Without an understanding of the issue of race and a willingness to confront it head on, the working class will not build its strength.

The main dividing line is still race. This is the issue that must be focused upon in all working class organizations.

All of the youth ferment on campuses is a very good thing. Lots of people are being permanently transformed and will do good thing throughout their lives. However, young people must be careful not to be coopted, even by labor unions and the like. They must keep their eye on a radical transformation of society.

Most people in this country, while they might not be happy about things, also are woefully ignorant about many things. Sometimes people can learn, but other times they have to be confronted.

With respect to teaching, I couldn't make sense of mainstream economics when I had to teach it to college students. At the same time, I could see at the school that there was a whole lot of hypocrisy. Not much real respect for the "higher learning."

You have to get out in the world and meet folks on their own turf, something which a lot of urban radical intellectuals seldom do.

The system has a way of convincing people that because they live in the USA they are better off than all other people in the world. This gets them focused on the wrong things, of course, but it has been a tried and true way of deflecting class struggle, something I don't think Marx didn't fully anticipated. The education system, and the whole culture really, has a lot to do with how these feelings are transmitted to each new generation. When parents say their kids were heroes when they died for nothing in Iraq, you can see the power of this.