On 2010-09-17, at 11:02 AM, Eric Beck wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> Has this demand for open borders or unrestricted "illegal" immigration been raised in the Hispanic community, ie. by representative Hispanic organizations?
>>
>> If not, should their programs which fall short of these objectives - ie. limited "only" to amnesty for undocumented workers and other immigration reforms - be supported, and US leftists encouraged to join immigrant right marchers? Or should the mass demonstrations of recent years have been boycotted by the US left and leafletted from the sidelines for "having made their demands too reasonable"?
>
> Why do you think that the groups in marches and movements must
> articulate the same program?
MG: They never do. There are always small groups and individuals pressing their own more radical demands on movements and demonstrations which may or may not be in conflict with the goals of the organizers. Placards calling for "Victory to the NLF" and marchers chanting "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win" were prominent in antiwar demos in the 60's. The main body of liberal Democrats, pacifists, and trade unionists as well as CP'ers, Trotskyists, and others outside the New Left who favoured "Support our troops, bring them home" and "Out Now" objected to these open expressions of pro-NLF sentiment because they thought it would inhibit their efforts to win broad public support in order to force an end to the war. No doubt there are Hispanic activists who favour unrestricted immigration, but who think such calls would deflect from their more immediate objectives of amnesty and other reforms.
> EB: Why the insistence on unity?
MG: I never "insisted" on unity in the movements in which I participated, although obviously I favoured those demands which were capable of uniting the broadest possible numbers in the struggle and contributing to the divisions within the ruling class. I didn't favour excluding groups like the Spartacists or their crazy counterparts among the Maoists even if that would have been possible, though I was sharply critical of their politics, which I saw as ultra-left and counter-productive to building the antiwar movement.
Similarly, I would never support depriving Carrol of his right to carry his own placard or to distribute his own leaflets even if I objected to the content. On the contrary, his participation would be encouraged. You'll note the question above which I directed his way was designed to elicit whether HE would boycott demonstrations where he felt his own principles - in this case, open borders - were not reflected in the material distributed by the organizers. You've got it ass backwards on who is more inclined to sectarian exclusion here.
> EB: The difference between movements and networks on one hand
> and parties on the other is not merely formal. Movements are, or
> should be, capable of articulating a multiplicity of demands, even
> ones that are seemingly contradictory. It's parties that require
> univocal demands, not movements.
MG: The unions, union-based parties, and social movements I've belonged to have all had "multiple demands" and I can't think offhand of any which I found to be in contradiction to one another. You sound like someone who has had limited, if any, experience in these milieus. Perhaps I'm wrong, and you can provide us with some concrete examples to make sense of the abstract distinctions you're drawing here.
> EB: Your assumption that the "mass demonstrations" of 2006 had a singular
> policy makes your questions problematic, which is to say irrelevant.
> Yes, some Hispanic organizations* saw citizenship and recognition as
> *the* aim of the demonstrations, but those sort of mainstream
> civil-society groups were just one faction in the movement, and a not
> very influential one at that. There were other groups with different
> kinds of politics, ones that implied an open borders policy even if it
> wasn't articulated in those terms, or, better yet, articulated
> politics that acted as if borders are open.
MG: More flights of fancy. Which statements by which groups are you referring to which "implied an open borders policy even if it wasn't articulated in those terms"? For example, I supported the slogan of "US Troops Out Now" in the 60's, and though I personally hoped for an NLF victory, the "out now" slogan was not at all intended to imply that the objective of the antiwar movement was anything other than to end the war. In fact, it was only the right-wing opponents of the antiwar movement who suggested that the antiwar movement was "implicitly" anti-American and pro-Communist - highlighting the North Vietnamese flags and portraits of Ho - and the movement had to constantly swim upstream against that propaganda. The US right today similarly endeavours to paint the immigrant rights movement as "un-American" and suggests that its "real agenda", its "implicit" program, is to flood the country with Mexicans - what it characterizes as a stealth "reconquista". The movement is faced with the same task of fighting such right-wing propaganda, not providing it with the paint to smear it.
Your corrolary statement that there are immigrant rights groups which "better yet, articulated politics that acted as if borders are open" is even more otherworldly and devoid of content.
> EB: *I notice you never ask the relevant questions about these
> organizations: who do they represent? who appointed them? for whom are
> they representative?
MG: Here are a couple of relevant links:
There's no reason to doubt that the We Are America Alliance, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the March 25 Coalition, and the 215 organizations which came together to organize demonstrations and the one-day boycott of United States schools and businesses by millions of immigrants, both legal and illegal, were representative of their community.
The National Council of La Raza is an organization enjoys a similar authority within its community as do the NAACP, NOW, the AFL-CIO and other large organizations with local affiliates and elected officers across the country. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_La_Raza.