11/4/09

Not a referendum on Obama

Can't anybody here play this game?

Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'. It's the handbook of the New Left. Barack Obama used it to school Republicans just a year ago. And Rules cut both ways.

The anti-socialist movement, starting with Rick Santelli's rant in February, began to employ Alinsky's Rules to gain traction against Obamunists.

Twenty-something videographers James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles - students of Saul Alinsky's Rules - took down the union-backed fraud group called 'ACORN' where all GOP efforts had led to nothing.

Did Republican leaders and strategists miss the memo? Power Tactic Rule #13 has had plenty of publicity. If you are not playing by the new Rules, you surrender. You deserve to be out the game.


from Ramesh Ponnuru, NROnline: A Republican Strategist's Take. I just spoke to a smart one. He pours cold water on the idea that the elections were a referendum on Obama. "Obama's numbers in Virginia are not that bad. He's not upside-down, that's for sure." (That is, more people rate him favorably than unfavorably.) "I guarantee you that McDonnell got a lot of votes from people who approve of [the job Obama is doing]." He takes the vote to be a rejection of many of Obama's policies. But he adds, "I don't think that Republicans should come away from this and think that all that we have to do in 2010 is run against Obama. McDonnell had a very vigorous policy agenda."
Bonus links:
Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com


Rules for Power Tactics:

1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Because Alinsky was sensitive to criticism that he wasn't ethical, he also included a set of rules for the ethics of power tactics. You can see from these why his ethics were so frequently questioned.

Rules to test whether power tactics are ethical:

1. One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue.
2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
7. Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
8. The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition to be unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral garments.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread and Peace."

We're all Valerie Jarrett now

Stop Valerie Jarrett is a project of Americans for Limited Government and NetRightNation.com

Thanks, DeDe

Rust Never Sleeps

Organized-labor operatives picked up a seat in Congress yesterday. DeDe Scozzafava and her husband - a labor union official - deserve a lot of credit. We wish DeDe well in her next project (nod, nod, wink, wink).

See related post: "Thanks, Newt"



Knock and Drag Fail

Typical Voter Fraud falls short in Garden State

ACORN had better get its act together by next year. Typical union-backed footsoldiers for the Progressive movement were sorely missed in New Jersey and Virginia. Union organizers can not get it done on their own.
from nj.com: The arguments have been made, the jokes and insults traded, the presidents, mayors and governors trotted forth — now it’s time to get voters to the booths, campaigners said.

“We call it knock and drag,” said Jim Williams, general president and director of organizing of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, with about 3,500 members in New Jersey. “We knock on the door and drag ‘em out to vote.” Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine joined national union leaders on a get-out-the-vote bus tour throughout the state, while Republican challenger Chris Christie campaigned at diners.

With the candidates neck-and-neck in the polls, voter turnout is crucial for each party. The sunny weather traditionally favors Democrats, but an overall dissatisfaction for Corzine and unhappiness over property taxes that are the highest in the nation could hamper turnout in this traditionally blue state.

Labor union workers, many who said they were unemployed because there were “no jobs,” showed up at rallies in places like Bayonne in Hudson County to pick up packets with home addresses of members mapped out and campaign literature to distribute.

In the hall of the Boilermakers 28, Corzine rallied the workers, repeating a now-familiar theme that the election was about more than the names on the ballot, but about families, jobs and health care.

“I want to be a voice for labor,” the governor said to hoots, cheers and whistles.
Related video: Thanks, Union Bosses!

The City of Brotherly Union Militants

Oppressed city workers go out on strike
from AP: The first day of a transit strike caused widespread delays and frustrated thousands of commuters who had to find other ways to get around Pennsylvania's largest city. On Wednesday, there will be an even greater test of how Philadelphia can cope without its bus, subway and trolley system as public schools, which were closed for Election Day, reopen. On an average weekday, about 54,000 public and parochial students use the city's transit system to get to school. "Our expectations are for students and employees to do their best to come to school," school district spokesman Fernando Gallard said. "We're just hoping for the best here."

The sudden strike called early Tuesday by Transport Workers Union Local 234 all but crippled the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which averages more than 928,000 trips each weekday. The transit agency's largest union walked away from negotiations on a new contract over disagreements on wage, pension and health care issues.

from delcotimes.com: According to SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney, union workers, who earn an average $52,000 a year, have been offered an 11.5 percent wage increase over five years, a $1,250 signing bonus the first year, and increased pensions, and no increases in health-care co-payments. It sounds like an offer many people would jump at, especially during this time of recession when layoffs are rampant.
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