Dean's 50 state strategy is what Chomsky has been recommending for years and years. He has said to start a group on anything to get people together. It doesn't matter what as it will soon disclose its political roots.
There's more.
My first association was an heirloom seed exchange. Get together and share local seeds which have been developed over time to resist the local insects and disease problems. I figure reds and blues could meet over this apparently harmless, non-political get together.
But I happen to have read that in Germany heirloom seeds are not allowed to be sold. They infringe on the corporations who sell hybrid seeds. You know the ones you have to buy again and again. The genetically engineered ones. And so on. Actually Monsanto and Royal Dutch Petroleum are the owners of the giant seed companies. So I wonder how long the group would take to get around to talking about that. That leads to corporations who lobby to curtail our rights. Would it soon become illegal to be doing what we are doing? Probably not but I am sure examples of other restrictions would come to someone's lips. And we can subtly steer the informal discussion of the group to the political aspects of heirloom seeds, the fact that having a seed bank protects us in case of disasters or a devastation of crops by an unforeseen disease the hybrid corporations had not thought of. And so on. But you get the idea.
If it's a quilting circle then you get into discussions of the materials. Reds and Blues like to quilt. Synthetics? Cotton only? Pure wool? Recycle materials only? A lively discussion there coming to a decision.
The one I'm thinking of now in my very own neon red town is to change the policy on animal control. If a dog is picked up it is put in a fenced yard, out in the open, chained for five days. If it goes unclaimed it is shot. Often the policemen tell me when a particular dog is caught that they think I could get adopted. The group I volunteer for is Pet Rescue Services,Inc. in St. Louis and we are only licensed to take dogs 20 pounds or under.
Now if we formed a local group, we could petition for more foster homes to keep them after five days, (we have recently gotten one of those plastic igloos as shelter for the dogs). One of my friends is great at posting pictures and descriptions on the internet and getting larger, unadoptable type dogs adopted and shipped to big cities through other rescue group networking. This could become a policy around here and reds and blues would both be for it.
It has many implications concerning the health of the animals, which could lead to discussions of human universal health care which I know they all want. The standard reason for questioning it used to be but it would be so expensive! Over 300 billion expensive? The cost of the Iraq war so far? We could have had it and then some. Really quite a lot more.
I think this is a great way to start the fifty state strategy. We are more educated, more politically sophisticated, and we can develop the right words to discuss these things in an apparently innocent way. And to achieve something locally that we would really like to see happen. Dogs not being shot in the head after five days. Little adoptable dogs not being stolen, put in the pound to whitewash the act, then going to the thief after five days in a very legal way. They don't advertise what they find and capture or get turned in.
Three just went down this morning in another neon red town. A hound/Beagle mix, a female Beagle, and a Manchester Terrier. Now I know we could have found homes at least for the female Beagle and the Manchester if we had been organized.
All this leads to the price of gas as we have to get the animals, drive them to a foster home, carpool them to the next move on point to save gas money. Leading to energy talks and the environment.
What do other Kossacks think?