As Carrol suggested, the main organizers of the march are trying consciously to fight against "electoralism" (i.e., looking to the ballot box alone for social change, marginalizing actions on the social movement front and excluding immigrant workers without voting rights), especially of the AnybodyButBush variety, which explains the timing of the march:
<blockquote>ONLY OUR OWN INDEPENDENT MOBILIZATION OF WORKING PEOPLE ACROSS AMERICA CAN OPEN THE WAY TO ADDRESSING OUR NEEDS AND OUR AGENDA. . . .
The time has come to mobilize working people for our own agenda. Let us end subservience to the power of the privileged few and their monopoly of the political process in America. ("Why Are We Marching?" <http://www.millionworkermarch.org/article.php?id=28>)</blockquote>
<blockquote>This call to put forward our own agenda in opposition to military adventurism abroad and class war at home serves notice that we will not be soft-soaped at election time and sold out immediately thereafter.
Today, it is abundantly clear that the corporations and banks that fund, control and drive forward the political process in America have abrogated the political will and aspirations of the great majority of working people. They are conducting an "election" that excludes the deepest aspirations of multi-millions of working families. . . .
Many of us are actively engaged in mass protests prepared for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Unions, anti-war coalitions, Peace and Justice Committees are reaching out. We call upon all to join together as one united force in Washington, D. C. on October 17. Together, we can build a unified movement.
We know that, regardless of the outcome of the elections, the war machine, the corporations and the banks, will seek to impose their plans for death and devastation. We know that our struggle is in its formative stage.
We know that we shall be facing even greater challenges after the election and in the months and years ahead. ("An Open Letter to the Anti-War Movement," <http://www.millionworkermarch.org/article.php?id=85>)</blockquote>
Besides, consider an increasing rate of absentee voting, which erodes the exclusive focus on the election day:
<blockquote>In all, whether by mail or in person, 19 percent of Americans already plan to vote early this fall, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. That number could reach 25 percent or even higher with the push in coming weeks, experts say.
And early it is. North Carolina's absentee voters will begin casting ballots on Sept. 13, a full 50 days before the election, followed soon after by voters in Maine, then Arizona and other swing states. The effect is an expanded voting season that has begun to erode the concept of Americans' coming together as one on Election Day. (Michael Moss, "Parties See New Promise When Ballot Is in the Mail," <em>New York Times</em>, August 22, 2004, p. 16)</blockquote>
Then, there are immigrants, many of whom do not have voting rights: "At 56 million, immigrants and their children comprise 20 percent of the U.S. population. . . . The foreign-born or first generation make up 21 percent of the nation's under-25 age group" ("U.S. Census Bureau Reports 56 Million Immigrants and Children," February 7, 2002, <http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/diversity/census02.htm>). Two out of three foreign-born individuals (the foreign-born constitute about 11% of the total US population) do not have voting rights ("Demographics and the 2000 Census," <http://www.ncsl.org/programs/immig/issuebrief051702.htm>). And a lot of them live in New York, the most important state for a demonstration in Washington D.C.:
<blockquote>In 1995, just prior to the implementation of welfare reform, New York had a foreign-born population of 3.4 million, representing 17.7 percent of the state's population. . . .
At 3.4 million,(4) New York has the second largest immigrant population among the states, trailing only California, which has a foreign-born population that is more than twice as large, 8.1 million. (See Table 1.) New York has a significantly larger foreign-born population than Florida (2.2 million) or Texas (2.1 million), the states with the third and fourth largest immigrant populations. The foreign-born constitute 17.7 percent of the New York State population, the second highest concentration in the country, but well below the percentage in California, 25.1 percent. On this measure, New York ranks slightly higher than Hawaii (16.6 percent, not shown in Table 1), Florida (15.2 percent), and New Jersey (14.6 percent)." (Jeffrey S. Passel and Rebecca L. Clark, "Immigrants in New York: Their Legal Status, Incomes, and Taxes," April 1, 1998, <http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?NavMenuID=24&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=6239>).</blockquote>
The march organizers know that immigrants are the future of the labor movement, calling for an amnesty for all undocumented workers ("Why Are We Marching?" <http://www.millionworkermarch.org/article.php?id=28>).
Lastly, the majority of voters live in one-party states. For the purpose of organizing a demonstration in Washington D.C., the most important political maps are "contiguous cartogram based on population density" (at <http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/popden97.gif>) and "contiguous cartogram based on total population" (at <http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/pop97.gif>). See the overwhelming weight of left-wing population (both in terms of size and density) on the East Coast? So, as Clarence Thomas says (go to <http://www.millionworkermarch.org/index.php> and click on the link titled "Click here to listen"), the majority of turnout depends on the level of organizing on the East Coast, for whose denizens a DC demonstration is convenient and where many leftists and immigrants live in close proximity to one another. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
