Are We Neglecting the Next Activist Generation?

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:



Are We Neglecting the Next Activist Generation?

While it's great that young people are so excited about the Democratic candidate this year, progressives need to focus on encouraging young activists to do non-Obama-centric work.

Courtney E. Martin | August 11, 2008 | web only



Sometimes it seems as if Obama's light is so bright that progressives are being blinded. As we pump money into his campaign and sing his praises from office watercoolers to family reunions, we seem to be settling into a smug sort of mono-vision. So long deprived of a truly compelling candidate, progressives can only revel -- perhaps prematurely -- in the idea that they will finally get to be the big winners come November.

But what about the November four years from now? And the one after that? And what about the November when Barack and Michelle's daughter, Sasha, is old enough to run for president?

Michael Connery, a blogger at Future Majority and author of Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority, has his eyes on a much more distant prize than the November election. He dreams not of late-night revelry on Nov. 2 but of a progressive machine -- the kind of machine that conservatives have enjoyed for decades. As the imagined machines’ wheels turn, he envisions progressive job placement, networking opportunities, and training for organizers, journalists, and future politicians. Connery wants to create an army of anti-Coulters and anti-Roves: young people who are not only impassioned but exquisitely trained and working for progressive goals.

You might think that Obama's candidacy would be the ultimate gift for a dreamer like Connery, but instead it is proving to be something of a curse.

It began in May when Obama's campaign started "steering the candidate's wealthy supporters away from independent Democratic groups," according to Politico's Ben Smith. Instead of funding outside groups (like The Bus Federation and Democrats Work), his campaign reassured wealthy Democrats that they would handle training the next generation of youth organizers, dubbed "campaign fellows." Fellowship programs -- three-day training courses in political organizing -- kicked off across the country, and students signed up in droves. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=are_we_neglecting_the_next_activist_generation