The attacks on recently-nominated Elena Kagan (for the Supreme Court) – and many more – are to be expected from the right.  In fact, it’s safe and predictable to say that even if Obama had nominated a second iteration of Scalia, there’d be scorn and calls for someone “less liberal”.  Which is why Obama should have nominated a replacement for Stevens who was at or to the left of him on the ideological spectrum.  But that Obama did not indicates yet again, among other things, that Obama himself is not a terribly liberal liberal.

Kagan not being a trial lawyer isn’t much of a concern.  And certainly her arguments as Solicitor General should not reflect upon her own personal views (but, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, her arguments for good things should be taken with the same salt as her arguments for bad things).  However, Kagan should be held accountable while in her role as a White House advisor – her (freely given) advice urging a ban on late-term abortions should be attributed to her.

However, the tendency for progressives to compromise on the Obama administration’s conservative actions is exactly the wrong thing to do.  The right is much more disciplined (and consequently much more successful, albeit for other reasons as well) in this regard – take Harriet Miers, for instance.  Bush came out with a less-than-stellar conservative pick, and he was embarrassed into withdrawing her nomination by the right – correctly so.

If Obama was widely panned and embarrassed for choosing a moderate, unknown nominee to replace the most liberal member of the Supreme Court, then he would be less (not more) inclined to be moderate.  While progressives/liberals/people allow their values to be compromised by the guy elected (largely by left or left-leaning activists) without protest, Obama will just continue making the same, conservative moves.

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… is that he might be the best this country can do.

If the standard-bearer of the Democrat party, the “most liberal” president, is someone who would pass healthcare reform without actually regulating insurance companies while at the same time mandating all U.S. citizens buy into a broken system of for-profit healthcare, run by the largest corporations in the world, then that demonstrates a pretty sorry state of liberalism (never mind real progressive change).  For some myth-debunking (for those who think it’s truly transformative) about the healthcare bill, see Jane Hamsher’s Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill.

An even greater indication of Obama’s failure to live up to the promise of his presidency is that he came out immediately in support of the Schumer-Graham immigration  bill, which is a draconian framework for immigration reform that entails all citizens to get an identification card with biometric information on it as well as further militarizing the U.S./Mexico border (among other things).

Tack on top of that an escalation of the Afghanistan war (whose surge of 30,000 troops alone costs $30 billion), the bailout of Wall Street, and so on … is this the best candidate that “progressives” can get?

The scary thing is that supposedly “liberal/progressive” organizations, like Planned Parenthood and the Reform Immigration for America have come out SUPPORTING passage of both of these extremely problematic pieces of legislation.  Despite Obama creating a signing statement to deny federal funds for abortion, Planned Parenthood has declared the passage of the healthcare bill in the House to be a “Victory!”, describing it as a “huge victory for women’s health”.

It appears (perhaps unsurprisingly) that organizations that are so desperate for any sort of victory that they’ll accept anything that even addresses their agenda.  That, or these institutions have such a craving to be associated with those with real power that they’ll carry all sorts of water.  In any case, real reform has gotten that much harder to reach.

Victory at what cost?

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Sotomayor

The buzz around Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s recent nomination, as well as the ongoing hearings, has brought to the forefront the issue of gender and race in the currently U.S. Supreme Court, which does not appear terribly representative of the country it deigns to serve.  But critics and journalists are missing the boat with respect to a determinant factor of identity, going beyond race and gender.  There’s a glaring omission from this debate.

While the racial milestone that will be made with her appointment to the court will certainly be significant, an important trend (perhaps the most important trend) in the court itself will be broken by her ascendancy. That is, she will be the first Catholic on the Court who is not a conservative.

(from: Southern Appeal)

While every is scrutinizing the race, gender, and whiteness of the Court, and how it affects the decisions that it makes, the religious denominational breakdown of the Court has been the leading (and perhaps sole) indicator based on identity as to how the Court has voted.  That is to say: All the Roman Catholic Justices are conservative (from moderately-tempered Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, to the barking mad Scalia), whereas all the other non-Catholic Justices (Ginsburg, Stephens, Breyer, and the now-departed Souter) are more liberal in their decisions.

Since the end of the Rehnquist Court in 2005, the the sides in decisions of the Court could be nearly always determined by Catholic affiliation (or non-affiliation).  For instance, Justice Kennedy is occasionally a “swing vote” between the liberal and conservatives of the court, but almost always sides with his Catholic buddies.  A few exceptions have occurred, such as Kelo v. City of New London, but such exceptions largely prove the rule.

With Sotomayor on the Court, all that will change!  LIberal Catholics around the country can rejoice that finally a non-conservative Catholic will represent and advocate their ideological perspective in the future.  A wall will be broken, a stereotyping of Catholics as socially backwards, intolerant curmudgeons will end, and “progress” will be upon the U.S. Supreme Court.

