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Obama's Kagan Choice Will Push Court to the Right
Can Kagan Fill Stevens’ Mighty Shoes?
As the Rehnquist court continued to eviscerate the right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens filed principled and courageous dissents. For example, the majority held in the 1991 case of California v. Acevedo that although the police cannot search a closed container without a warrant, they can wait until a person puts the container into a car and then do a warrantless search because the container is now mobile. In a ringing dissent that exemplified his revulsion at executive overreaching, Justice Stevens wrote that "decisions like the one the Court makes today will support the conclusion that this Court has become a loyal foot soldier in the Executive's fight against crime."
The founders wrote checks and balances into the Constitution so that no one branch would become too powerful. But during his "war on terror," President George W. Bush claimed nearly unbridled executive power to hold non-citizens indefinitely without an opportunity to challenge their detention and to deny them due process. Three times, a closely divided Supreme Court put on the brakes. Justice Stevens played a critical role in each of those decisions. He wrote the opinions in Rasul v. Bush and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and his fingerprints were all over Boumediene v. Bush.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has continued to assert many of Bush's executive policies in his "war on terror." Elena Kagan, reportedly Obama's choice to replace Justice Stevens, has never been a judge. But she has been a loyal foot soldier in Obama's fight against terrorism and there is little reason to believe that she will not continue to do so. During her confirmation hearing for solicitor general, Kagan agreed with Senator Lindsey Graham that the president can hold suspected terrorists indefinitely during wartime, and the entire world is a battlefield.
Justice Stevens ruled in favor of broad enforcement of our civil rights laws. In his 2007 dissent in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, he wrote that "children of all races benefit from integrated classrooms and playgrounds." When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, she hired 32 tenured and tenure-track academic faculty members. Only seven were women and only one was a minority. "What a twist of fate," wrote four minority law professors on Salon.com, "if the first black president - of both the Harvard Law Review and the United States of America - seemed to be untroubled by a 21st Century Harvard faculty that hired largely white men."
Obama has a golden opportunity to appoint a giant of a justice who can take on the extreme right-wingers on the Court who rule consistently against equality and for corporate power. When he cast a vote against the confirmation of John Roberts to be Chief Justice, Senator Obama said, "he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong and in opposition to the weak." Justice Stevens has done just the opposite.
If he wants to choose a non-judge, Obama could pick Harold Hongju Koh or Erwin Chemerinsky, both brilliant and courageous legal scholars who champion human rights and civil rights over corporate and executive power. Unlike Kagan, whose 20 years as a law professor produced a paucity of legal scholarship, Koh and Chemerinsky both have a formidable body of work that is widely cited by judges and scholars.
But it appears Obama will take the cautious route and nominate Kagan, who has no record of judicial opinions and no formidable legal writings. After the health care debacle, he should know that the right-wingers will not be appeased by this milk toast appointment, but will oppose whomever he nominates.
The Warren Court issued several landmark decisions. It sought to remedy the inequality between the races and between rich and poor, and to curb unchecked executive power. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote these words, which would later become his epitaph: "Where there is injustice, we should correct it. Where there is poverty, we should eliminate it. Where there is corruption, we should stamp it out. Where there is violence, we should punish it. Where there is neglect, we should provide care. Where there is war, we should restore peace. And wherever corrections are achieved, we should add them permanently to our storehouse of treasures."
Conservatives decry activist judges - primarily those who act contrary to conservative politics. But the Constitution is a short document and it is up to judges to interpret it. Obama has defensively bought into the right-wing rhetoric, saying recently that during the 1960's and 1970's, "liberals were guilty" of the "error" of being activist judges. Rather than celebrating the historic achievements of the Warren Court - and of Justice Stevens - Obama is once again cowering in the face of conservative opposition.
Obama should do the right thing, the courageous thing, and fill Justice Stevens' seat with someone who can fill his shoes. If he nominates Elena Kagan, Obama will move the delicately balanced court to the Right. And that would be the wrong thing.
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Show AllHe has betrayed all of us progressives who pushed his election in the face of no better choice. We know who he really represents. He is just another traitor stealing the country for the Aristocracy.
Obama's recent comments accusing the centrist Warren and Burger courts of "overstepping to the left" confirms that Obama is posturing to make sure the next appointee is way right of center.
"overstepping to the left"
The tragic irony of the Warren court was that their support for the civil rights movement made it possible for an utterly worthless empty suit like Obama to get into office.
I remember getting to the point of having to immediately turn down the radio, or change the channel whenever I would hear Bush's voice, or see his face.
I'm at that point now with Obama.
