RE: [Marxism] Numbers question

["Jose G. Perez" <elgusanorojo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Bunyan writes, "Years ago I lived in a city of 170,000, and wanted
to get involved in the Democratic party. There were no clubs or precinct
organizations. All "activists" became part of the County Central
Committee, all 35 or 40 of them."

The other night I was talking to former and soon-to-be-again U.S. Rep.
Cynthia McKinney. She came to a meeting of the Coordinating Council of
Latino Community Leaders in Atlanta to offer her support. (NB what I
said: to *offer* her support, not to ask for ours -- yes, Cynthia is
different). 

I asked her how many people had worked on her July 21 primary campaign,
because it was a "grass roots" campaign without huge TV ad budgets and
so on. She said hundreds, maybe a thousand volunteers all told.

That, of course, is totally extraordinary, your typical large local
campaign will involve dozens not hundreds. But it does involve them. And
there are dozens of races on the ballot.

Friends, extended families, neighbors, members of the same church, PTA
association and Girl Scout troop leaders, not to mention chambers of
commerce, knights of columbus and myriad other things. The Democrats and
Republicans reach deeply into the population and especially professional
and other middle-class layers. They are not structured formally as party
activists but rather informally especially around individual candidates
or in things like unions and non-profits. Just about every institution
of civil society can and does become an extension of their apparatus.
That is what it means to have political and ideological hegemony.

José


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