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High Noon with DC gun laws, revisiting

Aha! I guessed right! The Supreme Court decides violence in Washington, D.C. needs a boost, cuz evidently there wasn't enough gun violence in the city already.

What's next? Will the Supreme Court decide students have a right to carry guns to school, under the Second Amendment? I hear they are talking about it in some quarters.

Note also the return of the split court. As if it ever went away.

Link: Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights - NYTimes.com.

Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights

By DAVID STOUT

Published: June 27, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far in making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.

[...]

But the long-awaited decision did not necessarily mean that gun laws from coast to coast, many of them far less restrictive than Washington’s, would be swept aside.

Joining Justice Scalia were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

A dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” Joining him were Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The high court’s ruling was the first since 1939 to deal with the scope of the Second Amendment, and the first ever to directly address the meaning of the amendment’s ambiguous, comma-laden text: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The court concluded that the amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, but it also said that the right is not absolute, opening the door for more fights in the future. Lawmakers across the country may look to the decision as a blueprint for writing new legislation to satisfy the demands of constituents who say there is too much regulation of firearms now, or too little, depending on the sentiments in their regions.

In March 2007, Washington city officials expressed disappointment and outrage when the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the city ordinance. The Supreme Court ruling is sure to prompt work on a new ordinance that can withstand high court scrutiny.

The last time the Supreme Court weighed a case involving the Second Amendment, in 1939, it decided a narrower question, finding that the Constitution did not protect any right to possess a specific type of firearm, the sawed-off shotgun.

[...]

Hillary Rodham Clinton: On suspending her 2008 campaign for the U.S. presidency

[...]

I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter's future and a mother who wants to leave all children brighter tomorrows.

To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect.

Let us resolve and work toward achieving very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits, and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.

You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States. And that is truly remarkable, my friends.

To those who are disappointed that we couldn't go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.

Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on.

[...]

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.

That has always been the history of progress in America. Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes.

Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot soldiers who marched, protested, and risked their lives to bring about the end of segregation and Jim Crow.

Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote and, because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together.

Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States. And so when that day arrives, and a woman takes the oath of office as our president, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream big and that her dreams can come true in America.

And all of you will know that, because of your passion and hard work, you helped pave the way for that day. So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself, "If only, or, "What if," I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.

And I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort.

[...]

Link: Transcript - Hillary Clinton Endorses Barack Obama - Text - NYTimes.com.

PRIDE! Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stand poised on the edge of a historic opportunity

Link: Ending Her Bid, Clinton Backs Obama - NYTimes.com.

Link: Op-Ed Columnist - Bob Herbert - Savor the Moment for a Historic Campaign - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com.

Link: Op-Ed Columnist - Gail Collins - What Hillary Clinton Won - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com.

As the TV blowhards blather on about general mindless crap they scat with after political speeches, I just have to pause for a moment and savor Senator Hillary Clinton's concession speech today, as she suspends her campaign (wording there is very important) and unequivocally throws her support to Senator Barack Obama.

It was a historic speech, and one that had me clapping in my living room more times than those fake manufactured applause moments in the usual State of the Union presidential speeches.

So am I one of those "wounded feminists burning up the Internet," as Gail Collins called us above? The passions of the feminist movement are as much with me as they ever were, and they are the reason I watched every word of Hillary's concession speech today with my heart in my throat, and the memory of every glass ceiling I've ever banged into as fresh in my mind as ever.

I LOVE that the feminists emerged from out of the 30 years of history they'd been relegated to by the media and culture, as if they were as dead as the suffragists. And more important, I LOVE that many of those original women who won their right to vote in the early 20th century returned to the front lines again.

Oh, I've been in love with those wonderful League of Women Voters ladies for years, and I sit and talk with them at the polls whenever I find one of their often elderly poll-watchers.

Those crappy pundits say her "celebratory tone" in this terrific speech was an audition to be Obama's Vice President, which is about all they can see. Not surprising, most of them are men, and that is all they can see because that is all their sexist blinders let them see.

This speech was a celebration for women, and for all the other traditional and populist constituencies that haven't seen the light of day for so long, from people without health care, to the vanishing middle class and the threat of deep poverty that a looming recession brings for all of us, just one twist of fate away.

Yeah, I know as well as anyone that the Clintons always brought a mixed bag, doing whatever they could within the frame of politics as the art of the possible. I remember the awful disappointment, after that empowering and massive March on Washington in 1993, when the Clinton administration turned on the gays and lesbians who supported them so strongly, because GA DEMOCRAT Sen. Sam Nunn decided to single-handedly strong-arm  "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" into place in the military. It was a slap in the face, but unlike others at the time, I knew the politics of the situation well enough to know that if I were on the receiving end of Nunn's threats, I may have had to capitulate to them as well. Ironically, the Clinton Administration did better standing up to Newt Gingrich's Congressional strong-arming than it did to more Machiavellian Democrats in Congress (damn, I miss Paul Wellstone too! I miss him all the time).

