> A quite respectable number of socialists at various points have argued that
> organizing the unorganized is the top priority of socialists at almost any
> period, but especially in periods of less political foment at the state
> level. By that criterion, Sweeney is advancing a socialist agenda more
> dramatically than almost any person you can name.
Let's not carried with the heroic litanies here. Sweeney's Presidency was the political moment which signaled a limited, fragile and nascent Left turn against the reactionary Old Guard in the union leadership. This is an opening unions have to seize and expand on; no one President can be or ought to be the be-all and end-all of union activism. Speaking as a union President myself, I'm seeing a revitalization of the union movement from the ground up here in Oregon -- radicals cut their teeth on local issues, and then begin to shake things up on the state level, etc. There's a cultural buzz at the University here around labor issues which you can feel, like electricity or something: the same current which flashed across the sky a few short weeks ago and reduced the WTO to a smoking ruin. The air is beginning to hum...
-- Dennis