"TODAY WE MARCH, TOMORROW WE VOTE"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Boycott shuts or slows many
businesses, farms across the U.S.

More than 1 million mostly Hispanic immigrants and their supporters skipped work and took to the streets today, flexing their economic muscle in a nationwide boycott that succeeded in slowing or shutting many farms, factories, markets and restaurants. From Los Angeles to Chicago, Houston to Miami, the "Day Without Immigrants" attracted widespread participation despite divisions among activists over whether a boycott would send the right message to Washington lawmakers considering sweeping immigration reform. "We are the backbone of what America is, legal or illegal, it doesn't matter," said Melanie Lugo, who with her husband and their third-grade daughter joined a rally of some 75,000 in Denver. "We butter each other's bread. They need us as much as we need them."

Click here for the rest.

This is real democracy, the people exercising their power. Voting is important, yes, but it's not what drives legislators' agendas. The loudest and most threatening voices, or, of course, voices with lots of money, do that. The civics lesson taught to this nation during the 1960s had been long forgotten, but the immigrant workers of America are teaching a brush-up course. And forget the euphemism "boycott." This was a general strike, the kind of thing that toppled communist Poland and other regimes: when they're organized, regular, ordinary folks are capable of shutting this nation down, switching the economy off. When that happens, the elites, who usually ignore the concerns of their inferiors, sit up and listen. Nervously.

Man, I'm loving this stuff, and so should most Americans: these workers are struggling for their rights, but, ultimately, they're fighting for everybody. When workers at the lowest rung of the ladder are successfully able to improve their position in relation to capital, it generally ripples up to workers who make better wages. Most people win in these situations--it's not all about whether a worker is legal or not.

And speaking of illegal immigration. It's occurred to me recently that there's a major shaft going on as far as the concept of "globalization" is concerned. If all these "free trade" agreements of the last decade or so are what is allowing corporations to "outsource" jobs to other countries in order to take advantage of lower prevailing wages, it only seems fair to allow labor the same kind of mobility. That is, if jobs can move freely across borders, it's a major injustice that labor cannot, because, when you get right down to it, it's not really "free trade" when one major aspect of the economy has no freedom at all. Don't get me wrong: I would greatly prefer finding a way to end the corporate bloodletting here in America, and finding ways to encourage real and sustainable growth in developing nations. However, if "free trade" constitutes the rules we must live by, then they need to be fair. That means allowing the free flow of labor across borders, just as free as corporate movement.

Somehow, I don't think the elites will ever see things my way.

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