“Slogans,” “policy,” my campaign for the Presidency, and a remark on writing

This country (and perhaps the whole world) currently runs on slogans, rather than policy. The on-going political campaign here in the USA brings this out wonderfully. The Democrats are committed to the monosyllabic slogan, “Change.” If one agrees with them that the Bush administration has been wrong about virtually everything (and apparently most people do), then one could translate this slogan into an attempt to formulate policy as “change almost everything.” Since even Bush has probably got a few things right, we do need that word “almost.” With it the slogan sort of resembles policy. Perhaps. A little.

The Republicans, seldom outdone in the slogan business, have supplied themselves with quite a large number of them----“good old-fashioned ones,” which is perhaps why they think of themselves as conservative. They recite, “Deregulate,” “Cut taxes,” “Market forces solve all problems,” “Supply and Demand determine all prices,” and those are just a few of the financial ones. I don't suppose I could possibly list them all, to say nothing of the sociological ones.

Far be it from me, when I chuckle at the slogan “Change,” to pick only on the Democrats. Republican slogans have enormous problems, as well. “Cut taxes”---- last time they did it----translated into action without ever passing through the scrutiny it would have deserved if it had been policy. Whether they did a good job of that action or not remains a matter of controversy: few of those whose taxes received enormous cuts want to undo the action and many of those who didn't are less than fond of it, since the cuts impoverish many federal programs they think are worthwhile. As for Supply and Demand, what is it about that slogan that causes nearly all prices to end in “9” or even “99” or “999”? The slogan may play a role, but it's hardly definitive. I could critique all the others, but the GOP gets angry easily.

Oh, yes, and both parties seem interested in announcing slogans related to what it takes to be “commander in chief of the army and navy,” but neither party tells us what the slogans associated with this drive actually mean. Our present President had only a bare minimum of actual military service----even I had that much, and with just as little combat experience, i.e. none.

Actually I'm running for President myself, but I'd really rather you didn't mention it to anybody, since then I might have to campaign and possibly even serve, after I'm elected. And maybe to have some policies that aren't mere slogans, now that I've mentioned it. (Well, fortunately winning is fairly unlikely, anyway, since I'm not willing to spend any of my own money nor yours in the attempt. And I'm not absolutely sure I'd do better than every one of the declared candidates: so many started out to run, including a few who never received one second of media coverage, that I suppose I might have underestimated or failed to notice a really good one.)

Poor little me: I don't think any of the slogans being bandied about make good policy. To me, “Change” is far from self-explanatory. I'm reminded of the way, just after the attack of September 11, 2001, the media kept telling us that “the world has changed.” I never could figure out exactly what they were trying to tell us, since the world changes a lot all the time. If they'd spelled out, “Air travel has changed, so that now we'll have to take a lot of new measures to keep what happened on 9/11 from happening again,” they ‘d have come closer to telling us what was happening and about to happen, and many other specific changes might have been predictable, as well, but just telling us that “the world has changed,” was an irresponsible recitation that amounted to a slogan with no policy counterpart.

Oh, gosh! I was really going to devote this column to the subject of writing mysteries. Here's a start: mystery authors are constantly being told that the whole publishing business has “changed.” There's that word again. We do occasionally get to hear a few details. They tell us “Editors no longer edit.” They do not tell us what editors actually do, but perhaps they mean that kindly (or curmudgeonly) old devotees of the printed word, constantly on the lookout for new talent, and eager to read all sorts of chaff in order to find the nourishing kernels that reveal said talent have all died, and their replacements go home and watch television instead of being bothered with writers. No, that'd only be acquisitions editors, and surely acquisitions editors still acquire. Or do they? Another slogan is, “submit only through an agent,” which, if it's not just a slogan but a policy, means that editors who don't edit only want to contact writers through people who don't write.

In the area of writing technique, how about the oft-repeated slogan, “there has to be a dead body on the first page.” Beginning writers tell that to each other a lot. It's as if nobody ever reads the books that do get published, a few of which follow the slogan and most of which don't. What if the crime the detective is detecting is merely a robbery or some other crime short of murder? Ah, we have a slogan for that, too: the crime must always be murder. (If that's become policy, then the terminology “murder mystery” is surely a wonderful example of terminological redundancy.)

And there's “publish only through an established publisher who is serious about your book.” Nice slogan, but as policy what would it mean? It'd mean that you have to find an agent who will pitch your book to an editor who will pitch it to an advertising department where they'll check to find out whether your name is already familiar enough that the department won't have to spend a significant amount of money nor time in order to turn it into a best seller, right? Or are cynical remarks just slogans, not policy? And that's a good point at which to leave the rest to the reader. I'm sure you're capable of thinking, and if you're not why are you reading this at all? Looking for some slogans that will carry you through? I hope you don't find them here.