<div>One of the major problem is the brain drain that the two coasts have in US political culture. When I was living in the Chicago area I saw repeatedly in the left groups I particiapted in that most groups recruited and then sent to their headquaters their best folk. Some groups began more of rotating door to New York. What happens to them there I havent a clue.</div> <div> </div> <div>I would suggest that left groups close down their coast offices and move inland. To areas with no left activity or very little. Get back to the real people... Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@gmail.com> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">On 3/24/07, andie nachgeborenen <ANDIE_NACHGEBORENEN@YAHOO.COM>wrote: > > All 10,000 of them. 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: 18protest.html us 18 03 2007 www.nytimes.com>) 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: us 03 2007 www.nytimes.com 20vigils.html 20>) 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 ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </BLOCKQUOTE>