Very Different Worlds - Doug

Very Different Worlds - Doug Grow's latest column covers one of the most irritating "grassroots" movements in Minnesota today - those asinine "Happy to Pay for a Better Minnesota" signs.

Signs that Minnesota's progressive movement wasn't totally obliterated in November are popping up on lawns across Minnesota this spring.

"Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota," they read. They can be found -- if you look hard -- from Duluth to Rochester to the Twin Cities.

They're the creation of Alexandra Ellison and Chuck Tomlinson, who awoke on Nov. 6 in a Minnesota far different from what they had ever known.

It's ironic, isn't it, how this theme keeps popping up?

No, Alexandra and Chuck did not "wake up to a Minnesota far different from what they'd known". They woke up the morning after the Republican Party won most of the offices up for election.

Waking up to find the Taliban marching down University Avenue would have been "very different". Or perhaps turning on "KARE11 Today" to see a Jesse-Ventura-controlled secret police force mowing down their opponents and building a pyramid of skulls on Nicollet Mall as a warning - that would have been a "Very Different Minnesota".

No, all that happnened on November 6 was the DFL lost an election. And as long as DFLers take that as a cataclysmic debacle of human failure, rather than an electoral defeat, then I'm betting "Under" in this state's battle for civility.

Further sign of what this blog has been catalogueing since its inception - the blind contempt and gaping rage the DFL feels at having to share power with the unwashed masses.

Grow continues:

The "Say No to War With Iraq" signs obviously were their inspiration.

"You have a group which feels unheard," Ellison said. "A big yard sign is a way of jumping up and down and saying, 'Hey, listen to me.' "

I find it ironic that people who (I'll presume here, and I'll bet I'm right) find, say, "conservative talk radio" to be "shallow sloganeering" would jump to, say, lawn signs.

But a former Republican governor, Elmer L. Andersen, provides another motivation.

As an aside, here - I'm getting real tired of DFL mouthpieces like Doug Grow trotting out the likes of Elmer Andersen and Arne Carlson as "Former Republican Governors". Sure, they wore elephant pins; but at no point were any of them any more than "DFL-lite".

James Lileks, in one of his old radio shows, made the quintessential Minnesota Independant Republican joke, presumably before the 1990 election, where Arne Carlson ran against some cookie-cutter DFLer Rudy Perpich - and I'm paraphrasing from memory here - "It's hard for me to explain to my friends on the coast, that here in Minnesota we have a choice between the pro-choice, anti-gun, high-tax candidate - and the Democrat".

So when the "That Feels Good Sir, Give Me Another Tax" crowd cites the likes of Andersen and Carlson, you need to know that you're being played for a sucker.

Ellison and Tomlinson read a recent newspaper account of the man who represented a more moderate Republican Party than the party of Pawlenty, and they were struck by this Andersen thought: "Taxes are the way people join hands to get good things done. That's the tradition of Minnesota."

That quote is prominently displayed on a Web site that Ellison and Tomlinson have established, http://www.betterminnesota.org.

Again with the sloganeering!

Sorry, folks - Andersen's statement is only true if government is the extension of the will of the people.

Which nobody's really believed since Lenin.

I can't tell if this next bit is yawningly hypocritical, o just clueless:

Just as "Say No to War With Iraq" lawn signs begat "Liberate Iraq" signs, the betterminnesota.org site has stirred a counter site. The state's Republican Party recently put up http://www.betterminnesota.com.

Isn't that a little like Grand Old Party theft of somebody else's idea?

Great, Doug!

I presume you'll be out there condemning whitehouse.com next?

If "betterminnesota.com" was available for sale, then it's not theft.

"We didn't want somebody hijacking the term 'betterminnesota,' " said Randy Wanke, the party's communications director. "We just wanted to expand the debate."

The dot-orgs didn't learn of the dot-com's' theft -- oops, debate expansion -- until last weekend. Not surprisingly, some of the dot-orgs were upset.

As they should be. They screwed up.

Predictably, the Republicans' site is filled with derisive comments about DFL tax plans and praise for the governor. The grass-roots dot-orgs' site is far less partisan, except for anger at the Republicans' site.

"What does it say about the governor, his party and their confidence in their budget plan?" the dot-orgs ask on their site. "They're deceptively undermining a positive, grass-roots, citizen-led campaign."

What incredible, manipulative - and yes, Mr. Grow, partisan twaddle.

The .com site is a conduit for information about Pawlenty's plan. Yes, there are some japes at the self-righteous self-importance of the .org site - it's irresistable.

It's also communicating a message - one that the likes of Doug Grow will never treat fairly.

Speaking of manipulative:

They also are seeking progressive people to hold meetings in their homes to discuss issues and ways to counter the "no new taxes" mantra that is overwhelming all other political voices.

"Mantra".

Note Grow's choice of words - "Mantra", "Overwhelming"...like the idea of reducing our crushing tax burden is some Lucas-esque dark force sweeping the state. A darkness from which a plucky band of grass-roots activists - EVERYONE likes them, right? - must save the benighted masses. Save us from ourselves!

What buncombe. The people of Minnesota support Pawlenty and the budget proposal. I'd imagine Grow thinks this is some sort of pathology to be cured.

Demogogues are like that when it comes to genuine democracy in action.

As always, I would welcome Doug Grow's response.

Ironies of Design - By the way - since the "Happy to Pay..." "movement" is basically a throwback to the seventies, it's interesting to look at the actual signs.

They, too, are throwbacks to the seventies!

Check them out; the low-contrast orange-on-orange design, the inept use of capitals - the whole thing screams "Brady Bunch Living Room".

Posted by Mitch at April 22, 2003 09:11 AM