lbo-talk-digest V1 #102

Justin Schwartz jschwart at freenet.columbus.oh.us
Tue Jun 2 04:49:07 PDT 1998


On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Gar W. Lipow wrote:
>
> I don't know how you create gender/class/race/enviromentally
> concious activist organization (let alone a movmement) that is
> not some looney would be vanguard (like every existing Marxist
> party in the U.S.) , or a wimpy amorphous pawn of the Demos
> (like DSA) or single issue org with ambitions of someday tackling
> a second issue.

Well, I don't pretend that my group, Solidarity, has solved the secret of mass appeal. But we are most expressly and be design not a looney would be vanguard, also not a party; and no one has ever accussed us of being a pawn of the Democrats. Incidentally our members are active in Nell on Wheels, the rank and file NT Transport Workers Union Caucus. We have blue collar trade unionists like Mike Parker in Detroit who write books, professors who are activists, like Nancy Holmstrom (Rutgers-Newark, lives in NY--I mentuion her in particular because you sewem to be a New Yorker), and lots of interesting people.

Especially I don't know how you create such an
> organization which is genuinely useful within a short time after
> forming, and which pays enough attention to theory not to wimp
> out on fundamentals, which is both democratic enough and fun
> enough to attract new members, and pays enough attention to human
> weakness not to constantly lose existing ones.
>

I've found us useful for a long while--10 years I've been in now. It's not the best group there could be, but it's the best I've found, and it keeps me paying dues.

--jks



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