Yay! I wanted to attend your appearance, but I had other commitments that night. I did put your book in the front window of the infoshop today. Haven't read it yet but it sounds interesting.
I should probably apologize a little to Doug about my comments concerning NYC. Perhaps I'm the one with a warped perspective here. The political climate in Kansas City is much more favorable to leftists than I expected when I moved back. The liberals and progressives are very active here. They can annoy me sometimes, but people around here generally get along. It helps that we have an excellent independent radio station which provides a platform for local progressives and radicals. The labor movement here, from what I've seen, seems to be a bit more political, probably in part due to labor-oriented faculty at UMKC.
I'm impressed with all of the radicals I keep finding around here, of all ages. One teenager who has gotten involved in our infoshop seems to be more conversant with Marx's writings than I am. Or like this afternoon, when I was talking to a regular visitor to our infoshop who was a Black Panther in Kansas City when they started a chapter here.
On the anarchist side of the coin, the situation here in KC continues to astound me. We have a really nice infoshop, which you all know about. We're also seeing more anarchists from outside of the region stopping by. We have several collective house projects in the works. Students from local colleges are actively interested in anarchism and radical politics. We even have a network of anarchists in high schools here.
Friends on the coasts wonder why I stick around out here. I stick around because things are happening. I'm busy. I have as much going on here in K.C. as I did in D.C. If anything, even I miss out on half of the progressive stuff going on around here.
Chuck