Putting Alinsky's Lessons to Work

Attentive readers of this blog know that Noman began posting on Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals" last Sunday.  Lo and behold, he must have been on the same wavelength as William McGurn, who on Tuesday applied those utile rules for the "practical revolutionary" to events in Wisconsin.  (For background, see Noman's posts "Rules for Radicals" (3/13/11), "Rights Scam" (3/11/11), "Those Mean and Stupid Republicans" (3/10/11), "Civility Redux" (3/7/11), "Public Unions Under Water" (3/7/11), and "Democrats Cause Obesity" (2/28/11)."

Rules for Wisconsin Radicals

Noting that protesters (paid for with your stimulus dollars) in Wisconsin need to reach beyond their own "echo chamber to the non-union middle class," McGurn reminds them of Alinsky's admonition not scare off the middle class with "rudeness, vulgarity and conflict."  In order to "start them easy," McGurn recommends 10 rules.  In the process he points out several truths: viz., 

1. when shakedown artist Jesse Jackson shows up, you know that agitators are arguing for agitation's sake; 
2. ditto for media lefties like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon; 
3. peace signs hearken back to the golden age of anti-middle class, anti-American protests; 
4. protesters don't seem to be a naturally patriotic lot; 
5. leftist protestors respect neither law nor private property; 
6. striking teachers put themselves--not students--first (second, and third); 
7. Hitler analogies to Republicans are banal and boring; 
8. the professional protesters running the show lack credibility; 
9. efforts to recall every Republican in sight looks like the flailing of a guy with a bloody nose; 
10. and, protesters couldn't care less about the taxpayers who pay for their featherbeds.  

Personally, Noman hopes that protesters ignore McGurn's rules, and fail to establish common ground with the real people holding real jobs in the real world paying unreal taxes and assuming surreal levels of public debt for the sake of protesting public unions, and "community organizers," on the ground in Wisconsin.