Pamela Geller Gets Played: Salon's Strategy Works

This morning Pamela Geller is angrily denouncing Christine O'Donnell, Republican senatorial candidate for Delaware.  Geller endorsed O'Donnell early on, and O'Donnell posted Geller's endorsement on her website.  Then this week, a leftist online rag called Salon attacked O'Donnell for posting Geller's endorsement, repeating a lot of vicious lies and exaggerations about Pamela Geller.  Someone in O'Donnell's organization got spooked and removed Geller's endorsment from the O'Donnell website.  Geller saw the removal and went ballistic.  The Salon strategy worked:  Geller and O'Donnell were transformed from political allies into political enemies and a nasty public fight ensued.  Both Geller and O'Donnell will come away from this with mud on their faces.

Saul Alinsky stressed the use of ridicule and other strategies for causing political opponents to lose their tempers; once these opponents lost their tempers, they would self-destruct in a very public way, neutering themselves politically.  Geller has made herself a shining example of how effective this strategy can be.  With her ego gored, Geller was transformed into an attack dog for the left.

The only question in my mind is this:  how could Pamela Geller allow herself to be so easily played?  This stratagem will be celebrated in the annals of the left for years as an example of the effective use of slander and "playing one against the other."

The left has become quite effective at turning decent people into public pariahs through out and out lies and propaganda.  The reason, of course, is to silence these people, or erode their credibility with the public, or lacking that, to merely punish them by invoking as much psychic pain as possible.  Fueled by hatred and immorality, the purveyors of "tolerance" are truly hypocritical, anti-democratic and completely ruthless.  They will destroy the life of a political opponent if they can, or cause that opponent to suffer for his conscience for a very long time.  Examples are plentiful:  Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Joe McCarthy, Kathleen Harris, Linda Tripp, Carrie Prejean, Tom DeLay, Robert Stacy McCain, to  name only a few.  (See my former post "How the Left Punishes Conservatives.")  Now you can add Pamela Geller to the long and growing list of "the Slimed."

Pamela should have confined her concerns to private communications with the O'Donnell campaign.  Denouncing O'Donnell's "cowardice and lack of character" two weeks away from the election is truly destructive to the conservative cause.   Pamela, it isn't all about you.

Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC: A Torrent of Invective at Tea Party Organizer

MSNBC and CNN pundits have a simple strategy to derail the Tea Party movement:  continuous, nonstop slander, fake charges of "racism" and "extremism." Their strategy is transparent and by now we are all well aware of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."  To energize your base and put your opposition on the defensive, paint them as thoroughly dark and evil.

A rather incompetent student of Alinksy's tactics is one Dylan Ratigan (pronounced "Rat Again"), a midmorning program host of the far-left MSNBC.  Yesterday he invited Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams to appear on his show.  There, Williams was the target of Ratigan's vicious invective, accusing him (and the Tea Party movement) of being anti-black and anti-Jew, and in bed with Nazis.

Ratigan is an extreme caricature of a leftwing crackpot.  He continually yelled at Williams, demanding that he answer Rat Again's ridiculous accusations, but without giving him a chance to do so.  Williams countered by answering Rat Again's accusations, talking over Rat's nonstop harangue, which really annoyed Rat Again.

The nasty exchange is embedded below.

Must Read: The Destruction of Sarah Palin

Bill Whittle of PJTV and the blog "Eject Eject Eject" has a great article on the Left's planned destruction of Sarah Palin. You can read it or watch Bill's video.

Bill says what I have said on this blog several times: the Left files bogus ethics complaints against Palin for two reasons: (1) to destroy her financially through the huge legal fees needed to defend herself and (2) to poison the well of public opinion with an implication of wrong-doing. If every time you hear Palin on the news channel and hear "ethics charges" mentioned in the same sentence, your subconscious will pick up the intended message. It is really dirty politics, but that's what the Left is all about.

Whittle says that we must begin employing the same tactics against the Left as a form of retaliation. I reluctantly agree. It goes against the grain for most conservatives to resort to dirty fighting, but the Machiavellian Dems allow us no other options. We must give them full measure of what they have given to us.

