Last spring, I took one of the online seminars offered by The Institute for Social Ecology. The readings we discussed, most of them by and about Murray Bookchin and Antonio Gramsci, addressed questions of organization and activism. It was, to over-simplify, the old question of revolution versus reform. The answer I took was to reject the either/or. Yes, work outside existing political structures to create democratic alternatives. And yes, work I inside existing political structures to make them more friendly to these alternatives. When I try to graft—again, crudely, without nuance—this both/and answer onto the topic I wrote about a Read more