Aufhebung or Anti Duhring?

Thanks for that, I'm one of the kids here.

However, what the conservatives have to understand
is they've let the hard right's vitriol infect their
message.

Yes you can create alot of heat by the tactics being
used but you can not create a viable political
movement in this country with such a hard edge - Bill Young

I am not so sure Mr. Young is correct.

Could it be that left is concerned with the current antics of the right precisely because a "viable political movement” CAN be built upon "such a hard edge". Didn't we just witness a movement built on these tactics surge into the White House?

Indeed, it appears that right-wingers have stopped playing by their own (old) rules to adopt new ones from the left. Aren't the current tactics of the right simply a reformulation of those utilized over the past 40 years by the left? (For example, after Wilson yelled "lie!" we had to take a closer look and found many holes in HR 3200 - "truth... is relative and changing," Saul Alinsky.)

It seems to me that the right is reading out of the left's playbook? Don't the tactics now employed (albeit clumsily) by the right seem familiar?

• One... "begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10
• "An organizer... does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations...." pp.10-11
• "The real arena is corrupt and bloody." p.24
• "The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be...." pp.25-26
• "The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." p.29
• "The seventh rule... is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics...." p.34
• "The tenth rule... is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.... It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances at any given time... Who, and how many will support the action?... If weapons are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you will move quickly or slowly..." p.36
• "...the organizer must be able to split himself into two parts -- one part in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that it really is only a 10 percent difference." p.78
• "From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals."
• "Change comes from power, and power comes from organization." p.113
• "The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displaced by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." p.116
• "An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises....
• "The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of conflict." p.117
• "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."
• “ Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'... “
• "...any target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...'
• "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." (pps.127-134)

From Rules for Radicals; Saul Alinsky, 1971.

Food for thought: sometimes victory is too complete forcing opponents to evolve and adopt new tactics. Is this what we are witnessing? Are teabaggers Frankenstein creatures of the left?

The left holds no monopoly on radical. (link...)

Alinsky loses me between here

Change comes from power, and power comes from organization."

and here

The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displaced by new patterns

I've set my share of fires in this world in the name of planting my own seeds, but it's hard to farm alone. I move to strike everything in the Alinsky playbook from the above quote through the remainder, to be replaced with:

Organization comes from trust, trust comes from people, and power is fleeting and useless without trusted people in your organization. If you work better than what doesn't, what doesn't becomes irrelevant and then they trust you to do it some more.

All Democrats have to do right now is stand and deliver on finishing the 100 year attempt at getting a foot through the door toward a more reasonable health care system. I know that we're not going to build a new health care industry overnight that has a globally competitive interest in people instead of unsustainable profit growth (have you SEEN the amount of money that Max Baucus gets from the health care industry?), and it's not that I want the Republican party to become irrelevant by holding up 9 page tax shuffle bills and crying about socialism. I want to know what my health care costs, I want that cost to be reasonable, and I want that cost better pooled with everyone else (like insurance) so that no one is an illness away from bankruptcy. Medical bankruptcy is a stupid, unheard of concept in most developed nations and the 2010 and 12 elections will hinge a great deal on that number going up or down in this country between now and then. If Congressmen, D and R, stand and deliver on that number going down everybody wins and we keep doing more of whatever got us there. That number goes up, we fail as a nation, sell it all to China and see if they can do any better.

99% of your posts are meaningless regurgitations of shop worn left talking points.

Looked in the mirror lately?
You've been doing exactly this since you arrived.
And we've already covered the ground of all the shop worn right wing talking points more than once around here. Like your latest on Alinsky.
So, who is it that is being smug now?

[and I'm taking a pass on your spelling, just to be nice]

"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?"

It really is astounding to see such an absence of intellectual reflexivity. I implore you to look in the mirror for a moment.

Bill Young offered up some thoughtful observations about the links Lykins posted and made an honest attempt at beginning a dialogue. I disagree with several of the points he made. However, I respect and appreciate his thoughts, because he offered them in an honest, generous manner that demonstrated that 1. He actually followed the links; 2. Really considered the ideas presented; and 3. Attempted to further the conversation.

Instead of engaging in the kind of democratic dialogue that is desperately needed right now, you've done your level best to reduce the conversation to hollow slogans and an empty rhetoric of "us and them" that only occasionally intersects reality. Unfortunately, folks have followed you down the rabbit-hole.

This [ (link...) ] is how politics works in the USA. Until we refuse to play along, it will continue.

I don't fear the voice of the opposition.

We are not about fear.
We are about hope.

I've got two slogans to live by:

The First:

Late to bed
Early to rise

Work like hell
And ORGANIZE!!!!

The Second:

FIRED UP!!!!!!!
READY TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012.

"That's the functional equivalent of getting told to leave a Nuremberg Rally because you scared Goebbels."

(link...)

pwned

Anyone can and certainly will have economic setbacks some insurmountable.
Howevr,I stand behind my statement that it is possible to advance in the U.S.

Doesn't our president present himself as an inspirational example who overcome economic, race, and religious disadvantage. He reminds us that he still believes in the great opportunities our county offers. Our president says we should believe as well and in this I do.

If it is so not possible to advanceIn the USA why do millions cross our borders as economic refugees?

Some people go to school for years and years, and never learn.

Analysis of the Impact of an Illustrative Single-Payer System for Hawai'i, Final Report, 2006

"The truth is really pretty simple; it's the mechanics of making it work that breaks men down." Hunter Stockton Thompson