Don White of CISPES continues his reports on the student walkouts in L.A. He is a longtime organizer and often assists ANSWER LA during large demos. His first report was yesterday.

One thing you must understand. People in Los Angeles do not go outside if it rains. For students to spend all day protesting outside in heavy rain is quite extraordinary.

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Arrests, crackdowns and threats directed at students protesting immigration legislation.

City, educators and police reverse “permissive” policy and threaten retaliation against youth.

By Don White.

Los Angeles, March 28, 2006

In a clear reversal by city officials, educators and police, student protesters today faced campus lockdowns, arrests and threats with both Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Schools Superintendent Ray Romer threatening consequences to further student protests and “truancy.” Police have made it clear they will no longer tolerate traffic closings and freeway protests.

In a driving rain, thousands of students again left their campuses, often climbing over school fences, and targeted government buildings, freeways and streets calling for no government attacks on their families, neighborhoods and communities.

At Carson High School police firmly brought to the ground a student protester, handcuffed him and booked him. The behavior of police was clearly an angry and brutal response. Several arrests at Carson High and in areas around high schools were reported.

At a joint press conference, Mayor Villaraigosa and School Superintendent Ray Romer firmly told students to stay in class or face the consequences. Romer said that families which did not have their students in class may be called in for conferences. He mentioned that the senior class should especially not take part in the protests, sending a threat about graduation participation.

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She’s going to Liverpool Friday, a massive protest is planned, and the Liverpool Philharmonic can’t find any artists to perform at the gala planned for her. In fact, some declined, saying they’ll be outside protesting instead.

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Daniel Rivera-Franqui emails

It’s no wonder why the “progressive” blogs are silent on both the antiwar and immmigration marches: Maybe they rely on the mainstream media!

U.S. media black out immigrant protests

Oddly, mainstream media is giving the immigration rights movement more press than progressive blogs.

Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos is American-born of El Salvador ancestry, and lived in in El Salvador as a child. He lists Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero (murdered by death squads) and Cesar Chavez as heros. Yet DailyKos has had little coverage of the Immigrant Rights movement. Kos could do a huge amount of positive work here if he spoke out about it. I hope he does.

While reading Kos’ bio, I clicked through to their Sitemeter stats. DailyKos is down about 20% from their October peak. This dovetails with what AmericaBlog said a few days ago, that their ad revenue is precipitously down, and that this was across the board for progressive blogs. Something’s happening, that’s for sure.

At the bottom of Kos’ bio he says

We desperately need to catch the Right in the Blogger Wars, and I am proud of each and every person who has the guts and initiative to start his or her own weblog. The progressive movement of the future will be built, in large part, on this digital foundation.

I disagree. The movement will be built by people in the streets and by organizing in the real world not in cyberspace. The Net is a tool. The real work is done face-to-face, in meetings, by the grunt work of flyering, postering, and building events and coalitions. That’s how you build a movement. The Net can help get the word out, but can never replace that.

Saturday’s historic immigrant rights march in L.A. aptly demonstrates how a massive movement can be built without the Net. While march organizers have websites, using the Net to build the march played a minor role. Instead, it was done one-on-one, by phone, and by radio.

Liberal and progressive bloggers. You’ve been on the outside looking in at the antiwar and immigrant rights movements. Jump on in. We can all learn from and help each other. Then we can work together and win.

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Nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California staged walkouts to protest proposed immigration legislation Monday, blocking traffic on four freeways and leaving educators concerned about how much longer the issue will disrupt schools.

Nativo Lopez of MAPA said on KPFK this morning it was probably closer to 100,000. L.A. schools are locked down today (I forget, are these schools or prisons?)

These students, as well as the marchers on Saturday, aren’t about to accept a noxious (or even a semi-noxious) law on immigration. Jesse Diaz, one of the march organizers, summed it up at the press conference Friday, “no bill is better than a bad bill.”

The bill that past the Senate Committee yesterday is inadequate. It also won’t survive during the coming fractious Senate debate. Then it must be reconciled with the viciously racist House version.

Immigrant Rights leaders will be meeting April 8 in L.A. to plan coming actions. These include “Day without an Immigrant” general strikes as well as boycotts and walkouts.

The demands are amnesty and full rights for immigrants. What happened Saturday was historic. We may well be witnessing the birth of a new civil rights movement.

For those who say demonstrations don’t accomplish anything, the immigrant rights movement has just conclusively proven that they do.

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A nationwide strike has closed large parts of France’s transport networks.

Workers and students in more than 100 cities are calling for the government to scrap the controversial employment contracts.

Unions reported a huge turnout for a march in Marseille, and large crowds were expected in other cities.

Libcom has continuing coverage, reporting that unions are saying 2.6 million are in the streets.

Hey, there’s been huge immigrant rights protests in the US and a massive general strike in France. Just when you least expect it, the Left is suddenly resurgent.

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