>"The Broader Public" of course is a myth -- you are not going to please
>them regardless of what you do. But you can expand your reach if you do
>it right. (I like that tautology.) You need a slogan that will reach
>those along the march (no one else will ever hear of it: don't depend on
>the press or TV) who _might_ have thought of joining the march and
>bringing a few friends along if you had reached them sooner. Reach them.
>Then they will be there with friends (and perhaps even new ideas) the
>next time. Forget about the crazies. Forget about the "broader public."
>Nothing you do will make a difference to either.
>
>Carrol
well, actually, if you're going to invoke engels, i'll try again, with a quote you've never ever addressed. wonder why:
[W]e wish to influence our contemporaries...The problem is how best to achieve this. In this context there are two incontestable facts. Both religion and politics are matters of the first importance in contemporary Germany. Our task must be to latch onto these as they are and not to oppose them with any ready-made system such as the _Voyage en Icarie_. [...]
Nothing prevents us...from taking sides in politics, i.e. from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it...We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans. Instead we shall show the world why it is struggling.... [...] Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future but to complete the thought of the past. Lastly, it will become plain that mankind will not begin any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its old work."
from Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks--a reply to Ruge's claims about the futility of engaging in actually existing political struggles.