Strategy and Tactics

[xmasdale]

From trying out different tactics for communicating with people, I believe we develop insights into what our over all strategy should be.

I find that people respond best if I show them that I understand where they're coming from and empathise with their situation.

A number of our supporters have approached their MPs, laying out compelling evidence logically before them, and then appear to be almost surprised that the MP does not pick up the ball that has been passed to them and run with it.

I don't think we should be at all surprised that the MPs don't pick up the ball because if they do, they will be ridiculed in the same way as we are. MPs can't afford to be ridiculed; their careers depend on being respected and thereby gathering votes. Therefore I argue it is bad strategy as a whole for our movement to spend much effort in trying to persuade MPs of the correctness of our cause.

So we think of historical precedents. What about Churchill and Eden as the voices crying in the wilderness against the rise of fascism in the 1930s? But they were the exceptions rather than the rule. They chose to accept the penalty of being cast out into the wilderness for espousing an unpopular cause. Few thought they would ever come into government. The prospect that Churchill and Eden might ever enter government was then as unlikely as is today the prospect of George Galloway entering government. It was "events, boy, events" which changed their fortunes.

We might find a Churchill or an Eden in parliament and if we did, it wouldn't make much difference to our fortunes, because they would be regarded as maverick outsiders, probably vilified in the way that George Galloway has or Enoch Powell once was. It damages your career to step outside the mainstream of opinion within your party.

MPs respond to public opinion; therefore it is on the public we should be concentrating our efforts.

But if anyone is looking for the odd maverick MP we should remember that they are not necessarily found where you might expect to find them. One might have expected to find that those opposing the rise of fascism in the 1930s would be found among the political left, but Churchill was a racist Tory from an aristocratic family, bitterly opposed to independence for India. The Labour Party supported the policy of appeasement of Hitler. Eden ended his career by being the Tory prime minister who conspired with France and Israel to invade Egypt allowing USSR Chairman Khrushchev to send his tanks into Hungary to suppress the movement for freedom there. And it was Republican President Eisenhower who combined with Khrushchev to stop Britain and France's imperial venture in Egypt. Right-wing Eisenhower was also the US president who warned against the power of the military-industrial complex.

[Ian]

I go along with this 100%. I think it is worth approaching MP's only on the grounds that once the story breaks, they can't claim that they hadn't had the evidence presented to them. Spending huge amounts of money on a roadshow at their conferences is in my mind a waste of resources.

[Moz]

MP's, don't trust any of em. They're mostly about furthering their slimy careers. They don't give a * about people. Pikey once stated,(you'll find him on here)that to be effective you've got to hit this stinking corrupt pyramid hard at the bottom, and the top will just crumble.

New World Order my arse! These elite are just pathetic cowards and murderers. Bet a few are soiling themselves now eh, thanks to brave folk like Jimmy Walter etc?

Keep up the pressure guys!

Love and Peace and truth

Moz

[xmasdale]

But party conferences are not MPs' conferences, rather conferences of political activists who may, or may not, have MPs, MEPs, MSPs etc among them. Such people probably do on the whole think that the way to change things is to get MPs with the policies the activists espouse elected.

While, for the reasons stated in my earlier post, I don't think it worthwhile to spend efforts on the MPs, I do think it worthwhile to reach out to the grassroots party activists - the people who, in some parties at least, are interested in forming policy. When they see that their party's policy is clearly incompatible with the information we have made them aware of, the pyramid will be struck hard at the bottom.

Though I don't expect to see any immediate and sudden collapse, it is on the politically conscious layer of the public we need to concentrate: neither the people who have too much to lose by accepting our point of view, nor those Sun-readers who can't be bothered to think. We need to keep working at it relentlessly.

Untargetted distribution of leaflets and DVDs is a waste of resources.

Noel

[ian neal]

The other reason not to abandon MPs is that a few will come out and back 911 truth and they are crucial in making it feel safer for others to follow their lead

I agree most (but not all) are likely to be slimy and self serving which is precisely why if they see the wind is changing they will jump ship. The challenge for us is to make 9/11 truth a sufficiently credible and popular cause that MPs have to start taking it seriously (because they see it to be in their interests)

[ian neal]

[Andrew Johnson]

[ian neal]

Here are the dates and venues of the conferences

Green Party 8 - 11 September St. Martin's College, Lancaster

TUC 12 - 15 September Brighton Centre

Plaid Cymru 15 - 19 Arts Centre, Aberystwyth

Liberal Democrats 17 - 22 September Blackpool Winter Gardens

SNP 21 - 24 Aviemore

Labour 25 - 29 September Brighton Centre

Conservative 3 - 6 October Blackpool Winter Gardens

Justin and frineds will cover the Green, LibDem and Conservative conferences and is seeking vol;unteers to help

Are there any volunteers to do Brighton (Labour) and Plaid and SNP conferences? PM Justin for details