was a highly respected labor attorney and fighter for human rights. R.I.P.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090712_sotomayors_critics_are_the_radicals/
Sotomayor's Critics Are the Real Radicals
By E.J. Dionne
Truthdig: July 14, 2009
This week's hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the
Supreme Court represent the opening skirmish in a struggle to challenge the
escalating activism of an increasingly conservative judiciary.
The Senate's Republican minority does not expect to derail Sotomayor,
who would be the first Hispanic and only the third woman to serve on the
court, and they realize that their attack lines against her have failed to
ignite public attention, or even much interest.
Her restrained record as a lower court judge has made it impossible to
cast her credibly as a liberal judicial activist. "They haven't laid a glove
on her," said Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., her leading Senate supporter.
Yet none of this diminishes the importance of the Senate drama that
opens on Monday because the argument over the political and philosophical
direction of the judiciary that began 40 years ago has reached a critical
moment. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, conservatives have finally
established a majority on the court that is beginning to work its will.
Republican senators know that Sotomayor's accession to the court will
not change this, since she is replacing Justice David Souter, a member of
the court's liberal minority. But they want to use the hearings to paint the
moderately liberal Sotomayor as, at best, the outer limit of what is
acceptable on the bench in order to justify the new conservative activism
that is about to become the rule.
"They have more or less given up on defeating her, so they are going to
engage in a framing exercise," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a member of
the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. "They're trying to define a
Republican worldview imported into the judiciary as the judicial norm for
the country."
The goal, Whitehouse added, "is to define the political ideology" of the
new conservative judiciary as "representing the mainstream, and to tarnish
any judges who are outside that mark."
If you wonder what judicial activism looks like, consider one of the
court's final moves in its spring term.
The justices had before them a simple case that could have been disposed
of on narrow grounds, involving a group called Citizens United. The
organization had asked to be exempt from the restrictions embodied in the
2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law for a movie critical of Hillary
Clinton that it produced during last year's presidential campaign. Citizens
United says it should not have to disclose who paid for the film.
Rather than decide the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable
exercise of judicial overreach. It postponed its decision, called for new
briefs and scheduled a hearing this September on the broader question of
whether corporations should be allowed to spend money to elect or defeat
particular candidates.
What the court was saying is that it wanted to revisit a 19-year-old
precedent that barred such corporate interference in the electoral process.
That 1990 ruling upheld what has been the law of the land since 1947, when
the Taft-Hartley law banned independent expenditures by both corporations
and labor unions.
To get a sense of just how extreme (and, yes, activist) such an approach
would be, consider that laws restricting corporate activity in elections go
all the way back to the Tillman Act of 1907, which prohibited corporations
from giving directly to political campaigns.
It is truly frightening that a conservative Supreme Court is seriously
considering overturning a century-old tradition at the very moment when the
financial crisis has brought home the terrible effects of excessive
corporate influence on politics.
In the deregulatory wave of the 1980s and '90s, Congress was clearly too
solicitous to the demands of finance. Why take a step now that would give
corporations even more opportunity to buy influence? With the political
winds shifting, do conservatives on the court see an opportunity to fight
the trends against their side by altering the very rules of the electoral
game?
Such an "appalling" ruling, Schumer said in an interview, "would have
more political significance than any case since Bush v. Gore." He added: "It
would dramatically change America at a time when people are feeling that the
special interests have too much influence and the middle class doesn't have
enough. It would exacerbate both of these conditions."
So when conservatives try to paint Sotomayor as some sort of radical,
consider that the real radicals are those who now hold a majority on the
Supreme Court. In this battle, it is she, not her critics, who represents
moderation and judicial restraint.
E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.
© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group
***
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff07022009.html
Spinning the Honduran Coup
Latin America Media Battle Continues
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
CounterPunch: July 2, 2009
Read or listen to the mainstream media these days and you get the impression
that Sunday's coup in Honduras was all about a simple disagreement over the
constitutionality of presidential term limits. But as the coup unfolds it's
becoming clear that the authorities want something more: the restoration of
Honduras's conservative political order and an end to President Manuel
Zelaya's independent foreign policy which had reached out to leftist
countries like Cuba and Venezuela.
As part of their effort to consolidate power officials have moved quickly to
restrain the free flow of information, in particular by cracking down on
progressive leaning media. Only TV stations sympathetic to the newly
installed coup regime have been left alone while others have been shut down.
The climate of repression is similar to what we have seen elsewhere in Latin
America in recent years. Specifically, there are eerie parallels to the
April, 2002 coup in Venezuela when the briefly installed right wing
government imposed a media blackout to further its own political ends.
Perhaps somewhat tellingly, the Honduran army cut off local broadcasts of
the Telesur news network which is sponsored by leftist governments including
Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina and Cuba. Adriana Sivori, Telesur's
correspondent in Tegucigalpa, was in her hotel room speaking on the
telephone to her network when ten soldiers arrived with rifles drawn. The
men unplugged Telesur's editing equipment in an effort to halt the network's
coverage of protests in support of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
When a soldier lightly slapped Sivori's hand so she would hang up, the
journalist grew alarmed. "They're taking us prisoner at gunpoint," she
remarked. Sivori along with producer María José Díaz and cameraman Larry
Sánchez were taken to an immigration office in a military caravan. There,
the authorities beat them and demanded to see their Honduran visas. Shortly
later, the journalists were released. However, the authorities have warned
Telesur journalists to cease transmitting images in support of Zelaya or
face further detention.
