Public Comment
Ten Suggestions for Navigating Pacifica Radio’s Newest Crisis
1. Demonize. Anything, anyone, anytime. Simply suggest a nefarious agenda at work, however ridiculous. In this way people will hesitate to get involved which helps because that can get so messy.
2. Deify. If you can find anybody who agrees with you or your agenda, dust off the little wings, look around for the halo and be quick about it as this moment will not last.
3. Do not explain your goals. Simply cite the mission statement, even though your opponents, if you can figure out who they are, will be doing the same thing. This may not help people understand where you’re coming from, but the political cover is comprehensive.
4. Only listen to people who agree with your goals. This is tricky (see #3) but keeps whichever group you happen to be with so happy they will share their pizza.
5. Name your group the same as your opponent’s group, and when they re-name their group to sidestep this tactic just rename your group over and over again. Confusing? That’s the point.
6. Create websites that claim victory for your group, promote your goals (keep #3 in mind) and flog that mission statement. Then create another, then another, then one that mimics your opposition’s website, then another, then another. Nobody who wasn’t actually present for an event will have any idea what’s happening, which makes everybody believe anything, a useful tool for any group.
7. If someone asks you a question about your goals, or what happened at a meeting, refer them to the website(s) with a straight face.
8. Slag the union. It’s become a tradition for all sides of all political debates, so you will enjoy wide support just generally trashing the union however small, hard-working, and bewildered.
9. Always claim that the community supports your group. No one knows why this works for all sides of any political debate, but just like slagging unions, it does.
10. Claim the moral high ground by invoking Lew Hill’s name. Again, this is a winning strategy for anyone who uses it because of the seductive, selective ambiguity present in all perspectives’ discussions to date. The moral high ground is pretty crowded at this point, but come along and bring pizza.
