[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Partial victory against SB 1070. Protest is still on!

[Stuart Levy]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 07:45:39PM -0500, Ron Szoke wrote:
> 
> "Friends,
> In response to massive public pressure by immigrants' rights
> activists, the U.S. District Court judge Susan Bolton has struck down
> the most egregious provisions of SB 1070 in Arizona."
> 
> Do you have any evidence that her ruling was influenced in any degree 
> whatever by such pressure, & not entirely by the intrinsic constitutional 
> & legal merits of the case?  
> 
> Do you think she, & other federal judges, can be intimidated by ever 
> greater displays of "massive public pressure by immigrants' rights 
> activists"?  


Well... I've no idea whether this judge was influenced by public protest
in this case.   But in general at least, Howard Zinn did think that
public action drives the decisions of the courts and the Congress --
at least in the long run.  After the appointment of John Roberts
to the Supreme Court, Zinn wrote this:

   "It's Not Up to the Court"

   http://www.thefreelibrary.com/It's+not+up+to+the+court-a0139521164

It's worth reading the whole article, but here are some relevant clips:

  [...]
    It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the
    rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all
    kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest,
    demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order
    to uphold justice.

    The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those
    Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who solemnly invoke as their highest
    concern "the rule of law."  The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not
    deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king. 

  [...]
    The rights of working people, of women, of black people have not depended
    on decisions of the courts.  Like the other branches of the political system,
    the courts have recognized these rights only after citizens have engaged in
    direct action powerful enough to win these rights for themselves. 

  [...]
    That is why Cindy Sheehan's dramatic stand in Crawford, Texas,
    leading to 1,600 anti-war vigils around the country, involving
    100,000 people, is more crucial to the future of American democracy
    than the mock hearings on Justice Roberts.

    That is why the St. Patrick's Four need to be supported and emulated.

    That is why the GIs refusing to return to Iraq, the families of
    soldiers calling for withdrawal from the war, are so important.

...

And it's in that spirit that the action today (I think maybe 15-20
people came by), and many others around the country, are important too,
whether they seem to make a difference in the short term or not.