Part of the damage he is doing, is moving a large swath of "progressives" to the right with him, which moves our country and culture, even FURTHER to the right.
On this forum, I read these apologists making arguments in support of Obama's policies that on principle were in alignment with those asserted during the Bush Administration.
But those apologists don't seem to have noticed that their own principles have changed.
I am replying to cabal and hue. Without the Civil Rights he wouldn't be where he is. And I also scream at him and flip him off when I see him.
The writing was on the wall with the FISA vote. And the way he dismissed MLK and Ghandi was the last straw for me. He is a soulless man. I sure hope he is one term, but does it matter? He is not in charge anyway. Not sure who is but I think it is Global and not just limitted to the US.
I do not feel any sense of betrayal because I had no faith in BO and did not vote for him.
Here comes the great drama. In this tragicomedy, Kagan is the shill who will be the center of the storm for a while, until her name is withdrawn and quickly replaced by someone, the real nominee, who will make George Wallace look like MLK. After wasting so much time on Kagan, and being right before mid-term elections, the real nominee will have little time spent on him and few will question him; everyone will be exhausted by the process and relieved that the perfect man has been found. Is everyone ready for Justice Rahm Emanuel?
I don't know about the Rahm Emanuel part, but I agree with you that it is likely that Obama expects Kagan to be shot down and the real stab in the back will come with the second nominee. I suspect that, after the Kagan nomination fails (just not fascist enough for the oligarchs, even though pretty darn fascist), Obama will argue that "I tried to appoint a 'liberal' justice, and see what happened? So now for the good of the country, so that we can move on in peace and tranquility in a bipartisan way, I will have to appoint someone that our Republican friends will accept and that Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas can work with."
Exactly. Care to make a prediction as to which mobster it will be?
I can't predict that except to say that I bet it will surprise many across the political spectrum as to how far to the right the second nominee is. The US left is down and seemingly helpless, so Obama will proceed to kick it, as hard as he can. The man is every bit as mean-spirited and ruthless as Bush and Cheney. Maybe that is because he answers to the same masters.
I am never disappointed with Obama. But, I am always surprised at those who are stocked at his choices.
Obama has always been a bought and paid piece of crap. He was never, ever liberal, progressive, or for the little guy.
He is a shill of the ruling elite.
Good
Grief.
Excellent post. I think you described Kagan perfectly. People like her hide their opinions for a reason.
The Corporatocracy and, by extension, Big Conservative Gov't is beginning to completely digest our civil liberties and Constitutional protections. What comes out of the other end of this process will certainly be interesting and frightening to behold. Kagan is the ultimate political insider who will offer opinions which are tepid and bureaucratic double-speak. Obama has bought into the status quo. He is by nature a Democratic/Conservative in the nature of Sens. Lieberman and the old Sam Nunn. Progressives are again shown the back-bencher status that has been their fate for decades. Again and again the Democratic Party proves to be a very large bucket with a huge hole in the bottom. All its grand aspirations go thru the vessal without ever making a difference.
Try to remember when Obama did the right thing by the standards of those who read these pages. Obama's political calculation must be that we are such a small, inconsequential and easily co-opted group that we can practically be ignored. In 2010 let's ignore him and his party. Let's get ready for a real challenge in 2012 and remove him from office.
I remember when Obama SAID all the right things, then he DID the same things as Bush, (wouldn't want that unitary executive grab bag go to waste) now he will defend the system he decried before he was king.
Unfortunately there are tons of people who want to give him more time to "clean up the messes" left by King George, and who still believe he is a good man struggling to do the right thing.
In order to ignore him we will have to ignore BOTH parties, since they are the same. If there's a Green or other party candidate vote for them. Join the Greens or another party that doesn't accept corporate funding, and then in 2012 be prepared to run for office as a member of that party.
tammons, honestly. When did obama do the right thing by standards of those who read these pages? And this is not a rhetorical question.....
It would appear Obama is once again negotiating away the more liberal progressive principles of his political base in favor of appeasing the more entrenched right wing ideology of the status quo. The man must be a closet Republican. Time and again he shows himself willing to give the opposition most of what they want even before negotiations begin. He is either afraid to get in the ring and duke it out standing on principle or he is simply the quintessential career opportunist doing whatever is necessary just to get ahead. Maybe both. Sadly the political climate of these times seems to encourage this kind of political opportunism where those that thrive in it are the ones least willing to take a solid stand on principle. Rather they are more adept at refraining from doing so whenever it counts most for the sake of political expediency. One can only hope that the Republicans stubborn opposition to Obama's likely middle of the road nominee will backfire on them and result in a worthy successor to Justice Stevens by default.
