Sirota, is a progressive political organizer and newspaper columnist. He has worked in both state and national politics for many years. In this book, he investigatges grassroots political activism on both the left and right sides of the spectrum, and looks at what works and what doesn't. It has an odd perspective in being by someone who knows politics from the inside following those who are outsiders in the process of learning how to get inside power and make it work for them.

The book seems a bit disjointed in that it goes to different pats of the U.S. and different types of organizations... all of it interesting, but sometimes it is hard to find the unifying them. He dsicusses politics in Montana and how Gov. Schweitzer uses the issues of the right to bring in some progressive reform. He also discusses three Senators who don't fit the norms, Jon Tester of Montana, Bernie Sanders, socialist independent from Vermont, and Sharrod Brown of Ohio. There
s a lengthy section on the Minuteman in the border states and about shareholder resolutions that strike terror into the hearts of CEOs.

Fascinating glimpse of how power works and how it can be disrupted and re-channelled. ( )