We have previously mentioned the brave Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix, AZ.
Yesterday throngs of demonstrators protested his enforcement of immigration laws in Maricopa County, focusing their ire on him to bring attention to the issue which is a classic Alinsky political strategy. However, they defeated their purpose when they got violent (something Alinsky opposed).
Saul Alinsky, the now dead community organizer extraordinaire and the author of ‘Rules for Radicals’ (Obama’s training manual) said to isolate one person and demonize that person when promoting your cause. That is what they were attempting to do Saturday in Phoenix, but it backfired. Before you read on, you might want to visit this post I wrote awhile back about how the open borders activists were attempting to use Alinsky’s Rule 13 on Arpaio.
This is from AP yesterday:
PHOENIX – Thousands of immigrant rights advocates marched in front of a county jail in Phoenix Saturday in a protest that was aimed at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration efforts and was marked by a clash between a small group of protesters and police officers.
Organizers say the protest was meant to show officials in Washington that Arpaio shouldn’t handle immigration enforcement, and that Congress and the Obama administration need to come up with a way for immigrant workers to come to the country legally.
The three-mile walk that started in a west Phoenix park ended by afternoon at the Durango Jail Complex, a collection of five jails, where officials played music, including a record by singer Linda Ronstadt, to drown out noise made by protesters. Ronstadt took part in Saturday’s protest. [Knowingly or unknowingly, Arapaio’s people were using a litte of Alinsky’s Rule 5—laugh at the opposition—when playing Ronstadt music turned up loud!]
Then the demonstrators made a huge error—they got violent and even beat up a horse!
For his part, Arpaio said he wasn’t bothered by the protesters and that they should be directing their frustrations at Congress because it has the power to change America’s immigration laws.
“They are zeroing in on the wrong guy,” Arpaio said. “They ought to be zeroing in on the president.”
The demonstration was peaceful until police say protesters near the end of the procession started throwing water bottles at officers. [read the whole account, it was more than water bottles]
[…..]
Hill also said a police officer on horseback was assaulted while her horse was mobbed, punched and pushed.
Five demonstrators were arrested.
Alinsky opposed this sort of violence. By doing what they did and even assaulting a horse, they pushed some people who might have been sympathetic to their cause to the other side. Believe it or not, Alinsky was very angry with Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground because of that phenomenon—people will reject your cause if you are violent. In other words, you will firm up the opposition, by driving more people to the other side. Indeed this demonstration that turned violent will make the average citizen say, well, these aren’t people we want in our country.
There are millions of horse lovers in America. Those fighting to halt illegal immigrant entry into the US should see if there is some good film footage and put the horse pummeling on Youtube!
For new readers: We have a whole category entitled Community destabilization where we have over the last year and a half or so told you how the Leftwing organizes using the Alinsky-model and other strategies.