-And this is all based on saying NO and creating a visible center of -attraction. More than NO has to occur INSIDE the movement.
-Max and Nathan and Doug and Dennis R and all the others who worry about -"attracting" people and "not preaching to the choir" will in fact spend -their whole lives writing only for people who already agree with them. -It is only by consciously focusing on those who (more or less) already -agree that one will ever even begin to reach, indirectly, those who -don't yet agree.
This is all of the New Left crap that pushed an "anti-war" movement that failed to stop the longest war in American history and even by 1973 could not stop genocidal bombing of Cambodia. And the end of the war brought the collapse and splintering of whatever movement there was. There is almost nothing in the model Carroll worships that I find admirable.
The Old Left on the other hand took public outreach seriously and took creating messages that appealed broadly quite seriously-- "Communism is 20th Century Americanism" being everyone's favorite absurd overreaching of the effort, but the sentiment was correct. They consciously picked slogans that would attract people to events that would not have attended more narrowly defined politics.
And "No" can be an incredibly sectarian, narrow slogan for those demanding more in their lives, such as the victims of mass murder who see "No" as spitting on their families graves.
Most real left outreach is done one-on-one or through smaller groups, through street pamphletting, door-to-door canvassing, phone trees, house parties, cultural events, not through the mass media, but any outreach needs a message that will attract the uncommitted to at least hear you out to the end of your argument. I used to do a lot of door-to-door fundraising and the key lesson was that the first few sentences determined whether they were going to shut the door in your face or listen long enough to then make the pitch for money or their names on a petition. Even those who might generally already agree with you wouldn't listen if you didn't phrase the argument in ways they understood and identified with.
-- Nathan Newman