I'll finish this talk on what the NEW WORLD ORDER is leading to and what this organized crime and fraud looks like----by reminding people -----the revolutions of the 1600-1700 was driven by citizens need to escape all of this DARK AGES structure. Freedom of religion----away from these royal religions like the Catholic Church led to Protestant religions taking hold in the US. The Founding Fathers deliberately wrote SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE into the US Constitutions just to keep this DARK AGES control of the people at bay.
PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW GLOBAL POLS PRETEND THAT IT IS GOOD TO REPLACE OUR PUBLIC SECTOR WITH CHARITY FROM RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.
As an academic I often think how I might get inside this secret society group just to verify what we hear. I see no problem until a certain point. I walk to the door of the secret society with the secret knock knock----the person inside opens the door and I am ready for the secret hand shake----having my funny hat on----but in an instance the person inside knows I am a poser----
BECAUSE HE LOOKS INTO MY EYES AND SEES A SOUL.....ONE CANNOT HIDE A SOUL AND YOU MUST NOT HAVE A SOUL TO BE IN A SECRET SOCIETY.
I want to end with the TRADE GUILD as the DARK AGES replacement of our social democratic labor unions----and the key to moving all wealth to the top by systemic fraud -----THE LAWYER'S GUILD.
If you look at the composition of America's political system at all levels----you see politicians as lawyers. Clinton and Obama tied to Wall STreet as lawyers. Maryland Assembly is almost all lawyers as are Baltimore City Hall. Government has always avoided both bankers and lawyers as politicians because ----they do not operate on morality, ethics, or legality-----they are trained to win for their clients. In today's case-------the clients are global corporations. This was what the move in the Clinton era was about----neo-liberalism comes with lots of financial and lawyers as politicians. It is also why the balance of justice went from Rule of Law to no Rule of Law or public justice......
Below you see the sentiment from a TRADE GUILD Master Craftsman when poverty was the best one could hope for----and knowing who is teamed with the rich------
Let's kill all the lawyers - Shakespeare Quotes
Shakespeare > Shakespeare Quotes > Let's kill all the lawyers
Let's kill all the lawyers
All:
God save your majesty!
Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.
Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78Dick the butcher, a character no one remembers, utters one of the few memorable lines from the entire three-part Henry the Sixth cycle. Dick's Utopian idea to kill all England's lawyers is his addition to the promises of the traitorous Jack Cade, who envisions a quasi-communistic social revolution, with himself installed as autocrat. Cade alleges that all lawyers do is shuffle parchments back and forth in a systematic attempt to ruin the common people. His demagoguery is simply a calculated appeal to simple folks' longing to be left alone. Yet one may recognize Cade's moral failings and still sympathize with Dick.
In 1987, three Supreme Court Justices convened for a mock trial, in which representatives of the poetaster Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604), challenged Shakespeare's authorship of the plays. The president of American University in Washington, D.C., which sponsored the event, "drew some nervous laughter from the legal contingent in the crowd," the New York Times reported, "when he yielded to the temptation to quote the world's most-quoted English author (whoever he was) by saying, 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. . . .'" Unsurprisingly, the justices ruled in favor of the Bard of Avon.
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If you look at the change in dynamics of the people's Democratic Party----you see the move towards this NEW WORLD ORDER structure-----most Clinton and Obama neo-liberals are either lawyers or investment.
THIS IS WHAT KILLED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ----AND LOOK----THIS 2016 PRIMARY ELECTION IS FILLED WITH LAWYERS ESPECIALLY IN BALTIMORE.
So, as we engage in politics and be citizens educated in public policy-----we also need to look at the societal structures leading to this capture-----and LAWYERS AND BANKERS AS POLITICIANS ARE AT THE TOP.
'Though I doubt we will ever see many social workers, teachers, nurses, retail workers, or blue-collar professions represented in politics, decreasing the domination of politics by lawyers will mean that we have achieved some progress in reigning in the influence of money'.
Invisible College Blog
Weblog of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research
Why are so many politicians lawyers?
