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From: Zeyhilel@aol.com
Date: Thu May 13 2010 - 09:13:39 EDT
(http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/worldnews.shtml)
_United States_ (http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/unitedstates.shtml)
Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Chicago, Harvard
and Washington (javascript:void(0))
By James Petras. Axis of Logic
Axis of Logic
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan for Justice of the United States
Supreme Court on the basis of an academic publication record, which might
give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law
school in the Texas Panhandle.
A review of her published scholarship after almost two decades in and out
of academia turns up four law review articles, two brief pieces and several
book reviews and in memoriam. There is nothing even remotely resembling
a major legal text or research publication.
Her lack-luster academic publication record is only surpassed by her total
lack of any practical experience as a judge: zero years in adjudication,
unless one accepts the line of her exuberant advocates, who point to Kagan’
s superb ability in adjudicating among the squabbling faculty at Harvard
Law School when she served as Dean. No doubt Kagan had been very busy as the
greatest fundraising Law School Dean in Harvard’s history ($400 million),
which may account for the fact that she never found time to write a single
academic article during her nine year tenure (2001-2009).
The criteria for her appointment to the Supreme Court have little to do
with academic performance as it is understood today in all major
universities. Nor does her total inexperience as a judicial advocate compensate for
academic mediocrity.
The evidence points to a purely political appointment based, in part, on
social networks and certainly not on her lack of affinity for the agenda of
the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Kagan’s approval of indefinite
detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions on
constitutional freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration and
subsequently upheld by President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. It is no
coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush torture advocate, the
genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
Elena Kagan’s appointment certainly was not based on “diversity”. She
will be the third Jew on the Supreme Court and, together with the six Roman
Catholics, will decide the most critical cases with far-reaching and
profound impact on citizens’ rights and protections. For the first time in US
history the nation’s largest demographic group, the Protestants (of any hue
or gender), will have no representative on the Court, thereby excluding the
descendents, like retiring Justice Stevens, of the brilliant, strongly
secular judicial heritage that formulated the US Constitution, the Bill of
Rights and its amendments.
Kagan’s nomination to the US Supreme Court is not exceptional if we
consider many of Bush and now Obama’s choices of advisers and officials in top
policymaking posts. Many of these officials combined their diplomas from
Ivy League universities with their absolutely disastrous performances in
public office, which no amount of mass media puff pieces could obscure. These
Ivy League mediocrities include the foreign policy advocates for the
destructive and unending wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and the leading
economic advisers and officials responsible for the current financial
debacles. The names are familiar enough: Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Levey,
Greenspan, Axelrod, Emmanuel, Indyk, Ross, Summers, Rubin, et al: Prestigious
credentials with mediocre, or worse, performances. What is the basis of
their rise? What explains their ascent to the most influential positions in
the US power structure?
One hypothesis is nepotism . . . of a certain kind. Elena Kagan got
tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago in 1995 on the basis of
one substantive article and one brief piece, neither outstanding. With
this underwhelming record of legal scholarship, she became visiting
professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only two more articles (one in
Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima facie evidence strongly
suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and
Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual prowess) account for her
meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now the US Supreme Court, over the
heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far superior
academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience.
The public utterances and political writings of innumerable Harvard,
Princeton, Chicago, Yale, John Hopkins professors, whether it be on the
speculative economy, Israel’s Middle East wars, preventative detention, broad
presidential powers and constitutional freedoms are marked by a singular
mediocrity, mendacity and an excess of hot air reeking of the barnyard.
If you do not qualify on the basis of excellent scholarship or broad-based
practical experience, your ethnic tribesman will wax ecstatic over you as
a “wonder colleague”, a “superb teacher”, a “brilliant consensus builder”
and a “world champion fund raiser”. In other words, if you have the
right ethnic connections and political ambitions, they can adjust the
criteria for tenure at the University of Chicago, the deanship at Harvard Law
School and a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees who have
long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like Barack Obama, Elena
Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago Judge Abner Mitva, an
ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President Obama as “America’
s first Jewish President”, probably his soundest judgment.
The issue of the composition of the US Supreme Court is increasingly
crucial for all Americans, who are horrified by Israel’s devastation of Gaza,
its threats to launch a nuclear attack on Iran and its Fifth Column’s efforts
to drag us into a third war in ten years. With the Presidents of the
Major American Jewish Organizations pressing the compliant US Congress to
declare “anti-Zionism” as a form of “anti-Semitism” and “opposition to Israel’
s policies” as amounting to “support for terrorism”, thus criminalizing
Americans critical of Israel, another active pro-Zionist advocate on the
Court will provide a legal cover for the advance of Zionist-dictated
authoritarianism over the American people.
Yes, Kagan would be another woman on the Supreme Court. Yes, she would
probably adjudicate conflicts among the judges and strengthen Obama’s police
powers. And yes, she would likely favor your indefinite detention if you
support the right of Palestinians to struggle (“terrorism”) against the
Israeli occupation . . . especially if you defend America against Israel’s
Fifth Column.
But remember when you apply for Ivy League law school appointment or a top
judicial post and your CV lacks the requisite publications or work
experience, just ask Judge Abner Mikva or Larry Summers or Rahm Emmanuel for a
recommendation. With such support you will shoot ahead of the competition. .
. because you have the right ethnic connections.
_READ HIS BIO AND MORE ARTICLES
BY JAMES PETRAS ON AXIS OF LOGIC_
(http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/petras.shtml)
© Copyright 2010 by AxisofLogic.com
This material is available for republication as long as reprints include
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