Sean Tarjoto							Urban Political Economy
Prof. Neil Brenner						December 5, 2001

Reaction & Questions to Eric Mann articles@ 
http://www.thestrategycenter.org/body_left_choice.html
http://www.thestrategycenter.org/body_rlabu_chpt_4.html

The LA-based Labor/Community Strategy Center Director Eric Mann has developed an dialectical organizing model based on theory/action. His “think act/act tank” is struggling to create a powerful Left force in L.A. and catalyst a greater movement to reform capitalism. What can progressives in New York learn from the sibling city? 
Mann asks the people at the Center, the Left, and a movement as a whole to ask questions w/o self-censorship, or acquiescence to ideals of “empowerment” vs. power, “inclusion” vs. independence. He is a democratic centralist, but he gets things done.  
Draft questions:
1) What role does the Metro Studies program play in the larger progressive community?
2) In what spaces and places does Met  program flesh these issues out? Offices, listserves and panels?
3) Is the Met program “confined” to the campus? When and where did this happen?

"We want a 50 cent bus fare with a free transfer." 
"We want a $20 unlimited use monthly bus pass." 
"We want 2,000 new compressed natural gas or other clean fuel buses, until electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses are available—and we want them built in L.A. in low-income communities." 
"We want an end to privatization and a stop to the busting of the bus drivers and mechanics unions." 
"We want an end to all rail construction that is stealing funds from the bus system." 
"We want an elected MTA board, not the appointed one we have." 
"We want an end to transit racism." 
One reporter incredulously said, "You don't sound like a protest group. You sound like you want to run the MTA." "You got that right," a BRU member responded.