Question: Should liberals now fear that Sotomayor will abandon her hitherto liberal instincts, and start taking orders from the Vatican? (See B.E. Howard’s question to Kennedy)

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From Z Magazine’s Roger Burbach:

The upshot is that a reform-minded president supported by labor unions and social organizations is now pitted against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite that is accustomed to controlling the Supreme Court, as well as congress and the presidency. It is a story often repeated elsewhere in Latin America, with the United States almost always weighing in on the side of the established, entrenched interests.

The Honduran elites were outraged that a member of their class would carry out even modest reforms. They began to portray Zelaya as a demagogue, and demonized Hugo Chavez as trying to take over the country. When Zelaya announced that he would hold a plebiscite on June 28 to see if the country wanted to have the option in the upcoming November presidential elections to vote for the convening of a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution, the political establishment would have none of it. They incorrectly claimed that Zelaya was trying to stand for re-election. In fact the possibility that a president might serve a second term could only emerge in a new constitution that would not be drafted until well after Zelaya left office in January, 2010. The elites did however have reason to fear a new magna carta, since this is the path that Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have used to draft new constitutions to begin transforming their countries political, social and economic structures.

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One of my most unpleasant tasks as president of the Graduate Student Senate at UMass was having to interact with university executives. It would be only a slight overgeneralization to call them a bunch of snakes who combine the cleverness of academics with the slipperiness and amorality of corporate executives. They profess high-minded principles like intellectual achievement, academic freedom and humanistic values, while their actual concern is primarily to manage universities to respond to the technological, personnel and even ideological needs of the corporate and military sectors.

In 2007, hundreds of presidents of American universities signed a statement opposing a proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions for their role in Israeli war crimes. The list of signatories is here:

http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/NYTimes_College_Presidents_Full.pdf

In 2008-09, zero American university presidents condemned the incomparably worse Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza and the headquarters of its faculty association.

Many of us have been desensitized to this kind of vile double standard, but publicly pointing them out can still be a powerful moral action.

If your university’s president was among those who signed the statement, you might like to hold them accountable by making a public statement. I have written the following open letter, which for various strategic reasons, we have decided not to publish on my campus. Feel free to adapt it and use it on your own university campus. Remember to add a salutation and signature.

In 2007, you signed an open letter condemning an effort by British academics to hold Israeli academic institutions accountable for their collusion with the criminal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The academics opted for a selective boycott, which aimed to target culpable institutions while exempting Israeli academics who oppose Israel’s crimes.

Because of your open letter’s patent silliness – it called on the British academics to boycott American colleges and universities for not engaging in discrimination – and because it trivialized opposition to Israel’s severe war crimes as “political disagreements of the moment,” we assumed, along with the rest of the justice community, that you and the other signatories were motivated not by “fundamental values of the academy” such as “intellectual exchange,” as you claimed, but by the cheap, cynical Zionist partisanship that we have come to expect from the American elite.

We are pleased to present you with an opportunity to prove us wrong, by condemning the recent Israeli bombing of Palestinian academic institutions.

Several weeks ago, the Israeli Air Force bombed several academic buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza in six air strikes, including the science laboratory building and the “Ladies’ Building,” where women attend classes. More recently, Israel bombed the headquarters of the University Teachers’ Association.

Media reports on the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University were in near unanimous agreement that the university was targeted because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas. Astute observers have noted that these bombings are consistent with Israel’s policy of scholasticide – the systematic destruction of Palestinian education institutions, including, in the last several weeks, the destruction of at least four schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The Israeli government has made the unsubstantiated claim, disputed by Islamic University officials, that the university was used by Hamas for military purposes. In view of the Israeli government’s history of lying about its wartime actions, its extensive targeting of educational and other civilian institutions, and its refusal to permit independent observers into Gaza to verify its allegations, this claim cannot be taken seriously. The Israeli academic institutions targeted by the British boycott, in contrast, are known to made substantive contributions to Israel’s criminal aggression and occupation.

There can be no doubt that bombing universities and faculty buildings are a more severe form of interference with the “fundamental values of the academy” and with “intellectual exchange” than a nonviolent, targeted boycott, and therefore at least as worthy of condemnation. We invite you to publicly condemn these bombings.

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In a New York Times story posted Tuesday, it appears that Hamid Karzai, the “Mayor of Kabul” and former (current?) CIA operative, is on the outs with the new Obama administration.  Apparently Karzai’s complaining about the U.S. at-will blowing up of Afghan civilians, compounded with his failure to rein in the warlords and unseemly elements of the government has left him much less useful than embarassing to the new administration.

No doubt, Karzai has been little more than a pawn to make the Bush administration look like it was doing something, but as Obama plans on escalating the war in the country, he seems to be looking for a more competent ringleader.  In any case, Karzai’s days are numbered as Afghan head of state.

Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from about 34,000 now… He [Gates] outlined plans for an increase of about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for barracks and other infrastructure.

So one campaign promise that Obama is living up to is upping the ass-whooping on Afghanistan.  I hate to bring up inconvenient lessons in history, but didn’t yet another superpower put all its eggs in the Afghan basket (while experiencing severe economic strains) and end up becoming a moot point?

