Strategy and Goals
Successful movements have both. They have clear, understandable and achievable goals and different approaches to implementing them.
- Multiple Fronts: Hot Heads, Egg Heads, and Righteous Brothers & Sisters.
- Hot Heads. Reason is at a disadvantage. In confrontations between individuals or groups, the least reasonable one often wins. There is an advantage to being a wacko. That is why dogs are effective against armed criminals. The dog does not have the sense to fear the gun and the crook knows it. The plutocracy will not be reasonable. They will not give in even if and when there is general agreement that the plutocrats are in the wrong. They will fight like hell to preserve their right to rob the rest of us. They will accept reform only when the alternative is their utter destruction. Martin Luther King, Jr. was reluctantly welcomed by the so-called "moderates" only because the Black Panthers loomed in the background; workers were able to make the progress they did between 1946 and 1980 because Communism was still threatening to take over the world. With the specter of Communism gone, the assault on workers has continued unabated to this day. The extremists are nice to have as backup.
- Egg Heads. The Hot Heads are useful but extremely dangerous. They tend to be ideological fanatics who, if given the chance, become ruthless tyrants. We also need thinkers. Paul Krugman, as helpful as he is, with his clarity and thoughtfulness, is not enough. He needs support. And indeed, we need analysts who can probe even deeper. Every step in our progress toward a more sane and equitable future needs a sound theoretical foundation.
- Clear Heads with Righteous Vision. These of course are the people we want to
win. Here is where you hope to find your charismatic leaders with a clear and insistent demand for a better future and a
commitment to determinedly traveling the road of peace. You want Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Nelson Mandela.
They will be hated and vilified, of course. But with the Hot Heads as the alternative, the mighty movers will reluctantly give
the Clear Heads limited approval. They will do so through the mainstream media, which does nothing without the consent of the
movers. That is where the Egg Heads come in, providing “new ideas” to the media puppets from out of institutions
with lofty sounding names (“think-tanks”). Those ideas are rarely actually new; it is merely important that they
emanate from a source sanctified with the aura of wisdom. The Radical Bleeding Heart is quite aware that he lacks such an
aura, but if those who do wish to steal his ideas, he will not object.
Which brings us to our first objectives, those things that must be done before anything else can be done.