Found via Pajamas, filmmaker Andrew Marcus has video of yesterday's pro-illegal immigrant (or at least, hey, that's what critics are calling it) protest in Los Angeles

Jonah Goldberg And Lee Harris look at the Depression-era proto-Marxist tactic of The General Strike. Jonah writes:

I see that Lee Harris has beaten me to the punch in calling attention to the smirking ghost of Georges Sorel in the Day Without Immigrants protests (I just wrote up a somewhat similar piece for elsewhere). He makes many excellent points and I am very reluctant to argue with Lee because if smarts were people, Lee Harris would be China.

Nonetheless, I think he muddies or misses an important distinction in his discussion of Sorel and the General Strike. He seems to be working from the assumption that Sorel believed the General Strike would in fact bring down capitalism and bring about true socialism if it were successful. He writes, for example, that "Sorel argued that the general strike was the utlimate weapon in the arsenal of revolution, one that would lead to an apocalyptic transformation from capitalism to socialism." It's my understanding — subject to correction — that Sorel did not actually take a firm position on whether or not a General Strike would, in fact, work. Rather he argued that it was the Myth of the General Strike which was all important. The Myth was a form of Plato's noble lie. The masses needed to have a religious faith that the General Strike would usher in utopian socialism, but whether or not it would in fact be successful in doing that he remained at best agnostic. He rejected "social scientific" Marxism as a fool's errand and was generally unconvinced by literal Marxist prophecy. Rather, he wanted such prophesies to be seen through a secular religious prism.

“[T]o concern oneself with social science is one thing and to mold consciousness is another” he wrote. Sorel had contempt for socialists who wanted to make their case with facts and reason. Sorel called the prominent Italian socialist Enrico Ferri, one of those “retarded people who believe in the sovereign power of science” and who believed that socialism could be demonstrated “as one demonstrates the laws of the equilibrium of fluids.” True revolutionaries needed to abandon "rationalistic prejudices" in favor of the power of Myth.

I think Harris is entirely right that the spirit of Sorel's General Strike is manifest in many of the protest organizers. And Sorel would certainly celebrate the newfound currency of the Myth (though he'd probably be bummed by the non-violent nature of the demonstrations). But he would secretly believe that many of these organizers were useful idiots if they actually thought a General Strike would usher in a utopia.

That would certainly be consistent with the worldview of one of chief prime movers behind yesterday's marches.

Meanwhile, Rod Dreher wonders if the first of these protests/general strikes/marches created such a backlash that there's no way to overcome the initial negative first impression:

1. I think the Latino activists will overreach with this. It's my impression that they have no idea what kind of backlash is building up. It will be very hard for them to overcome the widespread use of the Mexican flag in the first mass demonstrations. For many people, the meme that "these are foreigners who are demanding rights that they don't have" stuck then, and it will be hard to erase. I've been reading stories saying that some Latino leaders worry that the day will be a bust for them politically, because they are using up all their ammo early in the immigration reform process. Maybe so. But what I'm more concerned about/interested in is the backlash from conservatives and others who can't understand why the laws of the United States don't matter here.

2. Why don't the laws of the United States matter here, anyway? What does it say about our country that we cannot control our borders? Nothing good.

3. At the same time, it bothers me--a lot--that there is no small degree of outright racism present. Yes, the Aztlan loons are guilty of the same thing, but I wonder how many anti-immigrant hardliners have trouble seeing the illegals as human beings. On the other side, I hate it when pro-immigrant activists and others assume that any opposition to the amnesty plan can only come from racist motive.

The rest of Rod's post is equally well worth reading.

