Power politics In activist organizing prioritizes self interest over outcomes

Published Date 10/1/11 11:50 AM

The is a lot of self destructive behavior in left/progressive organising, an old example the Monty Python sketch

Am looking at concepts that describe this. Power politics is a state of international relations in which sovereigns protect their own interests by threatening one another with military, economic, or political aggression. 

Power politics is essentially a way of understanding the world of international relations: nations compete for the world’s resources and it is to a nation’s advantage to be manifestly able to harm others. It prioritizes national self-interest over the interest of other nations or the international community.

Techniques of power politics include, but are not limited to, conspicuous nuclear development, pre-emptive strike, blackmail, the massing of military units on a border, the imposition of tariffs or economic sanctions, bait and bleed and bloodletting, hard and soft balancing, buck passing, covert operations, shock and awe and asymmetric warfare.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_politics

Can people think of examples of how this manifests in smaller world of activist organising?