Black Thought Nails Supreme Court Prediction

I am obviously not back on a regular basis, but I will engage in a little self-celebration at getting the first Supreme Court nominee prediction pick head on.

On November 22, 2008, I predicted Sotomayor would be the first Supreme Court nominee . . . and . . . well . . . she is:

Alright folks, I really have no idea how it will go down, but these are my predictions of the order of the nominations selected from the top ten prospects as listed by Salon.
I have no real additional insight into the picks and order aside from my gut feeling.

Nonetheless, here are my picks in order of their future nomination.

Nomination Pick #1

Sonia Sotomayor, 54 — After growing up in a Bronx housing project, Sotomayor has risen to become a judge on one of the most powerful courts in the land: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. As a Hispanic woman, Sotomayor would make an attractive candidate if Obama is looking to diversify the court. There has never been a Hispanic on the Supreme Court, and there is only one woman currently on the bench, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Sotomayor might also have bipartisan appeal. She is politically moderate, and President George H.W. Bush appointed her to her first judgeship.

Obama’s first appointment should rightly be a woman, seeing as they are more than 50% of the population and have one representative on the bench. I believe she will be the first appointment because she is an uncontroversial slightly liberal woman, and would be the first latino to boot. (link)

My prediction was that the second nominee would be Cass Sunstein. We’ll see how how I do in round #2.

Thank You Thomas M. Pann

You’ve got balls.

Jimmy Carter: Obama’s Human Rights Opportunity

Yes he can.

Senator Kennedy vs. Hillary Clinton On Flag Burning & The First Amendment

"If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities
of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended
by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution
is supposed to protect?" - Senator Edward M. Kennedy, constituent letter 1997 (link)

The quote reminds me of one of the many reasons I was not a fan of Hillary, even before
the election. For those who aren't aware, she supported a law making flag burning a criminal
 offense. Many believed she did so merely for political gain.  

I agree. 

 In fact, I'd like to hear her answer Senator Kennedy's hypothetical question . . .
for that matter. 

Yes We Can

Fix the Constitution.

James Baldwin: On The Civil Rights Movement & Race In America

Anybody who gives any thought to race in America and what it means, should give Baldwin your ear for a few minutes. Brilliant mind, brilliant stuff.

I’m still thinking about the words.

If you’re too busy to watch the entire thing, you should listen to Baldwin’s last question (beginning at 5:23).

It’s still unanswered.

Abraham Lincoln On The Bush Doctrine

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

– Abraham Lincoln

Denzel’s Amazing Anti-Torture Speech in “The Siege”

If only I could sit down all of America and make them watch this clip. Checkout the Siege it’s great. And it was made pre-911, which is probably why it is so compelling today.

Frederick Douglass: Tyrants

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. – Frederick Douglass

Slavery as the Starting Point for Freedom

Our fearless leader President Bush has said and invoked the word “freedom” more than anybody has ever been able to keep track. This word is used with amazing frequency in regards to the occupation of Iraq. We needed to “free” the Iraqis, we needed to fight for “freedom” for the Iraqis, we’re still in Iraq now because we want Iraqis to be “free,” and indeed we are a nation that fights and stands for “freedom.”

I would consider some horrific deal with the devil, if only it would result in President Bush being forced to publicly define what the word freedom actually means to him. Despite the fact that Iraqis did not have all of their freedoms under Saddam, it’s clear that Iraqis are not much more (if at all) free in the currently war torn militia run country now before us.

Then again, it’s not as if Americans can consider themselves completely free either. Many Americans face various forms of racial discrimination, class discrimination, and country of origin discrimination everyday. That’s certainly not complete freedom. Even more specifically, we increasingly face the rollback of our civil rights and civil liberties. Add to all this othe ftentimes insurmountable financial hurdles faced by many families trying to live a decent life, it’s a hard case to make that we are completely “free.”

Indeed, freedom seems at its base, to be a relative concept. The question really is free in comparison to what? Your previous state? A universal standard somehow applied to hundreds of different countries and hundreds more cultures within them?

Is freedom the simple absence of state interference and the ability to be left to our own random devices, or does true freedom oftentimes require more?

Can we truly be free in a prejudiced society?

I’m not sure about any of this, but I’d like to propose a starting point from which we can begin an evaluation of, if not freedom, whether we are pursuing the correct means to achieve an increase in “freedom.”

While there are a variety of forms of slavery, the American version is most familiar to us all. I think it’s fair that while true “freedom” is hard to define, almost all human beings can agree that the opposite of freedom is definitely slavery. If that is true, than the further away we are from slavery, the closer we arrive towards absolute “freedom.

So let’s look at what was done to the African slaves  in order to enslave them. By identifying the tools used to enslave a people, we may be able to reverse engineer these tools to find the way to best undue slavery, or perhaps reach closer towards a state of absolute freedom. Three of the “slave-making” practices stand out for me.

1) Their language was taken from them. They were prohibited from speaking their native languages because they would otherwise have been able to communicate with out the slave owners understanding them.

2) They were prohibited from reading and writing. In other words they were kept from becoming literate.

3) Slave owners controlled their sexual relations/sexuality and reproduction.

Arguably, to the extent that we can move away from these conditions, and arrive at their opposites we may be making the most steady path towards absolute freedom.

The opposite conditions would be:

1) The ability to freely speak and maintain one’s own “native” language. Taken further, the active encouragement of the state in the maintenance  and teaching of “native” or perhaps simply non-majority languages.

2) Literacy. Taken further, an excellent quality education and higher education.

3) Sexual choice and birth control.

Something to think about.