WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE? WHO IS WHO: ATTACK WHO, BLAME WHO, SYMBOLIC WHO?

Alinsky taught that in order to most effectively cast themselves as defenders of moral principals and human decency, organizers must react with “shock, horror, and moral outrage” whenever their targeted enemy in any way misspeaks or fails to live up to his “book of rules.”[78] Moreover, said Alinsky, whenever possible the organizer must deride his enemy and dismiss him as someone unworthy of being taken seriously because he is either intellectually deficient or morally bankrupt. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength,” said Alinsky.[79] He advised organizers to “laugh at the enemy” in an effort to provoke “an irrational anger.”[80] “Ridicule,” said Alinsky, “is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”[81] According to Alinsky, it was vital that organizers focus on multiple crusades and multiple approaches. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag,” he wrote. “Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time … New issues and crises are always developing…”[82] “Keep the pressure on,” he continued, “with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”[83] Toward this end, Alinsky advised organizers to be sure that they always kept more than one “fight in the bank.” In other words, organizers should keep a stockpile of comparatively small crusades which they are already prepared to conduct, and to which they can instantly turn their attention after having won a major victory of some type. These “fights in the bank” serve the dual purpose of keeping the organization’s momentum going, while not allowing its major crusade to get “stale” from excessive public exposure.[84] . - A Guide to the Political Left: Saul Alinsky, John Perazzo, April 2008, www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org -

But it is not enough for the organizer to be in solidarity with the people. He must also, said Alinsky, cultivate unity against a clearly identifiable enemy; he must specifically name this foe, and “single out” [44] precisely who is to blame for the “particular evil” that is the source of the people’s angst.[45] In other words, there must be a face associated with the people’s discontent. That face, Alinsky taught, “Must be a personification, not something general and abstract like a corporation or City Hall.”[46] Rather, it should be an individual such as a CEO, a mayor, or a president. Alinsky summarized it this way: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…. [T]here is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks.”[47] He held that the organizer’s task was to cultivate in people’s hearts a negative, visceral emotional response to the face of the enemy. “The organizer who forgets the significance of personal identification,” said Alinsky, “will attempt to answer all objections on the basis of logic and merit. With few exceptions this is a futile procedure.”[48] . - A Guide to the Political Left: Saul Alinsky, John Perazzo, April 2008, www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org -

Alinsky also advised organizers to focus their attention on a small number of selected, strategic targets. Spreading an organization’s passions too thinly was a recipe for certain failure, he warned.[49] Alinsky advised the radical activist to avoid the temptation to concede that his opponent was not “100 per cent devil,” or that he possessed certain admirable qualities such as being “a good churchgoing man, generous to charity, and a good husband.” Such qualifying remarks, Alinsky said, “Dilut[e] the impact of the attack” and amount to sheer “political idiocy.”[50] Alinsky stressed the need for organizers to convince their followers that the chasm between the enemy and the members of the People’s Organization was vast and unbridgeable. “Before men can act,” he said, “an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels, and that the oppositions are 100 percent on the side of the devil.”[51] Alinsky advised this course of action even though he well understood that the organizer “knows that when the time comes for negotiations it is really only a 10 percent difference.”[52] But in Lewinsky’s brand of social warfare, the ends (in this case, the transfer of power) justify virtually whatever means are required (in this case, lying).[53] . - A Guide to the Political Left: Saul Alinsky, John Perazzo, April 2008, www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org -