>There is probably a lot of support for at least some of the
>anti-globalization issues---but ordinary people need a way to express
>that support and apparently stupid things like stickers, pins, and
>information pamphlets provide them with a means to express that
>support.
I think you can say the point stronger-- there is no inherent difference in expressing your support through wearing a pin versus fighting with cops on a barricade, except how the state and others respond to your particular protest. In a sense, the level of repression by the state often determines what actions are seen as radical. Wearing a pin saying "I support the 5th Amendment" would be a pretty weany action in most groups right now, but wearing it in the early 1950s as McCarthy was bearing down would have been pretty significant. And wearing a pro-union pin in a non-union workplace is damn radical even today.
And for a lot of folks, if they wear a nice political pin to their normally non-political bowling group or church picnic, it could be a pretty radical in that social setting.
Frankly, among my friends, fighting with cops up in Quebec (or staring them down in DC) is not so much daring as kind of cool, and therefore it actually has less political effect. People measure the political meaning of actions partly by what they think people are giving up or risking in order to make that statement.
There were complaints about labor folks just quietly marching through the streets (as there were in Seattle), but I would bet among the friends of those union folks, the fact that they gave up a weekend to be there is probably seen as pretty significant.
Organizing is all about recognizing that there are a whole range of different people in society, who will be moved to action and changes in social consciousness through a range of different tactics. If you are unwilling to go to jail for your beliefs, no radical change will likely be possible. But if you disdain letter writing campaigns and other tactics to reach and empower new folks, no radical change will be possible either.
-- Nathan Newman