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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 11, 2003 David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   July 3, 2003 Patrick W. Gavin The Meaning of Gettysburg Thomas W. Croft There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy David Lindorff Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US John Chuckman Lessons from the American Revolution Jackson Thoreau New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices Stan Goff "Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3 July 2, 2003 Diane Christian Good Killing and Bad Killing Richard Falk After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future? Mokhiber / Weissman Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress Justin Podur Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia Reuven Kaviner Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2 July 1, 2003 Sasan Fayamanesh Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran Elaine Cassel Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops Susan Block A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: No, No Bono David Lindorff Weapons in Search of a Name Gary Leupp Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1   June 30, 2003 Karyn Strickler The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America Col. Dan Smith The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire Tim Wise Race and Destruction in Black and White Neve Gordon The Roadmap and the Wall Chris Floyd The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam" Elaine Cassel Kentucky Woman Uri Avnery Hope in Dark Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30 Website of the Day Bush El Hombre   June 28 / 29, 2003 M. Shahid Alam Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry? Jeffrey St. Clair Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man Laura Carlsen Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace? Alan Maass You Call These Democrats an Alternative? C.Y. Gopinath Bush and Kindergarten Noah Leavitt Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law Joanne Mariner Rehnquist Family Values Ignacio Chapela Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley Bob Scowcroft Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers Jon Brown Tom Delay: "I am the Government" Kam Zarrabi Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please! Ron Jacobs Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues Julie Hilden Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment Adrien Rain Burke The Anarchists' Wedding Guide Adam Engel US Troops Outta Times Square Poets' Basement Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod   June 27, 2003 Jason Leopold CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US David Vest Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker David Lindorff The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali" Ray McGovern Cheney, Forgery and the CIA Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26 Website of the Day John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy June 26, 2003 Sen. Robert Byrd The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix Paul de Rooij Ambient Death in Palestine Chris Floyd Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq Elaine Cassel Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner CounterPunch Wire Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops Sheldon Hull Squatting in Mansions Ben Tripp A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone Uri Avnery The Best Show in Town Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day Ordinary Vistas: The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo   June 25, 2003 Bruce Jackson Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers Mickey Z. The New Dark Ages David Lindorff Indonesia's War on Journalists Dan Bacher Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops Adam Federman "Success is Not the Issue Here" Elaine Cassel "Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines Bill Kauffman My America vs. the Empire Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day You Are Being Watched: Elevator Moods   June 24, 2003 Elaine Cassel Supreme Indemnity Holocaust Denial at the High Court Roya Monajem A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life? John Chuckman The Real Clash of Civilizations David Lindorff WMD Damage Control at the Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24   June 23, 2003 Marc Pritzke Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern Conn Hallinan The Consistency of Sharon Wayne Madsen Commercials, Disney & Amistad Edward Said The Meaning of Rachel Corrie Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23 June 21 / 22, 2003 Alexander Cockburn My Life as a Rabbi William A. Cook The Scourge of Hopelessness Standard Schaefer The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor Ron Jacobs US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets Harry Browne The Pitstop Ploughshares Lawrence Magnuson WMD: The Most Dangerous Game Harold Gould Saddam and the WMD Mystery David Krieger 10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Avia Pasternak The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories CounterPunch Summer Reading: Our Favorite Novels Todd Chretien Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension Maria Tomchick Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids Adam Engel The Fat Man in Little Boy Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert & Hamod June 20, 2003 Walter Brasch Down on Our Knees Robert Meeropol The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Grannies and Baby Bells Norman Madarasz Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical Gary Leupp Bush on "Revisionist Historians" Steve Perry Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale   Hot Stories Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 