The Sit Down | We're Back! Talking with Matt Breidenstein and Ajay Joshi from PhillyProgressives.com

Welcome to the first 2017 edition of The Sit Down. In 2017 we are going to be focused on organizing and building power.

 

When I started teaching at Kutztown, some of my courses focused on rhetorics of globalization. It wasn’t long before students began showing up at my office hours saying they wanted to get involved with more activism, but that Kutztown was “too conservative” or “most students are apathetic” or “nothing is going on here.” Well, after a few weeks of a constant stream of students coming to me to say a version of that same narrative, it became pretty clear that the problems students were having was not about “apathy” it was about a lack of a network and the lack of experience building political networks. So, I began putting students in touch with each other - and helping them build their networks. In less than a year we had an active and successful United Students Against Sweatshops chapter, a student labor group, and we had build a network with student activists in the region.

The fact is that that one of the most important challenges we face on the left is that of isolation. And I see this again and again across Pennsylvania. That was one of the reasons, in fact, that I started Raging Chicken Press in 2011. That is why I was thrilled when Matt Breidenstein contacted me over a month ago about a project he and a group of other progressives were working on in the Philadelphia region: PhillyProgressives.com.

Today on the Sit Down I am pleased to welcome Matt Breidenstein and Ajay Joshi, two of the co-founders of PhillyProgressives.com to talk about the launch of their project to connect progressives and activists across the region.

Welcome Matt and Ajay!

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