Keith Hart on Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:51:56 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> Platinum jokesters


Wikiquotes has this to say about the Gandhi quote:

Describing the stages of a winning strategy of nonviolent activism.

There is no record of Gandhi saying this. A close variant of the quotation
first appears in a 1918 US trade union address by Nicholas Klein:

And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement.
First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and
want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what
is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America (1918), p. 53

It appears that the attribution to Gandhi is an internet invention (brought
to my attention by Jonathan Hyslop). This doesn't mean he never ripped it
off, but there is no record of it and the 100 volume collected works has
everything he could possibly have put on paper. Now searchable on the
internet.

It's still a great line, but perhaps we should celebrate an American union
leader.

Keith


On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Brian Holmes
<bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>wrote:

> [From the we're-much-closer-to-socialism-than-you-think department.]
>
> "Seriously, what's so funny about a trillion dollar coin?"
>
> by Dan Hind
>
> Mohandas Gandhi once gave a useful summary of the political process:
> "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you.
> Then you win."


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