Saul Alinsky ~ Rules for Radicals ~ Sanders [View all]

[Her Sister]

Redux Revolution: Alinsky, Sanders and the False Campaign


Activists from the 1970s will feel a sense of familiarity with the Bernie Sanders’ campaign. It’s more than loaded words like “revolution” and “establishment,” those hot coins of counter culture. It’s more than the scent of socialism with the bugaboo Marxist roots. No. If you look closely and follow chronologically, it’s the very structure of the campaign that rings a bell.

Bernie Sanders is incorporating the power tactics of Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, into his campaign operations.

Saul Alinsky was an outside agitator par excellence, whose Rules was first published in 1971. His influence stretches from civil and workers rights’ movements of the time to community organizers and political coalitions of this era, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and right wingsters.

That Sanders would adopt Alinksy’s Rules is no surprise, considering its popularity during his youthful days. It also befits a campaign with small numbers, and in its perception, in a struggle against an evil machine (Hillary Clinton’s campaign).


Below are the first of Alinsky’s power tactics as described in his handbook. There are 13 altogether, most inter-related to form a modis operadi for activism.

I have selected ten which are most closely aligned to Sanders’ campaign techniques. Online users will recognize the similarity between these and the noise coming from the online organization of the redux revolution known as “Bernie

https://gobling.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/alinskys-power-tactics/

https://gobling.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/redux-revolution-alinsky-sanders-and-the-false-campaign/


FIRST RULE:

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

SECOND RULE:

Never go outside the experience of your people.

THIRD RULE:

Whenever possible go outside the experience of your enemy.

FOURTH RULE:

Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

FIFTH RULE:

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

SIXTH RULE:

A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

SEVENTH RULE:

A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

EIGHTH RULE:

Keep the pressure on.

NINTH RULE:

The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

TENTH RULE:

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

ELEVENTH RULE:

If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.

TWELFTH RULE:

The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

THIRTEENTH RULE:

Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

READ THE FULL TEXT OF RULES FOR RADICALS HERE:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjVu7-W2rrLAhXL4yYKHUFCDIgQFgg9MAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fstream%2FRulesForRadicals%2FRulesForRadicals_djvu.txt&usg=AFQjCNFwS-7KcjDa_xzD7yKdA3bxmhzPvA