>Back in the late '60s and the '70s, when two radicals (or marxists) from
>different locations met socially, almost the first question we would ask
>each other would be, "How did you get radicalized?" Practically no
>exceptions to the description I gave in my preceding post.
it's not the 60s or 70s anymore. things have changed. 50% of the population goes to college now. only 25% or so graduate, but 50% of the people in this country get exposed to ideas in college, often ideas they read in books. i've had students bring fucking Rush into class to challenge what they are learning!
if it weren't for books that teachers assigned in high school and college, i sure wouldn't be writing here. i organized a student sit down strike when i was 16 because i was reading about the 60s in my history class and reading wild anthropology and sociology stuff when my mother started taking classes at community college.
i naturally got caught up in labor organizing when just 17 or so b/c of the despair i felt while i waited in line with 3000 people for an unemployment check the day after they layed off thousands of people, plus others from businesses that depended on business from the plant: the restaurant where i worked, across the street from the plant, shut its doors at 5:30 a.m. while I worked the graveyard shift.
it was the literature i read, written by college profs from working class backgrounds, that got me fired up to actually want to do something with them.
unfortunately, it was also various lefties i actual met in that process that made me feel ashamed of where i came from.
Kelley