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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in Hollywood
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FINEFROCK |
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Barack’s Law #27:
Clinging To Bitter Desire
by Steve
Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter]
4/24/08
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.
“Beyond Machiavelli” or “Machiavelli on Steroids” might be the sub-title for the source of this particular “law” of power – one of “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene, playwright and onetime editor at Esquire now living in Los Angeles. This 1998 text expands on this chapter’s title-page law, PLAY ON PEOPLE’S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULTLIKE FOLLOWING. Within the ten-page chapter are sub-titles, one catchy entry, The Science of Charlatanism, or How to Create a Cult in Five Easy Steps. Among these steps: Keep It Vague, Keep It Simple; Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual over the Intellectual; and, Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion to Structure the Organization.
Contributor
Steve
Finefrock
Founder of Hollywood Forum, a speaker-bureau and panel-discussion
vehicle to "Bring the Potomac to the Palisades" on issues
that overlap politics and culture with the Hollywood film-TV influence
on such national concerns. His scripts have addressed politics
[including a TV series pilot/bible package about state political
combat, called "A
State of the Union"], hazardous materials [from twelve years
in emergency management, including six years managing FEMA's Superfund
curriculum for hazmat], terrorism, equestrian reincarnation, serial
murderer killing journalists in the nation's capitol, and fantasy
about time-wasters. Finefrock is proprietor of PhoneBooth: The Smallest Space in Hollywood... [go to Finefrock index]
Finefrock 9/25/07 Speech to Heritage Foundation Here |
Rich with the kind of ancient insights summoned by Sun Tzu and Nicolo Machiavelli, “Rules of Power” expands its instruction with historical anecdotes. Its acquaintance to me came from a regular, unremarkable guy – in terms of intellect – and proves the adage, Gold Is Where You Find It. Immediately, I realized that perhaps one of this tome’s most avid readers has to be Barack Obama. Or those among his religiously earnest acolytes.
Which means, once again, that Barack is JUST ANOTHER POLITICIAN. Using old methods, maybe dusty with rare recognition, to make himself All Shiny And New.
Rule # 32: PLAY TO PEOPLE’S FANTASIES. The chapter title-page elaboration:
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
In a margin annotation, Greene quotes the 17th century Japanese Tokugawa Emperor Ieyasu: “If you want to tell lies that will be believed, don’t tell the truth that won’t.” Advice for Hillary, and Bill, and Biden? Maybe even for The Exalted One. Another Juicy Bit in the chapter:
The Reality: The social realm has hard-set codes and boundaries. We understand these limits and know that we have to move within the same familiar circles, day in and day out.
The Fantasy: We can enter a totally new world with different codes and the promise of adventure.
AND:
The Reality: Society is fragmented and full of conflict.
The Fantasy: People can come together in a mystical union of souls.
Such a treasure. Such a discovery. This jewel has been available for a decade, yet I hear of it thru a highschool dropout blue-collar co-worker [yep, still the starving artiste on occasion]. It should peer from the top-access shelf of all who are engaging the Barack Attack. We can only imagine if he has read this guidebook, but so much of his pretense fits its formula. Such as:
LAW 3: Conceal Your Intentions
LAW 6: Court Attention at All Cost
LAW 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally [add Hillary and the DNC to this one!]
LAW 20: Do Not Commit To Anyone – Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself.
LAW 28: Enter Action With Boldness [Audacity, anyone?]
LAW 36: Disdain Things You Cannot Have
LAW 37: Create Compelling Spectacles
LAW 38: Think As You Like But Behave Like Others [Maybe his reason for Wright’s wrong-way church? His “thinking” revealed by Cling-Rap?]
LAW 45: Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform Too Much At Once [How much change by Jimmy Carter? Clinton? JFK? So many preachers, so little new wine from their old skin-game.]
LAW 48: ASSUME FORMLESSNESS: The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.
Two Laws not appreciated by Lord Obama:
LAW 46: Never Appear Too Perfect – [M]ost dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies.
LAW 40: DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH! What is offered for free is dangerous – it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt and deceit.
Just a taste of the rich offering in 430 pages, dense with margin annotations from all across history, and illustrative anecdotes from varied professions [even art dealers’ strategery to snag Mellon’s millions, and fitting citations from Aesop’s Fables]. Worth your purchase, deserving of a prominent place in your reference-shelf. And of course it is sprinkled with Nicolo Machiavelli’s advisories, such as: “For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to spot” –plus the most basic Prince-ly truth:
“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”
Christ as well is cited: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.” Advice from Matthew still reigns today.
Brace yourself – your mind will be stimulated into seeing endless images of Barack, and Hillary, and Bill, and Gore and a ton o’ familiar folks. Some of our own as well. Not all are cynical: for John Adams, Avoid Stepping Into a Great Man’s Shoes [Law 41]. And indeed, one can observe the endless endurance of the flawed human condition as the reason these rules work.
And why they are successfully practiced by politicians thru the ages. And why we’ve become so disbelieving, every time a new Prophet takes his political profits from our persistent gullibility. All warfare, says Sun Tzu, is about deception. So these rules, in Barack’s hands, deceive in ways classic and unremarkable. Just another politician. Again, Nicolo: “A wise prince will think of a way to keep his citizens of every sort, and under every circumstance dependent on the state and on him; and then they will always be trustworthy.”
There is truly great power from tapping into the fantasies of the masses, offering them a New Faith to follow. By keeping the words vague enough that both Leno and SNL harvest bales of ha-ha hay for their humor-starved audiences.
Barack has mastered them into believing in his creation of a mystical union of souls. Even more skillfully than either Clinton; for the present, at least. Maybe Mac can attack these pretensions – or, BORROW THEM FOR HIMSELF. Barack has exploited the masses’ need to believe – we need only show the masses what conservatives have always believed, and why the voters must believe the conservative brand, and embrace it.
We embrace a Ch’an Buddhist classic advisory boldfaced for Barack [and his far too many ideological cousins], regarding the nasties which he would embrace with equanimity and moral equivalence:
When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword. Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet.
Though conservatism brand has been tarnished of late, it’s still the only brand which can stand the slings and arrows of outrageous confiscation by the left, of our precious fortunes: fiscal, intellectual, cultural, ethical and moral.
And you thought it was merely going to be difficult! “Difficult” ain’t strong enough. Again, fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…… Consider this coda cited in “48 Laws” – an Ethiopian proverb:
When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.
ExileStreet
copyright
2008 Steve Finefrock
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