11. Find Ways to Turn Negatives Into Positives
"If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive."You can't win every battle, but you also need to avoid admitting to having lost any battles. Losing can breed an attitude that you're losers; winning can breed the attitude that your winners. So, whatever happens, you need to find ways to turn losses into victories. A good example of this is how unions and the Civil Rights movement used violence against them to turn public opinion in their favor. The violence obviously hurt them, but the gains in public opinion transformed the negatives into positives. Hopefully you won't face that kind of violence, but the principle remains the same: don't let negatives remain negatives, lest they bring you down.
12. Target People First, Organizations and Institutions Second
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."This may be unpleasant and uncomfortable, but it is effective. Faceless, impersonal organizations are poor targets because it's hard to make them an enemy that arouses strong emotions. Activism is easier when the enemy has a face — a person to focus outrage and anger against. Focus on the CEO of a corporation rather than the corporation itself or the mayor instead of "city hall." They aren't the only guilty party, but others will reveal themselves when they come out to defend the person you target. Don't send mixed messages: freeze them in people's minds as the enemy that you either oppose in the name of justice or support in the name of oppression.
13. Remember to Prepare Solutions In Case You're Successful
"The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."Victory should be your best-case scenario, not your worst-case scenario, but that's what will happen if you aren't prepared with some solutions and compromises. You could hand your opponents their own victory if they come to you and say "We admit you're right but we don't know what to do. Tell us how us how to solve it." Without good suggestions, you can be painted as whiners who complain without having any idea of how to make things better. Why are you even involved in activism if you have no ideas for solutions to the problems that bother you? If your goal is to have a place at the table, you need a list of solutions and compromises when they offer you a chair.
