. . . and not just whistling dixie about the resistance they will face from a mostly hidden, but pernicious infrastructure of power and control that's even older than the Nixonites.
No one should be sanguine about what we're up against, but you are correct that we need to keep organizing toward that effort to put progressive people in positions of authority, beginning on the local level.
I just finished listening to a conversation, a town hall, in St Louis at the Missouri History Museum - a 3-hour community townhall which organizer and speaker Kevin Powell, an activist, writer; President & co-founder of @BKNationOrg, who noted was 'packed, standing-room only, featuring real, raw, honest emotions, dialogue, networking, action steps.'
I couldn't help but be transfixed by the number of youth standing up to address the crowd who had energy and motivation behind the ideas and experiences they shared.
Ferguson, like Wounded Knee, and other tragic, but transformational events in our history, has afforded us another chance to draw the energy and emotion of those looking in and concerned into something concrete, productive, and sustaining; in that community and others.
That's not going to be accomplished without folks willing to wade past the deliberate obstructions and diversions and focus on empowering as many of us as we can manage to make those political changes we want to see - beginning, as you say, on the local level.
Travel is preferable, for sure, but there are hosts of other ways we can employ to network and support these efforts - DU is one of them; many others exist and are emerging using social media for more than tweeting about Beyonce's hair (as lovely as it may well be).
Anyway, thanks for the history and challenge . . .