Sarah J. Jackson: Let me go find my favorite Howard Zinn quote about this brb.

You all weren’t joking when I got back on here yesterday. People have really gone full throttle on “the camps” discourse on here, as opposed to considering the “when we fight we win” discourse and as a social movements person I am a little gagged, in the worst way.

my list of muted words has expanded greatly in the last week because i cannot with that stuff. it’s okay to be sad for a few days but it isn’t the end, so no time to be lying down and giving up

Very weird to have people in my mentions talking about pograms as if they are a fact of the near future and not something we can almost certainly stop if we get it together.

It's true! People are feeling so sad and hopeless right now. I think the SCOTUS immunity decision deepened everyone's sense that even the courts won't provide the small bit of protection they did when Trump was in office. But that was never our only tool, or even the best one.

Let me go find my favorite Howard Zinn quote about this brb.

(1/?) “It would be naïve 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.”

(2/?) “The rights of working people, of women, of Black people have not depended on decisions of the courts. Like 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.”

(3/?) “This is not to say that we should ignore the courts or the electoral campaigns. It can be useful to get one person rather than another on the Supreme Court, or in the presidency, or in Congress. The courts, win or lose, can be used to dramatize issues.”

(4/?) “The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Before the Law,” have always been a sham.”

(5/?) “Our culture — the media, the educational system — tries to crowd out of our political consciousness everything except who will be elected president and who will be on the Supreme Court, as if these are the most important decisions we make. They are not.”

All of this comes from an essay by the late Howard Zinn from 2005 titled, “Don’t Despair about the Supreme Court” in which he reminds us that we only ever get free by organizing and fighting.

Howard Zinn on the Supreme Court, The Progressive, November 2005www.howardzinn.org Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. November 2005. "John Roberts sailed through his confirmation hearings as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with enthusiastic Republican support, and ...

Thank you, Sarah, you are the best

I totally think organizing and fighting to make the world better instead of giving up is worth it. I’m even excited to do it for the people who are mad at me for saying so and have already said they’d abandon me and my family to “the camps” they keep talking about 🤪

Yes!! Everyone needs to start reading an organizing syllabus

DO NOT USE NATIONBUILDER! All the data is crossed. Trump used it in ‘16. Their CEO was recorded saying, what if he’s right? at an an all hands after the election. Then resigned. He once said to me, we don’t want to talk to the media. We only want to broadcast.

speaking as an organizer who somehow improbably fell sideways into directing policy & messaging...blocking w/both hands rn If you're mad because I'm connecting the dots for those who don't know? Block. Mad because I'm suggesting action is necessary even when it's not sufficient? Outta here.

the law was always bullshit that made our most well intentioned rich people feel like there was nothing that they could do

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