> On 3/22/06, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
> > A change in labor law in France (population: 60 million) ->
> > 1.5 million in the streets
> > <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/unef190306.html>
> ...
> > The Iraq War, torture, indefinite detention, illegal wiretapping,
> > threatened sanctions on Iran, health care costs out of control,
> > pensions melting down, house princes beginning to deflate, etc.,
> etc.
> > "1,200 or so" in NYC (population: 8 million)
> > <http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://
> select.nytimes.com/
> > 2006/03/21/nyregion/21nyc.html>
> >
> > What is wrong with this picture?
>
> What's more, some 100,000 (with presumably a lot of immigrants) are
> supposed to have shown up in Chicago to protest the new immigrant
> bill. The exception that proofs the rule.
September 24 in DC last year, while far from approaching the level of the other recent turnouts abroad that I mentioned in my previous message (relative to their respective populations), had a respectable turnout. The Katrina disaster, as well as the Cindy Sheehan phenomenon, pushed the right buttons.
But we have been unable to break the mold of ritualistic one-day demonstrations that come and go and to help create conditions that motivate millions of people to persevere in the streets for weeks at a time (different currents using a range of tactics) till the government meets the demand or at least makes substantial concessions. That's what French students and workers know how to do, and that's also part of the playbook of Washington-backed regime changes (because Washington learned from leftists).
The immigrant rights demo in Chicago is encouraging, though.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>