Best place to bone up on fighting the power

Want to learn why protesters have swarmed around trade ministers over the past year in Seattle and Washington and Prague? Or why incomes for CEOs and the wealthy are soaring, but your paychecks don't seem to be growing that much? Then check out the second floor of 37 Temple Place in Downtown Crossing, near Boston Common.

The building houses several progressive nonprofits, including United for a Fair Economy, a group that takes stands on income inequality, economic globalization, and other issues. The organization runs teach-ins, provides resources to grassroots groups and journalists, and helps organize events like the "shadow conventions" that unfolded alongside the major-party conventions this summer.

The methods are creative - coordinating a satirical group called Billionaires for Bush, for example. But the message is serious and ambitious. "It's really a movement-building organization . . . it's to raise action and awareness about the growing divide between rich and poor," says Dara Silverman, the group's national organizer. "We make the economy something that you can grasp and deal with, and not just something that makes your eyes glaze over when you read the paper."

To learn more about United for a Fair Economy, call (617) 423-2148 or visit www.ufenet.org.