Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Right back at you with the fanning.



On the question of what to do, we on the left could stand to take a cue from the Tea Party, which isn't really a separate political party, but the Republican base. Whether they're actually legit or not (see below*), they sure are cleaning house and have Republican politicians jumping through hoops. It remains to be seen whether those left standing actually do deliver on their Tea Party 'oath' -- Scott Brown in Massachusetts seems to be trying to extricate himself from their clutches now that he's gotten the seat in the Senate.



The other thing is to watch Great Britain and this new coalition government, conservatives and liberals.



*There's a story going around that the DLC, which sees itself as benefitting from the current conservative Republicans being replaced in primaries by Tea Party candidates (in the Michelle Bachman mold), has been behind the Tea Party all along. Considering that the first thing that Obama and Rahm Emanuel did once in the White House was to go on the attack against Limbaugh and Palin, and has NEVER attacked actual Republicans in Congress or the leadership, makes the story plausible.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

You are losing and will continue to do so . In fact the whole country is losing because you and the extreme right have a lot in common.

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Funny, when we on the left (and to call the 70% of the Democratic Party that self-identifies as liberal "extreme" is a big stretch) were in charge, the shape of the country and the world was great.



It was liberal policies and legislation that created the middle class, built post-war Europe, built the Hoover Dam, brought electricity to every house in America, wiped out smallpox, increased longevity, decreased infant mortality, built the infrastructure across the natiion, clean potable water to every home, etc., so what the heII are you talking about when you lay nonsense like "liberals are against teaching abstinence" on the left?



Liberals aren't against teaching abstinence in the schools; we're against teaching abstinence ONLY.



The issues that you list are complex. I assume that when we talk about jail, you're interested in lowering the crime rates, and that's why liberals discuss the causes for crime. And "making excuses for every minority in jail" is an inherently racist remark. The preponderance of minorities in jail is due to many factors, and it's incumbent upon us all to examine them. You don't think that by "examining them" that means "making excuses for", do you?



If you do, then who is the one who doesn't listen?
About Elena Kagan
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

I could go piece by piece and respond to your comments but no matter what you will not listen.

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Because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I didn't listen.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Just like Karl Rove's and the Republicans' scheme for a permanent Republican majority in Congress, Obama (along with "new Democrats" like Al From, Bill&Hillary, Joe Lieberman, Rahm Emanuel, Harold Ford, Jr., Tom Carper, John Breaux) hopes to do the same with the DemocraticParty through the DLC.



The Clintons founded the DLC (the Democratic Leadership Council, aka "the Republican wing of the Democratic party") and have been laying the foundation for permanent control of the Democratic party by "centrist Democrats" (moderate Republicans) since the 1980s when social conservatives (evangelical Christians) were taking control of the Republican party.



The bases of both political parties (evangelical Christians in the Republican party and liberals in the Democratic party) are seen as voting blocs which are necessary to winning elections, but who, ideologically, are nuisances to the Establishment Elites.



Unfortunately for the DLC, the base of the DemocraticParty makes up about 70% of the Democratic Party. But fortunately for the DLC, most of the base doesn't really know what the DLC is and what it's about.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Obama's planning (along with the rest of the DLC-controlled Democratic Party) to have replaced the liberal base of the Democratic Party with the moderate Republicans who are being forced to confront and either declare their allegiance to the far-rightwing Limbaugh & evangelical Christian-controlled Republican (Tea)Party or leave it to find haven within the *New* Democratic Party (Just-Like-The-Old-Republican-Party, pre-Ralph Reed and evangelicals).



The message to us on the left will be the same that it's been for the last 5 or 6 election cycles, "Where else are you going to go?"



The news of the 2008 election was that the liberals won back control of the Democratic Party, but the DLC managed a bait & switch and seized the reins.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Obama doesn't understand the economy either; Obama keeps the architects of this economic catastrophe in charge -- All of Bush's people.



Tarp 2 = Obama.



A corporate giveaway of gargantuan proportions under Obama that doesn't deliver affordable, quality medical treatment for all.



A stimulus package not nearly enough, guaranteeing many years of double-digit joblessness and a destroyed middle class.



