> So how do you explain the civil rights movement and those marches?
> These were an organized set of people that supposedly had very little
> effect on the capitalist class--and didn't have voting rights either.
> Maybe I'm just romanticizing, but it seems that a march can have some
> effect even if it isn't along class lines, though I don't really know
> how. It seems there is a space where ideology and ruling class
> interests don't necessarily correspond.
I may be wrong, but most civil rights marches and protests were illegal. There was an element of risk to those protests--people put their lives on the line.
Nobody at ANSWER or UFPJ is even risking arrest when they organize these permitted spectacles. This is my chief beef with these groups, because their only strategy is to organize safe, permitted events. Perhaps we should give them credit for doing this well, but they don't deserve any kind of leadership role for this one note strategy. I would have much more respect for an organization or coalition that was mixing up mass protests with civil disobedience and other risky and non-risky tactics. The Mobilization for Global Justice, for example, organized both permitted rallies, educational events, and civil disobedience. ANSWER and UFPJ, on the other hand, adhere to the leftist myth that simply getting out more people to permitted events will make a significant difference.
Chuck