Note by Hunterbear: [Hunter Gray / John R Salter, Jr] First off, I didn't sign the pro-Lerner letter/petition -- even though it does contain the names of several who are old and very long-standing friends of mine. I waited until the basic factual situation emerged and I'm comfortable with my personal decision on the matter. Whenever I come to these junctures, I recall my Native father's admonitions to his hot-tempered half-breed sons, "Don't shoot from the hip unless you absolutely have to." I also recall my very old and very good friend and colleague, over many turbulent years in the South [and far beyond], the always-elder and uncompromising-on-principles Miss Ella J. Baker, who -- in the context of an intra-Movement factional issue -- would see dark clouds emerging from my soul and eyes and lippy mouth, and would grin and say, "You young people are on fire -- but remember, John, it takes more than just that. Organizing and building pockets of peoples' power -- and thinking -- that's what it takes."
And I've always been an organizer. Always will be. For what it may be worth, I've consistently felt the "Iraq War" can be avoided -- and I continue to be very hopeful on that score. But I have a haunting memory. Following our long sojourn in the Southern Movement -- 1961-1967 -- Eldri and I and our growing family were in the Pacific Northwest where we were involved in a number of very solid activist things and then spent a pleasant -- but actively activist year at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We got over to nearby Iowa City with some frequency -- commendably awash in those days with anti-war demonstrations and all sorts of on-lookers. At the conclusion of that academic year [1968-69], we went on to the South/Southwest Side of Chicago for four years of intensive community organizing in that setting -- and Indian involvements on the Northside. In the late summer of 1973 we moved to Iowa City where I had accepted a professorship in the Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning at UI [and adjunct in Social Work and Health and Hospital Administration.] By then, the radical movement at Iowa City was very small. The public demonstrations were extremely so -- and the curious farmers no longer gathered to stare with wonder. Good activist work could be done -- and we certainly did whatever we could -- always. But it was not, even in '73 and '74, "the old days." The "War Question" is Writ Big at this point. But beyond it, is another: Can the present Movement -- once the War situation is resolved in either a relatively peaceful fashion, or bloodily -- transpose at least a great big part of itself into a genuinely radical American Movement? I, myself, don't mean "the two old parties" -- including the Democratic Party. Independent, essentially Left political action makes far better good sense to me -- and the need for this is certainly underscored emphatically by the cruel realities of the current American scene. I'm talking about genuine grassroots "people organizing" on a wide range of currently compelling issues -- and toward bona fide socialist democracy "over the mountains yonder." In a nutshell, this is how I see solid organizing: An effective organizer seeks to get grassroots people together -- and does; develops on-going and democratic local leadership; deals effectively with grievances and individual/family concerns; works with the people to achieve basic organizational goals and develop new ones; and builds a sense of the New World To Come Over The Mountains Yonder -- and how all of that relates to the shorter term steps. In the Summer of '67, Ella Baker and I sat one long and very pleasant afternoon on the front porch of her old family home at Littleton, North Carolina -- Halifax County. Much had happened since we had first met in the very earliest part of the turbulent '60s. Can the student and related movements of today get down eventually to basic grassroots organizing on long-term issues -- toward the ever-broadening and deepening "pockets of grassroots peoples' power?" I was vigorously optimistic. She was hopeful. We saw one another at different points in the years that followed. More than a decade after the long visit at Littleton on the Movement future, Ella and I visited at length again at her Harlem apartment [10 West 135th Street, if I recall correctly] on that general topic. I was the stormy director of social justice activities for the Catholic Diocese of Rochester, -- in town for a meeting of the New York State Catholic Conference. By then, Ella and I both wondered, "Will it -- the Movement -- come again?" I leave it at that -- for the moment. To return briefly to a present Movement controversy, I repost my piece of several days ago: FUSSING ABOUT WORKERS WORLD -- VS. THE CHALLENGE OF THE REAL REALITIES I don't know a great deal -- or even much at all -- about Workers World. [I remember it slightly from the early and mid '60s but it was only a very peripheral and minor presence in the South.] But it is my understanding that it presently numbers much less than a thousand nationally. This means you could cut a very small slice from Pocatello, Idaho [total population about 50,000 or so] right here and have far more souls than WW. At this point, it's an easy target for Redbaiters and reactionaries and ex-radicals and sanctimonious/supercilious "liberals" -- but, if it weren't around, they'd find many other scapegoats [and are -- including DSA!]. WW, like anything else, is certainly not beyond thoughtful criticism at all -- but I'm not impressed with people who are spending their basic time and passion attacking WW -- or any other Left outfit at this point -- when the world teeters on the brink of one of the worst regional disasters in human history, when unemployment and subemployment in this country are carrying us straight to Hell in a handbucket, when farmers and ranchers are continuing to lose their land in the Great Plains [and elsewhere], and when Bush/Ashcroft/Ridge are testing our democratic foundations with wave after wave of what I call "wistful fascism." [I do think our basic democratic institutions will survive the assault.] Nor am I at all impressed with those who "use" the presence of WW as an excuse to cop out of social activism -- either via transference or outright retreat. I gather WW, along with many others, has done an effective job in organizing and mobilizing people in the anti-War cause -- and started, commendably, along with many others, with the "previous" and still on-going "war" in Afghanistan [which, of course, set the stage for this Iraq crisis.] If WW has anything solid to offer over the long haul, it'll grow; if not, it won't. The relatively free minds of people can still reject error and grab truth. Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] DSA Anti-Racism, Solidarity, CCDS, SPUSA www.hunterbear.org Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ and Ohkwari' In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and remembering way. [Hunterbear] _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
