Reply #63: I'm a "pliers" guy -- I want "pragmatic" and "movement" folk working together like a pair of pliers

[struggle4progress]

to squeeze our opponents

The political and economic establishment has an inevitable inertia: it will always tend to run along the existing track, reinforced by monied interests and corporate media propaganda. Only people-power, set in motion by grassroots community organizing, can effectively confront that

Establishment inertia means that the fights for worker safety and security, environmental protection, social justice, and human rights will continue into the foreseeable future. We will always need a vision of where we would like to be, but the fights themselves involve pragmatic tactical and strategic planning, based on whatever resources we can actually muster and based on what progress we think we can actually make at a given moment

I have great respect for principled pragmatists. To proceed correctly, we need to build a large active grassroots movement of people who can analyze in detail various aspects of our current political and economic system, who have some organizing experience and some political experience, who are willing to compromise when necessary but will not compromise too much or too quickly

Two steps forward, one step back: all day, every day