Two Blueprints

Secrecy.  “Come here, I want to tell you a secret. Did you know that…?”

There is power in secrecy, in conspiracy. From playground cliques to business boardrooms to surprise birthday bashes, people delight in working surprises.

Some surprises build up and enable.

Some surprises unwittingly defraud and destroy.

Some surprises are designed in advance to defraud and destroy.

The power of secrecy is in its suddenness, its irreversibility, its use of momentums by the few, to bring to pass things that the many did not conceive, would not have wanted, and cannot turn back.

The curse of secrecy is that it usually destroys those who use it to destroy.

First, secrets are often driven by misunderstandings, which could have been seen and abandoned if discussed openly. There is a wisdom of the just that flows in the open, dancing and flashing like a merry stream in the morning sun.  The urgency of action that drives secrecy may involve brilliant, feverish reasoning, but having the wrong starting points, ends in devastating failures.

Secondly, the hidden pit that is dug by secret desires may ensnare the perceived adversaries, but often the perpetrator, in time ruins himself and his followers, falling into his own pit.

Lastly, the curse of secrecy, like painful, bitter gout, seems to disable the wealthy and their heirs. Success usually breeds destruction, while failure, more often than not, brings forth healing words that sweeten and soften the end of its companions.

In 2010, Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer published a record of conflicted conservative governance in Colorado, and the emergence of a progressive power structure that for the time being, has almost totally obliterated conservative governance in Colorado. They titled their book, “The Blueprint”. This book should be required reading for every conservative political activist. This blueprint explains what progressives are doing in and through elections. Get it. Read it. See beyond it.

Comprehensively researched, this book cracks open the windows of the “smokeless backrooms” of progressive election strategy. After reading it, I see the fingerprints of these strategists in our own last Whatcom Election of 2013.

And, surprisingly, this book is not in the local public library. The interlibrary loan came from Tacoma, for some reason, and is marked, “No renewals”. Either it is highly sought in Tacoma, or some librarian somewhere unhappily wants to keep this book a secret. Censorship is secrecy. It is no secret, however, that American education (and libraries) are under the thumb of progressive operatives. Go figure.

What will you find in these covers?

• cocky, arm twisting, power drunk Colorado Republicans who tallied many black marks.
• a threatened heiress of a big Colorado money business family.
• young, tech savvy, disciplined and totally focused instant millionaire progressives
• extremely focused gay activists
• a new paradigm for election funding—strategically intertwined 501c3, 501c4, and 527 non-profits that funnel funds to campaigns, flanking campaign reform laws and making political party infrastructures irrelevant and subservient to outside activist groups.
• a new paradigm for social change—targeting overwhelming donations from of out of state or city donors to win key state and local progressive candidates, that if elected, will strategically advance the goals of the emerging poster child gay society in America.
• targeted advance polling to uncover micro local issues to trigger unstoppable messaging in elections
• precisely targeted, intensively managed, exquisitely wooed voter blocs that trigger election upsets
• blatant, dishonest rebranding of progressive candidates and their opponents, and a complicit media.
• paid armies of campaign volunteers who upload daily reports to give extensive voter trends.
• the power of secret momentums—an illusion of inaction in spring and summer—hidden door to door campaigns, then sudden, huge, late campaign “contributions” / media buys that blow up opponents in the final weeks before an election.
• the redux of truth in the furnace of self gratification by American philosopher kings.

There is another blueprint that was traditionally very open in America, but is now being hidden “under a basket” by fearful conservatives. (Think RINO vs. Tea Party in D.C.) That is the power of good works.

I would illustrate this from the Scott Walker’s recent book, “Unintimidated”.

In their introduction to “The Blueprint”, Schrager and Witwer retell a presentation by Rob Stein of Democracy Alliance at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Building on the “Colorado model”, Stein was projecting huge progressive successes in 30 key states in 2010. One of those states was Wisconsin.

Something else happened in Wisconsin in 2012. And, like Colorado, it had roots that fed on the character of Republican, conservative leaders, but unlike Colorado, in a good way.

In the introduction to “Unintimidated”, after detailing the national gloom that wafts from Washington D.C., Scott Walker and Marc Thiessen list the surprising surge of conservative political influence at the state governance level from 2007 to 2013.

• the number of GOP governors rose from 21 in 2008 to 30 in 2013, with no incumbent GOP governors unseated in that time.
• in 2012, even though President Obama was soundly re-elected, Republicans made gains in 34 legislatures, including four states won by Obama: New Mexico, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin.
• in 2009, Republicans controlled eight state governments (governor plus legislatures). In 2013, they controlled 23, states whose population equals nearly half of American citizens.

