From The American Left History Blog Archives (2006) - On American Political Discourse

 

Markin comment:

 

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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THE ANGELS OF DEATH RIDE AGAIN

 

DOWN WITH THE BARBARIC DEATH PENALTY!!

 

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

 

The United States Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, has just overturned a Kansas State Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of a Kansas death penalty statute. The Kansas court had held that the statute- which provided that where the evidence was equally divided on the question of sentencing a  defendant to life imprisonment without parole or death the death penalty should apply- was unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. Apparently the U.S. Supreme Court had no such qualms as it positioned itself just slightly to the left of the medieval Star Chamber. New justices, Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito voted with the majority, the usual rogue’s gallery of black-robed closet Nazis Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. That should come as no surprise to militants.

 

The immediate impact on the decision on death penalty cases is to further narrow the so-called technical arguments for appeal on due process or equal protection grounds. There was a time when the legal concept of an ‘evolving standard of human decency’ in death penalty cases was making some headway. That concept seems foreclosed by the current U.S. Supreme Court lineup for the foreseeable future  The wrangling now seems to be over whether the court will continue to ‘tinker with the machinery of death’ as the liberals on the court will argue or basically let the death machine roll along relatively unimpeded. Remember this, however, not one of the nine current justices, liberal or conservative, has come close to calling the death penalty unconstitutional.  Whatever the grounds for argument all militants know that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and should be abolished.

 

A reader might ask what a workers party justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would do. In the immediate case, obviously bloc with the minority of justices to oppose this decision which narrows the legal basis for individual appeals. He or she, however, would write a separate opinion denouncing the death penalty and use this tribunal as a way to galvanize support for that position. Realistically, although many bourgeois governments have abolished the death penalty, at the point where we had a workers party U.S. Supreme Court justice we would probably have a workers government. As one of its first acts that government would abolish such punishment without fanfare.

 

In any case, no serious militant should believe that the fight against the death penalty (for the guilty as well as the innocent) depends on court majorities. While all legal avenues, including the U.S. Supreme Court, should be pursued in individual death penalty cases this is a fight that can only be finally won by organizing mass demonstrations and other militant action. Let us do it. DOWN WITH DEATH PENALTY!