I mention this one in particular because Jamie Raskin (who, with David Kairys, made the panel) was pretty forceful in his argument as to why there is no left and what needs to be done--that it's a general lack of left constitutional discourse, and that law needs to be increasingly politicized. (Keep in mind though, that J. Raskin represented Ross Perot in his race, not because he likes Perot, he said, but because he dislikes the two-party system). It may not be new news, but he presented the following pretty cogently.
1. Consider the separation of powers, which divides to four now: leg., exec., jud., and independent counsel. Abolish independent counsel.
2. Campaign finance. Private money is public speech, and a plutocracy governs, so campaign finance reform is crucial. Folks like us can't fly off in malls while we pay politicians to act like wankers on TV.
3. Consider the right-wing coup, and how Clinton has been an integral part. How Clinton's been a nightmare for civil liberties: wire-tapping, warrantless searches in public housing, etc.
4. Approach the civil liberties question not from a race angle, but a Bill of Rights angle. (I know, I'm being hopelessly general here).
5. Politicize the drug question (I had a thing or two to say about that, mister!). The so-called war on drugs dismantling the Bill of Rights.
6. And very importantly: law acts as a privilege-biased depoliticization of social relations, in that it comes down, spectacle-wise, as "god's word", the word of the father, etc. So (il)legality needs more politicization. From D. Kairys' intro paper: "The law casts the structure and distribution of things as somehow achieved without the need for any human agency. Decisions and social structures are made by people - and can be unmade or remade - but the courts depict them as neutral, or even God-given, thus providing a false legitimacy to existing social and power relations."
7. Most broadly, we need to be more aware--to inhabit and scrutinize--the legal infrastructure, to know how something like the Wagner Act could be used more effectively, and how judicial restraint could be used to the Left's advantage.
Hmm, what else . . . the "African-American Politics" panel featured Clarence Lussane, whom I would have liked to hear more from, and Lisa Brock, who also had good things to say. Orlando Patterson got booed again, as he had in New York, for his anti-immigrant tendencies. He also has this bad, quasi-religious "personal responsibility", "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" take on the African-American question: that it's less "the system". "Personal responsibility": sigh. Is this not in many ways the individualist kernel of capitalism, just a screen-term "providing a false legitimacy to existing social and power relations"?
That's it for now I guess. Chicago's nice, and my friend and I had a nice dinner with D. Mulcahey, G. Lane and Micah S. (thank you!) over in Pilsen, with great anecdotes about Chicago cops and "Movies in Motion", the Teamsters movie outfit out here, stuff on the New Party. So what is the New Party about?
-Alec
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