01/28/2025
Someone shared this to one of my pages and it is 💯👩🏻🍳💋🤌🏼
“They're attacking everything at once to prolong the moment of shock. They want you in disarray. And it works. Disaster capitalism can extend the smash-and-grab period longer when it extends the disaster longer.
They want us in disarray and it leaves us reeling and unsure of how to respond. You respond by being in array. You respond by calling fu***ng everyone and naming precise things you oppose. You point at the smash-and-grab and name it.
The most important thing I ever learned in sales is to ask the question and then let the awkward silence that follows reign. "He broke the law by trying to fire inspectors general. Do you intend to hold him accountable for that?"
Let them hem and haw a moment. Let them know how swiftly we can put them in disarray. When they answer with some bu****it, cut them off: "It's a yes or no question. Do you intend to hold him accountable? Yes or no?"
Always loop back to your question, not their deflection or distraction.
I love when they say, "We're just a constituent office, we don't handle legislative matters". Which is bu****it, I can tell you from working in them those offices are legislative in purpose. But f**k it, ask them anyway:
"Do you imagine this doesn't impact your constituents?"
Twist every silence where they cannot answer toward your point.
When they say, "I can't give my personal opinion on that issue," you tell them:
"I'm not interested in your personal opinion. I'm interested in this office's stance. I called this office, not you. Are you qualified to represent this office?"
Confront. Back to your question. Repeat. Yes/no.
When they say, "I don't know the senator's stance" or "I haven't spoken to the senator today, so I don't know", tell them:
"We pay for this office to know. We pay and resource this office so that you are trained to know. This has been in the news for months, it was announced for months, and the senator is this far behind the issue?"
My favorite line to use is, "We pay these offices to brief you on issues like these, so if you don't know, what are we paying for?"
We are their bosses. They are on our payroll. Never forget that. Don't act otherwise.
When someone wants you to be in disarray, when they cause shocks to exploit the moment, the only way to make them stop is to array yourselves before them in a way that outclasses what they anticipated. Make them pause to think, "Oh, what the f**k did we just bite off?"
We reel at chaos as if we don't know its opposite is organization. And we think, how can we be as powerful? You've got most of the world protesting this, ready to back us up, what could be the largest global array of organized activism that may have ever existed, waiting to be harnessed, waiting to be utilized, waiting to be called upon, to magnify every effort, most of the rest of the world cheering us to beat this, and here we are wondering if we should try, instead of just doing.
The only way to rise to meet the moment is to rise to meet the moment. All that backup, all those people waiting to be called upon, to support what we do, that won't last forever. You harness it, or you fail to. That's not something that happens to you, that's something that you make happen.”
—Gabriel Valdez
