Barry MacDonald - Editorial

Breakthrough, Our Guerrilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy, by James O'Keefe. Threshold Editions, (c) 2013, ISBN 978-1-4767-0617-7, pp. 335, $26.

Too often we are frustrated paying attention to the news. The liberal media choose the issues, compose the talking points, and set the narrative. The liberal point of view spreads like a net over America.

It is frustrating that good-hearted friends living in the Midwest parrot liberal talking points - how do we wrench the power of driving the narrative away from liberals?

Arguments alone aren't enough; truth is lost in the weeds.

As a young man James O'Keefe found ways to expose the hypocrisy of the liberals in the media and in government, and he uses the methods of the fearsome community organizer Saul Alinsky (who was President Obama's hero).

Saul Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals, A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Unlike Machiavelli's The Prince, which advised Renaissance princes on the best methods of getting and holding power, Saul Alinsky's purpose was to take power away from the "haves" and give it to "have nots" - the poor, the blacks, and Hispanics.

Alinsky didn't scruple overmuch about morals. He manipulated the people he organized, getting them to do "the right thing for the wrong reasons." Alinsky was above conventional morality. Polarization, demonization, and character assassination were his tools. What he thought was "the right thing" is different from what we think.

Alinsky outgrew Marxism but not revolution. He was a powerful revolutionary. In competent hands, Alinsky's rules are weapons designed to attack the establishment. Alinsky's rules suit our instantaneous media capabilities: a carefully staged action creates an event, spreading ripples, changing the political and cultural narrative.

What is needed is action. Action acquires power because it is brash. Action engages with panache and aplomb. It is new. Action is outrageous, hilarious; it seizes attention, it stuns. It cannot be ignored. Action transmits morals: creating villains and heroes. Action tears away the facade to expose hypocrisy.

If done systematically, action can bring down an establishment as it makes a mockery of pretentious and smug people who have set themselves up for a fall. People love an underdog and the comeuppance of the arrogant.

Saul Alinsky's rules do have the power to change the direction of a culture, but usually they are used by leftist provocateurs. But just like in war, when one side develops new technology or strategy sooner or later the other side co-opts them.

James O'Keefe's book, Breakthrough: Our Guerrilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy, reads like a detective or espionage thriller; it is unlike Alinsky's Rules for Radicals which is weighty with intellectual heft. James' book is about the experience of a young man brave enough to take on billion-dollar organizations that could sue him, and state and federal governments that could jail him, and the news media that could ruin his reputation.

His inspiration emerged when he was a student at Rutgers University where he encountered "the soft tyranny of academic life." He saw "patterns of corruption and hypocrisy," so he and like-minded friends started a newspaper, the Centurion, to counter it. The established campus paper, the Daily Targum, giddily celebrated a famous alumnus, Paul Robeson, who was a black athlete, actor, singer, but also a fervent Communist and a high profile supporter of the Soviet Union - Robeson was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize by the U.S.S.R. James put Paul Robeson's face on the cover of his newspaper with the quote "Glory to Stalin," thus spurring the campus bigwigs to defend the indefensible.

Copies of James' Centurion were burned and stuffed in garbage cans, and he was told by the dean to be "respectful." People tried to dissuade him from his path, saying that he was ruining future job opportunities. But he had discovered his contrarian passion and set out to harass political correctness everywhere in a target-rich America.

James O'Keefe has perfected the art of the undercover sting, similar to the Dateline NBC series "To Catch a Predator," and the undercover work of Mike Wallace at "60 Minutes." James secretly records encounters carefully set up with liberal activists or power brokers. His aim is to expose hypocrisy and corruption, and he has been wildly successful.

There is joyful exuberance in hatching a plan of attack: proposing outlandish schemes, trading outrageous scenarios with his team - "What if . . ." "Why not. . ." - one imagines the laughter and the jokes. Then there is the refinement of the operation and the painstaking preparation. The appropriate laws have to be researched to narrow the focus to a sharp point, but also to avoid lawsuits or jail. The tools (various recording devices) and the props are selected; the props must be over-the-top to create the vital impact. The dialogue must be role-played with every possible eventuality considered. The process bears comparison to espionage.

When he describes the action itself, and its aftermath, it's clear that James is an adrenaline junkie. He lives for the excitement of the hunt, the kill (so to speak), and the public humiliation of his targets - just like pulling down their pants in public.

