I could be persuaded to do a lot of things if asked. I would send a euro/dollar. I would send even 5 of them. I might even offer free Esperanto lessons for the most basic Esperanto, if you had some standard method of teaching it, I would even do it for free in my community. I am tending more and more forward working for free. I find many things interesting about it. I plan on working for the Green Party as well without pay.

Edit: Ha! Just found this site and signed up:

http://esperanto-usa.org/en/content/esperanto-us...

I had good experience volunteering with Time-Bank and ProLiteracy USA. Volunteering is the way of progress for all people instead of just oneself.

sudanglo:Esperanto should be for everybody - including the super-rich, the dictators of tin-pot countries, hedge-fund managers, minor aristocracy, fashion models, and even right-wing nationalists. But these groups are very poorly represented at the moment.

But what about those whom we in the United States call "Joe and Jane Sixpack," at best modestly educated people whose idea of a good evening is spent in front of the telly with a package of bottles of cheap beer? Sometimes I get the idea that the Esperanto Movado is egregiously elitist.

bartlett22183:

sudanglo:Esperanto should be for everybody - including the super-rich, the dictators of tin-pot countries, hedge-fund managers, minor aristocracy, fashion models, and even right-wing nationalists. But these groups are very poorly represented at the moment.

But what about those whom we in the United States call "Joe and Jane Sixpack," at best modestly educated people whose idea of a good evening is spent in front of the telly with a package of bottles of cheap beer? Sometimes I get the idea that the Esperanto Movado is egregiously elitist.

It does seem that way, but the Joe and Jane Sixpack are actually my mother and her new husband. My own mother is little more than this type of American. It's true that the Esperanto movement would not fly with her, but it is also true that nothing would fly with her. This type of couple you describe exist in a world of futility. they seemingly cannot be made to do anything more than work their simple job. Anything else that involves mobility other than work for to get money is unthinkable. That is one reason I dont drink very much and strive to volunteer. My jane-six-pack mother for instance does not even vote or do anything.

I know for a fact that most of these types do not vote or bother with politics. This is a whole subsection of the United States that does not exist in the world.

Another instance, I mailed my passport to my mother for safe keeping, thinking I would not need it. I need it, and I sent her an envelope with my name and address and stamps already on it. All she has to do is a simple action of putting it into the envelope I supplied and putting it in the mailbox. I cannot make her do this.

This is the six-pack American reality: an inability to do any single action.

I also choose to ignore elitists and anything other factions such as religious that may be involved in anything I am involved in. These people are led by strong childish feelings of being superior or more connected to God or whatever emotions they are having. Thus I treat them based on their emotions and not using any words or ideas that directly relate to their religion or elitism.

Ive gone through different phases of thinking about Americans. Sometimes I think foreigners are using us as scapegoats irrationally and making generalizations about us. Then sometimes I can really feel how screwed up Americans are, that they really are oppressors, bankers. Even overseas they work in the banks making trouble. You cant even say there is a "German Bank" with Germans working in it. Its all controlled by American citizens on some level.

I have had it out with at least two Canadians who hated Americans and were pro-Britain, but both were actually born in American cities. They only lie and fabricate. Even "anti-Americanism" is a lie created by Americans to oppress people.

Sometimes I get the idea that the Esperanto Movado is egregiously elitist.

Ah, if only that were true!

Of course it is true that Esperanto seems to attract people of a higher standard of education than prevails in the general populace.

But it is also true, that in our ranks you will find stranguloj or all shapes and sizes, and competence.

A little more discrimination and little less arms flung wide open to welcome everybody would be good for our image.

Se nur paroli Esperanton estus très snob.

sudanglo:Of course it is true that Esperanto seems to attract people of a higher standard of education than prevails in the general populace.

Good joke.

As far as I know, Esperanto has no image. Nobody knows it exists.

My own interest to be honest has only to do with an interest in all things foreign to the United States. For instance, I am listening to jazz from a Japanese singer in Japanese not English.

The passport I complained about is already dead. I have a new one. I just wanted it because it has a huge Visa sticker from Uzbekistan, which is lime green and has Uzbek writing on it and arabesques. The visa is the biggest I have had and covers and entire page.

bartlett22183:

sudanglo:Esperanto should be for everybody - including the super-rich, the dictators of tin-pot countries, hedge-fund managers, minor aristocracy, fashion models, and even right-wing nationalists. But these groups are very poorly represented at the moment.

But what about those whom we in the United States call "Joe and Jane Sixpack," at best modestly educated people whose idea of a good evening is spent in front of the telly with a package of bottles of cheap beer? Sometimes I get the idea that the Esperanto Movado is egregiously elitist.

Dont worry about elitists. England is only a small country and the rest of people in the world far outnumber them. We defeated their aristocracy a long time ago.

Chainy:

sudanglo:Of course it is true that Esperanto seems to attract people of a higher standard of education than prevails in the general populace.

Good joke.

You know, I have a book called Fowlers Modern English usage. It's a compendium of interesting facts about English. One of them I found neat was the word bourgeois. Originally this was not an a term for the middle class by the proletariat but a term from the aristocracy to describe the upper-middle class, which was seen as vulgar by the aristocracy in England. It's interesting to see how "bourgeois" is used to denounce the middle class by both the aristocracy and the poor.

sudanglo:

Sometimes I get the idea that the Esperanto Movado is egregiously elitist.

Ah, if only that were true!

Of course it is true that Esperanto seems to attract people of a higher standard of education than prevails in the general populace.

But it is also true, that in our ranks you will find stranguloj or all shapes and sizes, and competence.

A little more discrimination and little less arms flung wide open to welcome everybody would be good for our image.

Se nur paroli Esperanton estus très snob.

When I first replied, I should have quoted more of sudanglo's post that I was responding to:

sudanglo:The trouble is that Esperanto has always seemed to attract a particular sort of person - eccentric lefties, and other assorted bleeding hearts, all with a poor fashion sense.

Esperanto should be for everybody - including the super-rich, the dictators of tin-pot countries, hedge-fund managers, minor aristocracy, fashion models, and even right-wing nationalists. But these groups are very poorly represented at the moment.

Also, I probably expressed myself more forcefully than was needful.

Still, I have the idea that the constructed international auxiliary language movement in general does tend to attract elitists, together with those whom sudanglo calls the stranguloj, whether the "movado" is Esperanto, Interlingua (with which I have had personal involvement), or Ido -- I cannot attest to the original Volapük -- the only conIAL movements, at least in the west, which have had any significant use at all.

Certainly, there can be and have been exceptions. My late father once told me that his father, my grandfather (who died before I was born), had tried to learn Esperanto. Given that my grandfather was born in 1868, this could have been about any time. My grandfather was a minor clerk in a small bank in a small midwestern US farming town. There have also been whispers in the family that he may have been the town drunk (every family has skeletons in its closet), so he may have been a case of a Joe Sixpack type who actually did look at the language. (I have no idea whether he attained any competence.)

Still, the question is how we attract the "super-rich, the dictators of tin-pot countries, hedge-fund managers, minor aristocracy, fashion models, and even right-wing nationalists." And, yes, the Joe and Jane Sixpacks of the world. Or, in contrast, do we take the position that it is not needful to attract them?

Paŭlo