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)

Posted under Politics, Religion, Sexuality, Spirituality

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.

Posted under Culture, Politics

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).

Posted under Economy, News, Politics

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.

Posted under Culture, Politics

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.

Posted under Politics

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.

Posted under News, Politics

My own position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been one of distaste for either side.  I find I am sympathetic to motivations and unsympathetic to rationalizations for violence.  I don’t think the Palestinians or the Israelis have a sound basis for the acts of violence they commit.

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Posted under Politics

It’s difficult to say anything particularly constructive or helpful about the ongoing massacre in Gaza, so this will be limited to simply a few observations that appear abundantly clear.

• The state of Israel has lost its moral standing for its existence.  The original Zionist concept of a collaborative, diverse haven for an oppressed class of people has mutated into an ultra-militaristic state which has violently oppressed the people whose land was taken for that purpose.  No state has an inherent right to exist (did the Soviet Union?  Do countries whose borders have been drawn by occupying forces?), and for many well outside of the Middle East, Israel is losing any legitimacy it may have possessed.
• The perpetrators of this 40 year-long genocide – Israel and the United States – have increasingly backed themselves into a very small corner in the public opinion of the world.  Given the U.S.’ unparalleled economic and military power in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, it could afford to overlook the destruction of a small population with little possibility of a threat to its own power.  But economic spheres have and are arising in South America, East Asia, and even Western Europe, and its military force is not as singularly persuasive as it once was.  Empires can crumble, and while the U.S. is currently the only superpower, that can change.  Especially with the whole world against it, minus its client state.

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• We should fear for our lives.  Violence begets violence, and between Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, the U.S. is responsible for more violence now than before the attacks of 9/11.  A future in the United States without some form of violent retaliation is not likely.  However critical one might be of those in the anti-war movement, an implicit aim in every protest and petition is to make the people of this country (and others) safer.  The legacy of our government, on the other hand, is to make us less safe, regardless of the number of times we might have to take off our shoes at the airport or how many Muslims we imprison at Guantanamo.

Why shouldn’t we think that we might be next?  What makes our lives – our children’s lives – less important than that of those children who hear the whirring of planes overhead, followed by the silence of death?  If they can be exterminated, what moral claim to life do we have?

• Apologists for the violence cannot be taken seriously.  At current count, the death toll of Israelis to Palestinians is 5 to 530.  One country is the occupier of the other.  One country has an arsenal greater than any member of NATO (save the U.S.).  One country has a blockade of food and medical supplies of the other.  There is no such thing as parity in this situation.  Any sentence that begins, “Israel has the right to defend itself …” does not merit being finished.  Occupying countries have no rights; they simply have responsibilities.

Apologists include not only those who defend Israeli violence, but those who defend whatever diminutive forces are still launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.  This has nothing to with the right of an occupied people to resist – such rocket attacks are not resistance.  The rocket attacks from Gaza have no logical basis.  Engaging in war, engaging in violence, should at the least have a rational basis in the expectation that it will improve one’s situation.  However, it is abundantly clear (and has been for some time) that not only are such attacks not improving the plight of Gazans, but with a grand total of 5 fatalities, while providing a pretext for Israel to respond, are almost completely ineffective while increasingly contributing to the decimation of the civilian population of Gaza.  One might even suggest that those behind the rocket attacks are in collusion with Israeli military planners, so ineffective are such tactics.

For those of us who live in the countries of Israel and the U.S., both alleged democracies, the responsibilities of our governments are that much more heavy.  We are supposed to have a degree of control over the actions of our leaders.  Our “freedom” and “democracy” are touted as admirable and prominent aspects of our countries.  If we do not use our freedom and democracy to bring an end to the homicidal inclinations of our governments, who can fault the acts of revenge on us by the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the innocent who have perished?  After all this bloodshed in a world where violence has become the new universal language, who doubts it is coming?

UPDATE (Thursday, January 8): Apparently Avi Shlaim, who wrote in the Guardian on January 7, also came to the same conclusion regarding Israel’s “right to exist”:

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

Posted under Politics

Barack Obama is a very intelligent man.  Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move.  Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office  (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis).  It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents.  Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas.  As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

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Posted under News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

“Union boss” is a common epithet used by people who despise unions, seek to weaken unions, or are involved in a particular anti-union campaign. Despite my having observed many campaigns against the leadership of a particular union, and once having participated in such a campaign, I have not heard the term “union boss” used by union members who acknowledge the value of unions, no matter how bitterly antagonistic their relationship with the union leadership.

This suggests that “union boss” is a term of abuse and/or propaganda, not of analysis. My question here: are there circumstances in which the term is legitimately used?

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Posted under Culture, Economy, Politics, Uncategorized