Obama has let the thieves commit the greatest heist in the history of the world get away, and he's blocking investigations, reform that would prevent it happening again, and restitution. All that Obama is is the Establishment Elites' man put into place to calm the masses after we've all been fleeced, and keep the mechanism (the capitalism tool) in place to do it again.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

The fear card being played.



It's a lame argument, cowardly actually, to cower and be grateful because the lesser of the ev!ls is in power.



If everything that Obama promised during the campaign was a l!e, then what makes you think that everything that McCain promised wasn't also a l!e? Both candidates played to their base, with the winner apparently never intended to live up to the promises.



There's no way to predict what we'd be facing now had McCain-Palin got in. I'd expect with Democrats controlling both Houses of Congress some real aggressive blocking and stonewalling. But Democrats didn't do that when they had the chance with Bush, and they certainly aren't holding anyone in the previous administration to account.



Bush was a disaster, but what kind of Democrat expands on Bush's abuses? I don't even think McCain would have had the audacity to have done Bush one better, as Obama has done.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

The republicans took over because a lot of people in the middle who leaned to the left were turned off by fanatical liberals who shouted them down. There are still a lot of people in the middle who can be reached by the left. But first they need to listen.

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I think it's those in the middle who need to listen. After all, they've been controlling the Democratic Party and the Congress for 20 years and helped Republicans move the government to the right and institute policies which have destroyed the nation.



Deregulation, lower taxes for the richest, exploding Pentagon budget and unending wars, bankrupting of social programs, no money spent on infrastructure, exporting Americans' jobs, exporting manufacturing to other countries, all due to those in the middle who collaborated with Republicans.
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Remember that this was a time when the dumbing down of Americans began in earnest, with the creation of USA Today and abridged news. Americans were getting less information and liking it more. News divisions of the television networks were being absorbed into the entertainment divisions.



Unwilling to challenge the assault on liberalism (and wanting to rise into power), conservative Democrats created the DLC. If they had any honesty or integrity to them, they would have become Republicans, but Republicans already had their leadership so there could be no easy rise within the party to power.



It looks like you swallowed the Kool-Aid, and have no idea what liberal policies are or why and how they built this great nation and kept the US at the forefront (up until conservatives wrecked it all).
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

Conservatives, however, brooded over what they believed was an unfair rap on their champion Nixon. They schemed, plotted, and went into government. The Federalist Society was created, and out of it came the methods employed by Bush and Cheney this past decade for getting around Congress to achieve a unitary executive. Also, how they could replenish their voting base (enter Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones, creating universities that churn out lawyers and teachers and missionaries to enter government service and put their own unique spin on their jobs).



But until that got up and running, they had to get a charismatic candidate who transcended party affiliation, who would appeal to working Democrats.



Straight out of Central Casting (and GE), they got Ronald Reagan.



Reagan (and Lee Atwater), using crude marketing tactics (the sophisticated techniques came later), turned the very word 'liberal' into something to run from. Democratic politicians at that time thought it so abzurd, that Reagan's tax and deregulation policies were so bad for the People (regular folk, union members, like those in your own family), that they didn't even bother to address the attacks -- Surely no one would believe it. But they didn't take the power and persuasiveness of celebrity into account. The media stopped reporting critically about Reagan because they got angry hate mail, "Stop attacking our President!"
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

The republicans moved in because the left became so entrenched that they stopped listening to people who were on their side but also had ideas they wanted implemented.

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No.



The sixties was a time where different populist minority groups came into their own all around the world, beginning with student protests at universities. Do you remember the free speech movement and Mario Savio, and the women's rights groups, blacks and hispanics, hippies, yippies, etc.? The Vietnam War was a rallying issue, but all these groups were kicked off by JFK's assassination, followed by MLK's and RFK's.



The unrest of those days was exhausting, and by the time the Vietnam War ended and Nixon resigned, the left thought their work was done. With Nixon gone and Republicans disgraced, with the Church Commission exposing their abuses and instituting changes to prevent government abuses again, it was time to get back to 'real life', i.e., college, work, making families, and so on.
About Elena Kagan
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