Chip Berlet wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Recent social movement theory suggests that most people join social movement
> organizations, projects, or campaigns because they are recruited by face-to-face
> contact by a cohort--friend, family or co-worker.
>
This is central to thinking about mass movements -- ordinary methods of political recruitment and persuasion simply have no effect. That is _also_ why initial attempts to generate a mass movement _must_ focus on those who are already in agreement with the general thrust of the movement, are willing not just to agree with it passively but to spend some energy even in _finding_ the movement so they can join it. We are not, to begin with, interested _at all_ in persuading 'outsiders' to join us; we are interested only in recruiting non-active activists to join us in reaching others.
Only when the movement reaches some point (and I have not the slightest idea what that point is) of mass visibility, creating the image of huge numbers of people in motion, do the unpersuaded start listening to what we have to say. And only at that point does the obsession of this list -- what should we say and how should we say it -- becomes of any relevance whatever.
On gatekeepin: Almost 20 years ago we built so strong and visible a _Students for a Free Palestine_ at ISU that Normal was listed, by some national organization that equated anti-zionism with anti-semitism, as a prime hotbed of anti-semitism. And we sure as hell exercised a very ruthless kind of gatekeeping: some of the people who wanted to join were _really_ anti-semitic, and we badmouthed them out of the meetings fast.
Do you want to let aggressive anti-semites into the anti-war movement Kelley? If you don't, then you've already granted the principle of gatekeeping, and we only have the specific details left to discuss.
Carrol