Why Kerry Lost and How We Can WIN!

[Walt Starr]

In a nutshell, this is a very descriptive passage of why Kerry lost:

"For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak."

---Sun Tzu The Art of War, Chapter VI. Weak Points and Strong Points, verse 17.

In a nutshell, this is how we can win:

"18. Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.

19. Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.

20. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left wing will be impotent to succor the right, the right equally impotent to succor the left, the van unable to relieve the rear, or the rear to support the van. How much more so if the furthest portions of the army are anything under a hundred LI apart, and even the nearest are separated by several LI!

21. Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yueh exceed our own in number, that shall advantage them nothing in the matter of victory. I say then that victory can be achieved.

22. Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success.

23. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.

24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.

25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.

26. How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy's own tactics--that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.

27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.

29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.

30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak."

---Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter VI. Weak Points and Strong Points, verses 18-30

The Democrat who claims Karl Rove is NOT a student of Sun Tzu is a fool, shun them.

We must become students of Sun Tzu because our strategies and movements have been an open book to the republicans and they have capitalized on this knowledge. The single greatest factor in our consistent losses has been ignorance of the following:

"All warfare is based on deception."

---Sun Tzu, The Art of War Chapter I. Laying Plans, verse 18.

The treatises are not long and a decent enough translation (which I used for these quotes) can be found here:

http://all.net/books/tzu/tzu.html

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. I don't think Sun Tzu had a mass media to deal with

IIRC.

[KittyWampus]

2. Or Electronic Voting, Vote Suppression and Vote Spoilage

[Walt Starr]

4. All are strategic attacks upon the flanks of an enemy

It is all applicable to the war we are engaged in.

[Walt Starr]

3. Mass media becomes as the terrain to the politcal strategist

Do not discount the application of Sun Tzu to modern politics. Every various modern factor is comparable to a nromal function or factor within warfare.

Karl Rove understood this. He took a bumbling fool to victory when all factors appeared against him. He wisely attacked when appropriate, he laid bait and Democrats took it, he utilized deception in multiple forms to his advantage.

Anybody who would engage in politics must understand strategy at its root. Sun Tzu was and remains the master of strategic thought.

Learn it, live it, love it.

[JI7]

5. Strengthen the Democratic Party in individual states

[Walt Starr]

6. You're starting to get it

Our lowest units are not strong, thus the army as a whole is not strong.

We attack our opponent in at his strongest point with a weaker force and are repelled, then wonder why the hell we lost.

We are fools and they are wise because we do not understand the very basics of strategy.

[JI7]

7. develop a national and state plan

develop plan with ideas that all democrats nationwide can agree on and therefore have a sense of unity. for example, support tax cuts and breaks for middle class.

but since states are different , have something for individual states also which relate to their specific industries, natural resources etc. this is especially important considering the senate races we lost. and those were races where the republican candidates sucked and the dem ones were intelligent, came across well, and far better than the republicans in almost every way.

[regnaD kciN]

18. I think that, if George Lakoff were reading this thread, he'd say...

...not to worry about developing a "plan," for either nation or state, until you can enunciate your values and build a frame around them. Otherwise, your plan will simply collide with the frame constructed by the Republicans. The parts that conflict with the pre-existing frame will be ignored, while those that match it ("tax cuts and breaks for middle class" sounds like another version of the current G.O.P. frame's "tax relief") will merely reinforce the frame's applicability ("taxes are bad, and need to be taken away") in the minds of voters.

[Walt Starr]

8. A better online translation via Project Gutenberg

http://www.kimsoft.com/polwar.htm

[Walt Starr]

9. I guess unless one of my posts is provacative in the extreme

it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

:shrug:

[sangh0]

10. I guess you're gonna have to call someone "bush*-lite"

:-)

[Walt Starr]

11. Tomorrow, I start again with subject lines that piss people off

and the body of posts that go even further to piss people off.

[Teaser]

13. damn you walt...

and your dangerous ideas! :)

[bobbyboucher]

12. I think you're dreaming.

Wishing, hoping that elections are still fair and accountable, which they are not.

We must find and destroy the machines.

[idiosyncratic]

15. Yup! eom

[foo_bar]

16. machines are just tools

We're not fighting cyborgs yet. Abdicating responsibility for educating *people* is surrender.

[independentpiney]

14. Sun Tzu is very applicable

I'd suspect some good lessons could be picked up in Musahi's Book of Five Rings as well. I'll have to dig it up and reread it.

[George W. Dunce]

17. If his line does not apply now

"The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger."

I am not sure what does

[rndmprsn]

19. great thread...i havent read sun tzu since college

but his lessons apply very well...rove is def a student, and a very good one at that.