"The man must be a closet Republican. "
-- Oh come on now, Obama is a Socialist, a Communist Pinko Nutjob, the modern day Hitler! Can't you tell?
You forgot Islamist.
You forgot he's also a Kenyan immigrant.
"negotiating away the more liberal progressive principles of his political base"
Really?! I wasn't aware that Obama's actual political base had any liberal progressive principles to negotiate away. In fact, the entire notion of ANY principles being involved in ANY area of U.S. politics seems questionable at best.
How true, RV.....
Closet Republican? He's the Manchurian Neocon.
Anyone who continues to wonder why he always negotiates away every shred of progressive principles is in denial, and will continue to be let down.
There is a famous Bob Newhart routine where he is learning about baseball from Abner Doubleday - over the telephone. He speaks: "That's three strikes, and um, four balls. Why?" We laugh and laugh and laugh and never question the number of justices on the Supreme Court. This has more justification than the rules of baseball? Why? Because judging is a game?
Imagine a large enough number of Supreme Court justices that a panel of Size N to hear some case could be selected, at random, by computer. The figure I play with is 21. Any President would have a tough time shifting a computer's randomness. I also advocate replacing a "thumb's up or down" vote with having a justice distribute 95 points between the two arguments. There are then several statistical ways to examine and analyze the outcome of any case - just as in BASEBALL. Gosh.
Further, imagine a court with representatives from Humanities other than Law. The U.S. Constitution is not merely and only a "legal document". It expresses the vision and will of a People. If only members of the bar are to sit on the court then I think that the U.S. Supreme Court needs the equivalent of a CABINET.
And for a moment let's look at the concern by some that the court has a paucity of Protestants. Suppose that Obama's nominee for the court vacancy was a former president of the American Humanist Association, who eschews any and all theology. Could that person even be confirmed?
Do not tell atheists that the USA has no "religion test" for public office, high or low. That is self deception by Believers. Is this important? Well, the relentless legal assault upon Roe v. Wade is the top one-ninth of an iceberg floating in American culture. The eight-ninths out of sight under the water proclaim: THERE IS A GOD. A hypothetical SC Cabinet member could have read "The Sacred Canopy" and explain how the thesis by Peter Berger applies to "sky justification" of human codes. I'd like to see questions upon something like this during confirmation hearings. I think we need persons with a different kind of rep than impressive legal scholars Koh and Chemerisnky. What we need on the court at this time in history are polymaths.
Trylon, editorializing.
Well put! Clinging to nine Justices is insane. Enlarging the Court, and increasing the depth of the philosophical pool would be a giant leap forward. Oops. Sounds Maoist.
who will have the courage and gumption to go to new hampshire and run against obama in its 2012 primary? the base is upset with his rendition of bush's third term. he has tried to appease the right since inauguration day, when rick warren was given the pulpit. when the president finds a spine to which to attach that great brain, then he might become a fair president, or at least a real man.
"Obama could pick Harold Hongju Koh"
This is a joke, right?
This guy is the new Yoo!
He maintains that the droning of parts foreign is legal self defense.
Ah you noticed that too.
I've been very surprised to see Greenwald, and now Cohn, praise Koh, without addressing Koh's position on drone attacks.
This is all I know of the man, and it's enough; anyone who condones the flouting of international law is not fit to sit on any court.
These drones have killed far more innocents than Yoo's water sports.
Both Greenwald and attorney/blogger Scott Horton write favorably of Koh in general, yet deplore Koh's defense of the use of drones.
They suggest that this defense is very much out of character with Koh's expressed legal philosophy, but they are so baffled by this seeming exception that they can't process it as a "deal-breaker".
Kohn doesn't address this anomaly.
IMO, this is like saying that Koh has absolutely PERFECT manners, except for a recent tendency of publicly picking his nose.
Thanks ObServant.
I was just now wondering what Horton thought!
Both he and Greenwald surprise me with this.
This, for me, is a case of one strike and he's out.
"...the delicately balanced court..."
Huh?
There is no hope, based on logic at this point, for Obama to choose anyone other than Kagan. If she is aligned with killing the Constitution, then Obama will of course nominate her.
Obama has already shown his true colors in aligning with too big to fail, too big to jail, Corporate America (no, I'm not talking about small companies that file an LLC), which is exactly where the court's focus already is in regard to who they seek to protect.
Also, Obama has clearly shown his intention to carry on the Bush Administration's policies of an all powerful Executive Branch that will ultimately have the powers to preemptively jail ANYONE suspected of being involved with "terrorism", however that association would be presumed without trial.