Then comes the broadcast of the video, which involves dealing with the media. Andrew Breitbart was an influential mentor and ally; James used Andrew's knowledge of media players as well as Andrew's web site. Fox News usually airs his videos, but not always. James has made many enemies, and through blunders here and there he became vulnerable to counter-stings and smears perpetuated by the media. Sometimes his contacts are afraid of supporting him; he is not always able to rely on his friends. On occasion he must launch a video on Youtube, a worldwide web site hosting many thousands of amateur videos of all types.

One of James' rules is "content is king," meaning "when the content is strong enough, the publicity will take care of itself." The impact will force the media, even against their will, to cover the video - and the media hate him for it. His videos cannot be ignored.

The "media-government complex" (James' term) has retaliated fiercely. After a botched sting of Senator Mary Landrieu's office in 2010 he and three others were thrown in jail and charged with a felony with a 10-year prison term. James recorded the event, showing no criminal wrongdoing, but because his video was erased while he was under arrest he was forced to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He is on probation and not allowed to travel outside of New Jersey without permission.

Governors and State Attorneys General have threatened him with prosecution in response to various stings. James O'Keefe has a top-notch lawyer who has kept him from serious legal jeopardy.

Andrew Breitbart observed that conservatives may have their own media, including Fox News, a smattering of pundits, publications, blogs, and talk radio, but conservatives don't yet have the power to set and drive the narrative. They respond to the narrative the liberal media produces. James writes:

. . . the majors zealously guard the power to set the agenda. Protecting their right flank are the anti-journalists. These are the salaried staff of the numerous, well-funded attack dog blogs, and online journals-Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Media Matters, TPM, Politico, Mediaite - whose mission is to kill stories in the womb that do not fit their ideological agenda, and ridicule those they cannot kill. . . . One particularly unsavory strategy of the anti-journalists is to research the background of real journalists, citizen journalists included, to find some moment in time when they offended the gods of race, sex, class, and/or [sexual] orientation.

Over the years James O'Keefe has been relentlessly smeared. At a low point he wrote:

Felon! Terrorist! White supremacist! Racist! Pervert! Was this really worth it? If you work for a big news organization, you have all kinds of support systems to see you through even a major screwup, and at the end of the week you get a paycheck. I had none of that. My success had made me more enemies than friends, and recent events had cost me my friends, not all of them, but many. Beyond my sister and my parents, I was not sure there was anyone I could count on.

. . . I knew that I, too, had to surrender to God. If I did so, I could withstand the powerful forces aligned, fairly or not, against the citizen journalist. In my possession I had a series of tapes showcasing corruption at the New Jersey Education Association, a teachers' union. I asked myself whether I could justify taking the risks anymore, whether I could endure the lies of my enemies and the defamation of the machine. But I knew then that as long as I had my family and my faith in God, I was going to be okay. I immediately felt renewed. It was out of my hands now.

In a T.V. interview O'Keefe responded to a question:

I think one of my enemies is the mainstream media. I think one of my enemies is the media which selectively edit everything and selectively edit out the truth about many things, and willfully ignores subjects that they don't want to investigate. If the media [were] doing their job in this country, telling us the truth about public officials, telling us the truth about people and about events, then we'd live in a much better world.

One of James' most consequential operations was the taking down of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the 40-year-old, welfare-rights group with 500,000 members in more than 1,200 neighborhoods in 100 or so cities. ACORN seemed an untouchable institution, receiving multimillions of taxpayer dollars each year from their friends in the Democratic Party. ACORN morphed into the housing business, bullying bankers into giving home loans to people who couldn't afford them. ACORN used the Saul Alinsky playbook, specializing in intimidation.

Through Project Vote. ACORN hired thousands of marginal workers during each election cycle to register as many voters as possible, and also to fabricate phony registrations, with the purpose of overwhelming the electoral system. Matthew Vadum, senior editor at the Capital Research Center, estimated 400,000 ACORN registrations were thrown out in 2008. ACORN workers were convicted of voter fraud in at least twelve states. President Obama had long-time ties to ACORN. Speaking before the group on the campaign trail in November 2007 he boasted of running Project Vote and registering 150,000 new voters before he was elected to office. President Obama said: "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career."

James O'Keefe and Hanna Giles came up with an idea: a pimp and a whore would go to an ACORN office seeking instruction on how to obtain housing for their operation. Hanna was a minister's daughter and she looked younger than she was. James was 25 years old and living in his parent's basement. They met on Facebook, and they refined their tactics for weeks on Facebook. James said of Hanna:

Only twenty at the time, she had the poise of a woman twice her age. Smart, athletic, attractive, she was not afraid to get creative.

