[lbo-talk] Alito & disability

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Bitch | Lab wrote:
>
> >After I sent that .... I guess I was interpreting NN's as a claim
> >that all anyone involved in social change cares about is the
> >judicial arena. As I said to someone offlist, that's not how it
> >works -- it's always a well-rounded strategy. Offlist, someone else
> >told me that we need to work on the legislative arena. Yeahbutt. We
> >already _are_. Any social movement tends to engage in multiple
> >strategies: agitation, education, protests, legislative campaigns,
> >lobbying, grass roots support, the list goes on.
>
> The reproductive rights movement has relied very very heavily on  
> litigation at the expense of building popular support and  
> membership organizations. Faye Wattleton, who headed Planned  
> Parenthood 1978-92 and now runs the Center for the Advancement of  
> Women, agreed with me strongly when I made that point in an  
> interview <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#030717>.  
> This is also true to a lesser degree of civil liberties, feminist,  
> and enviro orgs - not the grassroots types, but the establishment  
> ones.
>
> Doug

I agree with you, but Nathan wants us to rely on Democratic  
legislators instead on courts, and I doubt that results would be any  
better, as things stand now, as we have no militant mass movement (on  
any front -- labor, feminist, disability, environmental, civil  
liberties, or whatever) today.  Besides, under capitalism, it seems  
to me it's impossible to have mass movements (even when they arise)  
perpetually engaged and energized.  Individual burnouts are  
inevitable under the circumstances, and therefore mass movements come  
and go -- and mostly stay gone for a long time, punctuated by periods  
of upsurges.  What are activists to do when movements wane?

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>