RE: Re: Speaking of What's Left

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Anonymous wrote:>... organizations like Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS)and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)believed in the
ideal of engaged "participatory democracy." They believed this was more
likely to occur in smaller, more decentralized organizations where everyone
could "do their own thing." These smaller groups would also allow young
people to overcome the racism, sexism, imperialism, and other shortcomings
of the older, top-down organizations who refused to respond to growing
demands from the grassroots.<

of course, such decentralized groups as the SDS "did their own thing" one
time [1969] in the form of the "days of rage," in which a bunch of well-fed
white suburbanites went crazy in the streets of Chicago, in hopes that the
Black Youth would Rise Up and join them, overthrowing the System.

I like this statement's emphasis on from-the-bottom organizing, but
decentralization isn't always what it's advertised to be.
JD