miami and the new new left.

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what's also pertinent is that many arrests, and the intense monitoring occurred pre protestors 'doing anything' that might be construed post hoc to support state violence.

which doesn't excuse policy brutality, of course. but has it ever occurred to people that there are more fruitful ways to change things than protests?

and, fuck, 'you don't know what you want' is a classic rightist strategy for delegitimising the left. i think there's a false binary involved, too, in the 'protest' versus 'legislative change'. as if people go to protests, and then don't engage with the issues in an everyday academic/ institutional sense.

how 'bout, "we know exactly what you want, and we think it's dumb/impractical/not likely to come about if you keep inviting people who are more interested in chanting brainless slogans and smashing windows"?

what has been the level of press attention the events in miami have gotten in the states? has it made national news?

do the tactics of police ever make national news with regard to these protests? obviously with these events there is a double dynamic, of protestor strategies and police/government strategies, but it's the former that always makes the news (or the perceived results of the former).

i know everyone is tripping over themselves trying to seem more cynical and seen-it-all than the rest, but even though this media state of affairs is not news, its still interesting and will be more so as the curtailing of civil liberties and level of police violence/intimidation continue to grow...

I'm more mentioning it as a critique of how violent protests give the appearence of favoring anarchy which gains more opposition then support. Neither side (if you want to paint this as socialism vs capitalism) is very clean when it comes to using force to get their way.

i've written a number of "theses" too -- one of 'em on the negative effects of repeal of the state death tax credit on state budgets -- i even got A's on 'em. helluva lot of effect they had.

So you're saying the whole thing is essentially being staged on a stage, for no other reason than that?

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it's the wet-dream of the status quo that smart people like you make arguments like the one you're makng here. Miami police behavior DID provoke outrage - in charles m, on this board - and you slammed him for it, calling him a poseur, not a REAL activist/organizer like you - i mean c'mon that is crap!!

give it three years, or at least another national American election.

the anti-war protests that took place a while ago did have some effect,in that (and this is only an anecdotal observation) it certainly led people to question the war more than they would have when they saw millions of people all over the world objecting to something they might not have thought much about otherwise

the recent london protest (attended by 200,000 according to the irish times,100,000 according to the police and a "few hundred" according to fox news,similarly drew attention to some issues,and these kind of things at the very least do get people discussing the issues raised,which has to be a good thing...

ts: the 99 seattle protests vs. clinton's 98 gotv efforts (which got more press? which got more results?)

I guess all those old nuns and steelworkers are smug ignorant professional protesting college students or something.

Why don't you actually learn something about the people you're "criticizing" before making ridiculous generalizations about them?

http://www.ftaaimc.org

I guess "NASCAR Dads" must mean any "Dad" who is not in a union.

This was a protest about trade. It did not involve the United States alone. I must have imagined seeing all of those union endorsements, too.

The March to Miami -- where trade ministers will meet -- began Sept. 26 in Seattle. Since then, a busload of labor leaders has crossed the country, stopping in 15 cities for anti-FTAA rallies.

Leaders from the Steelworkers; AFL-CIO; Sierra Club; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment; Public Citizens Global Watch; Teamsters; and National Family Farm Coalition are supporting the rallies.

Friday's Iron Range rally -- billed as an old-fashioned populist workers' rally -- includes U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, USWA District 11 Director David Foster, Larry Weiss of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, Curtis Bush of Witness for Peace and Rev. Kristin Foster of Messiah Lutheran Church in Mountain Iron.

And I had no idea that Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were such raging "leftists" that they drove the "white male working class" vote away.

i was personally surprised- not so much that demo ended like it did (though police directly aiming at peoples heads with 22s is unprecedented in recent history), but the way the city was prepared to try to preempt dissent in such an extreme way. and, while most of the kids who i was with also found this worrying, i feel like, empirically, this level of oppression is not representative of any kind of free expression. i mean, y'all have the first amendment, and yet we, with an almost british constitution (ie. much unwritten), have substantially more freedom to express our views publically. and my cultural studies shorthand is just that- i'm not attempting to be exclusionary, but this forum has mechanisms of selection, related to access (but not the least derived from your conceptions of community), which would seem to preclude a reach out to those who you accuse me of negating, here. there is a continued dialogue in the university, bourgeois left about these issues: its ridiculous to assume that activists haven't considered issues of vanguardism and personal background. i feel like the left in the states is moving further and further from socialism, particularly in relation to countries with a socialist orientation, like australia. if anything, most of the kids in miami were propounding radical autonomism or anarchism, rather than 'leninism'. but, whatever personal politics, people are still committed to making the best of a current bad situation in the west. no one is really expecting the dissolution of capitalism, tomorrow.

