What do you think when you hear the description "Salt of the Earth Folks"?

[Taverner]

I've heard this applied to rural Midwesterners, as well as rural Northwesters.

I've also heard Korean Americans refer to Korean Nationals this way (a LOT.)

Your thoughts?

[lapfog_1]

1. Too much sodium in their diets??? - n/t

[DailyGrind51]

51. As a sodium-sensitive hypertensive, they are out to kill me!

[madmax]

2. The Rolling Stones

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
Or don't they look so strange

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth

[JuniperLea]

10. Beat me to it...

People who are "salt of the Earth" are the basic, fundamental building blocks of society, without which we'd all surely perish.

Jesus also used the phrase in his sermon on the mount.

[bunkerbuster1]

11. Yeah. I was gonna say "Beggar's Banquet."

Mick Jagger is a horribly underrated lyricist.

[underpants]

16. What song is that?

:shrug:

[bunkerbuster1]

18. "Salt of the Earth." The Stones. Concludes both Beggars' Banquet and...

their late 1968 television extravaganza, "Rock 'n Roll Circus," which is worth checking out.

[underpants]

19. I've seen parts of the Circus

Amazing that rock n roll stars used to get together like that

The "Sympathy" version is greatly remixed by Fat Boy SLim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSlsQN9Yt2I

[bunkerbuster1]

28. Let's not forget Jethro Tull...

with none other than Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi filling in...

(though the Wiki tells me it was all overdubbed later with just Ian's voice/flute actually live.)

[underpants]

26. 4:53 that is Pete Townshend in the funny hat right in front of Mick and Keef

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGO-YrfLsPQ

[madmax]

22. bunkerbuster 1 has the answer

Hubby has the DVD. Just watch it about a month ago. Guess that's why is came to mind so quickly.

[virgogal]

3. High blood preassure?

[Bluzmann57]

4. I think of me

And my family and friends. We are just simple working people who are what made America great. Btw, I am a Midwesterner.

[DURHAM D]

5. I think of the salt mines in Kansas -

and the people who work them.

[emilyg]

6. I immediately think of

my step-dad. Hard working, honest, decent.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. It a complement that is paid to people who, by the nature of it

never get complemented for anything else.

[Burma Jones]

57. +1

Very smart answer.....

[BlooInBloo]

8. Godfather II

[tularetom]

9. Depends on who is saying it

If it's a republican it means a toothless hillbilly living in a falling down shack. Who has been scared into voting for the repigs by a bunch of jeezus rhetoric.

[armyowalgreens]

12. Wherever they go, everything dies.

I always think of salt of the earth as "salting" the earth for some reason.

Whenever I hear someone refer to another as that, I tend to keep away.

[tekisui]

13. People not afraid to get their hands dirty,

those who want to do a job right. They aren't overly concerned that they aren't getting paid enough, but doing something well is the only way to do it. They take pride in their humility. The brands and fashions that come and go matter less than the relationships they nurture. They build their community and derive their pleasures from the simple things that their family and friends share.

It's the good life.:-)

[SoCalDem]

14. Just another colloquialism used by the folks who deliver soundbytes

..who love to sum up a wide range of people into a single phrase.

People are not one-size-fits-all, but the media tries to tell us we are..


...........................................
Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Wed Jul 19th 2006, 10:45 PM

When people refer to someone as "good people..salt of the earth", it's meant to be a positive comment about their character.

Warmongers have brought home to me, another meaning for "salt of the earth"..

How many buckets of blood, gallons of tears have been greedily slurped up by the soils of how many desolate places..battlefields. all of them?

No continent except Antarctica has been denied that "salt"..

The soil in which we plant our petunias, probably contains ancient "salt" residues from battles long ago..

Spilled blood, shed tears...from too many people to count..over too many years to know..

Collectively we may be gaining knowledge, but we sure don't get any smarter

[abq e streeter]

15. The great, at the time (1954) suppressed, true-story movie about a miner's strike

in Silver City, New Mexico.

[RandomThoughts]

17. A few things.

An old movie, was about womens rights and labor movement, it was blacklisted buring McCarthy red scare. "Salt of the Earth"

The movie spoken of in V for Vendeta "The Salt Flats".
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4791717800918922828&ei=EXUgStWeCKm2qAOS5NXmBQ&q=v+for+vendetta&hl=en

And the term "Salt and Light"

[ContinentalOp]

20. I think of "real Americans", "family values", "the heartland", and other such code words

for rural, white, Christian conservatives. I think of anti-intellectualism, fear of diversity, nostalgia for supposedly simpler times that never actually existed, fear of change, and xenophobia in general.

[SidDithers]

32. +1...

I hear it as a code word as well.