Finally, Jonah spots a shifting of the goalposts:

A lot of angry lefty readers are moving the goal posts about yesterday's protests. Some of yesterday's demonstrations were big — in LA, Chicago and Denver, as I said this morning — but on the whole, the protests were smaller than last month's demonstrations. And in countless other cities they were in fact a fizzle. But that's beside the point. The point of yesterday was not to draw big crowds, it was show the economic clout of immigrants — mostly illegal immigrants. While I'm sure some neighborhoods felt the impact, over all the effect on life in America was trivial. The most common reaction from my readers was a joyful appreciation that traffic was a bit lighter. That's hardly a mortal blow to American capitalism.

About the only effect my wife and I noticed yesterday, when we went out for dinner in our small, majority minority, mostly first and second generation immigrant Silicon Valley suburb, is that the local McDonald's was closed in sympathy. That was fine with us--we ate at the local Quizno's, owned and operated by first generation Vietnamese immigrants who were happily open for business. As was the nearby dry cleaner, owned and operated by first generation Japanese immigrants. (For what it's worth, I've heard Hugh Hewitt's afternoon show on in the back room from time to time when I've dropped my shirts off there.)

For lots of still photos, click here, here, here and here.

Update: More video, here.

Another Update: I meant to add this post from the Professor to the above mélange, as it dovetails nicely with Jonah and Rod Dreher's thoughts on the protests but forgot it. Fortunately, reading Damon Penny's fine blog reminded me:

People are talking about backlash, and how these rallies are counterproductive. That's probably right, but I think that's what the A.N.S.W.E.R. folks are hoping for. Right now you have lots of immigrants who want to be part of America. The A.N.S.W.E.R. people have been stoking these demonstrations not because they want to help illegal immigrants, but because they hope to provoke a backlash that will make them angry at America instead. They don't have short-term ameliorative political goals -- they want shock troops for the revolution.

In other words, "the masses needed to have a religious faith that the General Strike would usher in utopian socialism".

One More: While the strike did little to impact local businesses, Ed Morrissey notes that government-provided (read: taxpayer-provided) services took a financial beating yesterday:

So far it appears that Chicago outdrew Los Angeles, where the protests closed down about a third of the small businesses in the area, according to the AP. However, in a story that will likely have immigration hardliners talking for days, the AP reports that twenty-five percent of the children in the Los Angeles School District failed to attend classes today. After all, LAUSD's annual budget for its 746,000 students is over $13 billion, or about $17,000 per student. If the walkout caused 25% of the students to strike, that puts the annual educational cost for illegal immigrants at around $3.25 billion -- just for Los Angeles.

You can bet that a lot of people will do precisely these kinds of calculations nationwide. How many students walked out in Chicago? In Houston? In Denver? One of the reasons why illegal immigrants existed in the shadows was to avoid this kind of exposure, but that's no longer operative. Now that they have decided to make this kind of statement, the true costs of their residency will start coming into focus, as well as their production.

Not that the sacrifice will mean anything to the cause. One-day boycotts and walkouts rarely have any real economic impact, for one good reason: people will still return to shop tomorrow. The restaurants that closed yesterday may have the hardest time with a one-day strike as so much of their business depends on whim, but the groceries, clothing stores, and gas stations will recover with little ill effect. People will buy clothes, food, and gasoline when needed, and skipping a day will do almost nothing to overall production.

The political damage, however, may be quite extensive. The administration has attempted to quietly push a liberal reform package through Congress that delivers most of what the demonstrators demand. However, the spectacle of illegal immigrants demanding that Americans capitulate to their agenda only strengthens the opponents to the administration's approach.

Ed's financial observation dovetails nicely with a related post by Virginia Postrel, who explains "Why (Legal or Illegal) Immigrants Are Better for Texas than California":

It's the political economy, stupid. (Nasty phrase, that.) Texas has no income tax, which means public services are funded by sales and property taxes. Everyone, regardless of income or legal status, pays sales and property taxes, either directly or indirectly through rent. California, by contrast, relies heavily on a very progressive income tax that doesn't fall on people who are paid off the books or who don't earn much money in the first place. Liberals who support immigration should rethink their love of progressive income taxes.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, of course.