One more posting before I pack for the trip... -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Brian Hill" <•••@••.•••> To: Si Subject: What is Grassroots? Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 23:06:25 -0800 Organization: Institute for Cultural Ecology Hi Si; I heard you on KPFA today so a friend and I came over to Freight and Salvage for the show. Would you agree that grassroots and poor people are pretty close to being the same? Aren't poor people the majority in the US? According to voting records (which are most likely tampered with somewhat) about half of the people that vote are Republicans and half Democrats. So, doesn't this mean that there is a grass roots right as well as a grass roots left? Like truck drivers, small farmers, ranchers, loggers, fisherpeople, miners, small biz people, non-union office workersŠ vote Republican very often. If the poor voted against the rich there would be clear grassroots victories almost everywhere. The poor are split down the middle - poor Democrats and poor Republicans, the two grass roots. Have you ever asked why poor people vote Republican, when we lefties know that the struggle is rich against the poor? Don't you agree that poor people that vote Republican are ignorant - they believe the TV, they are faithful and trusting of their government and church? I know many grass roots right people. Rednecks out west here are a pretty good approximation of what the grass roots right. They are honest, hard working, trusting, faithful people that believe in community and want to protect their environment for their kids. They are so trusting that they believe the propaganda/lies that are perpetuated by the corporate right. If we look at the whole right wing of the US it consists in my view as the grass roots right and the corporate right. The corporate right makes up lies about the left which the grass roots right, which is largely uneducated, still believes. I see the corporate right, the ruling classes, as screwing their own children - the grass roots right. The corporate right lies to the trusting/faithful grass roots right by telling them how bad the left is - commies, enviro terrorists, immigrants, welfare classes, unemployed, criminalsŠ.. These lies create the essential polarity the corporate right needs to polarize half the poor people against the other half - grass roots right and left. But, in order to have a polarity it takes more than the corporate right lying to the ignorant but trusting grass roots right, part of the left - the liberal left - must accept the challenge created by the corporate right and implemented by the faithful grass roots right as racism, sexism, homophobia, terror-phobia, anti-abortion, anti-welfare, anti-enviro, anti-civil rightsŠ. Part of the left must stand up to the racists, homophobes, and all the anti-groups. This I call the liberal left, the yuppies, the corporate funded enviro groups like the top ten enviro groups, the educated professionals that work in offices - the hypocrite lefties. They are quick to oppose the anti-groups which are organized by the corporate right and implemented by the grass roots right. Can you imagine what would happen if the grass roots right realized that the rich classes they have trusted and looked up to have been consistently lying to them so that they could get half of the poor people fighting/voting against the other half? These rednecks would burn Washington, DC. As far as voting is concerned, the grass root right and left would unite, the majority, the poor would unite and corruption wouldn't stand a chance. The new day we work and hope for would happen. So, I think if liberals could reverse their polarized stance and, instead, look for common ground, like focus on how the grass roots right is being lied to by the corporate right, and begin allying with the grass roots right, the majority - the poor - would soon vote together for democracy and well balanced life. Do you have any songs about how the poor right is being duped, or any about how the progressive left could make friends with the grass roots right, the poor right - how the struggle is not right against left but rich against poor? Remember when Willie Nelson said, 'I grew my hair long just to see what the rednecks would say'? His concerts are attended equally well by the grass roots left as the grass roots right. I spend a lot of time trying to create alliances between the two polarized grass roots people of the US. We are the majority, we just don't know it yet. Please keep me on your grassroots list. And, thank you for your work and dedication. Brian Hill Institute for Cultural Ecology --------- Hi Brian, Thanks for copying me on your message to Si. I think you are doing very important work, and I wish more people would catch on to this concept of 'down vs up' rather than 'left vs right'. This particular message of yours is obviously intended for lefty audiences, so I forgive some of the comments you made about those on the right, e.g. being 'ignorant'. I assume you were trying 'reach out' to someone else's viewpoint. As regards who is deceived by the media, my own view is that those on the left are influenced at least as much as those on the right. Liberals are the majority, despite what Diebold reports, and it is at them that the primary media channels are aimed. I suppose the handiest example is the issue of 'conspiracy theories', which most liberals have been programmed to derisively reject, despite whatever evidence might exist. What could be more ignorant than that? As regards the issue of left and right working together, I come up with a slightly different emphasis than you express in your message. You are suggesting a kind of coalition, drawn together by being 'not rich', and able to become a majority voting block. I certainly support efforts in that direction, and any successes would open up interesting political possibilities. For this kind of coalition to begin to form, presumably beginning in the grassroots, that would mean that folks from the left and right would need to begin communicating with one another - entering into dialog. If productive dialog can be encouraged among grassroots folks from the left and right, I think there are much deeper breakthroughs to be sought, than simply collaboration in the political process. I think of 'grassroots' and 'community' as being more or less synonymous. If the left and right are dialoging together in the grassroots, that means they're dialoging in their communities. The potential here is not simply to agree to vote for some candidate, but to awaken a general sense of community empowerment, a sense of 'we the people' in the community. Not simply to break free of the trap of two-party politics, but to break free from powerlessness as isolated individuals and factions. More than that: to break free from hierarchy itself. best regards, rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://cyberjournal.org "Apocalypse Now and the Brave New World" http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/Apocalypse_and_NWO.html Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?date=01Jan2006&batch=25&lists=newslog Subscribe to low-traffic list: •••@••.••• ___________________________________________ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
