[lbo-talk] An Open Letter to Lefty Friends, Colleagues and Bitter Foes Who're Disappointed by Obama

[Gar Lipow]

If you want a short predigested version, Nathan Newman's article from
2001, http://www.nathannewman.org/other/ImpeachSC.html  though
nominally aimed at supporting impeachment of the Rehnquist Court over
Gore vs. Bush, actually was argument that the judiciary was
historically the reactionary branch. It supported slavery against
freedom, the state against civil liberties. The courts castrated the
the reconstruction amendments to the constitution, using tortured
reasoning and judicial activism to water feed the growing Jim Crow
system after the the civil war. It historically took the side of
business against labor, and defended property rights against
environmental protection. The Warren Court was an exception, a shining
moment in an otherwise spattered and stained court record.  And even
it was not shining all the way through.

I won't forward the whole article. But again here is the link.
http://www.nathannewman.org/other/ImpeachSC.html , Impeachment is a
dead issue. And I think Newman understates the value of the the Warren
court, and how unlikely some of these things were to happen via other
branches of government given the barriers to democracy built into our
constitution.  But he when he does not stray into counterfactuals, I
think his argument that the courts have been on net reactionary before
the Warren Court and on net after the the Warren court are not
refutable.   And this argument is really 90% of the paper.
On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Doug Henwood<dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 25, 2009, at 8:02 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
>> This is the second time within a week I've seen an LBO-Talker make this
>> claim, here or elsewhere, and I'd be very interested in hearing either of
>> you, or anyone else, expand on it. Between McCollum vs. Board of
>> Education,
>> Brown vs. Board of Education, Gideon vs. Wainwright, Miranda vs. Arizon,
>> Roe
>> vs. Wade, and others that have inevitably slipped my mind, hasn't the
>> American judiciary often stood at the forefront of social progress? (I
>> mean
>> way the hell in front of society as a whole, to an extent that's been
>> problematic at times.) Or have I missed something obvious?
>
> Those are exceptions. The judiciary has historically been a conservative
> force.
>
> Have you read The Federalist Papers?
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> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

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