> OK. But who here relies on the courts anyway? How many
> people on the left are spending their time this way?
Note that I didn't say "the left." But it is true of many liberals, with whom we have to work. And if it doesn't always have to do with how they spend their time, it does have something to do with how they think, and I think it has an ideologically damaging effect on social movements. Nathan Newman has pointed out that the conventional wisdom is that the civil rights movement began with Brown v. Board. It's ridiculous, but thinking like that makes people less likely to participate in social movements, because they don't understand social movements' importance. All important decisions are really made by the courts or by people like LBJ signing historic pieces of legislation like the Voting Rights Act, so history books get written, stories get told, and CNN specials get made that portray a history where ordinary people have very little agency. I think that this is an important part of hegemony in the US, actually.
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories