Hi all. Welcome back to The One About....'s special weekend feature, The One About Book Club. For those of you who are new readers to The One About...., let me recap for you. On the weekends I write in depth about a book that I feel is of significance to Progressives, looking at one or more chapters per post. For the complete introduction to the project you can go here. My pick to inaugurate this project is The 48 Laws Of Power. So far I've offered an introduction and overview of the book, and written about Chapters(or in keeping with the tone of the book Laws) 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. So I bet you can guess what comes next.
LAW SEVEN: Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.
Now so far I, taking a fairly pragmatic view have made suggestions for ways that Progressives could, one might even say should, be using the prior laws of power. This law however is one that I must strongly caution we must avoid being seen using at All Costs!
Progressivism should be, and more importantly must be seen to be, a populist movement, and a largely egalitarian one. While no one expects every single person who might play a minor role to receive some huge acknowledgment, there is a general expectation that credit will be given where it is due. It is by eschewing and being seen to eschew this law and it's adherents that we can better establish our core identity and values. Hogging the spotlight, hoarding the power, that's what "They" do. Sharing the glory, empowering everyone, that’s what "We" do.
REVERSAL OF THE LAW:
For Progressives the thing we have to watch out for are Fame Whores. People who wish to be famous, and have no real investment in our cause. Such people when they are found out should be kept as much out of the limelight, and as far away from power as possible and they should quickly move on to the next venue to fame.
LAW EIGHT: Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains – then attack. You hold the cards.
This law is a hard one, practically speaking for Progressives to follow right now. We have precious little real power so it is difficult to be attractive enough to have others come to us. However we would be well advised to get to work on changing that. One very simple step is to stop whining about not being included. I heard this repeated over the last couple of days with some Progressives complaining about there not being any advocates for Single Payer speaking at the recent Health Care Summit. Such whining makes us look weak and is not attractive. Rather the official Progressive position should be one disdaining the Summit as just another example of the Right and Left arms of The Corporatocracy getting together to foul the atmosphere with hot air in hopes of fooling the people that they are actually doing something. It should be the same for anything we are not allowed to take part in. In the meantime we absolutely must continue to get organized, and we should be forming PAC's that are large enough and strong enough to suggest that we could deliver a sizable block of votes. Then the first time that Democrat leaders or the President call upon us to meet with them, we should politely decline. Then on the second invite we should graciously but grudgingly accept.
Now of course the above is merely an example. Politics is a dynamic situation and we need to always be on the look out for how best to act and react in any given situation. The important thing is that we must be seen Not running to the beck and call of non Progressives in power simply because they’ve snapped their fingers.
REVERSAL OF THE LAW:
Basically we must be sensitive to the situation and our position at any given moment. Once we have managed to get some unity and some effective PAC's formed we will be in a better position to make people come to us. Until then we should be careful not to over play things. Again the recent summit is a great example. Since we were not invited we should be seen to disdain the event, but had we been invited, we should have gone.
Alright gadies and lentlemen, that's it for today's installment. Check back tomorrow when I'll be looking at Laws 9 and 10. Until then....
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
(This article originally appeared at The One About...)