11, 2003 Philly Inquirer Watch Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor By EDWARD S. HERMAN Anybody who follows the Inky closely knows that in dealing with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's visit to Philadelphia on July 4 to receive the Liberty Medal, the paper would treat her with kid gloves and allow no dissident voice to be heard criticizing her record. The Inky is a promotional newspaper, one that gets on each celebratory bandwagon that involves Philadelphia, and provides lavish and uncritical coverage (the Inky's treatment of the award of the Republican Convention to Philadelphia in 1999, and the death of Cardinal Krol in 1996 were notorious cases). It also leans over backwards to prove its absence of liberal bias by treating conservatives and rightwingers with great generosity. In dealing with O'Connor's visit the Inky failed to publish a single editorial or Commentary piece on O'Connor, offering only a lengthy front page article by James M. O'Neill and Stephen Henderson on "City honors O'Connor at key moment" (July 3, 2003). That article makes O'Connor out to be an unqualified marvel, her Liberty Medal awarded for qualities of "independence, leadership, and a nose for justice." Quotes are given that she is a "trailblazer and a pioneer," "receptive to compromises," and altogether meritorious. No critical analysis or word is to be found anywhere in this article. The authors cite her recent decision that "preserved the use of race in college admissions" and another that "decried the quality of defense lawyers in death penalty cases," showing her qualities of independence and "nose for justice." She is also noted for her conservative core beliefs "usually supporting states rights and a smaller federal role" and on "criminal procedure." Nowhere does this piece mention the immensely important 2000 case of Bush v. Gore, in which the five Republican Supreme Court Justices, including O'Connor, interrupted a Florida vote count to give the presidency to Republican candidate George Bush. Constitutional law professor Jamin <B.Raskin> says that this decision was "quite demonstrably the worst Supreme Court decision in history," in which the "Bandits in Black Robes...rushed to aid the political party of property and race privilege in a debased partisan way." Raskin argues that this decision was worse than the 1857 Dred Scott decision which found African-American non-citizens, because Dred Scott was at least closely reasoned and consistent with the nature of the original constitution, which was a white man's compact. Bush v. Gore "mocks legal reasoning and represent an affront to the rule of law." This view is widely held in the law profession and elsewhere, even if it is suppressed in the Inky. One of the most notable features of Bush v. Gore was the willingness of the court majority to run roughshod over states rights, as it twice overturned Florida state court actions on the 2000 election despite the fact that Article II of the Constitution leaves it to "Each State" to appoint its electors. States rights protagonists O'Connor and company displayed here an opportunism and politicization of justice that would be hard to surpass. The Inky has never had a Commentary column by Raskin or anybody else seriously analyzing Bush v. Gore, and as I pointed out in "Profiles in Cowardice," they never assailed that court decision editorially back in 2000, saving all their moral indignation for Clinton's last minute pardons. The Inky has also never had book reviews of Raskin's fine book on Overruling Democracy (2003) or former Los Angeles Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's powerful analysis of that decision in The Betrayal of America (2001). While O'Connor and the Rehnquist court were wonderfully generous to George Bush in giving him federal court standing and protection in Florida in 2000, they are much harsher with ordinary citizens, especially minority citizens. In Allen v. Wright (1984), O'Connor's opinion for the rightwing majority was that African-American parents who wanted the IRS to enforce the law by withdrawing tax exemptions from racist schools had no standing because they were not demonstrably personally injured--that is, citizens have no general right to make government comply with the law. Of course there were no injured plaintiffs in Bush v. Gore either, only "a candidate desperately looking for ways to prevent the counting of votes" (Raskin). The majority decision did argue that counting the votes could cause "irreparable harm" to George Bush, but it did not strike them that not counting them could cause irreparable harm to Al Gore. And of course O'Connor and company gave no weight to the only clear and unjustifiable "irreparable harm" flowing from their decision, which was its actual disenfranchisement of many Florida voters. But people may not be aware of the fact that Bush v. Gore says that "The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States"! Individual voting rights are a matter for decision by the states, although Bush v. Gore shows that states rights on this matter can be overridden by a politicized judiciary. O'Connor's important 1993 opinion in Shaw v. Reno also gives standing for federal judicial intervention in a hugely biased fashion hurtful to blacks. A conservative law professor at Duke and several other aggrieved white voters in North Carolina challenged a redistricting of voters in North Carolina by the North Carolina legislature that had created two majority black districts (of 12 total districts in the state). This led to the election of the first black representatives from that state in Congress since Reconstruction. The plaintiffs argued that the new districts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution because it was gerrymandered to achieve its numerical result. O'Connor gave those aggrieved white voters standing, although they