Not everyone, however, shares this love towards ISO members. Still, it's certainly hard to miss them at their daily post campaigning in front of the P.O. Members can't seem to stop talking about their convictions, and their weekly Wednesday night meetings tend to spill over into informal discussions before and after the gatherings. The Socialists met this week at the Gate before their meeting to converse informally before the more structured meeting in Wilson. There is excited chatter as members sitting around a table at the Gate praise the talk of the Chinese dissident who came to speak at Brown last Sunday.
Laughter follows, and then calls of approval.
Topics of discussion swing widely from current events such as the recent introduction of the death penalty in Massachussetts, to the corruption of the for-profit healthcare system, to the horrors of prison privitization. The issues are discussed with sarcastic laughter, disgust, and incredulity. Later on at the meeting, the topic is China, and people express their outrage at President Clinton's recent welcoming of Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Besides holding discussions on prearranged topics, the members use their meetings to vote on issues for future meetings, and plan strategies for upcoming events which they plan to support. Our basic model of operation is to build coalitions on any issue, to bring people in to struggle.