talking within & without

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Oct 12 15:52:52 PDT 2001


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >No war! That is the fundamental principle in discussion within actual
> >groups. But it is far from an adequate nature on this list. All I can
> >figure out is that very few people on this list are actually engaged in
> >organizing; hence they pacify themselves by the fantasy that lbo-talk is
> >a realm for organizing and action.
>
> Uh, not necessarily. It could also be a place where you think about
> how you talk to people outside the charmed circle. But I recall you
> saying in the past that you don't organize by seeking converts, you
> just mobilize your base. In which case, you can use as insular a
> discourse as you like.
>

As Herr Doktor Friedman once said to me at Western Michigan, "Meester Cox, you are smart but not too smart." Doug, you are smart but not too smart. You pick out as a peculiarity of mine what is the ABC of organizing. Ask Justin. Ask Chip. Social movements grow by one-on-one recruiting. So their growth depends on the recruitment of those who are already recruited to start talking to friends, co-workers, etc. The organizer has to know how to get those already recruited talking to each other and coming back a second and a third and a fourth time to talk to each other. This is no peculiarity of mine. It's fundamental. Any one who doesn't see its obviousness hasn't even reached nursry school as an organizer.

Carrol



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