We attempted to build these kinds of public spaces in a project that spanned the course of nearly two decades. There are a lot more of these types of organizations/groups working on this sort of thing. often inspired by the work of Habermas, Alan Wolfe, Robert Bellah and other communitarian types (though I think Habermas and Wolfe would reject that label, the point is that their work gets at what's described in Parenti's article). These folks have tried to figure out how we build the social capital and infrastructure upon which we can create an alternative society. Infrastructure/social capital |= that alternative society. Rather, they undergird it.
In the social movement literature, researchers talk about the importance of "resource mobilization." To take a practical example: one of the reasons why the backward little town I'm from could fight the siting of a radioactive waste dump was that it had a relatively strong civic institutions.
What were these formidable institutions?
YWCA Book clubs, quilting circles, little leagues, VFWs, League of Women Voters, Church group, Church coalitions, women's groups, book reading clubs, you name it. These organizations are filled with and supported by people who have the kind of skills a social movement needs. (Similarly, people talk about networks of communities of faith as the foundation for the civil rights struggle in the South.)
When I was a little kid, every Sunday, we go to the Rod 'n' Gun Club. The menfolk would shoot skeet and trap, while the womenfolk made beer pancakes. (See, the night before, there'd be a big shindig, with a band and dancin' an' all. They'd use the leftover beer growing flat in the kegs to whip up pancakes. LOL!)
My gramps was an auctioneer and also called the square dances for the big ol' Sunday jamboree. That was how po' country folk raised money and "helped" one another.
When my cousin Billie Jo (McAllister! I kid you not!) developed cancer, a Sunday was devoted to raising money and pledging donations of time to help my aunt and uncle. When our neighbor's house burned down, a Sunday was spent raising money and pledging donations of time to help them.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing gets written off as backward.
Yet, those same rod 'n' gun club types, who watched 4 cylinder modified races at the ramshackle dirt racetrack across the street, were also the same people who helped raise money, made hot coffee and homemade donuts and cookies for freezing picketers, and sat around making meeting fliers as we struggled to get the community mobilized against the nuke dump siting. When their group met, they got out the word and made sure people committed to going to a town meeting.
Those networks and associations were the infrastructure upon which a movement was built. Not just a grass roots NIMBY movement in an isolated town. That was what it started out being. But, in order to fight successfully, they had to reach out to other communities waging their own struggles in NYS. Then they had to reach out to communities in Texas and elsewhere. In turn, they reached out globally, to communities dealing with similar issues all over the world.
While they initially saw the _state_ as the enemy, the constant progression toward recognizing that it was bigger than a town, a county, a state, a nation... eventually made them realize that it was bigger than the state. The real enemy was capitalism. No, not everyone got the message. No, it's not now a radicalized town.
But, some of them started standing straighter than they were before. Some of them have become more radicalized. Some of them have experienced success at fighting off a powerful entity. Some of them saw their lives change forever. Go Norma Rae! And that's enough for me.
Wash. Repeat. Rinse. Across the nation. Across the globe. When it matters, all with a wealth of experience, resources, ideas, skills, etc. will mobilize. Others, having been through the experience, even if they aren't radicals, will be more sympathetic. Some, of course, won't.
Alas, I take Alinsky's longview on the topic, as anyone who's paid attention to what I've written at this hole for five years will have noticed by now.
In fact, some people ought to be sick of the story. I tell it because it's a good example of what I mean. I could pull out other examples, but they don't always get at the global issues. E.g., successfully bringing down a teen pregnancy rate was an example of women's groups organizing that did the same thing for many of the women involved.
Anyway, this is too long as it is.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'