In a message dated 98-03-06 11:12:05 EST, Michael writes:
<< Be careful about this. It could be used much more often against the left
than the
right. Remember how Bruce Church's suit against the Farm Workers almost
destroyed
the union. With Rico, it would have been even easier.
-- >>
I agree. While I understand the motivation behind NOW's law suite, RICO is a
two edged sword and could damage NOW as much as it could help fill their
coffers. F'rinstance, let's say now leads a demonstration (not an unknown
occurrence) and there are people arrested -- the same laws could be used to
pursue NOW, with the same logic.
On the other hand, NOW's legal actions are completely understandable. The
response by the law AND THE LEFT against the concerted and systematic shut
down of women's right to choose has been underwhelming to say the least.
These bombings and the systematic harrasment of women using clinics has led to
a situation where there are many states with absolutely no abortion available
-- except to those women who could always afford higher prices. While
abortion is still legal, it is effectively unavailable to huge numbers of
women -- and may be even a majority of women by now.
However, most lefties still seem to think the continued debate over minuitae
disputes centering around the transformation problem are far more critical
than anything to do with women -- after all, they're only half (or more than
half) of the working class. Strange that the only ones on the forefront of
defending womens' rights (regardless of class/race) always happen to be those
much maligned bourgeois feminists. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
