Grass Roots is always the impetus of change. The sooner the progressive movements of this country realize that changing energy, food and security has to start with us and move upward, the better. Shopping at coops and farmers markets for food, a solar panel on your house and the use of efficient heat pumps are all within the grasp of everyday Americans. Voting with our dollars, rejecting corporate consumption and classic American materialism, are again positive agents of changing American society from its superficial and clueless current state. It has to come from us, bottom up.
To this end, I would like to highlight an article by one Mr. Timothy G. Hermach, a much more eloquent and coherent writer than myself.
Mr. Hermach's article appeared yesterday:
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
I was only a little kid during the decade of the 60s but I did see change. The US went from dad's with crew cuts, clean shaven, white short sleeve shirts and narrow ties to... well I think I saw JC a dozen times by the time of the moon landing. Moms went from June Cleaver dresses, fake pearls and scary cat eye glasses to gals in flower print skirts appearing on the landscape of America... and oh did I mention... a little kid could get yelled at anywhere by any adult. Scary ladies yelled at us in grocery stores, bakeries, anywhere...
The hippie chicks on the other hand, were nice to us. Talked to us like little people. A far cry from kid treatment from most adults where we either yelled at or ignored. Outside of our parents and relatives, it was definitely a kids should be seen and not heard era... oh, did I mention... teachers had rulers to spank with? The proverbial "Board of Education"... Ouch, Mr. Finney. Plus the flower print skirts and skimpy tops enthralled us even if their boyfriends had more hair and beard than JC. Remember, up until say 1968, I never saw a man with a beard outside of some movie on Abe Lincoln.
But from the 60s, from the grass roots, from the bottom up, change was indeed effected. Earth day, environmental concern, women's rights, acknowledgment of racial inequality, gay civil rights (even if equality has been slow and painful), consumer protection... what was the name of that lawyer who sued GM and won and used the money to set up an effective consumer advocacy organization? I can never remember his name...
Now neo-con class warriors, fat convicted drug felon comedians with radio shows aside, many would agree that positive grass roots change came out of the turmoil of the 60s. It happened bottom up, grass roots. Politicians began to capitalize by riding the wave calling for change from the bottom.
For those of you who voted for the guy from Harvard Law, I hope things go progressively as you have hoped. He is an intelligent man and an eloquent speaker. However, his cabinet choices are a combination of Wall Street cronies... albeit the other side of Wall Street from the current Goldman scum looters, the Rubin side, pro pentagon war hawks, representing the military industrial corporations like our beloved impartial NBC owner General Electric (read: no reduction in massive military spending) and now with Vilsack and Salazar, Mr Monsanto and Mr Big Oil and Coal, the corporate shills are all here.
Which brings me to what I think is a well written article that sums up the concerns of hiring the usual suspects. From:
The Eternal Struggle
What Happened on the Way to the Inauguration?
By TIMOTHY G. HERMACH
The transition to a new administration held promise of a change in leadership and direction for our foundering economy and deeply stupefied and polarized population. Running on a platform of hope and change, Barack Obama promised a new direction for America. Now, six weeks after the election and a month before the inauguration, the change we were counting on seems a remote possibility at best, at worst, a nasty deception that was foisted on a public starved for a chance to create the lives we as Americans have been led to believe were available to us.
In support of his position, Hermach states:
He has backed off his promise to implement a windfall profits tax on big oil. He has decided not to eliminate the tax breaks for the richest among us. He has decided not to leave Iraq on the schedule he promised. He has supported what has now become an $8.5 trillion dollar give-away to the same people responsible for crashing the largest and most productive economy on Earth. He is talking about a massive expansion of the already bloated military.
While it is still possible that Mr. Obama will somehow lead the powerful, positional cabinet personalities he has selected and create an Obama administration that will do good for our country, with each pick of an entrenched Washington insider that outcome becomes less likely. If he does not do this, how can our nation survive? Quoting Lincoln again, "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." The last election was an exercise of our constitutional right to amend the government. It does not appear that we were diligent enough in vetting the choices and it now appears who we chose will not manifest the change we were so desperately seeking.
Timothy G. Hermach is director of the Native Forest Council in Eugene, Oregon.
Mr. Hermach's article is worth reading. I will give the prophet of change time, but I am already suspicious of his apostles... the usual suspects.
As a NOTE: I am hoping you will take the time to read the article by Tim Hermach and debate the facts he is presenting with valid argument, free of falacy. Thanks.
Note: Changes made to highlight the article at the suggestion of readers. Thanks.