A very interesting piece. I was curious as to your comment about “public policy creating the building blocks”. Is it not the people that create the building blocks through their everyday actions? Unions, civic organizations, and faith communities have more responsibly to my mind, than does the state in progressive change. As Tony Benn has said, the legislature only ratifies the peoples’ choice as expressed in mass action. That choice is generally expressed in the street long before the legislature ever takes the matter up. On our side of the Atlantic, it was marches and sit-ins that spurred civil rights legislation, not benign elected personalities. Saying that, I give great credit to the Johnson Administration for its pro-activeness.

I am curious as to your vision of an American social democratic organization. Have you chosen a name? Do you see your group as a Jewish organization (e.g. the Bund), a culturally Jewish organization ( e.g. the Workmen’s Circle) or a multi-cultural secular group? I know from reading your other writings that you admire New Labour in Britain. Do you see the same kind of split between party intelligentsia and the unions that New Labour created in an American social democratic movement.? I am not sure how that would be a self-funding organization short of being a mere debating society.

Though we disagree on these issues, I want to thank you again for an entertaining article.

Fraternally,

Gabriel McCloskey-Ross, director Social Democrats, USA