…And Now for Something Completely Different: Should We Be Even MORE Radical in Our Approach?
by Mark Brooks, Carlisle, Iowa
Tsk, tsk. What's this “moving towards the middle” stuff? Take note, Howard!
A few weeks ago I was watching Free Speech TV and they ran a story on
Saul Alinsky. I had never heard of this fellow nor his method of
radical activism. The story interested me so much that I found a copy
of his book Rules for Radicals and read it while on vacation. I'm not
one to jump up and down about silver bullets for a problem but I think
that this could be an important element in taking our country back.
This particular method seems more confrontational, which suits my gut
feeling of “attack, attack, attack” more so than the Lakoff idea of
framing.
Here are a few of the “rules.” They take advantage of the
patterns of weakness, arrogance, repeated mistakes, and miscalculations
large organizations and their leadership make:
Power is not only what you have, but what the target thinks you have.
Never go outside the expertise of your people. Feeling secure stiffens the backbone.
Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the target. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety, and uncertainty.
Make the target live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter or E-mail gets a reply, send thousands.
Ridicule, especially against organizational leaders, is a potent
weapon. There's no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also
works as a key pressure point to force concessions.
(Click here for further reading.)
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