Comments on: Oh well, It Was Fun While It Lasted…

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:52:48 +0000

Oh I am so glad that I retired. Remember Dylan when he sang, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

By: dave r

dave r — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:08:56 +0000

I couldn’t agree with you more David. Seems like a lot of folks are just into padding their “activist” resume. Unfortunately, these issues aren’t just native to Hartford. I’ve seen attitudes like the ones your describing all over this country.
However, I have also met and work/ed with many righteous individuals in and around Hartford and beyond too…so luckily not everyone is a jerk. But I hate to say it, but it’s gotten to the point where I generally don’t trust anyone who calls themselves an activist these days.

I have more thoughts on this, but I think I’ll leave it to another time and place.

By: David Samuels

David Samuels — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:38:29 +0000

While reading Wolin’s observations about the progressive movement, my first thought was that he must have worked as a community activist in Hartford. After burning through three Hartford based community organizations over the past few years, I wholeheartedly agree with Wolin’s opinion that the Left’s total inability to organize is its fatal flaw.

Being a black man, I don’t consider myself to be a member of the Left. The division between blacks & whites in community organizing is the elephant in the room who has taken up permanent residence. Sexism is rampant. This work is overrun by individuals who are too busy pursuing personal agendas to actually help the people. The progressive “movement” is a fractured, morally ambiguous train wreck. “Activists” are either using this work as a stepping stone to a political career, chasing grant checks, or pursuing good ol’self aggrandizement;”Look, I have a blog! I post a comment after every single article in every other blog! I’m involved in every group & issue in the state! Everybody knows me!” The nauseating competition for money,influence & notoriety within the progressive “movement” is akin to a fight for the best deck chair on the Titanic.

By: Peter G

Peter G — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:12:54 +0000

So what do we do?

If you want to begin a discussion about what we can build at the local, grassroots level to defend the interests of working class people, come to the Community Meeting for a People’s Bailout this Saturday, February 7 from 1-4pm at Hartford City Hall, Council Chambers.

The economic crisis is just that – a crisis and an emergency. The responses to it so far, even by our liberal and progressive friends, have been business-as-usual. “Official” unemployment of 12 percent is on the horizon, but that translates into real unemployment that could be double that amount – and even higher in poor urban and rural areas. That’s why even some mainstream capitalist economists believe that Obama’s stimulus plan will be far too little and too late to stop the economic decline, and even under that plan there will be millions of us unemployed and facing foreclosures and evictions.

Faced with a challenge to our survival, working class people must demand that the government treat this as the emergency that it is. Don’t cut the budget, fund the budget – maintain vital services and keep people working! Put a 2 year moratorium on all residential foreclosures and evictions! Expand and extend unemployment benefits!