James pinned a Sony Handycam to his satin tie, he borrowed his grandmother's chinchilla shawl, his grandfather's wide-brimmed derby, and his sister's Mercury Marquis with a missing hubcap. At the Dollar General he bought a cane and oversized sunglasses. To prevent people from saying "So what does that prove?" he reasoned that he had to be "extremely over-the-top." Thus was born one of his rules: Always use props.

James had done reconnaissance, going into the Washington D.C. ACORN office, taking an application, and casing the office as a bank robber would. James was broke all summer. He had to ask a friend for the gas money to Baltimore. On the way to the sting he had to take a longer route over the Chesapeake Bay to avoid paying tolls. James quotes Alinsky: "Tactics means doing what you can with what you have."

At the Baltimore ACORN office James talked to Shira and Tanja:

James: Is it against the law in Maryland? Prostitution?

Shira: Anything that the government's not getting our money from is always against the law. Let me get somebody here from taxes so they can talk to you. . . . Tanja, she wants to know how you can make it legal.

Tanja: Let me make sure there's a code for it, okay?

James: A code for prostitution?

Tanja: We might have to name this something else . . . [looking through tax forms] performance arts. Let's see. Independent artist. You could be that. . . . Your business is a performing artist, which you are, okay, so you're not lying. . . . So stop saying "prostitution."

James: Got it. . . .

James: What might complicate our taxes . . . is that we have a couple of girls overseas coming over . . . . There's going to be thirteen El Salvadoran girls coming into this house. And they're very young. And we don't want to put them on the books.

Tanja: On the other part of the return you can use them as a dependent. You can use them as a dependent, because they live in your house. . . . If they are underage and they are making money, you shouldn't let anyone know anyway. . . . Be careful. Train them to keep their mouths shut.

Saul Alinsky's rules were in play: The fourth rule: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules - ACORN staff were behaving just as they would on any given day. The fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon - using a chinchilla shawl, reckless bravado, and thirteen fictitious girls from El Salvador, James exposed ACORN's eager amorality. The sixth rule: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy - James and Hanna were having the time of the lives. The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. The exuberant personalities of ACORN's staff will live in video lore forever.

In Washington D.C. James and Hanna talked to two sisters Sherona and Lavernia Boone.

Lavernia: [If James became known as a pimp] . . . you will not have a career. You will be smeared and tarnished for the rest of your life to come. . . .

Lavernia: The money got to go in the bank. . . .

Sherona: When the police ask you, you don't know where the money is coming from. . . . We're looking out for you . . .

Lavernia: [Concerning Hanna] You're not saying what she does. She provides a service.

Hanna: That is what America is based on, goods and services.

In the Brooklyn office an Acorn worker instructed James and Hanna to bury profits in a tin and plant flowers around it to thwart the IRS. Her coworker said:

You can't say what you are doing for a living. . . . Honest is not going to get you the house.

In San Bernadino James and Hanna met Tresa Kaelke who "could have stepped right out of a Quentin Tarantino film." Tresa said she had once run her own service, and "I have some experience in how not to get caught."

Hanna: The guy I am supposed to be working for here just got a shipment of twelve El Salvadoran girls and they are between the ages of twelve and fifteen. . . . I would like to take them away from him and use them for myself . . . .

Hanna: [Johns] pay thousands of dollars more if they are violent with these fourteen-year-old girls. They are okay with guys hitting them if they get a little more money for it. If they are fine with that, there is nothing I can do.

Tresa: Again, it is how you want it to be run. Don't forget, you could mold this into anything you want. You can mold it to the level of decency or indecency.

Tresa sent James and Hanna across the street to a couple who advised them on how to set up a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization to disguise their operation.

Tresa: As soon as you leave I am going over to talk to the both of them and threaten them with their lives, because I can kill people.

James and Hanna executed stings on ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego, and hit pay dirt every time.

Looking for a place to launch his videos, James O'Keefe met Andrew Breitbart. He and Andrew decided to launch the videos serially through Andrew's website BigGovernment.com. The more experienced Andrew became James' guide on dealing with the media. On seeing the Baltimore sting for the first time Andrew said: "You know they are going to say it was one rogue employee."

The launch of the Baltimore video caused a media explosion. James burst into the nation's consciousness. The New York Post wanted a photo and James and Hanna obliged them: "I had a picture from our walkabout in Washington with me in full pimp regalia and Hannah in high ho style." The photo made the front page two days in a row, one day under the headline "Nut Case." Always use Props!

