Santa Barbara march organizers write to MIM Dear MIM Notes: I'd like to address some of the criticisms raised in the June 1 issue of MIM Notes pertaining to the "Santa Barbara People's March for Economic Justice," held on May 12 of this year. Charges that march organizers "consciously refused to place the idea" of issues like a local living-wage movement "in an international perspective" are patently unfair. Although this inaugural event was far from perfect-- organizers are certainly ready to admit to that fact -- there was nonetheless a concerted effort on the part of its organizers to address the adverse effects of globalization on low-wage immigrant workers and their families, the horrible impact of imperialist military installations like the nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base, and other internationalist concerns. Your MIM Notes article quickly diverges from any specifics of the May 12 march and rally, however, so none of these details are relayed to your readers. Speakers during the course of the day included, among others, farmworker activists from the mushroom fields of Oxnard, California, who championed a UFW boycott of the exploitative PictSweet company; Elizabeth Sunwoo, of the L.A.- based Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates; Peter Lumsdaine, of the anti- imperialist Vandenberg Action Coalition; and indigenous Chumash activist Julie Cordero. Unlike the recent Harvard University sit-in, as this list of speakers illustrates, ours was not specifically a "living wage" protest, although passage of a local living-wage ordinance is at least one demand that the coalition of the over 30 "Santa Barbara People's March" endorsing organizations seem in unanimity on. We also included the following internationalist note in our official march statement, although I believe, in retrospect, that it should have been even more strongly worded: "we understand that the injustices here and the solutions we seek inevitably link us to communities across the nation and around the globe that face the consequences of economic greed." Inasmuch as your piece had at least a few nice things to say about march organizers, I appreciate the props when we get them. I also hope that an even more revolutionary and internationalist perspective is introduced into planning for any future local actions of this nature. It should be noted, however, that the march's organizing committee in no way ignored suggestions nor did we turn away a single volunteer during the four-month period from the march's inception until its realization. The door certainly remains open for MIM and RAIL comrades to participate in planning for the next S.B. People's March for Economic Justice, should it indeed occur again in 2002. In solidarity, A Campus Labor Action Coalition and People's March activist MIM responds: Thank you for your letter. We hope to work together in the future on concrete, internationalist demands. We also appreciate your willingness to engage in political discussion. You are not the first to tell us that our original article on the Santa Barbara march and rally missed some of the facts. For example, a RAIL comrade wrote, "[T]here were some signs and speeches that mentioned international issues, struggles, etc (the protest at Vandenburg against missile testing, e.g.). These should have been mentioned..."(1) We agree. Our intent was certainly not to dis the march as "all bad" -- rather, exactly because many participants have a history of working on righteous internationalist struggles, we wanted to express our concern that these might be pushed into the background or harmed. As we said in the original article, "[M]any of the march participants are involved in movements with an internationalist perspective, such as student campaigns against sweatshop labor. Others were agitating around concerns which appeal to both the proletariat and imperialist-country middle classes, such as free health insurance for the world." Adding concrete examples would have emphasized the positive aspects of the march and given our readers a better idea of where MIM and RAIL seek to "hook up" with other activists. We've also updated our readers on post-rally developments. For example, we've noted with approval that the march organizers' website added the right of undocumented workers to organize unions to its list of demands. We are happy to hear that you plan for next year's march and rally to have an "even more revolutionary and internationalist perspective." We would gladly work together in the coming year on internationalist demands. Examples that spring to mind are the petition drive against "Operation Gatekeeper,"(2) struggles in defense of workers' rights to organize in the Third World,(3) for an international minimum wage, debt relief to poor countries,(4) anti-u.$. militarism (which is inherently internationalist), and many others. To get back to likely political differences, we think the slogan you cite -- "We understand that the injustices here and the solutions we seek inevitably link us to communities across the nation and around the globe that face the consequences of economic greed" -- is a good example of how vagueness can allow the struggles of the oppressed to be used as window dressing for parasitic demands of the imperialist-country middle classes. The question is, ITAL which END "injustices" here? If you're speaking of the injustice that we all have to fear that some gung-ho militarist will press "the button" and annihilate the humyn species, agreed, that's an internationalist demand. If you're speaking of the injustice that the food, clothes, computers, etc. we buy in this country come tainted by the exploitation and violent repression of workers in the Third World, agreed, that's internationalist. But we disagree, for example, that the "injustice" that the median in come in Santa Barbara has dipped to $49,000 is an internationalist demand. (If by citing this figure organizers wanted to emphasize that the proportion of people making less than minimum wage in Santa Barbara County has increased, they should have cited that statistic. The median in this case shows that more than 50% of the population in Santa is solidly middle-class.) In short, MIM believes that the prosperity reflected in median income statistics in the united $tates comes from the exploitation and oppression of people outside u.$. borders. Hence to campaign for a preservation or expansion of this prosperity is not only not internationalist -- it directly opposes the interests of the world's vast majority.(5) That's why we took the Santa Barbara so seriously and expressed our "frustration" that activists who had demonstrated a concern for and commitment to the oppressed worldwide were allowing the oppressed's interests the be harmed in the name of "acting locally." We continue to hope that CLAC and other organizations will focus on the issues of the international proletariat and organize from the true bottom up -- indeed, our experience is that once acquainted with MIM's analysis, many activists do. Notes: 1. MIM Notes 236, 15 Jun 2001. 2. www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/OpenBorders 3. MIM Notes 230, 15 Mar 2001; MIM Notes 232, 15 Apr 2001. 4. "U2 band leader exemplifies progressive politics," MIM Notes 238, 15 Jul 2001. 5. MIM Theory 1 ($3) is the best introduction to our economic analysis leading to the political conclusions in this paragraph.