I don't care about that mixed bag. Hillary Clinton will have my support whenever she wants it. She became, in the course of this campaign, one of the most courageous and strong human beings I've ever seen. I love that she stayed in the campaign as long as she did in the face of unfair media coverage and unprecedented chauvinistic media activism, and I'd have loved a brokered convention even more.

I love that she was smart like a fox "suspending" her campaign, so her delegates remain hers, for the history books, as a bargaining chip. All those MALE pundits seemed to demand she just capitulate without a word, with a sense of male entitlement that made me gag. I feel that such a demand that would have never been made of a man, and was never demanded of other male presidential candidates who went all the way to the convention with a much smaller and less historic percentages of the popular vote.

But what I really want right now is to find a transcript of this speech, so I can pull my favorite parts out of it.  I titled this post PRIDE because there is NO OTHER WORD for what I feel about this historic campaign by this historic woman.

That I met her 30 years ago in Arkansas gives it more poignancy for me personally, just as Bill Clinton's election in 1992 moved me strongly as well. (Arkansans never expect to win in the end... long conditioning of a small and often-overlooked state, because as much as we love the Razorbacks, they do have a tendency to often fall short in the big game. So when we win one, the celebration is bigger,  because the fight is as underdogs, with no real expectation of winning. Hillary's relentless focus on the White House without considering the possibility of defeat is a part of Arkansas she carries with her, because defeat is such a more likely norm, you always operate with that subtext, and fight like a wild boar--Go Hogs!-- anyway, no matter what anyone says about you.)

So PRIDE! Hillary won! This was not defeat, because Hillary won what needed to be won for us, as Obama wins what also needs to be won for us. This presidential race (and the GOP hasn't gotten the word yet, but they will, because there have been GOP populists before, real ones, not Rovian manipulators of Joe Sixpack demographic categories) for the first time in my memory is about candidates as true symbols for a movement of real people, not candidates as candidates, They are candidates WE, not candidates Me, I. This was brought out on Bill Moyers last night. Other presidential candidates in the past have had to go in search of a movement, but these candidates have found their movement, and for the first time in my memory, the movement is more important than the point person who gets designated to give the movement a voice.

Obama still isn't fully my cup of tea. Too young, too cultivated, too close to the machine (Hillary is cultivated and close to the machine as well, but we have seen examples of how she acts in a position of power in those circumstances, and we have no similar examples with Obama). But that's not enough to offend me. I do love what he's doing, and the symbol he is painting himself to be.

I just wish he'd drop the fake Southern accent word-endings in speeches, the eh- sound of the genteel plantation South (not rough hill country Ozark South), mixed with self-consciously-used preacher cadences. I understand why he is doing it, and what he wants to evoke, and I don't deny it does what he wants it to do. I also know Martin Luther King Jr. was criticized for some for having an "academic" voice and a "preacher" voice, and for being an adept code-switcher. I don't even have anything against that. MLK actually WAS from Atlanta, tho, and his preacher voice didn't sound so much like an affectation, since he actually WAS a preacher, and that's the part that bugs me about Obama's use of it. Blah.

But I will back Obama as fiercely as I back Hillary, not because of either one of them, but because I sense potential in the populist movement they given a reason to arise. That's the magic part, isn't it?

I mean, think about it. The feminists didn't go away by the mid-80s. They were still kicking around, even as attention went elsewhere with the failure of the E.R.A. Many built empires in academia, where they embraced post-modernism and acted as if all the activists had fought so hard for was automatically achieved, so all they had left to do was gaze endlessly into relativistic cultural navels, because everything had "always already" happened (the freaky post-conservatism conservatism of postmodernism), instead of fighting for deeply oppressed women globally, those multi-cultural women the pomos had theories for, yet whom they rarely actually encountered, except on Fulbright exchange programs (Fulbright--see? everything comes back to Arkansas!).

Hillary Clinton was still out there duking it out tho, going to the World Conference on Women in China in 1995 (to be fair, some academic feminists I know were involved with this conference as well).

But what is bringing U.S. feminists back out of the woodwork, out of the closet, out of the lowered expectations the revenge of the glass ceiling has brought them? The Chauvinist Piggies came out in force, and by god, that was OFFENSIVE. We'd already been putting up with a lot, but when the Piggies got up on TeeVee and went all oink oink, that was just too much. Suddenly Hillary wasn't just Hillary any more. She became all of US who had ever been oinked at by a Piggie. Just WHO did they think they WERE?!

