"Grassroots"

Another term falling victim to language manipulation in the interest of political gain. Examine the metaphor. Many roots of blades of grass working together to grow into a lawn; many many small additions to the whole, together can create a powerful total. So ‘grassroots’ funding would be many many small sources of funding coming together to create one large pool of money.

Harper is always talking about his ‘grassroots’ campaign fundraising. The budget they recently presented eliminated government funding for political parties, meaning all parties would have to rely on their individual supporters for all campaign funds. The opposition parties are very upset with this because they know that the conservative ‘grassroots’ fundraising is far superior to their own.

So, it leaves the question, why is conservative ‘grassroots’ the most effective? Only recently have they been flirting with majorities, but Harper’s been going on about his ‘grassroots’ since the party was much less popular. Therefore its not by quantity of blades of grass that the conservative lawn is much greener. So where the hell is the conservative party getting all this green? It can only be explained by the quality of the roots. Conservatives must get more funding per source, each root being stronger on its own.

Well, conservative voters are traditionally older and wealthier. They have more money to pass along to the party sure, but that can’t be the only explanation. There have to be a few roots in that lawn that are very very large. Its no secret that the conservatives have many ties in business and receive much of their support from corporate sources.

Sorry but that is NOT ‘grassroots’ fundraising, its corporate. You can’t have a lawn made up of 50 giant blades of grass, it makes no sense. ‘Grassroots’ is a metaphor wherein the many weak bond together to become strong, its not applicable to the many strong bonding together to become even stronger. This is a traditionally lefty term, and Harper has brilliantly stolen it. It makes his party seem like it derives it greatest strength from the people which is total BS; the conservatives are strong because they have a leader whose great at playing the game of politics and a corporately stocked war chest for elections.

I’m sure Harper also can’t resist referring to his party with a term that sounds both populist and environmental.