Posted on January 25, 2008 by Nick LiBy Nick Li
Anyone observing the fireworks during the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in South Carolina on Monday can be forgiven for focusing on the glaringly obvious. The gloves finally came off as the first potential female and first potential black president of the United States slung the mud thick:
Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton: "Because while I was working on those streets [as a community organizer] watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart. Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama: "I was fighting against [the ideas of Ronald Reagan] when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago." And lest the lone white male contender feel left out, we had this little exchange: John Edwards to Hillary Clinton : When somebody gives you millions and millions of dollars, I think they expect something. I don’t think they’re doing it for nothing. Hillary Clinton: Well, John, trial lawyers have given you millions and millions of dollars. So… John Edwards: And what they expect from me is they expect me to stand up for democracy, for the right to jury trial, for the right for little people to be heard in the courtroom. And that is exactly what I stand up for. That is not the same thing. That is not the same thing as corporate lobbyists who are in there every single day lobbying against the interests of middle-class Americans.
While people tend to play up the minor policy differences and the major generational/racial/gender/personality differences of these candidates, what is most striking to me is that all three were lawyers before entering politics. Hillary Clinton graduated from Yale Law School and was indeed a corporate lawyer for a firm that represented Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, and other members of the Arkansas corporate elite. Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a civil rights lawyer focusing on discrimination and voting rights. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 11 years. John Edwards graduated from North Carolina Law School and had an extremely successful career as a Trial Attorney, winning over a hundred million dollars from corporations and medical institutions on behalf of his clients. It is probably fair to conclude something about these individuals from the type of law they practiced. Clinton is a member of the corporate and Democratic party establishment, Obama is more grassroots oriented, and Edwards is very confrontational when it comes to corporations and the healthcare industry. Clinton talks about "getting results" the way CEOs do, Obama is more philosophical (befitting a law professor) and Edwards always talks as if he’s making his emotional closing statement to a jury. This domination of politics by lawyers is hardly unusual of course. 25 out of 42 U.S. Presidents practiced law before becoming president including Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Woodrow Wilson in this century. This is quite a common pattern across many countries. An almost equally high rate of Canadian Prime Ministers – 11 out of 21 – and 2 of the last 4 British and Dutch Prime Ministers were also lawyers. [For our German friends, I’m afraid only Gerhard Schroeder, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and Konrad Adenauer, 3 out of 8 elected Prime Ministers, were lawyers since WWII]. Some other notable lawyers who went on to be successful politicians include Gandhi, Lenin, and Abraham Lincoln. In some sense this is an obvious and trivial connection. Lawyers help enforce and apply laws, while politicians write them. Top judges are usually appointed by politicians and sometimes even elected, making them de facto politicians. Many lawyers are good at public speaking and debating, which are important skills for a politician. I found an interesting discussion of this issue at LawClinic TV. They argue that there are some people who go into law who always wanted to be politicians but had to wait, because of age requirements, the need to be taken seriously (and not judged as a (gasp) career politician), and the need to make contacts and money. There are others who go into politics as a natural outgrowth of their professional activities, perhaps because they see particular laws that they would like to change or because they become acutely aware of issues of justice and equality and would like to make a difference on a larger scale. And yet, there are many drawbacks to having lawyers dominate politics. Lawyers and politicians are two of the most hated and least trusted groups of people, as the large number of jokes at their expense will attest, and this may be at the root of some of the public cynicism towards politics in North America and elsewhere. Although ethical conduct is considered central to both professions, they both seem to exhibit a higher than normal rate of professional misconduct and breach of trust, in the public perception if not in reality. For many lawyers and politicians, the point is to win at all costs – in trying to win on behalf of their client, or in trying to get elected, they often seem to push aside their convictions or sense of right and wrong in favour of expediency. Much of the vitriol directed at lawyers and politicians is directed at their rhetorical flair – they are good at selling things and telling people what they want to hear, skills that are also shared by that other most-hated profession, the used-car salesman. One cannot help but ask the question of what makes a lawyer particularly well-suited to running a country, as opposed to running for office. Many of our elected officials’ important duties involve running the economy, allocating resources and budgets, and analyzing policies based on their inputs and expected outcomes, yet lawyers have less experience at this than businessmen and economists (the next most common professions in politics). When it comes to deciding on whether to join a currency union, how to direct a trade negotiation, whether to cut taxes or how to design a social program, lawyers appear dangerously under-qualified compared businessmen and economists. When it comes to planning for and executing a war, lawyers appear to be dangerously under-qualified compared to ex-military men and women. When we are confronted with the greatest crises in the world today – global warming, disease, energy scarcity – lawyers appear to be dangerously under-qualified compared to scientists, doctors and engineers. Lawyers tend to have little substantive expertise in any of these areas, and it is their skill at "politics" rather than "policy" that seems to have enabled their political success. Despite these drawbacks, I believe that the most problematic aspect of the domination of politics by lawyers is that lawyers tend to be drawn disproportionately from the elite of any society. Whether they are born wealthy or made wealthy through their careers, a large part of their success, especially in the United States, has been their enormous personal wealth. Besides business people, few other professions can compete in the money game that has become essential to mounting a successful political career – certainly not academics, scientists, or even doctors. Though I doubt we will ever see many social workers, teachers, nurses, retail workers, or blue-collar professions represented in politics, decreasing the domination of politics by lawyers will mean that we have achieved some progress in reigning in the influence of money. Together with having a more balanced group of politicians with substantive expertise in areas of management, economics, science and warfare, this can only improve the quality of our political class. Unfortunately for Democratic Party members in the US, that will have to wait for another round…
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This is the first way I figure out when a supposed progressive democratic outlet is REALLY PROGRESSIVE---OR CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL POSING PROGRESSIVE.
