Thursday, October 22, 2009

James O'Keefe And The Edited ACORN Videos Strike Back

Updated October 23rd, 2009.

Jame's O'Keefe had finally released a follow up ACORN video from the location where the police were called.  What did James O'Keefe say about the matter?
We muted the audio of the ACORN employees on the video released today due to ACORN’s legal attack upon us.  We call upon ACORN to state publicly now that it has no objection to the public release of any its employees oral statements to us.  If they are interested in the truth, why wouldn’t they do so?
If he is being sued by ACORN, and these tapes would supposedly vindicate him, and potentially incriminate ACORN further, then why mute the videos?  He did not mute the videos before, regardless of laws or ACORN's feelings, so where was the change in heart?  Right above the posted video, he quotes Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals, stating Rule #1, "Power isn’t only what you have, it’s what the enemy thinks you have."  The only reason to mute the video is to continue playing his activist games, getting people to believe ACORN had done something bad by muting the sound, and putting the sound editing into ACORN's hands, so people would wonder why ACORN won't allow the oral statements to be heard.  Do what they say differ from their claims?  Did they really call the police?  Did they aid in setting up another fictitious prostitution ring?  This is the same tactic Glenn Beck uses, particularly in his recent attack against Anita Dunn, where he set up a red "hotline" phone for Dunn to call him, but has she?  No, which supposedly adds to the validity and legitamacy of Glenn Beck's myriad of conspiracies, interpretations, and associations.

He is trying to bait ACORN into falling into his trap, where he could then pull the upper hand and use his edited tapes to his advantage.  The best thing for ACORN to do is just ignore his latest attempt at making a name for himself.  The media already got burned by O'Keefe and Giles after the release of their last videos, when ACORN claimed they were thrown out of some offices, contrary to the filmmakers claim.  The two then split up on their media blitz playing the victims of a corrupt organization trying to bully these two youngsters in the courts, and when confronted with facts, they either dodged the truth or played ignorant.

You must remember O'Keefe's own words in his article for The New Guard Magazine, where he writes that it is most important that "conservative activists need to be their own media, and use their independent media to obtain their goals."  He is trying to manipulate the media to favor his cause.  Regarding his previous stint as a pro-life activist, O'Keefe wrote the following about his partner Lila Rose, which compares to what is going on with is going on with both him and Giles:
Leaders taking on power structures need to be raw, confident, fearless and impermeable. Lila received a letter threatening to prosecute the group for violating wiretapping laws, but it did not stop her from continuing the investigation. After the investigation aired nationally on Fox News, Planned Parenthood could no longer press charges, as Lila would appear the victim.
Not only did he not care about violating laws, he aired the videos anyway because his partner would "appear the victim", which is what Hannah Giles was doing a little while ago with her lawyer on Sean Hannity's program, where Giles said that the lawsuit was "kind of silly... I'm a 20-year-old girl being sued for $5 million", with her lawyer stating that it was a baseless lawsuit designed "to bully a 20-year-old girl".  They are really pushing her age, and for what reason other then to generate sympathy for a supposedly young, innocent, citizen journalist?

To consider that O'Keefe quoted Alinsky's first rule, one must wonder what are the other rules in O'Keefe's playbook against ACORN, so I figured I would list his power tactics for all to read:
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is mans most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise of tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.
 With his current ACORN video, he is playing on rule number one, but reading these set of rules, what has O'Keefe done in the past that abides by these rules?  Regarding thirteen, I would think he accomplished this with his previous videos, and considering eleven, O'Keefe, Breitbart's Big Government, and Fox News hammered away at the negative implications of the video day in and day out, and the trickling out of videos seems to follow rules eight and ten, as well as five.  Even consider rule nine; we heard so many stories about how ACORN was aiding in setting up a prostitution ring, and if this is how they act unknowingly on camera, then they must have had done this thing before, with taxpayer's money.  O'Keefe and his supporters overplayed the threat of ACORN, painting them as a corrupt organization of thugs who are now willing to assist pimps and prostitutes, which according to O'Keefe's playbook, is just getting people to percieve the organization as a threat, when it is really not.

The media should report on these rules, to better prepare not only ACORN, but for the video's intended audience to better understand the games O'Keefe is playing.  He does not care about tax payers or helping victims of abuse, or anything along those lines.  He is in it to help his political agenda and his affiliated party.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Kevin. First, thanks for your visit and comments at Politics Plus. I've added you th the blog roll there.

    On topic, this is excellent analysis, and I appreciate it. Alinsky's rule sounds like a Karl Rove handbook.

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  2. I think that O'Keefe's constant quoting of Alinsky, supposedly to counteract liberal activism, is counteractive. He claims to be for one thing, yet his tactics indicate otherwise.

    Strategically, if he wished to accomplish his goals, he should drop the radical subtext to his actions, and work the sincere angle, but because he adheres strictly to Alinsky's philosophy, any action he takes is questionable at best.

    I agree that this is very much like a play out of Karl Rove's handbook.

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  3. You're right about what should be, Kevin, but I don't think we'll see it from today's GOP.

    ReplyDelete

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