Perhaps our first Fight Back strategy is to identify Democratic politicians in the state of Alaska for targeting with bogus ethics complaints. Our Alaskan operatives can file complaints on the lack of ethics in their neckties, or for wearing plaid, thereby violating fashion ethics. Any Dems who have dyed their hair to hide the gray could be targeted for lack of ethics in personal grooming. We could state that the Dem politicians have attempted to enrich themselves through their political offices...by accepting salaries. All of our complaints will be quickly denied and thrown out, but not until the Dems have incurred substantial legal fees. Whoops, there goes Junior's college fund or mom's retirement account. Oh well.

Of course, we don't have the leftwing mainstream media to assist in the effort, like the Associated Press, who falsely reported Palin was guilty of the last ethics charge, filed about a week ago.

Nevertheless, we will do our best. Hope you Alaskan Democrats have your checkbooks ready; your attorneys will be needing retainers soon.

The Left's Tactics Against Sarah Palin Explained

Since Sarah Palin resigned, three new ethics complaints have been filed against her by Democrat activists. There is no real expectation by the complainants that Palin will be found guilty of any ethics complaints. The complaints are bogus and they know it. But the complaints waste Palin's time and money and insinuate into the minds of the public the taint of wrong doing. By taking away her time and resources, the Left undermines a future threat to their political dominance.

Why can't the Democrats just stick to the issues? The reason is given by Saul Alinsky, author of "Rules for Radicals" (1971). Alinsky taught that to defeat your political enemy, you must personalize and polarize your attacks. He writes:

Tactics, Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

In conflict tactics, there are certain rules that the organizer should always regard as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and "frozen."

Alinksky describes what he means by "frozen":

The forces for change must keep this in mind and pin that target down securely. If an organization permits responsibility to be diffused and distributed in a number of areas, attack becomes impossible...you disregard... for the moment all others to blame.

Why pick a target at all? Whom do you pick? Alinsky explains:

Obviously there is no point to tactics unless one has a target on which to center the attacks.

One of the criteria in picking your target is the target's vulnerability--where do you have the power to start? [In Palin's case anyone has the power to file frivolous ethics complaints with no cost or penalty to themselves.]

Why "polarize" the target? Polarizing the target means demonizing it, denouncing it as evil and totally negative with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. In other words, gin up your membership's hatred of the target because hatred motivates. Alinsky writes:

The other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract such as segregation or a major corporation or City Hall.

With this focus comes a polarization. As we have indicated before, all issues must be polarized if action is to follow...One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.

Sarah Palin is the target du jour, and now you know how and why.

The good news is that, by resigning, Palin removed much of the Left's power to attack since she will soon no long be subject to Alaska's highly flawed ethics processes.

Lessons from "Rules for Radicals" - How to Fight Dirty

Today I finished reading Saul Alinsky's Handbook for Democrats, otherwise known as "Rules for Radicals." The best chapter of the book, by far is "Tactics." In it he discussed a number of rules for tactics. Some of the best are described below.

Tactics means doing what you can with what you have. As for any other goal in life, you have to make a start and not wait until conditions are perfect or "the time is right." No matter how hopeless the situation may seem, doing something, even small, gives a group energy and purpose and optimism. I think that's why most of us started blogging. We wanted to do something, anything, to help further the cause.

Never go outside the experiences of your people -- they will be uncomfortable and give up the effort. If we conservatives took up the tactic of breaking windows, spraying graffiti and throwing rocks, we would "go outside the experiences of our people." Most of us would not participate.

Go outside the experiences of your opposition. Use tactics that the enemy doesn't expect; it will confuse and panic him. An example might be buying symphony tickets for a group of civil rights workers, feeding them beans, and having them noisily pass gas during the performance. This was actually considered by Alinsky's group.

One tactic he did use against a "slum lord" was to bus blacks into the man's white upscale neighborhood where they picketed with signs that said "Do you know your neighbor is a slum lord?" It worked.

Use tactics that are fun for your group. If your group enjoys the tactics, that definitely makes them more successful. Our recent round of TEA parties did this -- they were fun.

Keep the pressure on. Tactics shouldn't be terminal, once over, quickly forgotten. We must continue the Tea Parties and find new avenues for dissent. Alinsky recommends different tactics and actions, because a tactic can become overused and lose its effectiveness. The Left's old standby of calling everyone on the right "racist" is a good example of overuse. It has become a meaningless epithet and doesn't cause the panic and confusion it once invoked.

