Actually Jim, you point to a small (at least) problem. It used to be that the kind of people who would write articles for newsletters for labor circulars, were also organizers at one time or another. Or when Myles Horton was training CIO organizers at Highlander in the '30s, a lot of people would show up who also wanted to write about and go out with the organizers, and then they would go back with them and write about them. I am not talking only of CP or Trotskyist types either. Many of the people who did this were writing for small town newspapers and were oriented toward some church or another. I am not saying this doesn't happen today, only that the connections are not as strong and deep.
Come to think of it, above I made a joke about the academy being an employment scheme for theory-oriented radicals. I think there is something to the fact that people who might otherwise have to scrabble to make a living as small town news reporters or ministers, can go to school and get good degrees and sometimes, if they are lucky live better lives. But without a left political "party" (of some kind) to keep them connected, the institutional framework of the university, does tend to separate intellectuals, from people they may sympathize with, people whose struggles they might otherwise come to understand from the inside, instead of as a study.
The fact is there has never been a mass working class movement in history without intellectuals and other class traitors (to use old fashion terms) being "organically" connected with the movement from the beginning. And I doubt there ever will be. Of course you, yourself Jim are such an intellectual and are probably in some sense recognized as such by those who you help to organize.
Jerry
>
On 12/20/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> But can't a union catch a break?
Are you kidding? I think it's great.
Doug
JM: And Doug I apologize for my misinterpretation. Sometimes I read irony where there is only the good chuckle of sincerity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061220/3d9449ba/attachment.htm>