Besides DU

and I'm not sure those here that I would consider "left" are sufficiently organized to be related to . . . but, if you can figure out how that would work, sure!

My family is from Cornwall, well half of it is and I almost went this year but the flights were so expensive due to the Queen's Jubilee. Maybe next Spring. Or sooner if we inaugurate the International DU USBrit United!

My great-grandparents are from Crowan, emigrated here in 1888. Still in touch with a cousin in Hayle. Someday I'm coming back to visit the "old country"! Jealous of your health care.

Many people from Cornwall came over to look for gold. There's some kind of association for families of Cornish origin in Northern CA.

Came over to work in coal mines (from tin mines there). Lots of Cornish in Michigan too who came to work in mines.

I am first generation but think my ancestors were miners, or pirates!

There's a sadness in Cornwall under the surface and I attribute that to the history of mining and deaths from mining and the sea. I might be imagining that... they also have lots of faeries and pasties to make up for it!

My family used to vacation in the UP frequently, and my favorite thing was stopping at some little roadside place that sold fresh pasties.

Kent. Where's my map.

She's on twitter, witches are on twitter these days.

Gemma Gary ?@gemma_gary

@Downstrodden Having been born in Kent I would love to see such a book )

She'd probably be available for a session, but what would that be like?
I would probably try out some witches if I could spend the time! And
maybe the money, just to learn about the history and traditions.

Someone in my family was in a coven in fact. They would worship "sky clad"
if you get my drift. It was hip back in the 70s I think.

http://www.cornishwitchcraft.co.uk/

I'm a sucker for certain kinds of woo. I went to a pagan festival in Cornwall in my teens and it was fabulous, all kinds of nutty things going on. Later, I found out about various kinds of shamanism in other countries. Animism, paganism, I don't dismiss it! It would be a good thing if people revered nature again and rediscovered some human capabilities that are not so easy to quantify.

It's easier to evoke from the moors or cliffs of Cornwall than the freeway in California however.

What you see are INDIVIDUALS who are left, but organized? No, not really.

And that is where you guys could possibly help.

I use the term loosely, since the US has had a long history of persecution of the left. The reason it is all but organized is that long history.

The Center for American Progress is one of those think tanks.

Now there are groups, that would hardly self identify as left, even if technically they are, The Iraq and Afghanistan Vets, Vets for Peace, Occupy (I know shocking since they do not get it more than a few individual tea party members). Now why would none of these groups self identify as old left, new left or plainly left? This democracy has a long history of persecution, starting in the early 20th century with the Turner Raids, and damn it, we both know how successful your inauguration was as needling our Political Right, by it's celebration of the NHS. But I digress, our free society is free as long as you do not make too many waves... and those commies, and socialists (we both know they are not the same) need to be crushed.

What Americans need is lessons in effective organizing but chiefly to lose that fear of saying it, I am a social democrat, I am not afraid to say it... (and I know what it means), but that is what we need.

Go to oh an Occupier gathering, and they will use the accepted term, I am progressive... even though a few of them are down right Socialists, with all the implications of the term. I had those conversations, but they really need a backbone.

It is truly almost a century of this crap.

Who knew? There are some leftists in the US, and even a very few in politics, but there doesn't seem to be any unified "left" in the US at all... not that I've noticed much of one in the UK, but at least being a socialist isn't considered a bad thing.

the global fascists have already done so. Time to get organized.

The swindle is on a worldwide scale. Those are multi-national corporatists who have no allegiance to any nation.

Oh, wait ... here comes the hidden post patrol ...

Every time I peruse the comments section in some U.K. paper online -- most recently The Independent after the Romney gaffes, I'm struck by the near-universal maturity of tone and the easy dry humor. I know comment sections are just a sliver of the community, but stateside it sure is a big, nasty, crazy sliver. It's stomach churning. I don't see that with the U.K. papers.

For example, I just took in the comments after an article in the Orlando Sentinel (my hometown paper) about a ballot initiative to ensure paid sick leave for all workers (and how the mayor is opposed to it on "free enterprise" grounds). I'm actively supporting it and wondered what people thought. I needn't have bothered. The ratio of thoughtful commentary vs. "Lazy libtards chasin' all the job creators away with their socialist plot" was about 10:1 (in favor of crazy).

In contrast, commentators on the U.K. story, who I admit seemed saner in part because they were chuckling at Romney, nevertheless did so calmly, without epithets or references to any kind of culture war. Scrolling down (and down and down) I eventually came across a few conservative comments that approached U.S. levels of Internet nuttery (something about "Barry Obama" was one). But the ratio was completely reversed.

Maybe it's the U.K. papers I look at vs. the sad state of the seething masses here in Orlando. I do remember reading some strange racist comments in The Guardian once. Something about Italian immigrants being brutish or something. But by and large it just seems like people in the U.K. are ... smarter? Better educated? Or maybe it's just that they don't have a huge segment of the population that's bought into the truly nonsensical corporatist culture war nonsense we have here.