Pick a target and polarize it.  Most social or political conflicts are not all black and white but are diffused among a variety of factors, forces, people and circumstances. Reality, however, just won't do if we are to energize our group. To do that we must give them a simple slogan, idea or villain to attack. You must assume that you are 100% right and the opposition 100% wrong and you must personalize the attack and polarize your group. Alinsky explains: "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." That leads to his next point, or how to create a target for your group's vitriol.

Choose a villain and make him the scapegoat for everything you oppose. Alinksy writes: "Obviously there is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks."

The Left did this very effectively in politically destroying Newt Gingrich after the 1994 Republican victories; they made him a scapegoat, a symbol of everything the Left hated, and he became a polarizing figure simply as a result of this propaganda. They tried very hard to do the same thing to George W. Bush and were fairly successful. These men served as the "target upon which to center the attacks."

This was much more effective than merely attacking the Republican Party as a whole; that wouldn't have been adequately personal or polarizing. This tactic is well illustrated by that old canard, "to kill a snake, cut off the head and the body dies as well."

Goad and ridicule your enemy to make him react. Alinsky says that ridicule is the most effective tactic because it causes anger and irrational responses in the opposition. It is in the enemy's reaction that you gain your greatest strength. Akinsky says that the one thing "that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes an irrational anger." An angry, irrational reaction can be used to direct bad publicity at the enemy, to further ridicule him, to send him into a humiliating retreat. You gain support while your enemy loses it.

Remember how irrational that Seinfeld comic was when blacks insulted him during a comedy routine? He boiled over and started shouting racial insults at them, and almost destroyed his public persona in the process. If there is one thing we should all learn here is not to lose self-control when ridicule is used against us. Learn not to react, because that's what the enemy wants.

Another thing we should all learn here is to continue using ridicule against the Obama Administration, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Party. They furnish us with enough ammunition that we should never run out of jokes at their expense.

Pelosi was successful in bringing ridicule upon herself with her transparent attempt to avoid responsibility for waterboarding by claiming the CIA lied to her, "and that they lie all the time." She became angry and irrational, made foolish statements and made herself a public laughing stock. For the time being, at least, her credibility with the voting public is all but shot.

Ridicule helps the enemy destroy himself.

Update: See the RNC video ridiculing Nancy Pelosi's stand on the CIA. This is a good example of an effective use of ridicule against the enemy.

Hoist the enemy on his own petard. Highlight the fact that the enemy will say one thing and practice another. Their great rules of ethics, fair dealing and manners are mainly for show and they will abandon them under the pressure of the fight. Rub it in when they do and make them look like hypocrites. 

Some pertinent, recent examples: Al Gore preaching low carbon emissions while burning an obscene amount of energy is in own home; prominent Democrats who preach raising taxes on "the rich" while dodging their own huge tax liabilities.

Play one party against the other. Alinsky fought corporations by using their competition against them. If they were trying to unionize department stores in Chicago, they wouldn't picket them all simultaneously. They would picket one store, sending many of its customers to its competitors rather than endure the political shouting of a sign-wielding picket line. This tactic has been very succesful. It was used against General Motors, sending a lot of its customers to Chrysler.

There's more. I suggest that every conservative who wants to win the culture war buy a copy of this book. Not only will we be able to recognize the tactics used against us, we will be better able to devise defenses. We can also use the same tactics against them.  It's all about winning, baby. Let's be in it to win.

Update: Stacy McCain of The Other McCain has a related article to this one, "Against the Politics of Niceness." Do read it.

Buy the book!

Thoughts on Saul Alinsky and "Rules for Radicals"

I started reading Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals."  I expected a ridgidly ideological screed with lots of capitalist denunciations, "power to the people" and other leftdumb slogans. However, I have been quite surprised at how good the book is and how free of dogma.  

On the subject of dogma, he writes:

This book will not contain any panacea or dogma; I detest and fear dogma.  I know that all revolutions must have ideologies to spur them on. That in the heat of conflict these ideologies tend to be smelted into rigid dogmas claiming exclusive possession of the truth, and the keys to paradise, is tragic.  Dogma is the enemy of human freedom.

