Grassroots social change: lessons from an anarchist organizer (review of Chris Crass, Towards Collective Liberation)

Many progressives around the world look at the United States and are repelled by its extremes of wealth and poverty, enormous military, massive prison population, excessive gun violence, inhumane welfare policies, reckless environmental destruction, and aggressive and self-interested foreign policy. US trade policies have contributed to impoverishment in many countries; US troops are stationed in dozens of countries around the globe. The US is the embodiment of a dangerous - even rogue - state, anomalous when compared to European social democracies or even other English-speaking countries. The US is the only wealthy industrialized country never to have had a significant communist, socialist or labor party; there is little articulation of left-wing politics within the political system. Outsiders relying on mainstream news reports have an additional problem: there is hardly any coverage of grassroots activism.