Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 21:29:00 EDT
Subject: Re: Revolutionary strategies


I forget who the quote is from, but it was in a movie I saw a while back.  It 
was something like "People would rather attend a dance than a rally.  Once 
you have them there, well..." - I'd have to agree with whoever that was lol.  
The cultural elements of the movement, being the entertainment, the 
atmosphere, gatherings, etc. are what would draw many people in if designed 
correctly.  It would give people a place to go to spend free time, a place to 
go for fun, and also bringing unity.

As for other ideas, mainly I'd say a revolution needs to put out information 
that the mainstreamers can understand, and not always things like "CAPITALISM 
IS EVIL!" or "SMASH THE STATE" which are meaningless, yet good for banners 
etc.  Focus on the actual political and economic theory, because people are 
not stupid, not to mention they won't follow you if all you give them is a 
"Dick & Jane Start a Revolution" book written as if they were idiots.  The 
information needs to be written so that those without a political education 
can still understand it, it needs to be simple enough that at least the basic 
ideas can be agreed on by anyone with common sense, and it needs to have 
content that will sway their opinions.  If you try to avoid the theories you 
don't think they can understand, they will never come in contact with those 
theories and those of them who are intelligent will not see any reason to 
join you, and the fools will simply think its good for a laugh but they won't 
see what they should do about it or what the alternatives are.

Also note that most people understand their nation's faults and are willing 
to deal with it, which makes things much more difficult.  Anyone but the 
totally trampled and starving will say "This is the price of freedom" because 
the propaganda they've been fed their entire lives, and even the propaganda 
they feed themselves when learning independently and encountering things like 
the Social Contract etc. tells them that society will have faults and that 
they must accept those faults.  They think the checks and balances that have 
been put in are enough and that this is a "good enough" system.  I don't 
know, I'm losing my train of thought, so thats all I will say for now.  
Bottom line for this last paragraph is that people are settling and dont 
really want to fight for more because they aren't being oppressed enough for 
them to care.

An interesting note is that in big business the prices go down, why?  Because 
the boss wants X profit, lets say $100.  If you have 10 items of clothing, 
you need $10 profit on each.  But if you have chain stores and are selling 
1000 pieces of clothing you only need to make $0.10 per item.  This is 
basically what the government has done.  They have 250 million people and 
take away small unnoticable pieces of freedom from the whole, and only 
moderate amounts from small groups of people, and it doesn't cause any mass 
uprisings but still gives them the same profit (power).


  "Being a part of "society" demands that we pay taxes and if we choose not 
to pay taxes we are not entitled to the benefits of society - freedom."  
There are 

In a message dated 6/25/00 7:19:20 PM Central Daylight Time, 
bixmarley-AT-hotmail.com writes:

> For the past few months I've been discussing with lots of activists here in 
>  Brazil about the way they believe a revolution should start. Does anyone 
>  happen to know a GOOD text about revolutionary strategy, how to get masses 
>  to "be conscient", how to teach socialism as a theory and so on?? The 
>  "pacifist approach" is something I've heard about, but never saw it 
>  consistently defended.
>  
>  Thanx in advance
>  
>  Daniel