oohh, and for an anti globalisation, pro world parliament, pro world regulation view, try george monbiot. i don't personally agree with him, but he kinda demonstrates that globalism can exist in a different framework. that's why the basic slogan is 'another world is possible.

and how much does the us attitude to protest differ to other ('northern' countries)? america is incredibly more media saturated than other countries so denting the media is incredibly more difficult. a story that floods the zone is the only one that can be said to truly have an impact on the national 'conciousness', and frankly another 'protestors vs. police' clash, even if this one is different from previous ones, isn't that kind of story. to an extent the media think they already did this story with seattle in 99, to an extent they know the american public won't find it entertaining and television news (which is how most americans get their news) is nearly as much about entertainment as it is about journalism now. this is hardly limited to leftist protest movements either - the only times I can recall operation rescue and it's ilk (who are probably larger than the us anti-wto movement, or at least more vigilant) getting any kind of media attention was in connection to the wave of abortion clinic assasinations in the early to mid nineties.

I totally disagree about sovereignty angle; using right-wing rhetoric to win the argument = you have lost the argument (if u are a leftist)

Er, which one's this? My suggestion about how FT appears on the news seems pretty much in line with yours.

labour unions shd of course be in close global liaison w.their equivs in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY organising to ensure that global management link-ups aren't shafting them

can we assume that wreaking havoc in a major city is not protected speech but simply gathering, chanting, marching is?

so, in other words, the minute someone breaks a window, free speech is out the window?

What was that about smug sheltered ivy league protesters again?

I live in steel country, so I'd say NOT.

most local battlers-for-jobs-and-conditions don't remotely have the resources for this kind of strategic awareness sadly

can we assume that wreaking havoc in a major city is not protected speech but simply gathering, chanting, marching is?
'marching peacefully' is hardly protected in the us: much of the rationale behind the police actions in the city was that any unpermitted demonstration is illegal, and that people should thus be dealt with accordingly. disproportionate crowd control (aka the ensemble of guns, tazer shields etc) was justified using this rhetoric. i've been to loads of actions in australia which were both unpermitted, and didn't have the same outcomes. in the days before, groups of more than eight were prohibited from fraternising.

and, as for white college kids being the only ones protesting, the citizen's trade campaign and the aclu have extensively documented brutalisation of people of colour and immigrants arrested on November 20th. i have the email, but i won't post it up, because it's too long, unless people request it.

Angry voters oust Miami-Dade mayor in special vote a.k.a. angry billionaire buys out political process

Voters in Miami-Dade, one of the most populous U.S. counties, removed Mayor Carlos Alvarez from office in a special vote on Tuesday triggered by popular anger over a hike in property taxes.

With 707 of 829 precincts reporting, official results showed 88 percent of voters backed the effort to oust the once-popular mayor, who is his second four-year term.

It was the biggest such ouster, or recall, of an elected official before the end of his official term since California voters tossed out Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2003.

A Republican, Alvarez was first elected mayor in 2004 and re-elected in 2008. County commissioners can now either appoint an executive to serve out his term through late 2012 or call a special election.

The Miami-Dade recall bid, spearheaded by a billionaire anti-tax crusader, is the latest in a growing number of similar such attempts across the country to remove officials from office by voters angered by everything from taxes to the salaries of elected officials and union rights.

Miami-Dade County, which includes Miami, is home to about 2.5 million people.

The Cuban-born Alvarez came under criticism last year when Miami-Dade, saddled with record high 12 percent unemployment and the same budget deficits faced by many local and state governments, introduced a property tax increase to help fund vital services including police and public schools.

Alvarez was a sleazebag.

I kinda support all recall efforts even against politicians I more or less like, because it's healthy for the electorate to be reminded that you actually don't have to put up with the guy you elected if he sucks

the recall of commissioner natacha seijas is way more important imo. she was seen as entrenched in a way that alvarez was not.

sorry, VILE natacha seijas

Voters have only themselves to blame (and I include myself) for not doing their homework. Alvarez sucked in 2008 yet he won comfortably.

My own take on the matter.

hats off to charles m above for remaining calm and agreeable in the face of ilx at its very worst

come to the rally and you'll get anal sex

might have worked on South Beach