“Unintimidated” is a story of a ground zero fight between progressives and conservatives. In the end, the 2008 vision for Wisconsin of Rob Stein from Democracy Alliance lay shattered beyond recognition. The birthplace of public sector unions in 1936, and first state to grant collective bargaining to government employees in 1959, Wisconsin voters unflinchingly voted to keep the conservatives who dismantled public sector union hegemony in 2012 and 2013 in their state.

The fight was intense. First, 100,000 protestors, some bused in from as far away as Nevada, took over the State Capitol grounds. Agitators banged drums and blasted horns, up to 105 decibels, day and night in the Capitol building. The homes, children’s schools and grocery sources of Republican lawmakers were picketed by activists who shouted and harassed for several months. The Capitol was trashed and smelled like a port-a-John.

Then 14 Democrat state senators fled Wisconsin so as to deny the quorum needed to vote on a budget bill. Conservatives split the funding elements out of the public sector reforms and passed those reforms with the Democrats absent.

This was followed by a failed targeting of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who might vote to support conservative union reforms. This was followed by failed recall efforts on many Republican Senators, the lieutenant governor, and finally governor Scott Walker.

The unions and the progressives failed, big time. Today, the economic benefits of limiting public sector union power are bigger than life. A growing Wisconsin economy. More money to avoid public school teacher layoffs. Lower property taxes. The only fully funded state pension system in the USA. A 3.6 billion dollar deficit that became a 500 million dollar surplus.

Here are the questions. Is the Colorado “Blueprint” an invincible strategy? Why did it come to ruin in Wisconsin? What might this have to do with Washington State? With Whatcom County and Bellingham?

“Unintimidated” is not a soft sell presidential campaign propaganda piece. Very few childhood and family life vignettes are presented. This is a book full of hard edged war story, with many lessons from a short, very intense political power struggle. Are you interested yet?

• Conservatives must not just sell an economic vision, but also a social vision, to beat the progressives at their own fairness game.
• Centrist voters will follow a conservative leader who does not compromise principles, but is willing to compromise some details.
• Messaging discipline, owning up to past mistakes, and returning good for evil plays well with a media that is usually biased in favor of progressives.

What made Scott Walker successful? In his postscript, he credits his parents. Mrs. Pat Walker is a selfless, unflappable woman who modeled returning evil for good. From her Scott learned that the political opponent of today may be the ally of tomorrow—don’t personalize policy differences.

Llew Walker was a pastor who taught Scott to be comfortable speaking in public. A man who took detailed interest in all people he met, Llew Walker also served on the city council of small town Plainfield, Wisconsin.

What is the conservative blueprint? It is not using the fantastic fortunes of dot.com business startups or legacy mainline American corporations to buy elections for legislators who will vote for shady and socially devastating fairness policies.

Conservative success is a long-term strategy—investing in children, parents modeling in a faithful, small way, values that children will apply in larger circles, starting earlier, reaching farther, and standing on the shoulders of humble, consistent, local parents.

Do progressives have a long term strategy? Yes. Wait and pick off stragglers. Co-opt the youth, then suddenly destroy unsuspecting conservative neighbors for personal power and gain. Think East Germany, Romania, Hungary, Poland. Think the framing and murder of national WW2 resistance heroes as secret Nazi collaborators. Read “Disinformation” by Ion Pacepa. Marxist roots give Marxist fruits.

 Do civilizations falter and fall? Yes. But, salt, if not diluted, preserves and restores. Wise works are a light that shines far in the night. The progressives may have won a Whatcom County battle fronting against coal trains with layers of non-profit funding, strategically placed GOTV organizers, lawyers, educators and media blocs, but their fruit will always be like that of Wisconsin, largely unpalatable, unsustaining and un-sustainable.

Easy, fast money is very hard to handle well. That is why 1792 constitutional framers counter balanced government powers under “puritan” voter style accountability. Unchecked prosperity is a cancer that ruins both conservatives and progressives. In time, the rottenness of the union leadership and environmentalist and other progressive power brokers rivals the rottenness of multi-national corporations and multi-national NGO’s.

However, the persecution of progressives distills motives and clarifies character. Whatcom County conservatives must not run from the tests. There are great rewards for persevering against fairness bullies and public union tax grabs.

The question is, will conservatives still have a torch to shine when that happens? Will conservatives retain their salt in Whatcom County or will they just go along to get along, to join the binge feed at the public funding trough?

Will conservatives in Whatcom County work with their own hands for their own bread and break dependance on government business handouts?

Will conservatives avoid polarizing personal vendettas with their center left progressive neighbors? Can Whatcom conservatives put the “serve” back in conservative, even under progressive governance? Even when progressives are executing strategies to reshape American society by micro-controlling private property and water rights?

Those are personal questions. Those are personal choices, made one person, one family at a time. Only you can decide that for you.

JK