Wise up to Alinsky's Rule 13

The late Saul Alinsky and his writings are drawing much interest and study, in that the current President and Secretary of State were apparently his disciples. All one has to do is “google” (a new verb in the English language) “Rules for Radicals” and read for yourself. What I wish to comment upon is number 13 under “Tactics”: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” It is this tactic, adopted by the Progressives, that seems to have thrown Republicans and conservatives completely! In practice, this means the Progressives “go after” someone personally, using everything and anything they can find, (or even things they make up!)

We see how they vilified George Bush over the last 8 years, then Senator McCain, then Sarah Palin, (who apparently has been chased off the political scene by the tactic!) Gone are the days of the Lincoln Douglas debates, where people will “agree to disagree”. Gone are the days of mutual respect and fair play.

The Progressives seek to seize power permanently and turn the country into their version of a Soviet State. It’s time for the “Defenders of the Republic” to “fight fire with fire” rather than whimper they are not being treated “fairly”!

“I don’t understand why I didn’t get a chance to respond!” lamented one conservative lawmaker who’d been lured to a “debate” where he was beset upon, ridiculed and reviled by a hostile crowd and didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth!

The latest target, however, has been citizens who have shown up at town halls to object to the Health Care plan. For the first time, the Alinsky tactic has not been successful, because thousands of people showing up at hundreds of town meetings are hard to target.

In many respects, the tables have been turned. Speaker of the House Pelosi accused protestors of “carrying swastikas”, which follows the Alinsky “polarize it” formula. The Obama joker pictures have triggered “racism”howls from the Administration, in spite of the same tactics used against Bush. Basically, the Progressives like to “Dish it out, but can’t take it!” The mass tactics of town halls and Tea Parties have been hard to vilify effectively.

The quicker the Conservatives lay aside their genteel notions of politics and go for the jugular in these political fights, the better the chances of survival. Of course there will be those who huff “we’re stooping to their level”! But that’s a little like the British Officers who railed against the Indians of North America in the 1750’s because they wouldn’t line up in rows on a battle field and “fight like men!”

Grand Jct. reacts to Obama - 2

Editor: More first-person color from a participant in Saturday's presidential visit to Grand Junction. The author is Kathleen Baker of Denver. Hat tipto cyber-activists Ron Michel and Fred Holden for passing it along. ==========================

Many of you asked for details of yesterday's protest in Grand Junction, so here is my personal account.

For those of you that don't know Grand Junction, it is the largest town in western Colorado with a population of 48,000. It sits about halfway between Denver and Salt Lake City, both of which are about a four-hour drive. Between Grand Junction and SLC, there is basically nothing. Between Denver and GJ, there are small mountain and resort communities about every twenty to thirty minutes.In other words, there is not a huge population base from which to draw protestors.

From 10 am to 11:30 yesterday, the Grand Junction citizens held a well organized rally at a park a couple miles from the high school where the townhall was held.They asked everyone to sign a registration card so they could have an accurate count of attendance. There were more than 4,000. (That's huge for a town with 48,000 residents.) This is hearsay, but I later heard that out of those 4,000, only three "won" tickets to the townhall.

I spent the majority of my time manning a petition table for a man I met there. The petitions were for amendments to be on the Colorado ballot to limit taxation. Local leaders, I would recommend helping to get signatures: wwww.cotaxreform.com, www.limitpropertytax.com, www.limitCOdebt.com.

I did not see any reporters from the national or Denver news organizations. There appeared to be a reporter from the GJ station. There were also newspaper reporters, one of which I know was from SLC. However, the big players did not appear to be there.

After the rally, there was a break until 3:00. I went to lunch with several representatives of 912 groups from the Front Range area. Then a member of the local group that sponsored the protest invited us to her home until the protest began. On the way to the protest, we saw Air Force One land. It was a strange feeling to see this American icon while detesting the occupant inside.

Now for the protest and all the baloney that goes with this administration. They told everyone the motorcade would be following a certain route. MoveOn or ACORN or whatever group organized the other side reserved the space and set up their protest there. We lined up the other side of the street. (it reminded me of the Revolutionary War where the Patriots and Red Coats faced each other in battle. :-) We way outnumbered them. They were bussed in from Denver. The bus was in plain site, and I passed it while I was driving home. There were also the usual professionally printed signs. It was a typical counter protest of both sides chanting back and forth. The woman on our side with the bullhorn was pretty funny.

It was pretty obvious to me the way it was set up that the motorcade wasn't going to drive down a road lined with counter protestors. The thing that made me angry was they told the Central High School Band they were going to play for it. The kids sat there in the hot sun waiting, and he sneak in another entrance. Those kids were incredibly dejected. It's one thing to sneak past demonstrators but to lie to those kids like that shows what type of character he has.

