====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
I posted this a year ago and, under the present dismal circumstances -- and the swirling charges of "racism," some grounded and many simply rhetorical -- it warrants a re-run. I have a few comments that follow. Very early September, 2009: I sort of expected some of our apt and good Redbadbear pundits to comment on the fairly close to 100,000 upset folks who converged on DC yesterday. Anyway, I will -- briefly: I think That -- including the underlying forces -- are essentially a grassroots populist Thing of our times -- but one that has very old and consistent roots in the history of this country. It reflects a deep seated distrust of government and banks and Wall Street and is made up mainly -- again, mainly -- of people that see, from their perspective, the diminishment and often the end of their American Dream. True, there were people there who I am sure are rankly racist, others whose basic economic concerns take on an explicitly or implicitly racist tinge, but I think that was/is a minority. They all see billions of tax monies being spent and little or likely nothing reaching them. Most of them know people thrown abruptly out of work -- and foreclosure signs are endemic all over the land. In a different and older America, many of these types -- workers, small farmers and ranchers, small businesspeople -- were enlisted by the old [and, for its period, radical] Populist Party [West/Middle West/South] in the latter 19th century -- which did a good job for the times but, in Dixie, was often compromised by open racism. The old Socialist Party gathered many of these people during its pre-WWI hey-day -- as did FDR and his New Deal. In more recent times, George Wallace tried to tap some of this -- and, in the end, Reagan did. Ross Perot's campaign certainly had distinct threads of populism. A few pieces of Rebel America have survived in the cautious [and often tepid] Democratic Party but, increasingly, only as historical tradition. At this point, the American labor movement seems pretty much self-contained. What's considered the real American Left seems to have neither the will nor the human resources to reach out to this disaffected portion of our population. [Unlike their predecessors from the '30s epoch, they've made little discernible effort to reach the "masses" of unemployed.] Some Leftists are obviously reluctant to criticize Obama and, in some cases, have become open apologists for his and his administration's sins of omission/commission -- even with more disaster looming in Afghanistan and environs. Others are critical -- but their numbers are very small. In the meantime, this void is being filled by "organizers" whose motives are obviously very far from pure. And, in the end, unless we of the Left can catch and act on the winds of history, we may all "inherit the wind" -- and the Creator will sort the souls. [Yours, Hunter Bear] August 29 2010: Well, it's been a very tough and disappointing year. The grades for the Democratic Congress and the President are well below the Honors level. If they had moved more effectively, the extent of The Tea Thing would be much smaller. As it is, it's now much bigger -- and elected politicians are simply scurrying fast to save their pie-cards. There are certainly some valiant people in the various persuasions of the American Left -- but our numbers are very small. The anti-war movement is obviously faltering at the very point the sanguinary object of its concern is escalating. Students seem quiescent. The initiative, the momentum, is presently with the "other side." Among the grimness of massive unemployment, mounting home foreclosures, increasing homelessness, there are some signs -- some of this beginning to emerge from Labor-related and minority dimensions -- of direct action: demonstrations, confrontations. This is encouraging and offers more fire-building Movement potential [figuratively speaking] than purely now-defensive political action. My own hunch is that, given the increasing crisis atmosphere on many fronts, things will break loose in positive ways. The words, of course, are Organize -- and Fight. This could, under the grim circumstances, come fast and in some instances, spontaneously -- and move very quickly across the now much smoldering grassroots. And if that does happen, and if it produces a Movement, however amorphous -- and if That can maintain its basic independence, the Sun may shine again. Solidarity, Hunter Bear HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Our Hunterbear website is now more than ten years old. It contains a vast amount of social justice material -- including much on techniques of grassroots activist organizing. Check out http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm See: Hunter Bear's Full and Detailed Movement Life Interview: http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm And See Extensive Essay on Hunter Gray: Native Roots/Identity, Social Thought and Social Justice: [From THE JOURNAL OF INDIGENOUS THOUGHT] http://hunterbear.org/Red%20essay%20on%20Hunter%20Gray.htm See: The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father] and its accompanying essay on Minority Adoptions and Native Land and Resources: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
