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Do the Republicans and/or Conservatives follow Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals?
Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals
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.
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.”
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 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.”
Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.
Rule 10: 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?”
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.
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.”
12 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
If anyone does, it's them...
...since they appear to be the only ones who've read it.
- GretchenLv 45 years ago
Pretty much anyone taking advanced courses in Political Science or Sociology has studied Alinsky as well has many other writers. Alinsky only wrote 2 books and they weren't too complicated. It's nowhere near a full course of material. More like one or two class meetings and a couple of test questions. It does make for lively discussions in class. I'm sure they also studied "Plunkitt of Tammany Hall" and "The Federalist Papers" in the same classes. You do realize that not just the right uses Alinsky's teachings. They aren't revolutionary, they are practical. If you just give the "rules" blind to someone (the lines in your list in quotes), they'll be able to recognize Fox News, the Moral Majority, the Founding Fathers, and many corporations.
- ?Lv 56 years ago
I think this book is one of the best books I have read for being a turd for a cause.
Really and I bought Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, no relation to Dustin.
It was a phase.
I really am serious in saying this book is how to work the system. Attack, Attack , Attack.
Whoa, Jesus we have to pee with men with peni. Whaa next. Snowzilla is stealing my identity and this really gets the old people because they race out to be butter knives, lots of water and stock up on food because Snowzilla will eat babies. Snowzilla may be worse then Obama or shingles. Snowzilla sexually assaults animals , creates atheists, cause erectile dysfunction and has been known to cause cancer in your cancer.
Stop me now.
- ?Lv 61 decade ago
Nope, You just described Obama to a tee- he worships Saul Alinsky! The libbies love Sal too- yell louder and more then your opponent and you will win!
- 1 decade ago
Sun Tzu says in order to defeat your enemy you must know him well. Conservatives are merely learning more from their enemies and applying their tactics on them.
- regeruggedLv 71 decade ago
Obama and his ilk are the practicers of this crap. You benefit everyone by letting them know this kind of BS is out there and being practiced.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
no,this is the rules for liberals.he is a well known god to them.hence acorn,codepink,moveon.org,seiu etc.anyone can see that.even the head community organizer himself.he used it to get elected.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Republicans and conservatives follow something called the U.S. Constitution. Ever hear of it? You may know it as the document that your messiah dislikes.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Too many words.
