>There is a Catch-22 here. I agree that if you use PR/advertising
>techniques to reach people, you will negate what the left is supposed to
>represent. OTOH, if you serve leftist thought straight up as occurs on
>this list, you will indeed come across as "grim and humorless." Plus,
>the hard work of consciousness-raising takes a long time. How do you
>hold people's interest when they suffer from Political Attention Deficit
>Syndrome and respond only to soundbites and bumper stickers?
It's all very high-minded to talk about doing politics reasonably and factually, but it just won't stick. Politics is about collective identifications and interests, and those are formed not only out of rationality and self-interest but also out of irrational, affective, even erotic bonds. PR and advertising is about using appeals to the irrational, affective, and erotic to lie to and seduce people. But it works well because its practitioners understand how to do it well.
What is "workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains" but a soundbite with an emotional hook? It makes an appeal to collectivity and the longing for freedom. It's the conclusion of a brilliant piece of polemical prose that uses rational argument, but hot rhetoric too.
Doug