Now Obama the ultimate con artist, through his DOJ, wants to find an exception, ostensibly "through Congress" to that pesky Miranda Rights requirement for someone suspected of leaving a sack filled with socks and a water bottle unattended in Times Square.
Pardon my sarcasm, but Holder's Sunday talk show comments tell us that Obama supports what Lieberman/McCain/Brown want in their terrifying and totalitarian police state building bill.
The audacity of Obama in his absolute betrayal of our Constitution is stunning.
Miranda will soon be dead. Not because of the neocons run amok, but because of this Democratic President, and the Democratic Leadership that are far to the right of where Republicans were in the era of Reagan.
Prior to the election of Obama the Third Party voters like myself were accosted with the 'true believers' offering their clarion call, "What about the Supreme Court?" Well, now we have our answer Obama's agenda is 99.9 % in keeping the status quo oiled and running smoothly. Thus, Kagan who loves Obama's drone strikes on non combatants, FISA, TARP (no CEO left behind), corporate hegemony, for profit Health Insurance, war escalation, the military industrial complex, destruction of fragile eco systems (like the spill in the gulf), undercutting net neutrality, big oil and coal, along with nuclear energy and bio fuels all inimical to the Earth.
Had enough?
I had roughly predicted a few days ago in another thread that obama WILL choose a rightwinger - but more precisely - someone that will , once and for all, COMPLETE the REAL obama agenda : to be the repository of EVERYTHING in the entire USA history's UNDERLYING "arrivaL" .: towards full-blown, openly legalized FASCISM.
in the days of Benjamin Franklin...he called it "tyranny"...
"democracy eventually ARRIVES at Tyranny".
THAT is the real agenda of the Cretin called Barack Obama.
corporatism as "the state", Perpetual War State, Police State, Spying and Torture State, Criminal State, ...
the united states has been ALL of those or had those elements very strongly underlying its entirety.
BARACK Obama's purpose is to COMPLETE the "CHANGE" towards plugging every "hole" through which any challenge to the completion of Fascism so that the USA finally "arrives at Tyranny" in its full monolithic power.
just watch -- in less than 2 years - the PHYSICAL outward expressions of Fascism will envelope EVERY corner of the USA in a VERY openly imposed way:
whether in schools, houses of worship, parks, streets, workplaces, homes, buses, taxis, hospitals, clinics, and the million other facets of a society.
it is NOT going to be what some might think (or hope as less openly brutal or at least with the appearance of moderation) as "inverted totalitarianism" or inverted fascism.
it IS ALREADY THOSE.
what OBAMA intends to impose is - not just a war state but one in which BRUTALITY and cruelty are COMPLETELY ACCEPTED as "the moral thing to do" .
what he has done thus far is to SWIFTLY re-define the actual meanings of many things:
"democracy, accountability, truth, safety, war" that bush and the presidents before obama could only DREAM of doing but could not completely succeed in forcing americans to absorb organically within their very thoughts because those former presidents did not yet have the COMPLETE alignment of forces at their disposal :
the full use of the media as fascist arm, the full use of War Culture as being openly accepted as "one and the same" as "democracy", the full use of the coupling of corporatism, militarism, congress and the courts towards an orgy of fascism, and the full use of the american public's OWN cowardice, hypocrisy and historical willful amnesia.
obama can see there is NO "escape" from his imposition of what now is clear as the USA's most broadly-based, deeply embedded, and actually most effective and powerful IMPERIAL corporate/fascist presidency.
unlike Stalin and Hitler, Obama will have his own GULAGS - but they will be ACCEPTED and even embraced as BENIGN ...because he succeeds where Stalin and Hitler FAILED in the same fascism and tyranny:
THEY imposed fear OF THEM and their machinery...Obama is applying "fear of fear itself" so as to make americans WANT to "not be afraid of fear"
BY embracing FEAR of anyone or anything that Obama and his machinery (completed with his supreme court, his "congress" war party, his corporations, his state and local enablers and war/police mongers, etc.) DECLARE or "suggest" as the ones to be feared.
he is really clever. i tell you.
clever and COLDLY calculatingly EVIL. imo. there is no other way to describe this man.
where others like bush or even clinton or mccain or nixon - etc - were CLEARLY MESSY butchers -- obama is a CLINICALLY cold Hannibal Lecter. i have yet to see any of his "moves" convince me that he is not this sort of person. they are all calculated to show "benignity" to assuage people and keep them "off-balance", the better to swiftly and permanently push through his underlying cruel agenda which in the end makes a mockery of the "benign" looking other "moves"...