ACORN responded just as Andrew predicted. On ABC News Alton Bennett, President of ACORN housing, and Mike Shea, Executive Director, insisted "This is not how we behave." They said their employees "undergo rigorous training" and are expected to "comply with the high standards for ethical behavior and compliance with the law." The video was "slanted to misinform the public," and then they really lied:

The people who made this tape went to at least five other ACORN Housing offices where they were turned away or where ACORN Housing employees responded by calling the police. That is not mentioned on the tape - it is part of a long-term plan to smear ACORN Housing for political reasons and provide entertainment in the process.

Andrew Brietbart said:

We deprive them of information . . . that way ACORN can't get the government-media complex to kill the messenger before the whole message gets out."

At this point Saul Alinsky's tenth rule comes into play:

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is the unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction but that action is itself the consequence of reaction and of reaction to the reaction ad infinitum. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action.

James and Andrew aired one video at a time, stunning the mainstream media and making use of Alinsky's third rule: Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. The media were being played, and had no idea what was coming next. Characteristically, the media didn't press ACORN for explanations, but instead a New York CBS news crew did park outside James' parents' home, hoping to accuse someone of wrongdoing - thus revealing their bias.

After the San Bernadino video aired ACORN's top California organizer, Amy Schur, said the video was "a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened" and demanded that "the complete and unedited video" be posted. She was unaware the entire video had already been posted.

The mainstream media did everything they could to discredit James O'Keefe. Two Washington Post reporters accused him of racism, writing James:

. . . targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does . . . massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos against Republicans.

But the press could not undo the power of the videos (content is king). In a Democratically controlled House, minority leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act" and the bill passed 345-75, with 172 Democrats voting for the bill. The Democratically controlled Senate followed, voting 83-7 to defund ACORN. President Obama was forced to distance himself from his long-time friends. The legislation passed before the New York Times assigned a reporter to the story! Soon afterwards contributions to ACORN dried up and the powerful leftist institution disbanded.

The comedian Jon Stewart concluded his "Daily Show" segment, "The Audacity of Hos," asking

Where are the real reporters on this story? I am a fake journalist and I'm embarrassed these guys scooped me.

Because of his botched sting of Senator Mary Landrieu's office in 2010 and his misdemeanor conviction, James has been on probation for three years and confined to New Jersey. Also, James is now too famous to do stings himself, so he has formed a nonprofit organization, called Project Veritas, to train activists and direct operations remotely. James and his activists have stung many powerful liberals. Let's hope that we will see many operations for decades to come from Project Veritas - it will keep the left-wingers on their toes! James is still young.

James O'Keefe is not a revolutionary as Saul Alinsky was. He is a contrarian, a prankster, an adrenaline junkie, and a defender of our republican form of government. James surrendered his life to God; Alinsky never did. Saul Alinsky's rules are dangerous weapons; those who use them should take care they themselves are not corrupted in the process. Due to human nature, subterfuge is commonplace in the conduct of power and politics. Anyone in the game is vulnerable to corruption.

Realistically we cannot expect the use of Saul Alinsky's tricks by themselves to be influential enough to bring down the liberal agenda in America, because the liberal system is far too well entrenched, and there are far too many liberals in important positions. The liberals occupy the high grounds of American culture.

But the collapse of governance in Detroit, run by corrupt Democrats for over fifty years, presages the collapse of the welfare state. In concert with the visible crumbling of liberal governance, when it becomes obvious that liberal politicians and union bosses throughout the nation have lied, and cannot keep their promises, James O'Keefe's stings, when the public is attentive and aroused, could be used to awesome effect. Then might also come an opportune time for the conservative media to seize control of the news narrative.

One only wishes that the Republican Party weren't complicit in the maintenance of Big Government, but were instead genuinely seeking limited, constitutional government. And one wishes we had Republican leadership, oriented towards modest government, with a least half the courage and imagination of James O'Keefe. *

We would like to thank the following people for their generous contributions in support of this journal (from 5/25/2013 to 7/26/2013): Michael A. Alaimo, Ariel, William G. Buckner, Price B. Burgess, Edward J. Cain, Dino Casali, John D'Aloia, Robert Day, Joe Fetzer, Reuben M. Freitas, Judith E. Haglund, James E. Hartman, Catherine M. Heatley, William R. & Barbara R. Hilgedick, Charles W. Johnson, Kenneth E. Kampfe, Margaret M. Kelly, Herbert London, Albert D. & Norma J. Miller, Thomas L. Mitchel, Robert A. Moss, Donald J. Povejsil, David P. Renkert, Alvan I. Shane, Philip Stark, Jack E. Turner, Thomas Warth, Thomas H. Webster, Robert C. Whitten.