This hasn't happened before. Has it?

[RoadKingLarry]

Harold, you sound like a veteran. Is there some kind of manual to learn all this stuff for the uninitiated or can it only be learned through blood, toil, tears, and sweat?

Try Rules for Radicals by Saul Allinsky - http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Radicals-Saul-Alinsky/dp/0679721134

If you know the tactics of the opposition it is easier to avoid them.

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.

[BMacklem]

I really like rule #4 there.

"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.”
"

If there was only a way to get all the politicians to obey the laws they set forth for us.

You know...like the rest of us law abiding citizens who are forced to fear our government.
Last time I checked....they're *supposed* to abide by the same laws we do.

[Balog]

BMacklem I'm totally reporting you to the Obama Truth Squad for that.

[longeyes]

So...where is The Great Uniter?

Does he have any idea what's brewing in these United States?  Or is he too busy cutting secret deals with Calderon south of the border?

[Buzzcook]

Follow the money. Much of the money funding the protests and much of their organization is being done by big money republican donors and lobbyists.
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/sns-200908061454tmsbpresstt--m-a20090806aug06,0,3044288.story
http://firedoglake.com/2009/04/13/corporate-lobyists-raising-money-for-tea-parties/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/a-*derogatory term deleted*-timeline-koch_b_187312.html

Kenneth Gladney can be seen in the video of his alleged assault jumping to his feet. No one seems to notice that at the start of the video there is already a union member on the ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWnxlFbYjVY&annotation_id=annotation_284819&feature=iv
http://www.thedailynigger.com/2009/08/09/meet-elston-k-mccowan-the-man-who-allegedly-assaulted-black-conservative-kenneth-gladney/
That last has some language.

These protests resemble the republican rioters that were flown into Florida in 2000.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/080502a.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html

[Perd Hapley]

Follow the money. Much of the money funding the protests and much of their organization is being done by big money republican donors and lobbyists.

Thank God.

Kenneth Gladney can be seen in the video of his alleged assault jumping to his feet. No one seems to notice that at the start of the video there is already a union member on the ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWnxlFbYjVY&annotation_id=annotation_284819&feature=iv
http://www.thedailynigger.com/2009/08/09/meet-elston-k-mccowan-the-man-who-allegedly-assaulted-black-conservative-kenneth-gladney/
That last has some language.

OK, so he jumped to his feet.  What does that mean? 

One of his attackers was on the ground.  So? 

These protests resemble the republican rioters that were flown into Florida in 2000.

Riiiiight.

[makattak]

These protests resemble the republican rioters that were flown into Florida in 2000.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/080502a.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html

Yep, anytime Republicans actually stand up to the Democrats in their grabs for power, it's all staged and fake outrage.

I mean, people can't REALLY be mad about someone trying to steal a presidential election or REALLY be mad about the government trying to socialize healthcare. (We're not so stupid that we can't look at the myriad of examples of Democrats saying this is how they will bring about "single-payer healthcare).

Nope, it's all fake outrage. In fact, people WANT socialized medicine. The polls are wrong.

[MicroBalrog]

These protests resemble the republican rioters that were flown into Florida in 2000.

Dude. Many people on this forum either attended, or helped organize the Tea Parties. Telling them that they're hired mercenaries worknig for Teh Rich is a bad idea.

[Monkeyleg]

Liberals had better get out of the denial mode and figure out how to save their butts from a huge firestorm. Even a significant number of people who voted for Obama are mad as hell.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Dude. Many people on this forum either attended, or helped organize the Tea Parties. Telling them that they're hired mercenaries worknig for Teh Rich is a bad idea.

I would classify it more of a Dumb Idea than a Bad Idea.  The folks around here don't fall for that kind of tripe.

And let's be honest, we all work for the rich.  Last I checked, the poor weren't in a position to sign anyone's paycheck.

[MicroBalrog]

And let's be honest, we all work for the rich.  Last I checked, the poor weren't in a position to sign anyone's paycheck.

Whom do you think McDonalds markets their product to?

[Monkeyleg]

Whom do you think McDonalds markets their product to?

People who eat?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Whom do you think McDonalds markets their product to?

Fat slobs, mostly.  Leastaways that's what it looks like whenever I drive past a McDonalds.

[Perd Hapley]

Dude. Many people on this forum either attended, or helped organize the Tea Parties. Telling them that they're hired mercenaries worknig for Teh Rich is a bad idea.

If there was any funding for the Tea Parties I attended, I'd like to know what they were using it for.  Other than a sound system and some permits, there wasn't much to fund.  There were a few professional signs at the first one.  At the second one, I was embarrassed by all the home-made, misspelled signs. 

I have no idea if there is any Big Zionist Conspiracy to oppose Obamacare, but I sure hope there is.  These people are trying to rescue our health care system.  I'd kinda like them to be well-funded. 

[Jamisjockey]

If there was any funding for the Tea Parties I attended, I'd like to know what they were using it for.  Other than a sound system and some permits, there wasn't much to fund. 

No no no.  Rush Limbaugh paid for you and your friends to get together, and stand around, and hold signs and protest.  Oh, wait....
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/etc/1310895349.html

[MicroBalrog]

My point is, a lot of products out there are designed and marketed to be consumed by primarily poor or working-class people. Those people pay the paycheck of everybody at the company and its wealthy owners, too - which is why boycotts sometimes work.

The free market is not only a machine for big business. Every time you consume something, from a burger to a car, you are helping recoup investment and encouraging production and economic growth. Consumption essentially IS production.

[Perd Hapley]

No no no.  Rush Limbaugh paid for you and your friends to get together, and stand around, and hold signs and protest. 

We didn't get any signs or t-shirts or anything.  [kicks rocks]

[Boomhauer]

No no no.  Rush Limbaugh paid for you and your friends to get together, and stand around, and hold signs and protest.  Oh, wait....
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/etc/1310895349.html

What, man? I didn't get paid one cent to go to the TEA parties. Not one red cent. I spent my own money on gas to get my own butt there and took off time from other activities to do so.

Follow the money. Much of the money funding the protests and much of their organization is being done by big money republican donors and lobbyists.

It's all a Republikan Conspiracy, man!

(I'm not much of a fan of the Republican party, by the way, cause they SUCK! and aren't much better than the Dems)

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

My point is, a lot of products out there are designed and marketed to be consumed by primarily poor or working-class people. Those people pay the paycheck of everybody at the company and its wealthy owners, too - which is why boycotts sometimes work.

The free market is not only a machine for big business. Every time you consume something, from a burger to a car, you are helping recoup investment and encouraging production and economic growth. Consumption essentially IS production.

Customers don't pay salaries, successful companies do.  The average schlub buying a Big Mac has about as much chance of making payroll for a multimillion dollar corporation as a cocker spaniel has of writing a sonnet.

No no no.  Rush Limbaugh paid for you and your friends to get together, and stand around, and hold signs and protest.  Oh, wait....
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/etc/1310895349.html

Wait, I didn't get paid!  I been robbed!

Where's Obama to make this right for me?

[Scout26]

No no no.  Rush Limbaugh paid for you and your friends to get together, and stand around, and hold signs and protest.  Oh, wait....
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/etc/1310895349.html

Did no-one but me find the "Honk to Stop Global Warming" sign side splittingly funny..... 

[MicroBalrog]

Customers don't pay salaries, successful companies do.

And companies don't become successful if they don't please customers.

As Sowell put it, you become rich by doing what other people want.

Hundreds of thousands of fat slobs keep McD going.

[Perd Hapley]

Why does the left think they can bogart the grass roots?