Frankly, I don't know how exactly how healthy the US or any other anarchist movement is, but I recall that Chuck0 argued previously on LBO-talk that what we need is resistance on the one hand, coupled with building counter-institutions on the other hand. I still think he's pretty much right, and the Italian anarchists you mentioned (who, in the case of Ya Basta, are not strictly anarchists, but rather a development out of Italian autonomism, as far as I can see) are rooted to some extent in the Italian social centres - precisely an example of a successful counter-institution. The 'white overalls' in Italy have had a number of notable successes - e.g. closing down a refugee detention centre, and although the Wombles did not succeed in their aims on May Day (and I personally am suspicious of the trend, particularly apparent in the UK and the US, to focus primarily on tactics), they were by various reports that I've read, at least fairly successful in pushing the police back a bit. Obviously, more Wombles would be more effective.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked - I think one of the problems of the left is its focus on representations - thus evoking 'going to the people' as a contrast to the current ethereal spaces that leftists occupy. I think Klein is hitting on something useful, but phrasing it as talking to your neighbour is a mistake - such talk essentially is based in the old idea that the heritage of the left is rooted in a set of ideas. It cannot be - it must be rooted in a set of practices, which in turn are mediated by left 'counter-institutions'.
To illustrate - the whole routine of out of bed, into work, out of work, into gridlock, into Survivor II, etc. - is a set of practices (rooted in social relations) mediated by various objects and institutions of capitalist society. The Ya Basta! people apparently make a big deal of Foucault's idea of 'biopower' - i.e. the operation of a diffuse network of power upon the body. Similarly, I think the 'left' needs to fight back in a way that the phrase 'mass constituency' doesn't cover.
The Ya Basta! types talk about 'rhizomatic' forms of power - our own distributed network which provides the matrix upon which anti- and post-capitalist practices can grow. I think that needs to be taken with a bit of salt, but its heading in the right direction.
So, I think Klein is kinda right, but should be read outside of the limits of 'conventional' left practice.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844 k*256^2+2083 OpenPGP: 1024D/0517502B : DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF 9295 6A26 6A92 0517 502B