----- Original Message ----- From: "MICHAEL YATES" <mikedjyates at msn.com> -There is a very fine article on local organizing by Michael Engel on mrzine, -at <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/engel140306.html> It is on local -organizing and it is sharply critical of the mindset of most "progressive" -organizations. It describes the kind of behavior I observed so many times -at the Socialist Scholars Conference and elsewhere. I'd love to get others' -take on it.
Socialist Scholars Conference -- now the Left Forum -- but about right from what I saw this past weekend.
And having spent my college years in the "Happy Valley", the article is generally right, although I will say my years there were spent in the consumer/enviro group MASSPIRG, where we had lots of students and some community activists involved in quite hierarchal organizations with outreach and organizing in areas outside the easy progressive enclaves.
And -- to push a point -- I bet the local Democratic Party organizations are far better connected to the voter-rich urban areas of Springfield and Holyoke than the nice prog groups detailed in the article. There's nothing like self-interested hackdom to actually make you talk to the people necessary to get you into political position.
Nathan Newman