where bush , clinton, reagan, nixon and others could be , for all their flaws , seen as "flawed" human beings and leaders, perhaps also subject to the delusions of the American Mythology which they upheld and were themselves but the execrable "high" examples of that mythology ....
obama seems to me to be OTHER than "merely flawed despite personal convictions that they were doing right but just misguided by being part of and upholders of american mythology" .....
he seems to me to be INTENTIONALLY , KNOWINGLY working to ensure that what ARE clear to all people everywhere as human FLAWS - which we call EVIL - are accepted as GOOD with himself as the leader to apply that "change" of thinking in the SPECIES itself.
he reminds of nothing else but something NON-human that has invaded the very interstices of humanity and bored inside it to change its very NATURE - so that ALL things that are of the benign and humane part of our make-up is completely destroyed.
the outward appearance is human , with its frailties AND its wonderful good things -
but inside - all through and through, CHANGED into a new "species"...that is all cold and cruel.
it makes my hair stand, frankly.
Interesting, Teddy.
I have noted and felt that obama seems to have no human psychology. Hard to explain, but i have always called him a science fiction president.
I mean, Bush was definitely pathological. But it was in a human way. Obama seems as though he was designed and manufactured.
He loves celebrity. This is obvious. I don't feel anything coming from this man, however. Everything is so calculated. And he never seems scared. There is some very basic dimension missing here.
This could very well be a new phenomenon. Very post modern.
COLD CALCULATEDNESS. that's what defines him, all the way.
whether it's how he privately gathered as information in his growing up, observing, observing, filing away in his little mind for future reference, his travels, his life abroad, growing up, being with his grandma, meetings with his dad, his mother, etc...participation in associations, his college, wearing a particular 60's, 70's leather-wear fashion, his young-man afro, checking out the "black culture", balancing to the nicety his dual color, testing how to straddle both sides of the fences in ANY issue, training himself to be a "public speaker" , learning how to hone his "persuasion" language, building that "consensus" persona during the "community organizing" days, smoking among the well-dressed elite college buddies of the chicago school of economics, imbibing the concepts of this and that school of thought, stuyding the constitiona, becoming a lawyer, building connections, studying the TIMING of campaigning, marrying a corporate lawyer as a potential "trophy wife" to "Assure" BOTh the colored and white audiences he intended to position himself in that he has BOTH "the black" in him , as well as the "accomplished and rising america" in him...
writing his Daddy book garnering some kind of "general understanding" of his supposed PLIGHT as a young man "looking for identity" and VOILA -- he FOUND IT -- in "service to the country" !!!! "I"M the ONE WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR"!!!
observe it closely -- THESE are ALL CALCULATED - over a very long period of time.
even his few "days of silence and privacy" during the death of his mother in hawaii -- THAT TOO was USED by obama for EFFECT.
sure - he certainly felt for his mother. we all do, no matter who we are in most cases anyway, but SOME PEOPLE actuallY WILL USE their own "personal tragedy" to ELICIT a sense of "awe" and "space" to be offered by their adversaries, who if they say the rough things (such as some did against him during that family death) would be derided as "callous" anyway, but MORE SO - to elicit rapport by DEFUSING any further resistance and skepticism from his INTENDED TARGETS to exploit - which of course are the voters . oh -- yes, this man CERTAINLY USED his tragedy to infuse more "significance" of even a "mystical" nature - as if to finally convince everyone :
"YES - it is TIME to elect a BLACK MAN and BE post-racial...just look his white grandma died...who gave him his SOLID , responsible, all american character..and who are WE to deny OURSELVES OUR collective moment in our great history?"
and THERE obama got 'em.
as in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and movies .. if people remember?
OBAMA is like the FORMERLY "white wizard" and top of the wizards' council - SARUMAN - who - as gandalf discovered was a LIAR and manipulator who connived with the Great Evil Dark Lord Sauron -- and Saruman himself was "scheming to be a great power himself with his own Ring of Power"...
and instead of "white gown" had transformed his clothes to a "rainbow colored" one that "shimmered as he moved".
that's how obama created himself - a Saruman of "many colors" -- the man "for all seasons" to everyone ......pretending to be wise but used his knowledge , like saruman and sauron did in magic - to create rings of power and armies of cruelty and deception and enslavement, BUT INSIDE - obama the wanna be "great power" himself, who could barely contain his own LUST for power.
and he did all that with COLD precise calculatedness.
