----- Original Message ----- From: Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 10:44 AM Subject: Re: US Supreme Court's power grab (was Re: Query)
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com>
> >For my part, I'm surprised by the relative lack of reaction here on the
> list
> >to the US Supreme Court's naked power grab. We can produce miles of
> >scorched bandwidth over the proper interpretation of Max Weber -- a
> >legitmate topic to be sure but hardly topical -- but seem to have little
> >reaction at all to the black-robed coup d'etat now in progress.
> >Justin, Nathan, do you want to want to offer any hymns to the glory of
the
> >law today?
>
> I don't think that either Justin or I ever were part of the choir on that
> point, but did believe that the conservatives on the Court would not
> sacrifice their total intellectual credibility for a naked partisan gain.
> We were apparently wrong and Scalia et al have made the pragmatic partisan
> decision to make sure that they keep their numerical majority on the Court
> by installing Bush, the credibility of the Court and their judicial
> philosophy be damned. I saw one conservative Bork supporter sputtering
> about how the injuction shutting down the vote count was as complete a
> betrayal of principle and as large a judicial overreaching as he could
> imagine.
>
> But let's be clear. This is not a coup d'etat but merely the reality of
> existing power relations coming to the surface- the partisan power of the
> Court stepping into the limelight from its usual self-effacing
mumbo-jumbo.
> The irony of course is that the nature of the Supreme Court is such that
> such a visible exercise of partisan power inherently diminishes its
exercise
> and credibility in the future - which is what makes the overreaching
gambit
> by Scalia et al so fascinating. Given the fact that the Supreme Court
will
> have delivered the Presidency to Bush, every Supreme Court decision will
be
> understood in that light from now on and every judicial appointment will
be
> fought over with naked partisan mobilization, since it is now clear that
who
> is appointed matters for every other partisan result in our electoral
> system.
>
> Which is great! Anything that strips the illusion of impartial legitimacy
> from the organs of power is a gain for progressives seeking to organize
> against that establishment. Blacks, latinos, the elderly, the disabled -
> those immediately disenfranchised by this latter-day Jim Crow Court are
only
> the most obvious candidates for questioning the fundamental legitimacy of
> our whole corporate-dominated system.
>
> Now, folks can sit on the sidelines and just say this is just an internal
> fight between capitalist parties or you can recognize that, in however
> fucked up and partial a way, the Democrats have been and continue to be
the
> vehicle for the self-empowerment and enfranchisement of a whole range of
> interests and groups in our society, and that the corporate Right decided
> that this process needed to be turned back in this election. A lot of the
> Right is seeing what's going on in California, as latinos and other
> non-whites have become the majority and the radical changes in politics
that
> are underway, and they fear the future as this process extends on to other
> states and across the country.
>
> The fight over who is a citizen, who is enfranchised to vote, and the
whole
> gambit of "electoral profiling" to shut down the voting power of the
> excluded is the chasm of conflict that has been revealed in this election.
> And it's not going away. The Supreme Court needs to jump in to stand
square
> against the right to vote and have your vote counted, because we will see
a
> whole onslaught of subtle and possibly not-so-subtle attempts to deny the
> right to vote to all sorts of groups in coming years. So the best way to
> understand the Court's action is as a sacrifice play - trade off
credibility
> on a whole host of other issues in order to try to win on the most
> fundamental issue and always the issue in our partial democracy - who is a
> citizen and who shall rule along the color line of capitalist America.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>