were not deprived of the right to vote or run for office, and she contended that "The deliberate segregation of voters into separate districts on the basis of race violated their constitutional right to participate in a 'color-blind' electoral process." She even referred to the intentional construction of black districts as "political apartheid," a phrase she has never used to describe cases of actually existing apartheid in the states. But color-blindness had never been evident in the history of voting in North Carolina (or elsewhere), and nothing in the Constitution speaks of such a right. O'Connor even conceded in her opinion that race regularly entered into calculations in redistricting, and she and her colleagues have never objected to the absolutely commonplace gerrymandering to protect the seats of established white legislators. In fact, in 1986, in Davis v. Bandemer, O'Connor argued for the majority that a Republican gerrymander in Indiana was entirely immune from judicial scrutiny! In this case, O'Connor's decision overturned that of a lower court that "said that Republicans had manipulated district lines to give themselves an advantage over Democrats" (NYT, July 1, 1986). Manipulation of district lines to help Republicans win elections is OK; but redistricting in accord with voting rights laws attempting to rectify racist exclusion and give black people congressional representation is unacceptable. In short, O'Connor and her Republican colleagues on the Supreme Court only selectively override the right of states to fix their own electoral boundaries, in Shaw v. Reno granting white petitioners the right to be part of a white majority, at the expense of consistency and the right of blacks to get political representation. As Raskin points out, "This double standard, which masquerades as 'color blindness,' requires tremendous judicial interference with the political processes of the states to prevent the creation of aesthetically displeasing majority-minority districts. Like Bush v. Gore, the Shaw doctrine also betrays original understanding jurisprudence because it has been an article of faith with conservatives for decades that the intent of the 14th amendment had nothing to do with districting practices, since the whole purpose of giving Congress enforcement powers...was to empower it to take remedial action against white supremacy." O'Connor in Shaw was serving white supremacy. This decision threw into question 26 other districts created after the 1990 census under the Voting Rights Act. All involved patterns of racist under-representation that O'Connor's opinion will help maintain. O'Connor also served in that role in her majority opinion in City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Company (1989), which overturned a minority set-aside program in Richmond, Virginia, and at the same time overturned a prior Supreme Court decision that had justified such programs on the grounds of long and massive anti-black discrimination in the construction trades. Writing for himself and two other dissenting justices, Thurgood Marshall said that "today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this country's affirmative action jurisprudence." One estimate was that 190 cities and 36 states would have to dismantle such programs in the wake of that decision. In this opinion O'Connor expressed concern at the possible "stigmatic harm" to blacks from affirmative action discrimination in their favor, and its possible generation of "racial hostility." Stigmatic harm to whites benefiting from longstanding racism did not bother O'Connor, nor did the racial hostility expressed in the discrimination that the set-aside was intended to remedy. She was also willing in this case to override that "judicial restraint" and deference to state and local judgment that the conservatives claim as fundamental principles, but which they overrode here as well as in Bush v. Gore and Shaw v. Reno. In still another racist opinion, Coleman v. Thompson (1991), O'Connor held that Virginia death row inmate Roger Coleman would not be allowed to present new evidence of his innocence because his attorney had been three days late in filing Coleman's habeas corpus petition. Because of this "procedural default," our heroine, who the Inky reporters lauded for her "nose for justice," wrote that "This case is at an end," and Coleman was then quickly executed. I have not exhausted the negatives in Sandra Day O'Connor's record as a Supreme Court justice, which closely overlaps the record of the Rehnquist Court as a whole. That court has played a truly reactionary role in American life, steadily undermining the work of the Warren Court, and preparing the ground for Bush-Ashcroft. Civil rights, civil liberties, the ability of governments-federal and state/local-to serve ordinary citizens have been relentlessly eroded by the highly partisan Republican majority. Their decision in Bush v. Gore was a huge scandal, that "made it impossible for citizens of the United states to sustain any kind of faith in the rule of law as something larger than the self-interested preferences of William Rehnquist, Antonia Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day O'Connor" (Jeffrey Rosen, George Washington University). It tells us a great deal about the Inky that it can only offer apologetics for Sandra Day O'Connor, and implicitly the Rehnquist Court. This performance is regrettably consistent with a great deal of its news and editorial work. Edward S. Herman is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, an economist and media analyst. He is author of numerous books, including Corporate Control, Corporate Power (1981), The Real Terror Network (1982), Manufacturing Consent (1988, with Noam Chomsky), Triumph of the Market (1995), and The Myth of The Liberal Media: an Edward Herman Reader (1999). Weekend Edition Features Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /