[lbo-talk] What's the Matter with New York City?

[Paul]

1)      People should be aware that the hoped for "big" NYC anti-war 
demonstration (UFPJ core organizer) is scheduled for Saturday April 29th 
(more reliable weather at that time).  The 3rd "anniversary" demonstrations 
in mid-March were thought of as "placeholders", so as not to let the date 
pass.  The 1st day had the former ANSWER groups as its core; the 2nd day 
focused on civil disobedience with the War Resisters League along with SDS 
and IWW as its core (as Mike Ballard posted).  AFAIK, these groups were 
able to do no more than their standard outreach and had very little advance 
coverage from the mainstream media.  IF one accepts the national and past 
trends as a norm (of course a huge "if"), then one could say that their 
turnout of "thousands" shows an uptick in the movement.  We'll see.

[BTW, AFAIR, NYC's anti-war "native" demonstrations were not proportionally 
smaller than elsewhere *in the US*, except perhaps the Bay area (see for 
example see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15%2C_2003_anti-war_protest for a 
comparison of the pre-war numbers).  But I definitely think we should tell 
them they were: NYers get motivated that way :-) ]

2)      As Doug and Nathan point out the situation of unauthorized 
immigrants has been very different in NYC and that results in some 
important differences in the labor market, social relations and society at 
large.  The difference is striking when one travels to both NYC and to S. 
Cal -- one feels it even in personal relations.  In good part it is the 
proportion of unauthorized immigrants that is smaller (I don't have 
estimates handy and the standard studies like Pew/CPS don't give breakdowns 
- anyone?).  But also in NYC the unauthorized immigrants are living and 
working in environments where many (most?) adults from their own native 
country (or neighboring countries) ARE legal residents.  The historical 
role of immigration and labor in the Northeast Anglo community is also no 
doubt a factor.

I stress the contrast with S. Cal because all this is now changing in NYC 
and it is not hard to see future trends.   The labor market has been taking 
on S. Cal characteristics (e.g. whole employment categories are openly de 
facto exempt from labor law enforcement).  Since WWII only one segment of 
the garment "sweatshops" in NYC had this character on a large scale.  The 
Mexican community is by far the largest growing segment (from a small 
base)  I think it is likely to expect significant social and political 
consequences down the road ... but not yet.

Paul

Yoshi writes:


>Wojtek posted a BBC story about immigrant rights march in New York
>City, which says "thousands" demonstrated.  Commenting on the same,
>Democracy Now! says "tens of thousands" marched: <http:// 
>www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/03/1318256>.  Whichever
>figure you take, the turnout is a lot smaller than in LA.
>
>Also, anti-war demonstrations on 18-19 March this year had a couple
>of thousands demonstrating in New York City, which is in the same
>league as the demo in Columbus, Ohio and a lot smaller than the
>10,000-strong rally in Portland, Oregon.
>
>Whenever New York City has demos that consist of mainly New Yorkers,
>as opposed to "national" mobilizations that draw out-of-towners, New
>York City demos are a lot smaller than the ones in other big cities
>like Los Angeles and Chicago and even smaller cities like Portland
>and San Francisco.
>
>What's the matter with New York City?