On Thu, June 5, 1997 at 09:48:29 (-0700) Doug Henwood writes: >Michael Perelman wrote: > >>The answer is that I would not even think of coming up with such a >>program. I would devote my energies to reinvigorating the grass roots. >>In the U.S., much the most progressive legislation in our history came >>during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? >>Of course not. People were in the streets. >... > >Michael, you have a point here, but it's not enough to talk about the grass >roots. Of course any seriously radical movement needs a mass base, but >that's not enough. Most ordinary folks are completely confused by what's >going on and feel utterly alone and powerless. To reinvigorate the grass >roots requires explaining to people the world as it is and as it might be. >That's what radical intellectuals are supposed to do, but we're not doing >much of it. I think this is right on the money. But it is probably an implicit part of Michael's "reinvigorating the grass roots", don't you think?. I guess we should let him answer. Anyway, we have RI -> DUI -> DA (Radical Intellectuals produce Democratically Useful Information, which will/can lead to Democratic Action). But my little model misses something, RI -> DTM -> DUI -> DA, where DTM is the Democratic Transmission Mechanism. I'm curious, being a not-yet-activist-intellectual, which DTMs do folks (activists and people) find most (cost) effective? Radio? Magazines? Internet? Direct contact and speaking engagements? It seems TV would be the best, but for obvious reasons that's pretty hard. If we exclude TV as out of reach (for the moment), and we assume that radical intellectuals will be working with relatively meager resources (meaning a labor-intensive production model), how do we recruit more "workers" to join the project? Would not one reasonable effort be to study *this* aspect of things actively, alongside the other subjects we see here? Would it be useful to come up with a simple model of (long-term) social change that is comprehensible to the average person? Bill
