[EM] Re: Election-methods Digest, Vol 10, Issue 34

[Araucaria Araucana]

On 18 Apr 2005 at 22:04 UTC-0700, Russ Paielli wrote:
> While we're on the topic of murderous governments, I'd like to try a fun
> little quiz for anyone who cares to give it a try. The following 
> paragraph expresses views remarkably similar to Mike's. Can you guess 
> who wrote it and who he worked for? (I have cut a few giveaway words to 
> make the game a bit more challenging.)
>
> --Russ
>
> "We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of
> necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, 
> not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has 
> a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We 
> have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the 
> state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole 
> nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter 
> of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive 
> citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor 
> able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a 
> fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at 
> the bourgeois parties and [cut] at the same time, because both are sworn 
> enemies of the coming workers' state. It is directed abroad at all 
> powers that threaten our [cut] existence and thereby the possibility of 
> the coming socialist [cut] state."

Cheap trick, Russ ;-).

      http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm

This turnaround thing has been done before.  See Emmett Grogan's
autobiography "Ringolevio", for example (late in the book):

      http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806511680/103-9777613-3982217?v=glance

But a good exercise in avoiding emotional appeals.

-- 
araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com