[statecom-discuss] Green-Rainbow political engagement

[Yarden]

Colleagues in the work of the Green-Rainbow Party,

One of the great pleasures of being a delegate to the National 
Committee of the GPUS, lies in the opportunities of meeting the goodly 
numbers of highly thoughtful and fully committed working members of our 
party engaged in deliberating concerns of the moment.  In the midst of 
noise, insult, and insistent retaliatory ressentiment, there are always 
those who overcome it.  One such message just came through this 
morning.  I forward it with the slight modification of writing dashes 
for the names of people referred to, and leave in the names, only of 
the questioner and of the respondent.
Elie Yarden
Cambridge


Subject: Re: [usgp-dx] [usgp-nc] why it isn't "free speech," and why
that matters
To: natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
Message-ID: <20071015.163736.-171239.2.ellquist.co.atty at juno.com>


On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 _________ writes, in response to: ___________ :
________'s antics are not representative of the concept of free speech 
and  for anyone to defend what he does as "free speech" is absurd.

What do you think is representative of the concept of free speech? -
Saying things which offend no one?
Karen Shelley, GPMI

*		*		*		*		*

Thank you for asking this very important question:  what is 
representative of the concept of free speech?  To answer it, let me 
first say what it is not.  It is not insult, and deliberately giving 
offense. Let me explain why.

The test of whether speech is truly free is _not_ whether it offends.  
To
the contrary, speaking in ways calculated only to offend, and do little
more, is as unfree as speaking in ways calculated only to please, and
little more.  Each is equally tied to irrelevance, and therefor harmless
to those in power.  And therefor encouraged by those in power.  Because
the "choice" between the irrelevance of pandering and the irrelevance of
insult is no choice at all-- they are sides to the same coin.  They are
two "choices" in a three dimensional world, where, thank God, there are
other choices, real choices, dozens of them, all tied to relevance.

The distraction inherent in deliberate offensiveness is such that it
overshadows most of what else is said, making totally irrelevant even
that which began with a kernel of relevance.  Think about it.  Insults
are considered entertainment in our society.  They are considered a
harmless release, that does nothing to challenge entrenched power. They
are used in political ads for the duopoly, for Pete's sake.  Doesn't 
that
say a world about how non threatening insults are to the duopoly?  How
distracting they are from what could actually dismantle the duopoly, and
the powers that the duopoly serves?

So, what kind of communication really would threaten those powers?  The
only kind of communication which I have seen work is complete truth.  
Not
the punky little substitute for truth that says "But that's how I truly 
feel!" while delivering its irrelevant, derailing insult

Truth requires respect.

Let me give a small example.  A child asks, "Does this dress make me
pretty/"  An adult who is in the thrall of this society's values will
answer "truthfully" that "No. That dress makes you look fat."  That 
adult
has just said that the "real truth," to them, is that other people
[Moguls] get to judge who is beautiful, and that it is everybody's job 
to
parrot the judgments handed down by Moguls.  That adult has just said
that the child is expected to loathe herself, and to look for ways to
loathe others while she is at it.  That adult has just said "I am not
here to protect you from this kind of attack.  I am here to help carry 
it
out, because those Moguls mean more to me than you do."  Challenge that
adult, and they will bridle with umbrage about "telling the truth" and
about "free speech."

If that adult were capable of telling the truth, they would first have 
to
recognize the truth, and shake off their own subservience to the Moguls/
The Man.  They would have to value and respect the child.  Then the 
truly
truthful answer would be, "Child.  You were born beautiful.  You'll be
pretty in any dress, and don't you ever listen to anybody who tells you
otherwise."

But the adult can't tell that truth, or any truth, while they are still
in the thrall of the Moguls.  So their speech is not free, and cannot be
free.  The prerequisite to free speech is freedom.  When you are 
carrying
The Man's hate message for him, nothing you say is free.

So, what truths are there, on this list?

Well, there are some on this list who can't get through to the truth,
just now, because they are caught up in  doing The Man's work, parroting
hate messages.  Those in power have always encouraged witch hunts.  
Gotta
discover who on the list is the Devil Incarnate, who must be exposed as
Satan [or ABB, or NaderLover, or whatever strikes as diabolic.]  Wow,
that must make the real powers-that-be quake in their iron studded
boots-- to have us playing I Spy the Devil among ourselves!  Maybe The
Man will dock Limbaugh's pay, since we're doing his job for him.  Nah.
Consider-- isn't the real job of Rush Limbaugh to reproduce himself,
teaching us all to be irrelevant insulters?   And for some of us, it's
become such a habit, we don't hear ourselves doing it.  We are like that
adult, telling that poor child "the truth" about ugliness and
self-loathing.

The Feminist movement has to hear the phrase "Women are their own worst
enemies" so often that it became a gag refrain.  Misogynists would point
to some pathetic, propped-up woman who had been given a podium on 
wheels,
for the purpose of telling us how bad we all were.  Phyllis Schlaffley.
No real power of her own, and pushed off stage the moment she was no
longer needed.  Feminists called them Token Torturers.  Powerless 
tokens,
who were supposed to distract us, and to convince us that we were our
"own worst enemies" as we bent our attack toward them, ignoring The Man
behind the curtain, running Oz.  worked like a charm.  Make Phyllis the
enemy, and you end up debating her, not the Corporate Powers or the Good
Old Boys.  May your enemy small enough, and you both disappear.

It's the same thing with Greens.  We are _not_ our own worst enemy.  Not
while Cheney is alive. Not while Halliburton thrives.  But we have got 
to
be smarter than all those deluded Democrats who keep telling us that
Nader elected Bush in 2000.  We have got to stop telling ourselves that
ABB elected Bush in 2004.  What is happening to this country is bigger
than can be solved by WHO we chose in either of those elections, or who
we will choose in 08.  It is not about who, it is about how.

It is, for example, more about the number of ballot lines we have, than
about who rides them.   But nobody is even thinking about designing the
08 convention delegations, for example, so that they will result in more
ballot lines.  It isn't our focus.

Besides ballot lines, it is more about walking every house in America,
with our own literature, than it is about getting a seat at a contrived
corporate debate.  Celebrity won't matter, because it will be demonized,
and they'll be using a lot of our own [mis]quotes in doing it.  We have
set our sights so pathetically, irrelevantly low, because they want us 
to.
We cannot win the TV-attack-ad game, but we are not pursuing the
quarter-page door-insert media that we can win.

There is so much we need to discuss here, but, instead, we are parroting
the corporate lies and distractions about the last two races to each
other.  But, instead, we are debating about whether someone has a right
to list the folks who don't like him [and they a right to take pointless
umbrage, even though they clearly don't like him].   But, instead, we 
are
reprinting hate speech on behalf of a man who has been given a time out
for it, is "free speech."   Yes, details matter, but not these 
particular
details.

There is a bigger truth to be told here, and if our message is going to
stop what is happening, we better start by recognizing what is and is 
not
free speech.  The political cartoon in my paper this morning was not
about the US torturing real human beings, but about Bush torturing the
English language.  That was not free speech.

Our message to America is "You were born beautiful, and you don't need
duopoly dresses to feel pretty in, and consumerist frocks to feel okay
about yourself.  You were born smart, and your instincts that this stuff
you are hearing is crap are correct.  You were born good, and you must
never let them convince you that it is okay to torture in your name, to
bomb children, to fence out your neighbors, to starve out the world, to
denude nature, to put fetters on everything that is free."

--claudia ellquist, AzGP