The organizers of the Leftelect conference said that it exceeded their expectations in attendance and results. While I am no less excited and pleased, the results–the idea of holding another conference at some point–had been very predictable. I was hardly disappointed by this, because we really had no reason to expect more, but it is important to note that participants in the conference were ready to do more.
I have little to add to the descriptions of the conference by Louis Proyect of The North Star and Dan Labotz of The New Politics, the latter also being one of the conference organizers. However, I did want to underscore a few issues that merit particular thought about this historic gathering. Towards the close of the first day, supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders circulated an open letter from the newly declared Democratic presidential candidate expressing his solidarity with the goals of the conference and reminding us of his efforts on behalf of independent candidates at Richmond, Madison, and Chicago. While such a development should have surprised nobody, the conference thereafter seemed haunted by the Sanders’ campaign. It could have addressed this by appointing a committee to draft a response. (After getting home, John Halle, Fred Murphy and myself made a very respectable job at doing this in a few emails.) Then, either the conference organizers could have send it or the conference itself could have voted to send it. full: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=12268 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
