For us, political power and left principles are mutually exclusive. So the point is to stay away from mass politics. Somehow this experiment got off the ground. And while it may have lost some momentum, it doesn't seem to have crashed. The answer is political action.
Some observers lament the decline of the old Bolognese political passions.
Yet even in the mid-nineties Bologna's political participation is off any scale Americans are used to. In 1994, when Berlusconi tried to cut back the welfare state, demonstrations broke out in cities all across Italy. More than a million people protested in Rome. In Bologna 250,000 turned out. A demo of comparable size to Bo's in New York City would have to rally 5 million protesters.