> In northern cities in the late '60s inner-city riots were above all
> a form of communication. Such forms of communication are (usually)
> a precondition of more organized and coherent action.
"Compare Chiapas to South Central Los Angeles a couple of years ago, the uprising there. In a sense, they were about the same thing. They were about the social policies which are marginalizing and making superfluous a huge part of the population. South Central Los Angeles is an area where people used to have jobs. There were industries, there were furniture factories, heavy industry. Well, they've gone to places where you can get cheaper labor and you don't have to worry about the environment. So these people are essentially useless. They have no human rights any more because they don't contribute to wealth production. And they're just declining.
"Well, Chiapas is a similar situation. Of course, Chiapas is objectively, much poorer -- fewer television sets and bathtubs and so on. On the other hand, it's striking that in Chiapas, one of the most impoverished sectors of the hemisphere, there is still a lively, vibrant society, which has a cultural tradition of freedom and social organization. So they were able to respond in a highly constructive way. They were able to organize, they have positions, they have public support.
"Now take a look at South Central Los Angeles. That was just a riot. This is the response of a completely demoralized society, where it's just disintegrated. It doesn't have social bonds, it doesn't have goals, doesn't have hopes. And that's the difference. That tells a lot about the United States, actually."
-- Noam Chomsky, interview <http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9403-wrct.html>
So, in his eyes, the riots were *not* an antecedent to organized action, but a consequence of it's absence. The conditions were there, but the effective ability wasn't.
-- Shane
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