The commons isn't an ideology. It's the institutional infrastructure or terrain upon which ideologies can be founded - the public space prior to institution-building. Highly multinational, these days.
> To be concete, how do you imagine you could engage in the movements
> you list here if you "don't do community activism or street heat,
Oh, I do those things, too, I'm just saying they're not enough, because we're still getting our ass kicked. And I don't like to lose.
> But now you're asking a different question, a very broad one -- how
> can we make the left stronger in the US?
No, it's the same question. Why has the Left been so thoroughly crushed in the US? Why have we lost so many battles? Why don't we have a 25% unionization rate and vibrant mass parties? It's 2004 and we're having almost exactly the same debates as 1994. Time stands still in falling Empires...
> I'm being critical here but i identify with how you feel. I just
> think that if you could concretely visualize how you'd like to
> "plug-in" you'll be able to find opportunities to do that.
I'm not here to claim special privileges. My perspective is as a culture-worker whose profession - US academia - is committing collective budgetary suicide. But the university system, in retrospect, *was* the commons for much of the post-1968 US Left. We've got to build a new one, which is broader and more stable than the old one. How? I don't know... I'm open to suggestions.
-- DRR