Alinsky was a leftist, of that there is no doubt.  However, in the prologue and the first couple of chapters,  he says many things that I agree with and that are insightful and even wise.  He counseled the youth of 1971 to "fight for a better world" by working within our democratic system.  He says to them something that could have been spoken by Ronald Reagan:

We are not concerned with people who profess the democratic faith but yearn for the dark security of dependency where they can be spared the burden of decisions. Reluctant to grow up, or incapable of doing so, they want to remain children and be cared for by others.  Those who can, should be encouraged to grow; for the others, the fault lies not in the system but in themselves. 

A chapter that I find particularly instuctive is "Of Means and Ends."  He discusses the ethics of "the end justifies the means," but it isn't what you might think.  Alinsky disputes that the ends always justify the means; however, it may be true that in a particular situation, the particular end justifies the particular means.  He uses Churchill as an example.  Churchill was a devoted anti-communist, but allied himself with Stalin to defeat Hitler.  He was asked if he found it embarrassing to support the communists against Nazi Germany.  Alinsky writes:

Churchill's reply was clear and unequivocal:  "Not at all.  I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby.  If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

A modern example of particular ends justifying particular means might be the use of waterboarding on captured terrorists.  The sought after end was to stop planned terrorist attacks before they happen.  (And that is exactly what did happen, preventing a planned 9/11 style attack on Los Angeles.)

In spite of the many good points one might derive about Alinsky, he drops many clues as to his philosophy:  that he believes that we are our brother's keeper; that the plight of the have-nots, or the poor, can only be satisfied by taking away from the haves.  It is the mistake all socialists make, the false premise that undermines all of their proposed solutions:  that there is a finite amount of goodies in the world, be they houses, cars, food, clothing and Fender Stratocaster guitars (I want a red one).  To the socialists, the economy is a zero-sum game; rich people are greedy folks who have taken more than their fair share at the expense of the poor and underpriviliged.   The way to correct the situation is through revolution, the forcible redistribution of wealth.  It's a bankrupt philosophy.

I will keep reading the book, however.  It is well written and has a lot to interest me.  In the game of chess with the Left, it is wise to study your opponent's methods and strategies, so that he is the one who is checkmated rather than you.

Random Thoughts for Tuesday

A few posts back I wrote how the Southern Poverty Law Center slandered a friend of mine as a "white-supremacist," a "racist" and someone with an "extremist past."  None of this was remotely true and is a typically libelous falsehood directed at a principled (and well-known) conservative.

Today I googled my own name and found an article by a website that took the SPLC to task for slandering the unnamed friend in question.  The article named him and me and a couple of others as standing up AGAINST racism and even quoted my friend denouncing racism!  The quote came from a private listserve where early members of the League of the South, or Southern League as it was then called, could debate issues.  The listserve quotes proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that my friend was a principled, outspoken non-racist.  However, don't think the SPLC will remove their slander anytime soon.  As everyone remotely informed knows, the SPLC is in the business of slandering political enemies; their shtick as fighters of "hatred" and "racism" is no more real than it is for the Communist Party who claims the same things.

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There is a fully carved upright bass that I want to buy.  It's from Rumania and generally costs around $4,000:  a Calin Wultur Panormo flat back.  My supplier says it has a "thunderous voice" and sounds more like a $10,000 bass than one in this price range.  I have heard others say the same, including one orchestra bassist.  My supplier  is offering it for sale for only $3,200, a really good price.  No doubt the recession has him feeling pinched.  I would love to buy the bass but the recession has me feeling pinched as well.  Dang!  Maybe I should start a Tip Jar like other bloggers have; it would only take one donation of $3,200 and I would have my bass! Hmm, that scenario sounds about as realistic as Obama's economic policies.  Guess I'll stick with my laminated bass for now.

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Our incredibly goofy airhead President continues to amuse.  His latest stunt was having Air Force One do a close flyover of New York, scaring many New Yorkers who thought it was another terrorist attack.  What a maroon!

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I'm still working on "the Road to Serfdom"; I will read another chapter or two tonight.  I ordered Saul Alinksy's book "Rules for Radicals" and will read that next, so I will know what tactics I can expect from our Alinksy pupil President, Obama.  One of the radio pundits I listen to daily said that when a certain Democrat office was replaced with a Republican, the Republican staff found a box of these books in the office -- hundreds of them.  Seems like "Rules for Radicals" could be called "Rules for Democrats."  Not that there's any difference.