Zombie Patriots and other musings

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 9:19 AM -0800 12/12/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>Look at Al Q, Inc: you don't need explicit instructions from the Boss to
>motivate folks to do things.
>You see who is the enemy, you see opportunity.  You don't need
>permission.

Yup. That's the way Reagan operated, too.

I'm just finishing up "Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the
Success of His Presidency". The middle and last of which is a President's
Counsel-eye view of his role in the Iran/Contra thing, but the beginning of
which makes exactly the point you're making. The troops really did take
their cues from public pronouncements at things like the State of the Union
speech, and he really did run things with, shall we say, as little
attention to detail as possible.

Keep your message simple, say it a lot, and people can make up their own
stuff without too much supervision. Ollie North as the extreme example, but
you can bet that Reagan certainly didn't have to tell people like Schultz
and Weinberger how to do their jobs. George Will's comparison of his
management style to that of a Turkish Pasha's was not a bad one, hmmm?

Cheers,
RAH



-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'