Creating a Dilemma for Your Opponent; Why Dilemmas Work and Provocation Doesn't

[HiPointDem]

I’m using the military definition of tactics: actions or maneuvers that are intended to produce an advantage in a struggle with an opponent...Today, I’d like to talk about a particular form of action whose objective is to put the opponent into a dilemma where, whichever choice is made by the opponent, the campaigners gain an advantage...

Among their many imaginative tactics, Casino-Free Philadelphia used a dilemma demonstration they called “citizens’ document search.” The state had set up a gambling regulatory commission that collected planning information and operated in secrecy. The campaigners demanded that the files be made available to the public, and said that if the commission refused, the campaigners would be forced to enter the commission’s offices and liberate the information that the public had a right to know...

The commission was put in a dilemma. If it revealed the documents, the campaigners won: the information contained would damn the commission. If it did not reveal the documents but instead called the police to arrest the activists engaged in the document search, the campaigners also won: an obscure bureaucratic agency would be spotlighted for its probable conspiracy against the public interest...

To underscore their point and attract even more media interest, the campaigners went to Pennsylvania’s State Capitol ahead of time and, using rags, buckets and water, washed the windows of the building where the commission’s offices were located — all “to promote transparency...”

http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/creating-dilemma-your-opponent-why-dilemmas-work-and-provocation-doesnt

[snot]

1. K&R'd.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Good, powerful and strong. nt.

[lovemydog]

3. Creating a dilemma can

change viewpoints and voting.

I'm hoping some will give examples of how this can work for democrats around the country.

We must win more elections.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

4. Well done.

Protest works.

[pennylane100]

5. I have always thought that while demonstrations and marches promote feel good emotions

for causes that I care about, when the marchers go home the level of intensity drops. I think that the ideal of causing a dilemma to help your cause is a great idea. Now where are all the creative people.

[jtuck004]

6. Alinsky's Back of the Yards group once threatened to occupy all the pay toilets at O'hare airport.

iirc. It was a small, relatively easily ignored group, (that was the meatpacking area that Upton Sinclair made infamous) but that would have raised the group to a very high profile, gotten the attention of tens of thousands of people, new coverage, etc. They got as far as passing out change, books, schedules, etc, when the opposition backed off and agreed to talks.