Health and Diet Scottish Recipes Ferret for Ferrets


[pf] Fool's gold & real gold (Green strengths)
by Kaleopono
25 November 2000 05:18 UTC

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Sharon Flesher wrote:

> I guess I'm wondering how the local Greens will ever make inroads into
> electoral politics in an area where Democrats are considered radical.
Also,
> how can Greens avoid splitting the anti-GOP vote with Democrats? I don't
> think the Democrats are going to fall off the face of the earth anytime
> soon, and having the GOP opposition divided will just ensure their
continued
> domination. I know it's probably a different situation in other places,
> where left-wing voters are in the majority.

There aren't many places where left-wing voters are in the majority!

I think that Greens everywhere who are interested in building their
political support base will benefit from a careful examination of the
underlying values of all the other parties, as well as the Green Party, and
then comparing and contrasting these values with platforms, incumbents'
positions and votes, etc.  Most people share broad agreement on most values.
Emphasizing this broad agreement and then showing how Green ideas best
support these shared values could be a very fertile garden, indeed!

Enumerating similarities as well as differences could provide abundant,
convincing material for a sustained education and persuasion effort that
probably ought to be conducted on a personal basis at the precinct and city
block or suburban and rural neighborhood levels.  In the process, Greens
will be building a community network of sustained, sustaining and therefore
sustainable human relationships.

The media is a powerful tool of impersonal, mass communication.  Universal
use of this tool as a very convenient, shortcut way for professional
managers to manipulate mass behavior is at the core of the environmental,
economic, social and cultural disintegration and human malaise that we
lament.  The mass media is part and parcel of the illness itself.

So, the only approach likely to accomplish the desired outcome is one person
reaching out to another, repeated again and again across each state and
country (we are addressing worldwide concerns, are we not?).  Old fashioned
community organizing is time and labor intensive.  It entails canvassing and
getting to know the neighbors...and them, us.  It is important to stage
occasional large meetings and block parties to help people experience that
they are not alone, to celebrate their interdependence and also to inject
fun and recreation into what otherwise may become routine and possibly
deadening effort.

Being Green ultimately means really being human with one another.  Folks of
all stripes will be touched when they realize Greens are not going to take
the money (their vote) and run.  Many, perhaps the majority, will opt to
align themselves with sincere, down-to-earth, genuine humanness.

Fool's gold exists only because there is real gold.  Contemporary politics
mediated by the mass media has a similar relationship to the fundamental
values that most people actually share.  Greens need to point constantly to
the real gold.

Kaleopono