What is a “grassroots movement”? What is the definition of the term “grassroots movement” as it applies to politics? In politics, a “grassroots movement” is a movement that develops organically at a local level before spreading throughout the state and even the country. A true “grassroots movement” isn’t organized by political forces - instead, a “grassroots movement” springs up spontaneously due to some pressing issue that a community feels needs to be changed or enhanced.
The Oscars have very little to do with film, and a lot to do with advertising. Women are walking billboards for designers, trussed up in dresses that they will be called out on if they doesn’t pass muster. Thank God beauty pageants are a thing of the past. Halle-blooming-lujah, then, for Jenny Beavan, stomping up to get her Oscar for best costume design and wearing – and this is a very fashion-forward statement – what she damn well wanted. She has won two Oscars, two Emmys and three Baftas – among others. She can design costumes for a dystopia, for supermodels, for past centuries. She has an incredible eye, an immense knowledge of the history of costume, and a wonderful imagination. More than this, she seems to have inadvertently trolled the entire self-congratulatory ego-fest by wearing a leather biker jacket. - Suzanne Moore
Imagine a laptop so clunky and dysfunctional it needs rebooting. But it’s a special kind of laptop: once you hit the button you surrender control over what it will do when it restarts. The operating system will be chosen by someone else; your data will be there – hopefully – but the apps you used to create it might not be. That, effectively, is the choice facing us in the referendum on 23 June. If it is, as the Stay campaign insists, “a leap in the dark”, it has been designed as such by our political leaders.. As a result, despite the sudden illusion of choice – with two generations of voters getting a direct say on something strategic – most people will be powerless to shape what happens next. What could compel the silent party leaderships to answer the “What will you do” question? Well, unlike in 1975, the electorate is technologically empowered: choice for this generation does not mean one or zero. They spend half their lives personalising everything from their phone to their chai latte. I think, quite quickly, the electorate will demand the right to configure the Brexit in detail: it is in the interests of those fighting to stay to do so, as well as those who want to leave. And if the politicians won’t play, voters have tools and forums, and a vast searchable literature as to what the real choices might be. - Paul Mason
We must suffer alone. But we can at least hold out our arms to our similarly tortured, fractured, and above all else, anxious neighbours, as if to say, in the kindest way possible: ‘I know…’