What is so important about Telesur in particular? In my latest book,
Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave, 2008) I
devote considerable attention to the rise of the new station, itself a
product of South America's stormy political battles and contested media
landscape. First launched in 2005, Telesur represents Venezuela's effort to
counteract the power of the right wing media establishment which played a
role in the short-lived April coup of 2002 against the Chávez government.
Seen as South Ameica's answer to Al Jazeera and CNN, the station has been
spearheaded by Andrés Izarra, up until recently the station's president. A
rising star in the Chávez administration, Izarra got his start as a
journalist at NBC and CNN. Disgusted by right wing media coverage of the
2002 coup, he started to work for Telesur.
Since its launch, Telesur has given CNN en Español a run for its money and
now has slick production values. Station Director Aram Aharonian says the
news industry has gone through a dumbing down since the Gulf War.
Journalism, Aharonian remarked to me during our interview in Caracas, had
become instantaneous but also devoid of any investigation, analysis or
debate. Telesur, by contrast, was "rescuing" journalistic ethics by
providing context and opinions about goings-on. While you can expect to see
more critical coverage of the Iraq War on Telesur than most mainstream U.S.
media outlets, Aharonian says Telesur is independent and doesn't have any
particular political axe to grind.
Such assurances aside, the conservative establishment views Telesur as a
threat. When the station announced a content-sharing agreement with Al
Jazeera in 2006, Connie Mack, a right-wing Republican congressman from
Florida, remarked that the decision was designed to create a "global
television network for terrorists." In light of Sivori's recent detention,
one may surmise that the Honduran coup regime agrees with Mack's hysterical
views.
In Latin America, media has become a crucial fault line in the battle
between the pro-U.S. elite and the incipient left "Pink Tide" which has been
sweeping into power. In Honduras, the coup regime has not only gone after
Telesur but also Channel 8, the official broadcaster of the Zelaya
government. The moves prompted Venezuela's official Bolivarian News Agency
as well as Cuba's Granma newspaper to issue formal letters of protest.
Meanwhile a climate of fear and intimidation reigns throughout the capital,
with networks providing scant coverage of political protest. Soldiers are
reportedly guarding local television and radio stations.
In recent years Zelaya had been embroiled in a war with the conservative
private media in the country. Now that the President is gone, these outlets
have rallied in defense of the coup regime. Honduras' two leading radio
networks, Radio América and Radio HRN, have urged Hondurans to resume their
normal routine and not to protest. Even as hundreds of protesters rallied at
the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa to demand Zelaya's reinstatement,
radio and TV stations made little reference to the demonstrations. Instead
of reporting on political goings-on, the Honduran media outlets played
tropical music or aired soap operas and cooking shows.
It's reminiscent of the April, 2002 coup against Chávez when conservative
media station Venevisión refused to cover pro-Chávez demonstrations and
preempted its normal news coverage with a day-long marathon of American
films such as Lorenzo's Oil, Nell, and Pretty Woman. Venevisión, which
substituted nonstop vitriolic anti-Chávez propaganda for its regular
programming in the days leading up to the coup, was owned by billionaire
media magnate Gustavo Cisneros, himself a leading figure in the Chávez
opposition who reportedly bankrolled the opposition's takeover of
government.
In Venezuela, conservative coup leaders misjudged the popular mood. Amidst
street protests, Chávez was reinstated in two days. In the wake of the coup
Venevisión began to moderate its strident tone and the Venezuelan President
went on the political offensive by spurring the creation of Telesur as well
as other media outlets. If you flip the TV dial today you can still watch
rabidly anti-Chávez stations like Globovisión, though the playing field has
been leveled considerably. In addition to Telesur Venezuelans can also watch
Venezolana de Televisión, a government channel, as well as state sponsored
Vive which provides discussion on Venezuelan culture and politics. Chávez
has his own TV talk show, Aló, Presidente, and there are dozens of
pro-government papers including a tabloid called VEA.
The antagonistic media environment in Venezuela is echoed in other
left-leaning countries in South America. Indeed, the newly elected Pink Tide
regimes have taken on the private media with a vengeance: in Ecuador,
President Rafael Correa has proposed that the constitution disallow bankers
from financing media outlets. According to him, Ecuadoran television is
controlled by powerful interests and the Association of Television Channels
is nothing more than a "bankers club." In Bolivia, indigenous President Evo
Morales launched a weekly radio show called The People Are News. The show
airs for two hours each week on the Patria Nueva (New Fatherland) state
network.
If Zelaya returns to power in Honduras, which seems likely, then we could
see the government take on the power of private TV, radio and the like more
significantly, perhaps by emphasizing more state media. It will be merely
the latest chapter in the ongoing information war between the conservative,
globalizing elite and more left-leaning leaders who are coming to power
throughout the region.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of
the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Visit his blog at
http://www.senorchichero.blogspot.com/
***
In Memoriam: Mario F. Vazquez
(November 25, 1946-July 10, 2009)
A Prayer Service/Vigil gathering will take place, Friday, July 17, 6 - 9
p.m., at Forest Lawn Old North Church 6300 Forest Lawn Drive Los Angeles, CA
90068.
The Funeral Service location is at Forest Lawn Hall of Liberty 6300 Forest
Lawn Drive Los Angeles, CA 90068 on Satuday. July 18, 2009, 12 p.m.
The family is requesting that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the
MARIO F. VAZQUEZ MEMORIAL FUND
Amalgamated Bank,
60 South Los Robles Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101
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