Date: Monday, July 26, 2010
From: Bruce Schuman
Group: USA.CAN

Dear Claudia --

and everybody else who still believes -- in something --

and will stand up for it --

thank you.

Today, I just gotta say -- I feel like I'm trying to push a river through a pin-hole...

I can see it from a thousand angles, and all they all say the same thing to me. Everybody's looking at part of the picture, and beating up on people who are looking at another part of the picture. It's like that old story about "the blind men and the elephant". We gotta stop looking at the tail and the trunk and the feet -- and find the heart. The elephant's only got one heart -- and that's what we gotta see...

A couple days ago, a guy in the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation group sent a link to a video he has produced. This guy is a serious video person -- he's worked with MTV and people like Bobby Dylan -- and he has spent the last two years working on citizenship and what it's going to take to pull this country together.

He's got a web site called "Song of a Citizen" -- and here's a link to this video.

I like this thing. It says what I think needs to be said. And it says it strong. This is a powerful sound track and a powerful message. Turn up the speakers. It's only one minute long. It's worth it.

http://sharedpurpose.net/voice/issues.cfm

This is about what it takes to straighten out this beautiful "land of the free and home of the brave" -- where we are gnawing at each other like angry piranaha...

What we need in this country

is to stop making national decisions based on ideological slogans

and sound bites

and start working together in smooth organized informed ways to start fixing the thousands of things that are getting screwed up -- getting screwed up mostly because we are spending so much time trying to blame each other for what is wrong...

*

This guy on Song of a Citizen -- he is talking about "self-governance".

That is what democracy is.

A society that rules itself.

It's like "self-control" -- "personal self-mastery".

Song of a Citizen -- it's about "Democracy = Self"

He says -- "look in the mirror".

Try clicking it. The voltage is great.

*

We need a politics of "We the People" -- not a politics of "my people are gonna bash your people" -- which is what we are doing today.

We the People -- is everybody.

Not some of us.

It's ALL of us.

How hard is that idea to grasp??

This is the breakthrough that is needed. We need a politics of everybody.

And until we get one -- and as long as the people are tearing each other up -- the Corporations and Big Money and their "divide and conquer" strategy are going to run this country, and let the people eat cake.

Claudia, thanks for your message, I'll try to address some of those issues you raise...

--- On Mon, Jul 26, 2010, in msg270508, Claudia Collier wrote ---

Bruce, we have also tried to start a chapter of the Coffee Party here on the east coast in Savannah. We had 4 meetings and hosted a candidate forum. It seems that most of the people who signed up just want to SAY they are a part of something, but they don't want to DO anything. Only 3 out of 65 who came to a meeting or signed up on FACEBOOK actually took part in putting together the forum. (We had 8 candidates come to the forum, with about 10 people attending to listen to them, and mostly those were other candidates. ) I guess people really just want to sit at home and blog and sign on-line petitions (so none of their neighbors or friends will know) . . . so good luck, hope it gets something accomplished.

We also tried to get people involved in campaigning for a progressive candidate running against our BlueDog Democrat in the House who voted NO on Health Care Reform. Since we didn't have the money to pay them to go out and canvass like the Obama campaign, it was a "wash." I was told in the rural counties that the Obama operatives all "went back home - up north." (Not many locals have the "guts" to come out openly and say they are progressives.)

We had a very good turnout for the Hands Across the Sand event last month, but I learned that the environmentals are very fragmented locally, and don't really see legislative influence as a strategy . . . which I just don't understand. At least 9 people I have met have decided to just move from the south, back to a saner part of the country. I guess our good weather is just not enough when you see swastikas and defamed pictures of Obama tacked to the lightpoles. JEEZ! ya think!!

Anyway, if progressives don't get up off their "duffs" and decide to take part in supporting President Obama openly and actively, we can kiss "YES WE CAN" goodbye . . . and we will have missed another opportunity to make change, like we did in the 70s. And if we want to see what the "conservatives" have in store for us if they take over in November, just watch the news from the U.K.

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