Umm, the labor march didn't happen until after the WTO meetings had been delayed for half a day. Get your chronology straight.
There are several reasons why the police avoid labor marches. The main reason is because they know that marchers have been tamed by union management that colludes with the capitalist class. Nothing ever happens at a labor march that goes beyond marching, speakers, and placard-waving. Look at that really boring 5-part video on the WTO. It really manages to catch the disempowering aspect of the whole labor march. While activists were getting gassed downtown, union members were listening to boring speeches from labor leaders. To their credit, some of the union members escaped the disempowering discipline of the labor march and joined the barricades downtown.
This was mostly symbolic, but it points to the turn that labor will have to make if it wants to be a force again. For starters, it needs to chuck the business unions like the AFL-CIO, get rid of internal union hierarchies, get rid of the pro-capitalist union bosses, and so on. Labor could also use a purge of Leftist labor-fetishists who strive to become the middle management of the labor movement. These control freak opportunists should be given a kick in the pants and sent to do some shitwork.
> Think maybe the Clinton White House had something to do with this?
Sunspots.
<< Chuck0 >>
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