I don't know how many protestors were there as the rally people split up to different parts of town to protest the motorcade. I do know there were several people there from Denver that missed the earlier rally. There were lots of people filming it, but once again, I didn't see any major players from the media.

So this is where it got funny. Since the ACORN people were bussed in from Denver, they didn't know the high school. Our side had the real protestors who had graduated from there, so they figured out which entrance he used. We all wanted to move to that entrance so when he left, he would see us. However, we didn't want ACORN to follow us. So over a 45-minute period we slowly trickled over there. The front line of our group would keep chanting while the others left. (It was a bit like the Sound of Music.) They had no idea. We were trying to make it look like people were slowly going home. A GJ couple from our side who hadn't been informed of the plan said all of a sudden no one on our side was there. (They were smart and realized we had all moved to another location, so they went looking for us. The ACORNers were too dumb to realize what we had done.)

Anyway, after our little covert operation we had restaged ourselves with only a few socialist demonstrators at the entrance. We were pretty proud of ourselves. :-) This made it perfect for when he came out in his motorcade. We shouted over and over "No you can't!" which turned into the most loud, emotional boo I've ever heard. It was great. It was such a wonderful feeling to be so close to him and to know that he could hear us booing him.

Another thing I wanted to note was a rather strange experience between the police and us. After we had restaged ourselves, the local police guarding the parking lot all of a sudden lined up in a row, riot style (legs spread apart, arms behind the back). It was odd, and the entire angry mob became silent and turned their bodies to look at them. The thing was we intimidated them by our reaction. They all looked at each other and you could see they realized they were us. We were not the enemy. We were their friends and neighbors. Then they quickly retreated and went into a little circle.

Finally, I would like to give some hints to others who may protest BO in the future. They set us up by stating which entrance he was coming in and planting his supporters and the marching band there. They aren't going to drive a presidential motorcade down a street lined with protestors. They are going to bring him in an entrance where the entire block (including sidewalks) is blocked off. Before a protest, have organizers scout the location and see what areas are COMPLETELY blocked off from pedestrians and where there is a substantial higher amount of police. One woman I met when we restaged who had been at the entrance the entire time said they had done that and that's how they figured out which entrance he was using. Be in charge of the situation. We were laughing after restaging because we know (there and across the country) we are always one step ahead of them.

It was a great day, and I met a lot of wonderful people. It made me proud to be an American.

Grand Jct. reacts to Obama - 1

Editor: Colorado bloggers captured insights you didn't see in MSM when the President brought his health care pitch to Grand Junction on Aug. 15. This report by a "Donna" was forwarded by our friend Norm Froman. ================================

Well, I’m sure you have heard the Western Slope is being subjected to a visit from White house royalty. If ever there was a mockery of Tax payers’ money it is this one.

I turned on Fox News around 4:30 to catch some of it. I could only manage to watch one thundering round of standing ovation. Talk about a staged showing.

They are using our largest High School for the so called Town Hall meeting.

As of last night NO ONE was allowed in the Bookcliff mountain range. That is the mountain range that borders our Airport. As of a certain time they will totally closing down the business loop of I-70 and it will remain closed until they have him out of here. State Police are everywhere.

The Conservative Alliance held a huge rally in one of our parks this morning at 10 a.m. We went to it.

Pictures of the rally are shown on the GJ Sentinel site. I am guessing there was close to 3-4 thousand there. They had many speakers. One was Josh Penry, who will be running for Colorado Governor in 2010.

One speaker asked for a show of hands of those that requested a pass to get into the high school for the town hall meeting. I would say that about half of all present had requested a pass. A total of 4 out of all that raised their hands received a pass.

The Conservative Alliance requested many passes and they were only granted a total of 4. Joel and several of his friends requested pass and they have yet to hear anything back.

Then we were informed that if we wanted to stand outside the High school with our signs we would have to park in the neighborhoods on the outskirts of the school because the DNC had rented all available parking space near the school. Chartered bus loads are coming from Denver. So how is this representative of the Western Slope . . . who did not vote for Obama?

It doesn’t take an Einstein to see how this deck is stacked.

Back in the Fall when Obama came here to campaign he was outdoors at a local orchard. They said there were 3 thousand that turned out.

We later learned they bused in bus loads of Democrats from Denver and Salt Lake City to the tune of 2000. So that leaves about 1000 locals from the Valley.

Sarah Palin had an estimated 28,000 turn out to hear her in the largest outdoor arena that Grand Junction has. . . tells you how the Western Slope leans . . . but what the world will see at this carefully orchestrated town hall meeting is something quite different than the truth. It has Obama’s name written all over it.

Is there no end to the Chicago thuggery?!

