I don't mind individuals using humor to lighten things a bit. I do mind a determined group effort to plan this as a strategy. Besides, I don't think this is an either-or question. There is no reason you cannot build *real* passion with left ideas. Justice, compassion, solidarity, and even shame for one's responsibility are definitely suffused with passion.
I think we are the ones who are lazy or inexperienced (or just plain wrong-headed) in not bringing these across better. I've seen Noam Chomsky speak on several occasions, and though he would toss in a wise-crack now and then, he was dead-serious and meticulous. I sat next to a woman I had brought who had never heard of any of the things he spoke of. Near the middle of his talk, I looked at her and tears were streaming down her face. She never looked at the news the same way again.
> ... 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?
First, you must create a *forum* in which something more than sound-bites can be disseminated. This e-mail forum Doug has provided, and others, are a very tiny example, but what we really need is television or some equivalent. Without a serious national television program, let alone a station, I think the job is extremely difficult, being essentially relegated to activism in localized politics, or print media, which has an inherent disadvantage. I would like to see advantage taken of the streaming video capabilities of the Internet Perhaps a weekly radio show (Doug?) that could be broadcast this way at first, moving on to a distributed form of a television show. Hell, we have lots of talented people across the world who could contribute to this...
Bill