That was probably what killed E.R.A., you know? A different time, but there had been enough of a reduction in general piggie-ness that nobody really had a bee in their bonnet about it. Nobody had their panties in a twist. It just lost steam.

Think too about the civil rights struggles of African Americans in the U.S.  It has a history of ups and downs since the time of Lincoln, but most tellingly, the civil rights MOVEMENT needed something to get outraged over, something to make them turn out in numbers. Jim Crow provided that public dose of bigotry in several different forms, from segregated schools, bathrooms, drinking fountains, lunch counters, buses and trains. The courts also "helped," as did George Wallace and Orval Faubus.

It is crass movement politics to seek out, create, or exploit such moments or incidents.  Yet Rosa Parks was chosen for her role to be a symbol, as did others in test cases created to push the courts to overcome or show their bigotry.

In this case, tho, this LONG primary campaign was the exigence, the bully pulpit that brought the Piggies and the Bigots out of the woodwork and trotted out by the unconsciously right-wing media, with all the irony that entails (yes, I was embarrassed by the racists in Southern states Hillary unfortunately had to embrace, because they are working class Democrats and do deserve a voice about real working class issues, but oh, I just had to hold my nose).

Do we want to abandon those folks to the GOP who will vote to chop the tops off their mountains and fill in valleys with slag? Do we want to blow off the real health issues the terrible pollution in these coal-mining areas are bringing to these people's children, just because they happen to have a cultural tradition of racism? Or do we want to keep them in the Dem tent, and plan programs that might lead to greater cross-cultural and class and race-based understanding and solidarity?

And no, I do not think the Clintons "chose" to play any race card whatsoever, or to adopt a Nixon-esque "Southern strategy." That is utter horseshit, and was manufactured by Obama campaign handlers or Rovian dirty-tricksters or god knows what, I but I know the Clintons and how they feel about African Americans, and there is not a racist bone in either of them, as I saw in things they did in Arkansas, with no national spotlight on them. There was a truly odd tone among some Obama supporters, who tried to use a rhetorical frame that anyone who would oppose Obama's historic campaign must be racist, by the very act of opposing it, and Hillary as his primary opponent must therefore be racist because of it. Besides being an absurd false dilemma fallacy, it is also a bizarre attempt to manipulate the dominant stupidity of tape recorder journalism, which has no problem repeating false dilemma fallacies unchecked and ad nauseum.

Difficulties will arise with trying to unify and deal with the cultural differences between African Americans and Hispanics in the U.S., and that may be a bigger challenge for the Dems than racist bigots. Dems will have a challenge healing that divide by bringing all into one tent, united for civil rights for all, especially the poorest of us. But is the alternative leaving the more conservative Catholic Hispanics to join with the GOP and be exploited and blown off, imprisoned and deported, abused and kept as a permanent invisible underclass living in semi-legal slave-like conditions?

That is an exciting opportunity for Senator Clinton and Senator Obama to approach head on, if they can unite their constituencies as a single MOVEMENT and a united ticket. I believe a united ticket is an IMPERATIVE to ride this movement to its natural next populist step.

Yes, Obama MAY be able to be elected to president without Hillary on the ticket, but what price must he pay to do so? He will not have the votes to lay claim to a full-on movement. But Hillary and Obama together can be the less important figureheads to something more important, the actual populist movement behind them, to which they both have made noises to the desire to give it voice.

Noises, but are the noises the real thing, or political opportunism, a motive that simply disappears once the goal has been reached? Hillary's speech today (and her actions of the past 40 years) lead me to believe her noises are the real thing. Obama's community organizing and superior campaign organization do give me hope that for him too the movement is more important than personal glory. He possibly could gain office without it (as most presidential candidates have done in modern history, running for the office as a man, not a voice for a movement. Not since RFK, I don't think, has a candidate run as a voice for a movement. Even his own brother did not. Jesse Jackson may have tried, but his own personality overshadowed the aborted attempt at a movement, the Rainbow Coalition).

But if they chose to lead the movement (and the movement must necessarily direct them, not the other way around, that is the mark of real movement leadership, that the leader is a wise servant of a populist moment), they could do something far more historic than just the amazing list of "firsts" that they've already compiled and will continue to compile. That would be the hope Obama would like to invoke in his "Yes We Can" chant for "change."

I had more hope from Hillary's track record than Obama's speech-making wind that she could deliver, but together, maybe they could keep the focus in the right place.

It is most historic, I think, more so than the first woman or first African American, as an emblem, to run for an office, to see a movement rise up around the exigence of that agon, the campaign struggle, a populist movement that needed the outrages of the Bush years to get their dander and gumption up, to be their "Jim Crow," to be their "Iron My Shirt!" moment, to make their voices heard.

That's the real reason my overwhelming emotion at this moment is Pride.