-- Donna

Constitution will survive Dems’ assaults

Last fall I shared in the disappointment of 47 percent of the voters who did not cast their ballots for Barack Obama and feared his stated intention of "transforming" America into a socialist regime. With Democrats in firm control of both houses of Congress, this seemed a likely as well as a fearful prospect. But things are looking up. This week Obama Administration officials indicated that they may abandon the so-called "public option" feature of their health care insurance proposal because of widespread and intense public opposition. This demonstrates that public opinion still counts for a great deal in our republican form of government and, indeed, is capable of doing some "transforming" of its own - - in this case, thwarting socialized health care.

Without forgetting for a moment that Obama and his fellow Democrats still control all three elective branches of the federal government, we know now that, although they can fool some of the people all of the time and even all the people some of the time, they evidently cannot fool all the people all of the time.

It is critical that we understand the explanation for this serious blow to the Obama Administration’s plans for the nation. Many Americans of both parties, and independents, and even some who have had no previous involvement in politics, were outraged that the terms and conditions of nationalized health care were so severe.

This reaction was not because of alleged "lies" by Republicans and "special interests" (doctors, hospitals, drug and insurance companies) that the government would in due course come to dominate the field and that the unprecedented costs would be covered with higher taxes and rationing, doubtless at the expense of those deemed unworthy of "extraordinary" care. That’s all true.

Way back when, we were admonished to be concerned about approximately 40 million people who lacked health insurance, but that was soon overwhelmed by the hard Democrat push for universal coverage to replace the allegedly capricious decision making of the "evil" health insurance firms.

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, millions of Americans have health plans they are satisfied with. Whatever complaints they may have, they look far less favorably upon a one-size-fits-all system which, if Canada and the United Kingdom are instructive, will force people to wait for months for appointments while unsocialized dogs and cats can get theirs with veterinarians far sooner!

This is a time to be grateful for our free commerce which enables health care providers and consumers to agree to plans and payments which are mutually beneficial. Those plans are valuable properties - - private properties - - which belong to individuals and are not subject to confiscation by the government for the sake of "spreading the wealth around."

Thus, private property, the foundation of our free and profitable trade and commerce, has both taken care of the health of millions and enabled them to "speak truth to power." Americans are not mere ciphers in a soulless administrative state but self governing persons.

This is precisely what the founders of modern republican government intended with equal rights under law and immense opportunities for energetic and capable citizens to rise above mediocrity and follow their dreams.

Those same people are free to vote for representatives of their own choosing, knowing that they have the power to vote out of office any miscreants who would take away their right to govern themselves.

It is not surprising that so many people taking part in politics for possibly the first time in their lives should exhibit less polished arts of speaking and writing than those who have practiced them for many years. I remember vividly my own entry during my college years, impatient for change and wanting to be heard. Since then I have seen others go through the same sort of initiation. Experience is a great teacher and the latest entrants will learn the lessons of moderation that others have before them.

Part of that political education consists in taking the long view of things. All victories are temporary, until the next challenge comes along. However appealing the idea of term limits is, our nation needs a continual supply of citizens not only participating actively in politics but seeking public office if they have virtues to contribute to the public good.

One hopes that current as well as future political leaders will appreciate the advantages of the present fortuitous circumstances and bring more and more public-spirited people into legislative and executive campaigns and governing so that we can continue to keep the socialist wolf at bay.

MSM caught 'watering the plants'

There has been heavy media coverage of the picture of Obama-with-Hitler-mustache that a guy was displaying outside one of the townhall meetings the other day. The picture is at one of the links below. Several talking heads on TV blamed Republicans and conservative talk radio for motivating this ugly display (see third link below). One might be forgiven for thinking that they knew what they were talking about. One might have assumed, naively, that the network news people did some investigative reporting to determine the facts.

In fact, it would have been quite easy. All they had to do was to read the message on the bottom of the picture and go to the web site, which is a Lyndon LaRouche web site (first link below). But no, they simply parroted what their world view told them must be the case. This sloppiness and utter disregard for the facts have become more and more typical of liberal TV news programs.

As it happens, Lyndon LaRouche is closer to a communist than he is to a conservative. On the issue at hand, his web site actually advocates a "single payer" health care plan, just not Obama's.

The activist who was displaying the picture was later seen handing out literature for Democratic Representative John Dingell (see second link below). Thus either he was a Democrat plant or else he was a LaRouche supporter who also supported Dingell.

They call this particular kind of deception "watering the plants". The liberal media bought it willingly, and then spread it far and wide. We can expect to see much more of this now that Nancy Pelosi falsely accused conservative town hall participants of carrying swastikas.

Regarding TV news, it's been tempting to say "trust but verify". But now one can't trust it at all.

http://www.larouchepac.com/

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/08/busted-obama-as-hitler-poster-was.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/08/12/nbc-cnn-msnbc-all-assign-communist-larouches-obama-hitler-poster-conse