Rules for Radicals

I finally slogged my way through Rules for Radicals - A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky. He was born in 1909, began organizing communities in the 1930s, and died in 1972. The effects of his evil teachings continue today.

Reading this book was a real chore for me because the author's thinking is so different from mine. I can see better why liberalism has been called a mental illness. One thing that I now understand is that "organizing communities" means to agitate communities until they are so angry that they will follow anyone who shows them a way to be heard.

I want to share Salinsky's rules for power tactics (pp 127-132) from his chapter called "Tactics" in order that you can understand some of the things that are currently happening in our nation and be prepared for more of the same in the future. Salinsky quoted Hannibal as saying: "We will either find a way or make one" and then wrote: "Tactics means doing what you can with what you have" (126).

1. "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have." 

2. "Never go outside the experience of your people." Going outside a person's experience brings confusion, fear, retreat, and a break down of communication. 

3. "Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy." An example given for this rule was that of General William T. Sherman when he caused a "frenzy" on his march through the South without front lines or rear supply lines, something that was completely foreign to the Southerners. 

4. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." In other words, if people claim to be Christians, make them act like Christians. 

5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." We must not let their ridicule cause us to react. 

6. "A good tactic is one that your people enjoy." The people involved must be having fun. 

7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." In other words, militant interest can be sustained only so long, and it is to our advantage to stretch issues out. We must also make sure that we stay strong for the entire battle. 

8. "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose." This explains why so many things have been changed in our country in just a few months - the automobile companies, the banks, health care, etc. 

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. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action." 

11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counter side; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative." 

12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand." 

13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…. If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible." 
Could this be the reason that the Obama Administration has zeroed in on Fox News? 

"The real action is in the enemy's reaction. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength. Tactics, like organization, like life, require that you move with the action" (136). 

"It should be remembered that you can threaten the enemy and get away with it. You can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that is unforgivable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes an irrational anger" (137-138). 

It is critical that we develop tough enough skins that we can be ridiculed and made fun of in order to think clearly enough to act instead of react. He described some tactics that he had used to take the enemy out of their experience: feeding a crowd of agitators a bunch of baked beans before taking them to a concert or using a crowd to block restrooms in an airport or other large crowd areas - and then letting the natural functions of the human body cause a crisis. Remember, radicals don't let any crisis go to waste!   "Power is not static; … it must grow or die" (149). 

Rules for Radicals is not an easy book to read if you are an average-thinking, Constitution-loving American citizen. The only people who could understand the need for these kinds of behaviors are those who have a "victim mentality." Please don't be a victim or even a survivor. Be a hero because heroes do the right thing for the right reason!