[swombat]

I don't think so. We just need a compelling human story to make the average person understand.

For example, "police militarisation" is a bit of an abstract idea, but once you start telling stories of how the police broke in and shot the 8-year old labrador who was sleeping on the couch, everyone gets it.

[ihsw]

There's already been a compelling story: the Stasi[1].

> By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Operations

[swombat]

The problem with that story is two-fold:

1) It's too abstract and distant. It feels like it screwed around with people in weird ways in a different world to ours. Communist Germany does not seem like a reasonable parallel to our society for most people. "It wouldn't happen here" is a natural reaction.

2) Even though it's not that far off the reality of what could happen, it sounds like an exaggeration, a bit like a Godwin Law condition. The fact that it sounds like "Nazi" (and that probably some sizeable percentage of americans have never heard of the Stasi and so will hear "Nazi" and repeat that) really doesn't help.

What we need is a more immediate and tangible human story, something that arouses sympathy and at the same time a clear realisation that "this could happen to me".