Arianna Huffington, on her web site (the Huffington Post) has been coming up with various initiatives to kick off grassroots movements. One prompts people to boycott the big banks and switch their accounts to credit unions, etc. Doug Henwood criticized this one. While I agree in principle with the limitations of such a movement as argued by Doug, I think one thing is to assess its plausibility to address the ultimate courses of the crisis (zero) and its validity as a source of popular motion (a small positive number, given the discontent with the big banks).
More recently (and perhaps more to our liking), she invited students to blog on their protests against tuition hikes, student loan issues, etc. This apparently started in California, where things have been coming to a head. We may have heard about the recent riot in Berkeley. There's now a scheduled national Day of Action. This seems promising. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/day-of-action-dawns-with_n_485299.html On a related matter, I was yesterday at a public hearing with the NYC public advocate (De Blasio) on parental involvement in public school issues. It was at the Brooklyn boro hall, well attended. One could feel the discontent with the status quo, way beyond strict school issues. I made a 2-minute speech, in which I told De Blasio, "You asked for ideas [on how to resolve the issues of school closings, budget cuts]. I'm ready to march on Washington" -- which got me a big applause. We want this energy to get organized and focused. Initiatives like those A. Huffington is coming up with are welcome, I think. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
