> 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.
I'm not sure what your experiences with Vietnam protests has to do with the migrant actions and movements of the last few years, but okay.
> MG: I never "insisted" on unity in the movements in which I participated, although obviously
Again, with the 60s...It seemed to me that your questions specifically assumed that leftists should clear their demands with representative Hispanic organizations and that if there is not agreement on a political program, then the "mass demonstrations of recent years [should] have been boycotted by the US left and leafletted from the sidelines". I took your post to be asking serious questions, not rhetorical ones.
>You sound like someone who has had limited, if any, experience in these milieus.
Oh, now I see the point of the references to antiwar protests. You were there, man, and your experiences are universal, while I'm a neophyte. I'm tempted to whip out my resume at this point, but I'd rather not play that game.
> 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"?
Not fancy. And for me your assumptions here represent the problem with lefti:m. Everything has to get cashed out as left or not-left. If other people don't practice politics the way leftists do, then leftists don't the recognize the politics in those practices at all. But just because movements don't *vocalize* their political demands in certain ways doesn't mean they aren't present. Politics can't be reduced to the slogans chanted at protests or to the programs issued by left grouplets. Not everything operates by platform and demand. There are other ways. (By the way, here's <http://tinyurl.com/2aycp3h> a draft of a paper I wrote trying to outline some of what I thought was going on in the 2006 protests, of how it differed from both leftist and mainstream ways of doing things.)
So yes, from your leftist perspective, there were no calls for open borders because no manifestos were issued demanding them. But that doesn't mean the political actions surrounding migrant actions didn't scrutinize the border or assume its being open *to them*. I must now skedaddle for a camping trip, so for now I'll leave you the work of figuring out what those actions were. But here's a hint to get you started: not all protest is a pale imitation of the 60.