Similarly, changes in government *after* 1963 were made in response to local level protests organized by neighborhood councils, housewives orgs. they weren't angry mobs in the streets; they were angry people at town meetings and the like.
also, the causal chain things seems off to me. why does it happen in a linear fashion?
In Birmingham, some street-level fighting had to do with the war -- they were ex-soldiers. But as the town deindustrialized and also suffered housing shortages, people got agitated and the street-level disruptions over segregation amped up.
I'm reading his chapter on Malcom X and zoot suiters right now. quite interesting.
As I've been reading it, though, it's made me interested in whatever body of research is out there that's explored the questions that Kelley raises abotu spontaneous street-level fighting -- and not just fiticuffs, but people just getting ticked and hitting up a town hall meeting -- and how it lays the groundwork for and feeds into more formalized resistance.
At 10:02 AM 12/4/2009, Joseph Catron wrote:
>On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Matthias Wasser
><matthias.wasser at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>Not that there's a contradiction: technological or economic innovation =>
> > angry mobs => influence on government action is a perfectly good causal
> > chain.
> >
>
>Sure, but it seems to me that, in most cases, the middle link of the chain
>has proven unnecessary. Governments modify their behavior in response to
>economic and technological development all the time; changes to accommodate
>popular pressure are, I think, much rarer. And most changes provoked by the
>latter than would not have inevitably occurred as results of the former.
>
>--
>"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
>lytlað."
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)