations to numb us to the rampant corruption in the Obama Administration.

Obama to Arizona: You’ll hear from us – either directly or by way of Ecuadorian TV

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The response of the Obama Administration to the crisis here in Arizona is appalling. Drug cartels are terrorizing both sides of the border. Illegal aliens are flooding into and through Arizona with impunity. Human trafficking by Mexican coyotes has made Phoenix number two worldwide in kidnappings, second only to Mexico City. Even our former ineffective Governor and current ineffective Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano has had to admit how bad the problem is.

Arizona begged for help from the Federal Government whose job it is to enforce immigration law. We need the National Guard on the border until the drug wars settle down, we need the fence built,  we need the border secured, and we need workplace enforcement of immigration law. The response – well we’ll let you know when we get one. Apparently, Arizona and securing the border are so irrelevant to the Obama Administration that our Governor was promised word of their intended response, and instead had to discover the news that the Administration intends to sue Arizona over S.B. 1070 over Ecuadorian television!

What’s wrong with this picture?

Plots, plans, and theories abound as to why the Obama Administration seemingly welcomes illegal aliens into the country. In fact, he couldn’t be more accommodating unless he went down to the border himself and bowed to each person who entered our State and our Country illegally. I’m not ruling out this possibility, but the idea of him actually visiting the border does seem unlikely.

I’m not even concerned with the underlying motive at the moment. All I’m concerned with is making it clear to the Obama Administration that if you don’t do your job – we will, and we’ll stand on the tenth Amendment all the way to the Supreme Court. Thankfully, Governor Brewer agrees with this sentiment, and has made it clear. We have a right to protect ourselves and we expect the Federal Government to support us, not sue us.

So it boils down to this: Arizona asked for help, and received none. Arizona then proceeded to try to defend its own borders from a siege of Mexican drug cartels, and Administration officials responded by threatening to sue the us while admitting they hadn’t read the bill, and the President told us that Hispanics will soon not be able to eat ice cream safely in our state. Arizona needed the Federal Government to do its job, and instead they decided to sue us without even letting us know first.

The only things you’ve accomplished so far Mr. President are to ensure that Arizona will remain a red state, and you’ve strengthened our resolve to protect ourselves however we deem necessary.

We asked for help from the Obama Administration and they responded by suing us. It’s time for the nation to stand with Arizona. If they can run roughshod over the tenth Amendment here, your state may be next.

We’re all Arizonans now.

Just so I’m straight on this, the following are NOT good qualifications to be the leader of the free world?

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– Being the most Liberal Senator in the Senate
– Having zero executive experience
– Being an undistinguished, first term Senator
– Listening to a radical preacher for 20 years
– Living your life by Rules for Radicals
– Hanging out with unrepentant terrorists
– Getting sweetheart real estate deals from Chicago crooks

The Alinsky Reaction Chain

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This is the essence of the Alinsky reaction chain…

The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction but that action is itself the consequence of reaction and of reaction to the reaction, ad infinitum. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action.

–  Rules for Radicals, p. 129

Conspiracy theories abound, and conjecture is fine as long as it is not implied to be factual, but if the Left can make you react out of fear and/or anger, they will eventually get you to do or say something stupid that they can use against you. Make no mistake it is all Alinsky all the time with this group. Don’t let them outthink you. Stay a step ahead.

This just couldn’t wait until I got to the tenth rule in my series, because the Obama Administration is controlling the reaction chain, and conservatives have got to get it back. We had it during the town halls, after the election of Scott Brown, and for a while on terrorism, but they have it now.

They are controlling the reaction chain only because we are letting them, and we simply cannot let fear and paranoia overwhelm our logic and reason. Don’t let them make you so angry and frustrated that you resort to unfounded conspiracy theories or veiled threats of violence – this is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO DO.

Stay calm. Stay logical. Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay peaceful. Use the fact that you are on the right side as your shield against their provocations, and always remember that their intention is to spur you to do or say something stupid.

The Alinsky Tactics – Rule by Rule Part 5 – Rule 5

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“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

“…you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.”

– Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

It almost seemed unnecessary to write about the fifth rule because this President and his Administration have used it ad nauseum to the point where a discussion of this tactic almost seemed superfluous, but I will at least hit a few high points, and then move on to the rest of the tactics.

If you want to understand the role that ridicule plays in the Alinsky method, and particularly in the way in which the Obama Administration uses Alinsky, you need look no further than Sarah Palin. From the moment that she was introduced as John McCain’s running mate the Alinsky machine within Obama’s campaign flew into action at full speed to find ways to mock, denigrate, and ridicule her. Obama’s campaign dispatched a slew of vultures to descend on Alaska in an effort to dig dirt, stir trouble, and uncover any malcontent who might have the tiniest bit of salacious information on the Governor.

How Obama used, or rather allowed his campaign personnel to use, rule 5 on Palin is worthy of an entire book so I’ll just hit a few high spots. Perhaps nothing so typified the mockery of Palin as Saturday Night Lives’ treatment of the Alaska Governor. The following clip gives a flavor of how widespread the Palinization was leading up to the 2008 election.

Using Alinsky to Keep the Pressure on the Obama Administration

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This President and his Administration can’t seem to let go of  Alinsky tactics. They live by them, and if they continue to cling to them they will die politically by them.

Let me quote Alinsky from Rules for Radicals to illustrate why this is so…

The basic tactic in warfare against the Haves is a mass political jujitsu: the Have-Nots do not rigidly oppose the Haves, but yield in such planned and skilled ways that the superior strength of the Haves becomes their own undoing. For example, since the Haves publicly pose as the custodians of responsibility, morality, law, and justice (which are frequently strangers to each other), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations… You can club them to death with their “book” of rules and regulations [emphasis added].

And always keep in mind the central theme of the Alinsky methodology…

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Now your job as a conservative is to stop reacting to the senseless and baseless accusations and begin to put pressure on this Administration to live up to their own “book of rules”. Find the contradictions, the lies, and the myriad of ways in which Obama and his advisers and appointees have failed to live up to what they said they would do, and what a reasonable Government should do.

Tweet them. Blog them. Include them in letters to your elected representatives. Drive them home relentlessly and “club them to death with their “book” of rules and regulations”.