Maybe it reeks of presumption for a 26 year old to dispense such advice so freely...
But I don't think it's crazy for us to assume that as a movement, we have enough folks organizing in Berkeley, Madison, teaching lit crit at fancy colleges, writing books about whatever textual fad is popular among the tenured gibberish pros this year. The elan that moved generations of earlier revolutionaries to build a core of radical autoworkers in detroit, move to youngstown to organize in steel in the 30s, do radical stuff like voter reg in missippi in the 60s, open a women's liberation center in dayton ohio in the 70s, even accept the draft and organize against the war inside the army... we could make our guiding light more than our current base in universities, sects and subcultures now.
Like I said, I ain't against intellectuals. Just ones who only talk to other intellectuals. Which is plenty of em. No? =============================== Perhaps you could point to some of your experiences to illustrate your thesis. For example, have you been able to indepenently recruit a stable cluster of radicalized workers as an outgrowth of your organizing work for the SEIU? Are you further ahead in building a working-class left in this period than the academics and professionals who you presume "only talk to other intellectuals", and, if not (as I suspect), why do you think this is so?