>How is this at all what Fitch was criticizing?
What I meant was that when you say last week's march was a fruit of labor's efforts, it sounds like one of the inflated claims Fitch criticizes. Likewise, what labor was doing in the runup to the march sounds like the sectarianism he criticizes.
I don't mean to beat up on you, but I think what happened here last week is something labor should respect as a thing to learn from and tap into, not take credit for. Not when until just before the March big labor in Los Angeles was more interested in making the march about Cesar Chavez:
>.....the organizers had a humble start. Diaz and others began
>planning the rally in January at an old Catholic church at Placita
>Olvera. They had more passion than volunteers, in part because they
>had split with some labor unions that wanted to focus on honoring
>Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, on Sunday instead.
>
>Some individual union locals were supportive, but Maria Elena
>Durazo, the acting secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County
>Federation of Labor, a union umbrella group, said her organization
>preferred to support the farmworker event.
>
>The decisive event was a media breakfast at El Rinconcito Del Mar on
>March 14.
>
>The night before, Rodriguez received a call from a producer at the
>morning news program at Univision, the country's largest
>Spanish-language television network, who wanted to interview the
>organizers starting at 5 a.m. in front of the restaurant.
>
>"Man, it was cold," said Rodriguez. "We were just standing around.
>The restaurant was closed, and some of our people didn't show up
>because when I said 5, they just assumed I meant 5 p.m."
>
>Diaz then contacted disc jockeys he had met after his confrontation
>with the Minutemen and managed to interest El Piolin.
>
>Other popular DJ's followed suit, even appearing together at a rally
>at El Piolin's suggestion. Rally organizer Javier Rodriguez called
>them "the disc jockey brigade."
>
>When the day of the rally arrived, the mood was celebratory. Gloria
>Saucedo, who runs a citizenship training program for new immigrants
>in the San Fernando Valley, said her group mobilized hundreds for
>the rally, taking buses starting at 7 a.m.
>
>"It was a fiesta," said Saucedo. "They brought food. They brought
>kids. People were proud to be involved,"
>
>Diaz and Rodriguez have moved on, and they are now planning for the
>May 1 economic boycott by trying to maintain their grassroots
>coalition, and keep the Spanish-language media interested.
>
>"We became the little coalition that could," said Diaz. "They came
>at us from all directions, but we stuck together. We came out of
>this unified, and that unity is what this is all about."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/30/MNGLEI0BJS1.DTL