Sid

[SoCalDem]

34. a la "real Americans"

codespeak is insidious..

funny how "heritage" and the honoring of it, was such a GOOD thing during the stars & bars flag flap...and those same people now see "heritage" as an EVIL thing when it comes to Sotomayor.. poor repubbies..they can't even keep their codebook on the right page these days:)

[Raksha]

46. Unfortunately, that's how I think of it too.

The expression "salt of the earth" has even more negative connotations than usual for me for a specific reason. I saw the phrase badly misused a couple of weeks ago on another forum, when another liberal (okay, semi-liberal) in a grand gesture of misplaced "tolerance," told me I was putting down on "the salt of the earth" when I told her unapologetically: "I hate and fear those people." And I wouldn't back down from it.

The people she was describing as "the salt of the earth"? They were neo-Nazi skinheads in the video "Blood in the Face"!!!

[Mike 03]

21. Honestly, I get a mental picture from the movies Cold Mountain or Witness of the

Amish constructing homes, riding a horse and carriage.

That is my immediate association with respect to that term. And it is connected to some early times in my life that were really pleasant, but I was so young at the time that I have to piggyback off of movie images to recall my time in that area.

[Cirque du So-What]

23. One person's 'salt of the earth'

is another's 'scum of the earth.'

[carlyhippy]

24. upper midwestern small town restaurant, old farmers sitting around gossiping and having coffee

on a saturday morning.

[ohheckyeah]

25. Lots wife? n/t

[scarletwoman]

27. The tiny anonymous grains that the rich sprinkle on their food as they gorge themselves

on the wealth created by the workers.

sw

[Adelante]

29. It's a nice thing to say about someone

A genuine human being.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. I just jump in my limo and head to Starbucks for a latte.

[BeFree]

31. Salt Flavors things.

It is like a spice. People who are the salt of the earth bring flavor to life.

[msongs]

33. pillars of salt and sodom n gomorrah? better watch your....salt content? nt

[JerseygirlCT]

35. Straightforward

unpretentious.

[NJCher]

52. yeah, that's what I think of too

Salt of the earth people wouldn't be wearing fake nails.
They would be genuine people with a sense of humor.

[yurbud]

36. I think of the labor movie by the same name that was BANNED in the US

[abq e streeter]

37. Good to see others who know of this film-

a true story; not sure I remember all the details , but I believe it was the copper miners...I also seem to remember ( ?) that they used a lot of actual residents of the area ( Silver City, which has actually turned into a pretty hip little town in recent years) in the movie. Written ( and directed etc ?) by some blacklisted Hollywood writers.

[yurbud]

43. actors were in the minority and mostly stuck out like sore thumbs.

the real people were mesmerizing and it was shocking to see that people lived like that anywhere in the US.

It's a great companion piece to Harlan County USA. See both and become a socialist or at least a labor unionist in one evening.

[abq e streeter]

49. Haven't seen it in many years; need to track down a copy and watch it again

One of my old college roommates ( we're still friends decades later) is from Silver City; his father was the first ever Hispanic attorney in Grant County, and eventually District Attorney. Seems to me Dave once told me he knew many people that were in it; gotta call him on Monday and pick his brain a little about this .

[DailyGrind51]

38. Closet Kluxers!

[skooooo]

39. Blazing Saddles...

...you know, assholes!

[backscatter712]

54. The quote I'm thinking of...

'What did you expect? "Welcome sonny," "Make yourself at home," "Marry my daughter." You've got to remember, that these are just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know . . . morons.'

OK, it doesn't have "salt of the earth" in it, but yes, when I hear that phrase, I think Blazing Saddles...

[skooooo]

58. I could be wrong....

...but the "morons" part might be from the TV version, where they censored a lot of it. But you're right, I guess "salt of the earth" wasn't part of it.

[Mari333]

40. I think of Studs Terkel. nt

[Fresh_Start]

41. I think of the farmers I grew up around

they were very pragmatic and live and let live.
While they gossiped up a storm, they also showed up to help neighbors in need.

They were not infected by the fake religious zeal. They understood that real life is way too difficult to be judgmental.

[Occam Bandage]

42. Carthago delenda est. nt

[Fumesucker]

47. Yep, that comes to my mind also. n/t

[Kurska]

44. It means "People who work hard" to me

And in a world where we only seem to value getting rich as quick as possible with a little effort as possible, I like the idea of hard working people getting a little praise.

[LeftyMom]

45. (pic)

[proteus_lives]

48. Couple of things.

Hard-working people.

The small town my mom grew up in.

The Midwest in general.

[ContinentalOp]

50. And so by extension...

people who are not from a small town in the midwest are by definition not hard-working. That's the problem with the use of the term. It's like the "real american" stuff during the elections. Or as Hilary Clinton put it, "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans."

[Norrin Radd]

53. I prefer the Pepper of the Earth and the Brainland.

[Are_grits_groceries]

55. I think of a line

from a book "the Dixie Association" by Donald Hays.

"Christians are the salt of the earth. Nothing grows where they have been."

Great book by the way. It's about a minor league baseball team made up of excons and misfits. The local preacher wants them run out of town. A real hoot!!

[Stevenmarc]

56. I think of KFC who put a little chicken on their salt.

[Vidar]

59. Well preserved?

[Swede]

60. You know,shit-kickers.

:shrug: