There's a lot going on underneath the traditional media's radar.

Portions also posted at Kos:

Well, I spoke about this in my diary too, and I'm frankly embarrassed by folks who assert that the protest march is dead. The protest march is only meaningless to people who's only concern is strategy and politicking. And even then, they are wrong. 1 Million people marched in Madrid against the Iraq war, and they pulled their troops. In the Phillipines, they once overthrew a government with protest marches. The Velvet Revolution...And here, whether or not we actually stopped the Iraq war, the shock of seeing San Francisco completely shut down and other cities clogged with millions of normal looking folks has shadowed this war from the start. Do you think public opinion would have turned so quickly without those images in people's heads? Not to mention the spectre the Vietnam war protests still cast over the way this war is conducted and publicized. If you want to talk only about results, point out what measurable gains all of this new progressive politic has actually produced that can compare with the tiniest sampling I've mentioned above?

All of this is to say that those 500,000 who marched in Los Angeles, and the 40,000 who walked off their jobs in Georgia and the 14,000 who comprised the largest march in Arizona history will send shockwaves through the political establishment in ways that most of us could not concieve of. You can collect all the online petition signatures in the universe and it will never have to power of a day like this. Not only for it's impression to the nation, but more importantly, for the people invovled. A movement is born. The problem isn't that the protest march is moribund, it's that too often the people we let run them are. The same is true of electoral politics. And if we keep thinking this way, there will be new generation who will feel the same way about the netroots you all feel about protest marches.

To be fair, they argued in CtG that the death is because the media don't cover these events.  If that changes, then they become far more effective again.

I also tend to think that events outside of DC have more power than those in DC, because local media are not as cynical as national media in blowing these stories off.

that there's a deep strain of discontent, then marching over and over again doesn't add much.  The very first civil rights marches mattered a great deal, because they were the first powerful indication that a long-accepted situation was no longer accepted.  The very first anti-war anti-establishment marches also mattered, because they were the sign of a new discontent.  The eleventh anti-war march doesnt signal an angry new constituency, though, just that the same old people are still angry.

I'd suggest that the WTO protests mattered, because it was the first time neoliberalism had been targetted explicitly.  A lot of the ACTUP aids activity in the 80s mattered.  And this protest in LA was the signal of a deeply motivated constituency, which in this case is a new development.  This march signals a change in the landscape.  That's why it matters.

This is probably the only point on which I disagree with Markos and Jerome in CTG.

I think the overlooked aspect on protest marches here is that small, local protests get more coverage (by the local news) that large protests do by national media outlets.

Some large anti-war protest in one of America's largest cities (say, New York or LA) maybe gets a word here and there when the cable news do a headline wrap-up.

However, a small band of peace activists who march or stand on a street corner in a place where no one would think it could happen (in deep red state America) will get far more coverage by local news.

This happened recently in my home county - Marion County, FL. George Bush whalloped Kerry here 59-41. Yet the peace group here, Marions for Peace, after being out on street corners on the weekend got serious coverage by the county's main newspaper the Star Banner, and a smaller, though fairly prominent paper, the South Marion Citizen.

Now imagine a peace march in the middle of red state America where 1,000 people march on city hall. That's something local TV news stations will cover (they're looking for something to cover anyway besides rapes and pool drownings) as well as print media.

Its a matter of organization. Because the left isn't well organized at the local level outside major metropolitan areas or the blue states, the media waves off a large protest in New York or LA as another attempt at change from a dying movement. If they see things happening in places where such protests are unlikely - you get coverage because its new and it says something about America's direction.

They really are meaningless because the majority of the US public opposes illegal immigration (also known as importing poverty and immiseration of the domestic working class). So a tiny % of the population protesting something the vast majority of the population supports achieves nothing.

I think the immigration marches are powerful because they are full of "ordinary people," not "activists." Many of the anti-Viet Nam marches were powerful for the same reason. You had nuns and plumbers and longhairs marching together.

The main reason marches are less powerful today is because most middle and upper middle class folks sit at home or go shopping. They really don't follow politics much or they think they'll be tagged as counterculture relics if they march. This is wrong, as we see in this month's immigration marches.

Dems need to learn to see those marching as future Dem voters, organized labor supporters and living wage proponents who would benefit ALL workers if they were made legal -- if our legal immigration quotas were raised to sane levels and those already in the country were granted anmesty. That's why Repubs don't want them to be legal. This way they work for less than the minimum, have no benefits or workers comp, can't organize and can't vote. A total benefit to the Repub mission of turning things back to the qualities of the Gilded Age.

This may have escaped your attention, but one of the key differences between the current marches and the anti-war marches is that many or most of those currently marching are not citizens of this country. They are in fact citizens of other countries, primarily Mexico.

In fact, the Georgia rally mentioned above was organized by a former Mexican Consul General.

While it's always good to "think different", what do you think most Americans will think of a political party that embraces foreign citizens marching in our streets demanding rights to which they aren't entitled?

What do you think most Americans will think of a political party that embraces such marches even when they're organized by a former government official of a foreign country?

"Why were these able to garner a tremendous amount of if not always objectively positive, definitely mostly objective, coverage?"

They received positive coverage because the ruling elite who own the media favor illegal immigration because it drives down wages and undercuts the power of the working class. Anti-war protests are covered negatively or ignored because they threaten the profits of the military industrial complex and the ability of elites to use our military to enhance corporate power around the world. It's very simple: Just follow the money.

The effectiveness of these marches lie only in their ability to make their attendees feel great about themselves and feel like they are all doing something.

That, in itself, is an important outcome.  It makes people aware that they are not alone.  

On 3/19/06, Portland OR people marched (in the 10-20,000 people range).  A marcher was quoted in The Oregonian as saying: "The Democrats in Congress had better wake up. The public is way ahead of the Democratic Party on this issue.

You can bet that Oregon's congressional folks paid attention to this march event.  It was prominently featured in local media, which are largely right of center.

Marches may have no noticeable effect when the public is largely supportive of policy contrary to the marcher's beliefs, but when the public opinion has turned, as now, marches underline the change in mood that has occured, and then the marches have a major impact.

I wonder how the marches were organized. Who, what, when, where, how, why. It's a very impressive thing. Not only that, but I'll be willing to bet that no more than 1% of the marchers have ever posted on the Internet. Imagine: Someone just went ahead and did it as opposed to talking about the future of activism.

Of course, they're really marching in the wrong places. L.A., Phoenix, etc. Far away from the people who run the country. This will get ignored by both the major parties.

For many poorer and uneducated latinos, to march is all they know how to do.  They are often illegals, and, as such, cannot lobby their legislators effectively.  And even some who are born here and/or here legally, they don't have access to the internet or the ability or know-how to do an email and calling and writing campaign to their senators...especially if they cannot read or write English.  

Incidentally, it's the same thing that prevents them from voting.  Which is sad, because if they voted (the legal ones), the Dems would undoubtedly do much better come election time.

Too many protest organizations favor symbolic marches over direct action. Some neglect and others condemn direct action.

Symbolic marches depend on the reaction of the rulers to succeed. If the rulers share the moral values of the protest movement, then they will respond; but they don't. If the rulers fear more direct action by the protest movement, then they will respond. And that's why the media doesn't often bother covering these.

Direct action does not depend on the reaction of the rulers at all. It focuses on the  machinery of oppression; of war, or of destruction, or of exploitation and shuts it down. Work out the details for yourselves, but these could range from closing roads near military installlations to providing water for the underground railroad.

I hate to be the cynical one around here, but could the explanation for the difference in coverage simply be that the corporations who own the MSM were behind the invasion of Iraq but don't want to clamp down on illegal immigration?

FEAR.

That is why the "protest march" is being deemed uneffective.

It's the largest peaceful demonstration of activism in Los Angeles's history. Usually when it numbers this big around here, someone is yanking a TV out of a Circuit City.

The Civil Rights -era marches and Vietnam protest were effective because American citizens  feared that civil war could erupt. Southern whites were terrified at the thought of blacks suddenly unrestrained by Jim Crow segregation. Just as the Sunnis live in fear of the Shias gaining social cohesion so did Southern whites.

And just as easily so did others feel the same unease when young men and women began marching for the war. There was a draft, and if your young people won't serve...you have a problem on your hands.

My suspicion is few if any white middle class (or upper class) Americans think there will be any repercussions of all this. They don't realize that in due time, these "Mexicans" will be the only one doing all of the work in the country not because it's cheap labor...but because whites (and blacks) simply aren't having kids.

All this time, the willingness of undcoumented laborers (whether or not they are illegal aliens) to be exploited this has subsidized a tremendous labor cost. If there's no reason to stay and work here for better wages alone, you better believe the "Mexicans" will organize into a fearsome labor machine.

Forget tomatoes costing $4....hope you paying $39.95 for paperback books....$50,000 for a Toyota Camry...and $200 for Nikes.