his METHOD might be "post-modern" -- his MOTIVES are older than the bible he put his hand on. it is called :
GREED and LUST and POWER and SELFISHNESS and SELF-ADULATION.
this guy is actually a narcisst like you've never seen, among presidents. he is FULL of himself. he probably alwasy was, even in indonesia as a boy, secretly detesting his classmates and neighbors with himself as "so much better".
he FOUND his "proper place" that he worked for all his life - the WHITE HOUSE in the "proper place" that he KNOWS and had known , even from afar in all his travels, thought of itself and thinks of itself as "better than" all others -- and that place he found himself commodiously in and WANTED all along and PLANNED for all along, just biding his time for the proper moment of "more conservative, rightwing control" - in which to emplace HIMSELF as the "new change" of american FASCIST conservatism that was inherent for generations -
that place is america. that's WHY he is president. his, imo, is the most successful LONG-TERM planning execution to be in the most powerful seat on earth. and his PURPOSE was to be the "BEST" fascist - post-modern, so to say, he ever could be.
"best" being - by showing himself to be "all colors to all people" but INSIDE - he is as black as sin (and not about his color) . and the more so because of the utter COLDNESS of it all. it's really frightening that such power can reside in a person that way, because even as we speak - HE already HAS been committing genocides and aims to have more. only -- as in FASCISM - he calls it as america likes to think of it:
"war for defense and freedom".
but they are genocides and warcrimes and all other kinds of betrayals of humanity , alright. no other way to put it, as easily as the stalins and hitlers did, but obama surrounds himself with the "HOLINESS" of being 'american'. he has OFFICIALLY and definitey made "american genocides" as completely acceptable - as opposed to genocides by "all others".
NOW - america can OPENLY commit it - and say "this is HOLY".
and THAT"s obama's work.
This nations' real problems are not the shills of the right or the stealth candidates from the right like Obama, but the apologists and intellectually blind leaders like professor Marjorie Cohn.
She cannot or will not see that Obama has always been a right wing plant who lied to win the election.
The right has no ethical basis. They will do what is necessary to control this country for the rich ruling elite.
Good Grief.
I believe that the US knows that it's power is declining and wants the ability to wage war with anyone at anytime and it will be much easier if the gov't doesn't have to waste time with such democratic processes as debate (no real debate due to campaign contributions) and dissent (shown by media as America haters). I believe we are cruising towards a subtle fascism (inverted totalitarianism) where we will be consumers/workers/militarists but not citizens.
Obama has turned out to be nothing more than lying scum.
The slogan we should be following is: Assist Progressives only. Work against Blue Dogs and Fascists.
Look how long it took Justice Stevens to FINALLY come out against the death penalty? Stevens spent most of his term allowing prisoners to be put to death and long after he had been enlightened by his colleague, Justice Marshall, who consistently espoused that the death penalty violated The Constitution.
"Obama should do the right thing."
Obama could live 10,000 years and he'll never do the right thing.
What does it take to announce that you are a candidate for the Supreme Court?
I nominate former northern Ohio Congressman and ex-con James Traficant.
By far the best qualified! And I would love to hear the Senate hearings on his confirmation.
"Mr. Traficant, how did that building contractor lift the first floor of your house so they could add a first floor?"
"Good question, Senator. But could you please call me Congressman Traficant?"
-30-
I remember when then Congressman Trafficant was on the air before Congress with the exception of Gary Condit voted to expel him from Congress. I always reckoned that the Congress varmits in the House Ethics Committee were far more corrupt than he was. I think Trafficant would make an excellent independent candidate for president.
Thanks Obama, old buddy. So Dubya couldn't fuck us over as well as you?
You don't have to prove anything to us---not any more.
"Obama is once again cowering in the face of conservative opposition."
When is he not? Or, if he isn't cowering before the right, then he's clearly in agreement with them. Obama tilts toward Kagan because he shares her rightwing views and wants a court stacked heavily on the right. Whether he's an abject coward in the face of the rightwingers or just wants to prove his bona fides to them, it's all the same in the end. He's another advancer of American fascism, just like nearly everyone else in Washington.
Mr. Obama's administrative style tends toward "a half a loaf". His decisions and judgments may seem 'wise" politically at the time, but will not produce fundamental change. Fundamental change does not flow from "political decision". Political decision is forged from accommodation as opposed to principle.
