[lbo-talk] The Rapture Index & "white trash"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Chuck0 wrote:
>
>>This is an important thing that the Left has overlooked--we just
>>don't do a good job of creating community. Those of us who spend
>>lots of time trying to create alternative institutions such as
>>infoshops are berated for being lifesylists. What my critics don't
>>understand is that I've been operating on a strategy of
>>counter-insitution-building for the past decade based on my reading
>>of what the labor movement had available to it a century ago. You
>>can't make social change without resources and community. Meetings
>>are not resources and community. The radical movements in the USA of
>>a century ago were able to stand on a network of  radical cultural
>>institutions that ranged from union halls to free schools to
>>cooperatives. In many big cities today, we are so lacking in
>>resources that our activist groups meet in restaurants and people's
>>homes.
>>
>>The right wing has churches, thinks tanks, and much more. What do we
>>have? Some people can diss me on my fucking infoshop, but at least
>>I've worked with activists in Kansas City to put together one
>>radical space!
>
>I'm with you on this. There was an interesting fight inside the 
>Brecht Forum in NYC as it was about to move into its new space. Some 
>wanted a cafe/bar, and some thought that distracted from the 
>"political" mission. At their Xmas party, they couldn't just have a 
>party - they had to have an excruciating program with bad singing 
>and bad readings. (Even Yoshie, who was there, had to concede the 
>awfulness.) As Bob Fitch once said, socialism should be social.
>
>Doug

I'm completely with Doug and Chuck on this.  I used to think, 
whenever Doug complained about the quality of left-wing 
entertainment, that he must be exaggerating.  In New York City, a 
city of artists the majority of whom must be somewhere on the left, 
could left-wing entertainment possibly be as bad as Doug said?  My 
Brecht Forum experience says that it can be.  :-0
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>