Lenin's three point slogan was coined in 1917-18. I knew I should not have quoted Lenin, always a bad idea.
I don't prenrtend that we should be coining slogans and trying t to force unity ona fractuctured left, waste of breath
But yout "patience cubed" idae is equivalent to doing nothing.
My idea is different. The right didnb't coinga slogan and hammer it, but the range of themes they have pretty successfulkly hammered at are within a narrow-gauge shot-gun spread of each other, my friend suggested that the bullseye is the "Somne are more equal than others" slogan. That mught be wrong, but it is worth discussing.
My idea is that rather than running through out laundry lists of progressive demands that demonstrably just work, and without hammering on rthe two nations populism that doesn't work either, we try to emulate the right, locate a strain in the American cultural framework of vakues that we can pull on, and try to aericuolate our idaes within narrow-gauge shot-gun spread of each other to the extent that we can. If it suvveeds, others will emulate us.
I don't know what that thread my be. I invite discussion.
I don't think we should pretend to be a revolutionary party with a unified line and disciplined action. But the right didn't do that in 64-80 either.
I should have expected taht you all and you especially would choke at the idea of a sales point. But we havea
marketing problem. And we do have a product to sell, a whole line in fact, I should not have to remind you:
National health insurance Genuinely adequate pension protection A shorter work week Higher wages (sorry, Mike B, we are talking realism here) Retirement at 60, not 67 or 70 Free or highly subsidized higher education Peaceful and respecful relations with the rest of the world A more progressive tax structure with fewer loopholes. A revitalized union movement Stronger environmental protection More public transportation A public school system that is equitable and effective
It aint revolutionary socialism, but if we could win three of those goals in the lifetime of our youngest reader, we'd have succeeded enormously.
So let's can the "wait till the workers start the revolution" crap and the idea that we don't know what we want. We know well enough what we want. What in the American character responds to our product line? THis is a marketing issue, whatever else it is, and of course I know it is a lot of otherthings too.
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> >
> >
> > I don't normally quote Lenin, but he boiled down
> his
> > sales point to three words: Bread, Land, and
> Peace.
> >
> > What's our slogan?
>
> I don't believe Lenin coined that slogan in 1895, or
> even 1907.
>
> This is not a period in which we can expect to be
> able to "boil down our
> sales point," since as of now we don't have (and
> ought not to have) a
> comprehensive product to sell. "We" are even, as I
> have consistently
> argued on this list, a coherent We yet, and in the
> _immediately_
> foreseeable future are not apt to become such a
> coherent agency.
>
> It is not quite accurate, either, to call that
> slogan a "sales point":
> Rather, I believe, it was a way of articulating what
> the mass of the
> Russian people had already "bought" as it were. His
> _sales point_ was
> somewhat different, and you can find it recorded in
> Lincoln Steffens'
> _Autobiography_. I'm too lazy to look it up just
> now, but it was
> something like "Go on and have your fun now, you
> deserve it, but when
> you are ready to go to work, come to the
> Bolsheviks." That was a message
> he repeated over and over again in the streets of
> St. Petersburg in a
> voice that only reached the nearest 50, who would
> then back off to allow
> 50 more to crowd around the speaker.
>
> "We" are not a We yet, nor do we have an audience
> yet who would be
> interested in hearing our "sales point," no matter
> how powerful.
>
> On the other hand, during the '90s "we" (Jan & I)
> had no audience at all
> for the first time since the '60s, but now "we" have
> a rather interested
> audience of about 35, all of whom are interested in
> becoming
> salespersons themselves.
>
> A friend once quoted Lenin as saying there are three
> revolutionary
> virtues: "Patience, Patience, and Patience." Not bad
> for the present
> anyhow. (If Lenin did say this, it must be recorded
> in someone's
> anecdotes, because I don't think it is in his
> published works. I still
> like it, whether Lenin ever said it or not.)
>
> Carrol
> ___________________________________
>
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