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Enumerated "Rules for Radicals"
==Legacy==
==Legacy==
Many right-wing talk radio hosts, such as [[Rush Limbaugh]], [[Sean Hannity]], and Michael Savage, attribute many of the strategies of the [[Democratic Party]] to Alinsky's ''Rules For Radicals''. [[Hillary Clinton]]'s senior honors thesis was an analysis of the works of Saul Alinsky and the effect that they have on politics today. [[Barack Obama]] can also trace his roots to the teachings of Saul Alinsky.<ref>[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10305695 NPR, ''Democrats and the Legacy of Activist Saul Alinsky'' (audio file)]</ref> Obama had a passion for Alinsky's work. Before he left Harvard, Barack wrote "After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois." Under the tutelage of an Alinsky admirer John L. McKnight, Obama says he got the "best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School." <ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&PageId=76170 Guess who recommended Obama to enter Harvard] Worldnetdaily, September 24, 2008</ref>
Many right-wing talk radio hosts, such as [[Rush Limbaugh]], [[Sean Hannity]], and Michael Savage, attribute many of the strategies of the [[Democratic Party]] to Alinsky's ''Rules For Radicals''. [[Hillary Clinton]]'s senior honors thesis was an analysis of the works of Saul Alinsky and the effect that they have on politics today. [[Barack Obama]] can also trace his roots to the teachings of Saul Alinsky.<ref>[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10305695 NPR, ''Democrats and the Legacy of Activist Saul Alinsky'' (audio file)]</ref> Obama had a passion for Alinsky's work. Before he left Harvard, Barack wrote "After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois." Under the tutelage of an Alinsky admirer John L. McKnight, Obama says he got the "best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School." <ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&PageId=76170 Guess who recommended Obama to enter Harvard] Worldnetdaily, September 24, 2008</ref>
== Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" ==
Alinsky wrote: ''"What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."''
His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he sowed the seeds of class warfare with community organizing, getting people fighting power and privilege, whom he convinced people were the root of all their "problems".
For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting whatever he believed to be wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a situation, they stop thinking about it.
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. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”
Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.
Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.
* 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.” ''' <ref>[http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/8925/alinsky.htm STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS; Alinsky's Rules for Radicals]</ref>
The astute reader can readily identify many of these rules on the "Talk" pages of Conservapedia. The enemies of conservatism and Christianity (or indeed any Religion) have practiced without end, Alainsky's "rules", especially numbers 11, 8, 5 and 4.
==See also==
==See also==