America, from my perspective as Citizen, must fundamentally change. The people cry out for it. His election is a manifest of the People's desire for Change. The Demographics of our country fueled mainly by the concentration of wealth among the few have forged an electorate that is Center-Left. Mr. Obama's election was premised and executed on that reality. Mr. Obama's administration of the Government ignores that reality and proceeds as if the electorate remained Center-Right. There is a price to pay for this logic, expressed by another African American, Langston Hughes, in his poem:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
The time is fast approaching when the People's will must be incorporated into the government it elected. I believe in the force of that Will and its ability to bring about the change it seeks.
my disappointmen with americANS is this way:
as I continue to study and observe - both its history and its views of itself as well as over time, given the events that are definitive of american behavior when they happened or circumstances show (oil crises, reaganism, capitalism, credit card consumer debt culture, culture of "having everything we want whenever we want, however we want", debt crises, bank and financial structure falsehoods, corporatism, environment, oil, cars, education, anti-intellect, issues of morality, selective morality, patriotism, terrorism, "us versus the world", "we are the world", "everyone in the world has GOT to like us, shouldn't THEY?" , political malfeasance, tolerance for such politics over time , repeatedly voting for or "voting" through passivity over time, incuriousity or interest about the world outside of america, preferential historical "awareness", etc.)
it is REALLY the american populace as a whole, regardless of what to ME are merely POCKETS of real thinking and honest self-examination (of whatever stripe), that is ultimately responsible, NOT merely INDIVIDUALS who drive the arguments or frame them or enforce them.
take some examples:
it ought to be CLEAR to ANYONE in this world:
the POLICE MAY and indeed for quite a good part , have the "public interest" at heart, law and order, safety, helping people, etc....BUT it is also AS CLEAR that a POLICE force EASILY, QUITE EASILY becomes a power unto itself.
BUT AMERICANS GLORIFY it - despite the many cases of brutality that ALREADY, by themselves over time should WARN americans about how their own "public servants" BECOME their MASTERS. that is how america is NOW a police state - OPENLY.
it is AMERICANS that tolerated its growing power.
apply that principle to all other things, OVER time:
the environment -- so NOW, americans are WORRIED about the environment? it is THEIR life style of permissiveness and exploitativeness for "the freedom to choose" that brought that about.
the corruption of finance, of politics all across the board...WHO , over time, CHOSE to vote and support or tolerate or participate in the very thought processes that CLEARLY were going to come to no good ends, even if the obvious would display itself only more fully over a generation -- such as the OIL addiction, the car culture (hugely INEFFICIENT and costly - beyond the already known pollution and unsustainability of oil/gas dependence -- hugely INEFFICIENT MERELY to "move" a few bodies at a time to certain destinations for the sake of "freedom" and "choice" and "personal space") ...
the war militarism culture, which itself is both an extension of and reflected IN the other aspects of american culture on a DAILY , common, unquestioned basis:
sports, the LANGUAGE of sports, the language used in daily communications :"SIR, MOVE aside, PLEASE, SIR!"...
"ma-am, LOWER your umbrella , PLEASE , ma'am" --
tones and phrases of COMMAND - taken from a "command structure" culture buttered up with FAKE politeness and fake 'respect' (ma'am, 'sir') ....
put these things - defining over-all characteristics with details of general behavior and attitudes....
the politicians respond to the RESPONSE to the politicians' and corporations' and "business of america is business" mentality - all of them exploitative - coming from the people THEMSELVES. the people GIVE the corporations and politicans and all the organizational parts of america the people's
COMPLICIT accord - whether they do so through passivity, or active or knowing agreement, or "going along" with the supposed "american way" (which comes from BOTH sides - the leaderships in politics and economics as well as the responsive populace that takes it all in , as , over time, a CONFIRMATION that their {americans'} personal and individual and collective notions of being "worthy" and american is CORRECT).
the onus for the entire "lifestyle" can not be placed ONLY on the "taste makers" - it also belongs as much, if not even MORE so, to the TASTERS - who declared it to be capital and wonderful and wanted more of the same..even as they KNEW it was dragging them to an abyss that eventually will arrive at its denouement.
as EASILY as americans over generations gave in to the temptation of the "wonderful life as an american" - each generation doing its best to ENHANCE and enlarge upon THAT "wonderful life" proferred to them to consume by their leaders - they just as easily also gave in , over time, to FEAR - for "losing it".
and in both ways they ALLOWED it all to happen, whatever is happening now, or more specifically, merely becoming all-too-obvious that they have NOWHERE to HIDE from the fruits of their own "very, very hard work to DEPRIVE EACH OTHER" (albert einstein) as a RESULT of THEIR own individual GREEDS and selfishness and parochialism. ..which they ALL as a population celebrated , year after year, in what they call
"the american way" - through their celebrations:
:july 4th, memorial day, macy's parade, mothers day, chocolate day, thanksgiving, halloween, mayflower day, alzheimers day, day this , day that....
