Many are. Although trained asa Michigan number-cruncher, I think the critics just count groups -- like AA -- without trying to locate them in a context of political efficacy. The growing politically efficaious groups I see are right wing churches -- they turn out voters and bodies like nobody's business. Pepple may join now or the ACLU, but mainly these are elite membership groups that ask for money a few times a year. Moreover the conditions that create this situation are those identified by Putnam -- suburban dispersal, breakdown of neighborhoods ties and familiy diasporas, the end of long-term employment, longer commutes, and televison, among other things. So maybe you go better revisist your putnam and ask not just, What groups, wjhat What do they do?
> No, voting rates are not particularly down. See
> http://elections.gmu.edu/turnout_rates_graph.htm
> There was a dropoff in 1972 because 18-20 year olds
> were added to the
> eligible pool, but even with that 2004 had voting
> rates comparable to the
> highwater levels of the 1960s and higher than years
> like 1948 and 1956.
The collapse of voting vates in the US was noted 50 years ago and is the subject if Lazarfield and Berelson's right-centrist classic book Voting. Voting rates are _lousy_ in America compared to other advanced industrial democracies. And they are worst amongst the worse off, although there is contr9oversy about how much different the outcome would be if a lot more low-income folk voted.
It's quite possible that people are
> more politically
> engaged today but just are alienated from voting
> itself -- think Chuck O :)
Right, we have an anarchist nation. I think that the correlation between politicala ctivism and voting probably is close to 100%. Even my Soli comrades tend vote, if only for third parties (or for Democrtas without admitting it).
> I reject the idea that the labor movement is in
> terminal decline. That's a
> big part of where we differ. There are lots of
> challenges faced by the
> labor movement but they still continue to innovate
> and make successes.
Like have you noticed that private sector unionization is well below 10% now and falling, down from 33% or so in the 1950s?
The
> key is for areas of success to surpass areas of
> decline-- which is not as
> impossible as a lot of defeatists on labor make it
> out. There are still 15
> million union workers out there, a large base from
> which to launch a
> revival.
Ad Sweeney sure did a bang up job of it . . . .
>
> But I am a Pollyanna and proudly so.
Sigh. A little pessimism of the intellect might be aoppropriate here, much as the optimism of the will is to be admired.
Sure, the losses at the national
> level are currently
> outweighing the overall wins, but there are plenty
> of examples of success
> out there.
Well, no one said the picture is wholly negative.
>
> So we just need to organize, organize, organize to
> support the successess
> until they outweigh the losses.
>
Noone disagrees with that, however bleak we may feel about our propsects.
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