Home-field advantage: Be careful what you ask for

The lawyers for the Marxists were frustrated by lack of information about which jail their clients had been taken to. *

They tried to ask the Chief-of-Police where each individual had been taken. In Deep-Blue cities, the Chief’s had been more than happy to oblige the lawyers.

 

Lansing was Light-Blue and there is a world of difference between the two.

The Lansing Chief-of-Police informed the lawyers that “It is not the function of the police to help lawyers drum up business.”

They promptly filed suit demanding to know where all of the accused were jailed.

The Chief was swamped. He asked for help. Vandenburg, the Sheriff in Jackson volunteered. He delegated it to Stepanic who delegated it to Horton.

Horton read the court order. Then he re-read it. Then he faxed it to one of his shooting buddies, a world-famous attorney in Oakland County. “Hey, Aaron. If I follow this order to the exact letter, does that mean…..”

World-famous attorney Aaron (and all round good-guy) concurred and added a few other tidbits that he thought Horton would find useful. Aaron had little use for Marxists although privately he would admit that they made adequate fertilizer for lilacs after being composted with wood-chips.

Horton called up his peers at the other four jails where inmates were housed. He informed them that he was in possession of a court order demanding information about their prisoners. Of course, they had advance information from their Sheriffs.

They were very glad they hadn’t been saddled with the additional task.

Once they heard what Horton required, they were delighted to assist him.

Horton printed out the names and jails on paper. They were sorted by the second letter of the prisoner’s first name, then second of the last name, then third letter of the first name and so-on. Men and women were intermixed. There were a VERY large number of John and Jane Does.

All that Horton printed out were Name Last, Name First, Jail. No dates. No reasons for arrest or location of arrest. Nothing more was specified on the Court Order.

The records only went back seven years due to record retention policies. The Court Order did not specify a time-frame and Horton believed in being thorough.

Horton reduced the list to thirty pages by shrinking the font to eight-point Helvetica-narrow.

He sent it, by by registered mail via the USPS to the Judge who issued the Court Order. He snapped a photo of the USPS receipt with the tracking number, which he then emailed to the Judge's clerk. Then he scrubbed the data files.

 

Ken thought "US Postal Service is good enough for voting, it is good enough to deliver Court Orders when no other method is specified."

Done-and-done.

*

Different organizational structures have different strengths. The other side of the coin is that they have different weaknesses.

The Marxists were organized in classic “spy” cells, albeit large cells. In essence, they were like multiple layers of shell-corporations with each field-organization being at the end of a tentacle. That is, the field-organizations were fire-walled from every other “cell”.

By saying they were a “movement” rather than an organization, they were able to shield funds and maintain deniability. When one part of the organization became expendable, that tentacle was cut off and another one grew back.

The organization is very much like fast-food franchises. Each outlet of McGrease, for instance, was owned by different people but they all had the yellow, inverted parabolas out front.

It is a time-tested arrangement for destabilizing governments and selling hamburgers.

However, it is a rotten organization for prosecuting a war. And that is what the old man in the video had done. He had dared the Marxists to go to war.

Picture an ice-cube tray partially filled with water. Tipping the tray results in very little water flowing to the lowest cell. That is the downside of the organization. Cells in need of more resources cannot "pull" from other cells.

Contrast that to the United States Marines or Army Airborne. They can flow enormous amounts of men-and-materials five thousand miles in a very short period of time. That is what they are designed to do. Unlike the Marxists, every platoon is not an autonomous cell but rather a cog in an intricate and well-hone machine.

Even though the Marxist in the various cells shared the same “brand”, the “Corporation office” did not have enough clout to force the franchise owners to ship high-value assets to the cell running Michigan.

“Corporate” tried but most of the cells in other states agreed with the old man in the video. The Marxists in Michigan were hapless doofusses and nobody wanted to squander their high-value assets.
 

There are never enough high-value assets, especially when you don’t have a system for producing them. 

Historically, "cell" based organizations count on co-opting traditional organizations that can mobilize resources. They just were not quite to that point. Alex's video came out just a little bit too soon.

You can produce all of the punch-lists in the world but leaders in a chaotic environment require a very large tool-box and he needs to know, instinctively fast, which tool to grab.

The downside of their organizational structure and the consequences of their shallow bench were starting to become apparent to “Corporate”. They really did not have many choices. They sent the trainers to stiffen up Michigan's organization.

 

"Corporate" told the high-level Marxists directing the Michigan organization that they had to fill the gap by actually becoming involved in the demonstrations at the street level.

It was like telling a mid-level executive he had to go into the restaurant kitchen and start washing dishes.

It did nothing to improve the Michigan Marxists’ moods. 

 

*Protesters were given business cards with a number to call. Obviously, one of the good guys picked up a dropped card and launched a denial-of-service attack on that phone number. Who said those calls offering to extend your car warranty weren't useful? 

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