You may have heard about the small-scale riots that broke out in London a few days ago, following a 250K person peaceful protest against budget cuts. Crooked Timber contends (and I agree) that the numbers of people protesting (peacefully) in Wisconsin are actually more impressive:
I would take this opportunity to point out to my fellow Wisconsinites, what this means about the scale of the protests we have participated in—over 100k in a city of 200k and a state of 5m, versus 250k in a city of 7.5m and a country of 70m—I don’t say that to diminish the significance of the London march, but to remind those on this side of the Atlantic that our own movement has enormous potential, if only we have the nous to know what to do next…
Redshirt
Did the London protests feature any Tea Partiers, ironically or not? That’s the only way to ensure coverage of your issues/events.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Redshirt: So true. Our very “liberal” media will cover 8 people in silly outfits and call it remarkable, but 100,000 regular folks isn’t newsworthy. Sigh.
Superluminar
@RedShirt
no tea parties, but an occupation of Fortnum & Masons ( an upmarket food hall, by royal appointment to Teh Queenie). Also anarchists smashed up several banks, the Ritz hotel and other upmarket shops. Awesome. Rightwing press very condemnatory, of course. I say 1-0.
PeakVT
They didn’t hang the DJ this weekend, did they?
lllphd
WE’RE ALL CHEESEHEADS NOW!!
Zifnab
You know, the more I think about it, the more I hope the Democrats – at the national party level – have no clue how to handle Wisconsin.
I don’t want to see Party Democrats come out of that state. I want to see a bunch of grass roots candidates with genuine blue collar backgrounds win. I’d like to see union members running for union votes. And I’d like to see local politicians untethered from D.C.
I hope both parties fail in Wisconsin. Maybe then we’ll get something better than the two-party train wreck we’ve been operating under.
jwb
Well, we all know that wingnut math applies to protests. 10 teabaggers represents a monumental rally of 100,000, whereas 100,000 union protesters represent an insignificant rally of 10. That’s why the 10 teabaggers in Wisconsin have rightly received more attention on TV than the union protesters.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zifnab: I understand where you are coming from, but I emphatically do not want the Democrats to fail in Wisconsin. I want them to win, to learn how to win again, and to become comfortable with fighting.
jwb
@Superluminar: Were they actual anarchists or agents provocateurs?
Sharl
from CT comments:
eemom
let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
show you something to make you change your mind….
danimal
@PeakVT: Hang the DougJ?
Naaaa, he’s got (mostly) good taste in music.
catclub
@eemom: Is that a quote from Dickens?
punkdavid
@danimal:
Based on the title of this thread, I’d say he has excellent taste in music.
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again?
eemom
@catclub:
no, it’s a song by a fellow named Ralph McTell called “Streets of London.”
danimal
@punkdavid: He’s unmatched in the song lyric/post title category.
That, and spoofing media idiots (mediots?) are his true callings in life, IMHO.
Superluminar
@jwb
I know some of the people involved. No, they’re not agent provocateurs.
Yurpean
Yeah, 250k-500k people hold a march and the actions of a few hundred define to large part the media response. Interestingly, the police themselves were very careful to separate out the black-bloc types from the TUC (Trades Union Congress – UK equivalent of AFL-CIO) organised march and rally. For rolling news to show footage of people breaking stuff is understandable – it’s certainly more visually interesting than lots of people marching – however some of the newspaper reportage yesterday & today is ridiculously, though predictably, biased.
Suck It Up!
What they should do next is make sure people are registered to vote and then push like fucking crazy to get them to vote.
Seth
… and now I’m stuck singing The Smiths for the rest of the day.
youtube.com/watch?v=9AlH2oYedfk
Johnny B
At the risk of sounding like one of those Naderites in the 2000 election, I really believe that the “next step” is to create a third party whose only job is to get progressives elected to Congress and the various state legislatures.
A progressive party would have the benefit of not having all the baggage of the Democratic Party, and could advocate exclusively for economic change.
Such a move does not need to be an attempt to replace the Democratic Party, but simply to force it to move to the left on economics in an effort to strengthen their own party.
A new progressive party should not be about wasting scant resources on a Presidential candidate that has no hopes of winning and can only boost the chances of the GOP. It should be about grass roots coalition building to create a new force of change. Given the current corporate campaign rules, I doubt that can happen within the Democratic Party.
Superluminar
@Johnny B
why, I said much the same yesterday…
Jack Bauer
@jwb:
Some of them are actual anarchists, others just young’uns along for the ride.
Anyone wondering about the anarchist left might be interested in this: Libcom