[lbo-talk] Why there's no strategy to end this war

[Chuck]

Steven L. Robinson wrote:
>  
> Chuck - I think you miss the point here.  The immigrants' rights 
> mobilizations  of recent days succeeded largely because constituency 
> groups, like unions, fraternal associations, churches [not primarily 
> liberal denominations, but normally conservative congregations of  Roman 
> Catholics, Evangrelicals and Pentacostals - such as Victory Outreach, 
>  etc fully participated and helped mobilize their members. How many 
> unions or churches  participate in a meaningful way in Answer? Virtually 
> none. The sectarians of Answer are incapable of this. UFPJ may an actual 
> coalition but I don't think that its constituent non profits like Global 
> Exchange etc are truly capable of mobilizing people at this scale.

You are probably right about this.

At the peace rally here in Kansas City, I ran into some old activist 
comrades who I haven't seen since my activist days at KU in the 1980s. 
Who brought them out? They came with their church.


> If the experience of the anti-187 movement in California is any 
> precedent, it is wrong to attribute the large participation and the 
> emotions among the participants to narrow self interest.  Participation 
> amonng citizens and legal residents of Latino background who resented 
> the slurs of the immigrant baiters.

I didn't want to boil down the motivation just to self-interest, even 
though that play a big role. I had suspected that the turnout was 
motivated in part as a reaction to all of the immigrant-bashing in the 
media. I'm sure that the right wing media extremists this week will be 
screaming about immigration issues. The Los Angeles march itself is a 
wakeup call for many people.

Chuck