Right wingers v. Judge Sotomayor

Scan page 5

If President Obama could have foreseen the controversy over his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, he might well have nominated her even sooner. Not that the president expects this Latina judge to champion the causes of minorities and the poor. As one profile of her noted, “Sotomayor may disappoint activists on the left who were hoping that Obama would choose a twofisted progressive…” (Time, June 8, 2009).

Mr. Obama said much the same, though with far less candor, when he explained that Judge Sotomayor “understands that a judge’s job is to interpret, not make, law.” The president was trying to downplay Judge Sotomayor’s two most controversial comments: that “policy is made” in the court of appeals, and a widelycirculated excerpt from a 2001 speech in which she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

When Sotomayor’s nomination was announced in May, the conservative movement, reeling from defeats and divisions within its ranks, sensed an opportunity for an easy victory against a vulnerable target. With overheated rhetoric, complete with ethnic slurs and slander, designed to galvanize a right-wing base sorely in need of a rallying point, the far right Republicans went on the offensive.

Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh compared Sotomayor to David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich called her a “racist,” while former Republican Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan labeled her “an affirmative action baby.” By comparison, Fox’s Sean Hannity seemed almost moderate when he claimed that Sotomayor was part of the “far left” and that her positions on race put her at odds with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

These were not thoughtless words spoken in the heat of the moment, at least not judging by the smears that were published in the print media. One writer in the National Review complained about Ms. Sotomayor’s name: “[P]utting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English.” The magazine also used words like “dumb” and “obnoxious” to describe her. Again, by comparison, a New Republic author seemed almost moderate when he called the summa cum laude graduate of Princeton and Yale Law Journal editor “an intellectual lightweight.”

Despite the ferocity of the verbal assault, and perhaps because of it, the repulsive right-wing attack backfired. Sotomayor endured taunting by powerful white men that was so dishonest, so sleazy, that Americans in large numbers turned away in disgust from the crude racism of the Republican Party’s unofficial leaders. These attack dogs had lunged too far on their leash. When popular opinion yanked them back, they had little choice but to slink away in silence.

Surveying the retreat, Congressional Republicans were forced to distance themselves from their unhelpful allies. After all, Republicans are well aware that Latinos are the largest growing minority in the United States and even more aware that their presidential candidate in 2008 won less than a third of the Latino vote.

The groundswell of sympathy for Sotomayor strongly affected the left-liberals, social-democrats, and the Communist Party. Their battle cry is “Support Sotomayor, defeat the right!” On its website, the Communist Party even suggests ways that its supporters can help Sotomayor win the Supreme Court nomination.

This false logic—the enemy of our enemy must be our friend—attempts to find a common agenda or program where there is none. It is proper and necessary to oppose the racist attack on Sotomayor, but it is wrong to lend her political support. This strategy chains the left to its lesser-evil enemy, the Democrats, and stifles the development, on the political field, of an independent, working-class organization.

Real hope for progress and change requires an entirely different strategy. The Supreme Court does not initiate social change; it ratifies the changes taking place in the society at large. It is wishful thinking, then, to place one’s hopes on this or that court appointee.

In 1973, abortion rights for women were not granted because a majority of the Court was female. In fact, the first female Supreme Court justice was only appointed eight years later by Republican President Ronald Reagan. Women in the United States won the right to abortion because of the strength and depth of the feminist movement. Women’s liberation was a cause that profoundly transformed American culture in every sphere of life.

The Supreme Court recognized this social change in 1973.

The famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling that outlawed segregation in public schools confirms the same point by different means. Following the Court’s decision, American schools did not desegregate with all deliberate The June 19 representation election for the Fresno homecare providers resulted in an official victory for SEIU of 2938-2705. However, the complaint by NUHW supporters details how SEIU used organizers to physically intimidate homecare providers and NUHW organizers, erroneously claiming that if workers voted for NUHW they would lose health-care coverage, wages and even their jobs. They also state that SEIU used a county manager with supervisory powers over homecare workers to visit workers homes to urge them to vote for SEIU, among other charges.

Regardless of these charges, the actual result of the election is still in doubt; as many as 400 ballots have still not been counted. NUHW supporters have vowed to continue their fight for the right to choose their own union representation.

