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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (67255)	1/21/2003 8:35:32 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Do you think Alterman is trying to label the protestors? I doubt it, though I don't know his work well. You could, of course, ask the same question about Todd Gitlin's article on the first march. It's easier to talk about Gitlin since I know his work better. In his case, I think he's taking the Betty Friedan approach to political movements--make certain you don't alienate the political middle. Thus, one of the first priorities is to disallow any participation from groups too far outside the mainstream. In Friedan's case, it was groups who supported gay and lesbian rights. In Friedan's case I thought that was a mistake for two reasons. First, feminism was about inclusiveness. Thus peeling off gays and lesbians was undermining the movement. Second, I prefer a big tent approach to organizing demonstrations, let's get them all. There are obvious limits but I prefer that groups make their mistakes by creating too large a tent rather than too small. Back to Alterman, I didn't read it carefully but it looked, on the face of it, a narrow band approach to organizing, an "I'm only willing to march with the folk who agree with me" in a fairly narrow sense. If I'm wrong about him, shoot me the link and I'll read it again. Neither, it should be noted, are positions taken by folk who are opposed to the protests. Those are, in general, attempts to use fringe elements to paint the motives of all the marchers, either as political outsiders or as dupes. That is, of course, what worried Friedan and, as I recall, what worries Gitlin. And, given the commentary here, it's clear that's something to worry about.