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From: cdanderson@watarts.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: re: re: grass roots politics, antinukes
Message-ID: <2128@watarts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Mar-84 02:19:04 EST
Article-I.D.: watarts.2128
Posted: Mon Mar 12 02:19:04 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Mar-84 01:00:58 EST
References: <408@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>, <202@menlo70.UUCP> randvax.1743
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       In reply to the comment by das, re.
 >Sure Rex, that's why women got the vote, blacks got to sit at lunch 
 >counters, ... cause they have all the money ... sheesh!

       The only reason they were able to gain these rights was that many
thousands of people did break the laws as they then stood by doing the 
very thing that the Abalones and others are now engaged in. 
       Do you think that the Blacks, for example, would have been able to
sit at lunch counters or in the front of buses is some brave souls had not
done so while it was still illegal to. I think the answer is NO. If the
courts had not seen the massive, visible support for such reforms and 
that its own credibility, thus survival, was at stake, we may
still be segregated now.
        I do agree however, that Rex was/is failing to recognize the extent
of violence. However, I side with him in the issue that nuclear power plants
and associated processes (mining,milling,waste disposal, and weapons manufacture) do pose a great and immediate threat to the well being of people. Here in 
Canada there is a principle in Common Law which states that one is justified
in breaking a law providing that you are preventing a greater one from 
occuring (one meaning evil). "Unfortunately", the question of immediacy
is given prime consideration. Sometimes it is better to prevent a far-off
crime from developing than letting it grow.
       Before I forget, one more comment about das's statement must be made.
It was the very fact that the women, Black, and illegal immigrants did/do
not have the money that one uses methods of Civil Disobedience rather
than going the very expensive Supreme Court route. This, and the fact that, 
to the greatest extent, the laws are set up for those with the money (that's
why they have the money).


             History will judge whether I was correct or not,
 
                      Cameron Anderson
                       watmath!watarts!cdanderson