Creating a Dilemma for Your Opponent; Why Dilemmas Work and Provocation Doesn't [View all]

[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