Bill Onasch reports: It wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Nine dead, 80 injured when one Metro train rear-ended another in Washington. The DC Metro is fully equipped with computerized Automatic Train Control designed to prevent such catastrophe.

One thing I learned driving a bus for 14 years is that the reflex response in transit management to any accident is to blame the operator. The operator of the moving train could not defend herself–she was fatality one. Fully prepared to speak ill of the dead an anonymous management source told the Washington Post the night of the tragedy, “It doesn’t look like she hit the brakes,’ said a train safety expert, who asked not to be identified because the crash is under investigation. ‘That’s why you have an operator in the cab. She should have been able to take action. That’s what they’re there for.’”

But by the next day it had to be acknowledged that as soon as “novice” operator Jeanice McMillan realized to her horror that the Automatic mode was taking her at 59 miles-per-hour toward a train stopped around a curve she desperately hit the emergency brakes. She didn’t try to jump to save herself; paid the princely wage of 18.20 per hour she stayed on duty to the end. ...

Failed computer circuits, inadequate brakes, and poorly designed rolling stock appear to be the primary factors that came together to cause the worst accident in Metro history. The first two factors may well be connected to “deferred maintenance” so common in cash-strapped transit agencies. ...

The New York Times reported, “...federal safety officials had [three years ago] warned that the Washington train cars could be unsafe in crashes, and called for them to be Sonia Sotomayor at White House, May 26, following announcement of her nomination. Vice President Joe Biden looks on.

speed. The Court’s decision was brought to life by the growth of a powerful civil rights movement, which created progressive change in American society.

Where a civil rights struggle was weak, such as in a Northern city like Boston, segregation was firmly entrenched 20 years after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Again, a powerful social struggle was required to bring words to life.

The U.S. legal system today is hardly— and has never been—the fair and neutral arbiter that its supporters claim. As left-wing attorney William M. Kunstler observed, “The law is nothing other than a method of control created by a socio(continued on page 6, in “Solidarity with the Iranian people! U.S. hands off Iran!”)

replaced, or at least strengthened. Transit officials there said they could not afford to replace the cars, which make up more than a quarter of their rolling stock, and added that they were obliged to keep them in service until 2014 because of the terms of a complicated tax shelter.”

We wrote last fall about these scams that became quite common among transit, and other public sector bodies. The authorities sell their trains and buses to banks and then lease them back. The banks get to deduct depreciation and other charges for the equipment–something public agencies that don’t pay taxes can’t do.

Most of these schemes were insured by AIG. When that giant, now “nationalized,” collapsed, the banks demanded many transit agencies–including the Washington Metro–pay the total owed for the balance of the deal immediately or else find another AAA-rated insurer. With some nudging from the courts, deals were negotiated by most to dodge the bullet. The Metro had to pay 14 million in penalties. Under the present rules they are obligated to maintain the bank tax shelters for another five years.

The same Times article says, “More than a third of the equipment in the nation’s seven largest rail transit agencies was rated in marginal or poor condition by the Federal Transit Administration this spring. Replacing all the equipment that has exceeded its useful life and finishing all outstanding station rehabilitations for just those seven large systems would cost roughly $50 billion, the agency estimated, and keeping the systems in a state of good repair after that would cost an estimated $5.9 billion a year. By contrast, the $787 billion stimulus law contains only $8.4 billion for transit capital improvements across the nation.”

Capital equipment expansion or replacement is not the only challenge. Gridlock and soaring fuel prices led to an explosion of transit ridership in recent years. But operating funds to keep workers on the job and buses and trains running and maintained have declined because of the crisis.

Only 10 percent of the meager transit stimulus package can be used for operating expenses. Most agencies have sharply curtailed service and some have laid off workers. ...

All this comes at a time when we sorely need to greatly expand transit if we are serious about tackling global warming. But as transit crumbles dangerously, Congress offers Cash for Clunkers—to buy new cars. Last month, the White House urged Congress to stop considering a $500 billion transportation bill in committee and instead continue present funding levels until after the 2010 Congressional election. n See Bill Onasch’s full article at kclabor.org.

Socialist Action july 2009 5