We really don't even know how many leftists exist in the USA. Let's say that it's only 10,000. They say Jesus started with just twelve disciples, and look how far that has gone. If 10,000 can act together, that will be a great beginning. Those 10,000, planning an action together and bringing, say, ten each to the action, gets you an action of 100,000. The question is what is worth doing with that kind of number or slightly larger numbers, the things to do that can help build lasting networks, institutions, and so on and make circles of left politics larger and larger.
The other day, I was reading Brian Becker and other national anti-war coalition leaders quoted in the papers.
Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition
and a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said
the group held out little hope of influencing either the president
or Congress. "It is about radicalizing people," Mr. Becker said
in an interview. "You hook into a movement that exists -- in this
case the antiwar movement -- and channel people who care
about that movement and bring them into political life,
the life of political activism." (David D. Kirkpatrick and Sarah
Abruzzese, "In March, Protesters Recall War Anniversaries," <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/us/18protest.html>)
Ms. [Lisa] Fithian said she hoped Monday's events would educate
the public about the cost of war and build more momentum
for opposing it. "If more and more people took action to stop
the war," she said, "we might be able to turn things around."
(Libby Sander, "On 4th Anniversary of War, a Day of Vigils
and Protests," <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20vigils.html>)
But holding local and national demonstrations and getting people to come to them obviously doesn't help "radicalize" people nor does it bring people into "political life" except episodically, for between demonstrations people have nowhere to go, except to business meetings (which most meetings on the Left are) and occasional cultural activities where such exist. What has been done is not working, so we have to think about things we haven't been doing (or used to do but have stopped doing) but are worth trying (or resurrecting). -- Yoshie