Mr. Gates added that the United States should focus on limited goals. “My own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies, and whatever else we need to do flows from that objective,” he said.

Here’s a good thought experiment – did Gates make the above statement 6 years ago, or yesterday?  (Hint: We’ve seen this foreign policy already, and it hasn’t turned out so good).

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I recommend Bill Quigley’s “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice” to anybody considering a legal career and interested in justice.

Also recommended is the book “Against the Tide,” by Debbie Hagan,to those who want to understand the social role of lawyers. It is the story of Lawrence Velvel, Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, who dreamed of running a law school in the public interest but met resistance at every step from the legal establishment.

Also recommended is a book I’m in the middle of reading, Unequal Justice, which explores the political interests behind the origins of many of the legal institutions we are familiar with, such as law schools, the big law firm, the bar exam, the American Bar Association, and the National Lawyers Guild. It’s dated (from the mid-1970s), but still very interesting and useful.

The comments section here might be a good place to compile recommended resources on this subject.

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So it’s the day after President Obama’s inauguration. How’s everyone feeling? I’m still pretty damn excited, though it doesn’t quite feel real yet… I came to political awareness under Bush’s reign; I’m more than eager to see how such awareness might evolve alongside this administrative change.

On this day after, I second Jay Smooth in “Why I’m Happy, Why I’m Not Satisfied”:

Time to get to work! (Or, rather, to continue working, with enthusiasm!).

Refreshingly, it seems the Obama administration agrees. Already, Team Obama has ordered a 120 day halt on the prosecutions of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Such a request may not be automatically granted by military judges, and not all defense attorneys agree to such a suspension. But the move is a first step toward closing a detention facility and system of military trials that became a worldwide symbol of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and its unyielding attitude toward foreign and domestic critics.

The legal maneuver appears designed to provide the Obama administration time to refashion the prosecution system and potentially treat detainees as criminal defendants in federal court or have them face war-crimes charges in military courts-martial. It is also possible that the administration could re-form and relocate the military commissions before resuming trials.

So it might be difficult to foretell direct results, to say the least.

“This is a good step in the right direction, although we still think that the unconditional withdrawal of all charges and shutting down this tainted system is warranted,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The president’s order leaves open the option of this discredited system remaining in existence.”

Jamil Dakwar is right, of course. This action is not nearly enough. However, I don’t believe that the urgency and necessity of successive steps distracts from the urgency and necessity of this first one. I commend it!

President Obama has acknowledged in recent interviews that shutting the facility is likely to be prolonged an complex. And the administration now faces a number of potentially daunting challenges to following through on the president’s campaign promise. Obama is expected to sign an executive order soon that will lay out in detail his plan to empty the facility.

I look forward to learning all about it.

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It may be a leftist cliche by now, but Dr. King’s radical legacy needs to be rescued from those who would paint him as a cuddly let’s-all-just-get-along figure.

So let’s remember Dr. King’s revolutionary spirit, in his own words.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality…and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

Read More…

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I don’t normally report news, but since I haven’t seen this information elsewhere, I thought it was worth a blog post.  – Uri

Sent out by the Free Gaza Movement

www.freegaza.org

Jennifer Loewenstein; Beirut, Hamra; 1.10.09. 2:30am

Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago.

1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the “roof knock”. This is when a “small” rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a “warning message” to the building’s inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.

2. While the UN continues to claim that “only” 25% of the casualties from the attacks on Gaza are civilian, the Mezan Center for Human Rights (known for the care it takes not to overstate the numbers and for its strict verification policies) estimates that the number of civilian casualties is approximately 85%. In particular, the number of children has increased to over 200, and the number of women has surpassed 75. One reason for the lower civilian casualty figures used by the UN has to do with the reluctance to consider men -other than the elderly and sick- as non-combatants. In fact the overwhelming majority of men killed in “Operation Cast Lead” up to now have been non-combatants, including fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, construction workers, laborers, students, as well as the civil policemen. The vast majority are not “Hamas militants.” Note that the civil police are considered ‘non-combatants’ under international law and are therefore not ‘legitimate’ targets in any military confrontation any more than traffic cops or firemen.

3. The UN announced this evening that “almost everyone in the Gaza Strip” is now in need of humanitarian aid. Indeed, even those with adequate food supplies are a) handing out what they have to people in “shelters” (which have been targeted consistently by Israeli war machines in the past); Even those with adequate food supplies are b) unable to obtain bread anywhere. Many are using rice or spaghetti to substitute for carbohydrates — when these are availabe and when there is water and electricity to allow for cooking these items.

4. There are widespread reports now of forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods of people who go mainly to nearby schools or other public buildings not yet destroyed. These are considered no more secure than their homes but remain the only other places to go (other than to move into crowded dwellings with relatives; or places no more secure than their own homes). The congregation of so many people in these enclosed spaces increases the likelihood of major civilian casualties when airstrikes target the area.

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