I know some think court decisions will stop
the fascists now in charge. I wish it were so. The reason that is a false hope in the end is demonstrated by their conduct in 2019 when family separations at the border were supposed to stop because the fascists said they had "changed the policy" and also because of court decisions against it. But here is an excerpt about that period of time:
"Numerous journalists reported that family separations continued after the executive action and court rulings barring the practice. Some of the reports included USA Today in February 2019,[103] The Boston Globe in March 2019,[104] Los Angeles Times in April 2019,[105] CBS News in May 2019,[106] and Houston Chronicle in June 2019.[107]
In March 2019, the government reported to Judge Sabraw that 245 children were removed from their families, in some cases without clear documentation undertaken to track them in order to reunite them with their parents.[104][108] The House Committee on Oversight and Reform reported in July 2019 that over 700 children had been separated from their parents after the policy's official end.[109] In July, it was reported that as many as five children per day were being separated,[110] and by the end of the year, the total had reached over 1,100.[10]"
This is way more than some "isolated instance". They defied court orders and despite their own HHS detailing the horrible impacts to the children and lifelong psychological trauma they went ahead and continued inflicting that harm on these children. Despite court orders. No repercussions ever happened for people who violated the court orders.
So maybe an adverse ruling might make them do a "work-a-round" on some things but at the heart of the matter if they do not follow court rulings who is going to do anything about it?
Thousands of children taken and many still out there somewhere unknown. Here is a thing which didn't get much media attention beyond the initial report in the New York Times:
"The New York Times reported that, on January 20, 2025:
The Trump administration revoked a Biden executive order that created a task force to reunify families separated at the southern border. In the time the task force was in place, it reunified nearly 800 children with their parents, according to a report it released last year.[27]"
So not only no repercussions for violating court rulings the first time around but now the fascists show a clear determined effort to end any mitigation of the misery and trauma and in fact prolong it.
The bottom line is for us to realize that, for example, court decisions didn't stop people from being lynched. The statutes and the Constitution don't make justice a reality for all. They are things that are supposed to work for us but when people in power openly ignore them we must turn to other means such as civil disobedience, subversion of policy, engaging in actions to bring negative economic consequences to bear etc. But we cannot leave it to court orders that will likely be ignored anyway.
Waiting for elections is also no panacea. They have perfected their voter suppression methods to the point that huge numbers of cast ballots were tossed aside and never counted. Huge numbers of people were targeted to be "purged/challenged" and were turned away or given a "provisional" ballot and most of that is never counted. As Greg Palast points out it is not necessary to screw with the machines when you can screw with who gets counted far more easily.
We must not fall for the idea that we are "getting" the fascists because we persevere through 3 years of court wranglings for example. We end up with a piece of paper with words on it in our favor and no hope anybody will make good on those words. We also cannot be lulled by "wait until the next election" hopes because their targeting and suppression of votes grows by the day. We need plans for action and as before in Civil Rights and Vietnam we must not wait for elected members of our party to do that for us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy
= new reply since forum marked as read
