I agree wholeheartedly. Except that herding cats is easy. You just drag a big
dish of Meow-Mix behind your horse and the cats will follow you right into the
corral.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Michael Perelman wrote:
> Doug has been asking about how to organize. You cannot organize masses of
> people now for socialism. For to many, socialism is an extension of the
> Russian gulag. My own LIMITED experience in organizing has taught me that
> you begin with small goals that can be reached. I recall in my Berkeley
> days, Michael Lerner standing on Sproul Hall day after day -- we are
> talking about behavior not ideas here -- rallying the troops to get
> arrested, then showing up next week for an entirely different issue with no
> mention whatsoever of the cost of the last operation. Continuity is
> essential. You have to get as many people involved as possible --
> collecting information, setting up means of communication.
>
> You cannot be overly reliant on a single figure. It has to be collective.
> This collectivity would be key if somehow the reins of government were to
> fall into the hands of the people.
>
> You cannot tell how everything will progress. As a result, recipes are
> worse than useless. But you must learn from the experience of other
> places. Marx never touched on how socialism would be organized until the
> Paris Commune, which gave him the first clues about what could be --
> although he was critical of what they did.
>
> So right now the important thing is not to determine how the ministry of
> nuts and bolts will be organized, but to develop the practice of working
> together, struggling together ....
>
> Jim Devine once told me that organizing anything on pen-l -- we were
> discussing the possibility of creating a textbook -- was like herding
> cats. I would love to prove him wrong.
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