ALL of them commercializations of the american "will" to "have" everything under the sun, no matter the costs to them or others...
the more I "look" the more I find that much , if not all, of america lacks one thing above all:
GENUINEness and HOnesty and a sense of uncompromising truth about themselves for a country that has NO excuse at all to be IGNORANT or lacking in awareness of so much history and knowledge and information that should be teaching moments every day and every generation towards PLAIN truth....(such as that the USA IS and always was , from the very beginning and EMPIRE that would exploit) and therefore
the worst thing of all: Lack of True Honesty DESPITE all the knowledge available and always was at their disposal to MAKE THE PROPER CHOICES rather than a body of "free choices" that represent DENIAL of truths (such as the "choice to have a car culture" DESPITE the clear facts against it as opposed to a VERY viable public transport system that long ago could have been CHOSEN and DEMANDED)...
or such as the CHOICE to PUNISH every public official the INSTANT he betrays public trust - and YET americans have REPEATEDLY RE-armed such people, or replaced them with progressively even WORSE ones.
THAT alone tells you - a LARGE part of the responsibility rests on the american populace ITSELF.
their own politicians and elite ARE their products who THEY glorified as examples of success..forgiving the "mistakes' here and there so long as the "bigger picture" of what americans WISHED for THEMSELVES - the illusion of permanent prosperity - while ignoring its costs especially to other countries which eventually comes BACK to america as blowbacks .
americans, imo, are not, and NEVER were as "naive" as they pretend to be, or as "surprised" at the bad results of their own generational choices, or as they might be painted by observers. no...i think americans are and were always aware that their lifestyle was not only based on exploitation, but swift in its costliness...and yet they marched right on. ...because "this is america".
I think this is what Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr....may have meant by saying :
"we are a nation of technological giants and Moral and Intellectual Midgets".
"WE" - does not mean "only the corporate leaders and bad politicians"....
it does not mean ONLY the conniving cabalistic "chamber of commerce" as described by John Perkins, former CIA "economic hitman" - it does not mean ONLY the banksters or "short sellers" , or this or that polluter ONLY.
no -= one way or another, in some small or larger way, depending on their individual capacities and positions to influence events around themselves -- it is AMERICANS that are the "WE" that Martin Luther King, Jr, refered to.
"Rather than celebrating the historic achievements of the Warren Court - and of Justice Stevens - Obama is once again cowering in the face of conservative opposition."
Why would one thing that Obama is cowering? Which is the real Obama? The one who spoke against Roberts' confirmation, or the one who spoke out about "activist judges"?
this is not really "cowering before the Conservatives".
his "speaking out against the Roberts court" was just PURE DECEPTION - pure theatre and to wrap himself in "progressive" clothing before becoming president - part of his way of SEEMING to be "for the people" - such as anyone that felt oppressed by the Roberts Court. it was all part of his "person creation" for the world and america to keep america "off-balance" about his TRUE nature, which is FAR more conservative and neocon and war president-like.
it was all part of his making sure americans that are "not so sure about him" but might be on the less conservative side -
TRUST him - by presenting himself as some kind of "opposition" (to the roberts court, etc.) and for his promoted "constitutional scholar" credits....
BUT IN REALITY _ all that - including his "studies" of constitution and law - are PART of his REAL intent to DISMANTLE all obstacles to his TRUE intent - as a Corporate FASCIST war president.
look back at ALL the things and people he has eventually THROWN UNDER THE BUS once their usefulness was over for his purposes to get to whereever he wants :
Reverend Jeremy Wright.
health care - public and begin to remove corporatist for profit health care...
torture,
war - the idea of peace, nuclear disarmament,
oil - offshore drilling, spying,
Reverend Martin Luther King, JR.
you all see the pattern , i am sure.
the man is the CoMPLETE OPPOSITE of any claims he makes that are claims DESIGNED to "disarm" the american populace and his other adversaries -- for this is a person who in fact thinks of americans and anyone that is not of his INNER circle - the circle of RULERS and pharaohs - as potential adversaries.
and that includes ALL of america and ALL of the world.
this man is a TYRANT, there is NO question about that.
you can even HEAR it in his speech pattern...the way he CLIPS the ENDS or last words of his sentences - with the tonality going Down......as if in FINALITY "there is NO questioning MY conclusion..there is NO argument , there is NO discussion allowed".
he IS a conservative -a neoconservative. he NEVER was even a mere "liberal". much less - goodness gracious - anything close to "left" .