max
> You know, Nathan, I and a bunch of comrades and coworkers (movement
> activists) in Ann Arbor attempted this through the 1980s. The party was
> happy to have our labor, but totally iced us out of any policy
> input. Thjese
> were super-liberal Democrats, not DLC types. We would go to party
> meetings,
> and after a bit, when we started to insist on our views, we were (a)
> attacked by the regulars in the press for "packing" meetings with
> "activists" who were not "real Democrats" (there were no official
> membership
> requirements), and (b) iced out of the closed door meetings with
> the hacks
> and bosses and big donors where the real policy was made, and
> (c) had the
> resolutions we got passeda t the open meetings unhdemocratically ignored,
> and (d) faced with real meeting packing when the bosses brought
> in boatloads
> of union bureaucrats from Ypislanti and other places who didn't
> even live in
> AA to defeat our resolutions, and (e) outmanuevered by parliamentary
> bullshit such as declaring meetings adjourned when we arrived,
> and so forth.
> Moreover, when we got a genuinely multiracial and radical Rainbow
> Coalition
> going in 1984, the black millionionare who funded the Michigan RC
> pulled the
> plug on it, setting up a rival RC, and both of them went down.
> Most of the
> people I worked with in this endeavour were so totally disgusted
> that they
> gave up on politics altogether. The lesson I drew was that the
> Dems were not
> reformable. I joined Solidarity. You think I should have kept
> plugging away?
> After seven years of trying--isn't that a respectable run?--with
> nothing tos
> how for it, I figured it was time to fish or cut bait. jks
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
>
>