Most people understand this dynamic of lawyers not being very good politicians. We do not want the people enforcing law be the one's writing law---it breaks down the separation of legislature and courts. This is exactly what has captured our political system -----and when the Executive Branch becomes lawyers as well----as in President, Governor, and Mayor----
THERE YOU HAVE THE NEW WORLD ORDER. CORPORATE LAWYERS AS GOVERNMENT WORKING FOR THE WEALTHY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
The Lawyer's GUILD from the Dark Ages were from the families of the rich---just as the leaders of the Church. They see themselves as rich----as I was told at a Baltimore Jubilee tour of downtown Baltimore----LAWYERS ARE RICH.
Of course this has not been the case for most lawyers throughout American history-----Lincoln for example was a relatively poor political candidate. Those wealthy would be tied to business---corporate law. Now guess what?
LAW SCHOOLS ARE NOW MOSTLY CORPORATE LAW AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.....JUST AS WAS TRUE IN THE DARK AGES.
I used to support Russ Feingold as a Progressive until his group seemed to support mostly Clinton neo-liberals----and lawyers.
Below you see most new pols coming from Ivy League universities as lawyers.
That's because the US government is now ruled by global corporations needing lawyers as politicians. That's the opposite of WE THE PEOPLE WRITING LAWS AS THE US CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES.
WAKE UP AND CHANGE THESE POLITICIANS AND WE CHANGE THIS DYNAMIC OF GOVERNMENT RULED BY CORPORATIONS.
The Return of the Lawyer-Politician
By Joe Patrice
/ Nov 21, 2012 at 4:11 PM
Attorney retirement home?
Well, the election is over, and a gaggle of new Congressfolks and Senators are coming to Washington in January. Of this population, 43 percent are lawyers, reversing the decline in lawyer politicians. So let’s review the incoming class and you can not-so-quietly judge our new legislators for their education and experience in the comments.
Ten new members attended Harvard Law School, so congratulations Crimson for continuing your tradition as the shadowy institution ruling our lives. There are also some inspiring stories among the new members. Like Joseph P. Kennedy, who lifted himself up by the bootstraps and managed to get into Harvard without any connections whatsoever. Everyone’s education info and any interesting career tidbits are provided below.
Senate
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What we are seeing is the wholesale dismantling of public justice and all the court and judicial structures that went with our US Constitution and three branch government-----legislative----courts-----executive branches. If you are not enforcing Rule of Law for anyone other than the rich and corporations ----CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS AND BUSH NEO-CONS SAY----WE DON'T NEED LAWYERS OR LAW SCHOOLS.
Just as Obama and Congressional Clinton neo-liberals made the economic stimulus after the 2008 economic crash about hundreds of billions of dollars to mostly Ivy League universities to build corporate research facilities------it is these same Ivy League universities still having strong law schools from where most government pols are taken. At the same time----law schools are mostly offering corporate and international law degrees and students accepted reflect this movement to families of wealth.....and great increase in foreign students as global lawyers from US law schools
JobsJobs Are Still Scarce for New Law School Grads
By Dimitra Kessenides June 20, 2014
Columbia Law School's graduating class in New York
Job prospects for law school graduates aren’t improving much. The overall employment rate for recent law grads fell for the sixth year in a row, to 84.5 percent, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement, a professional association. The report, released on Thursday, surveyed the class of 2013 and found that even after slight improvement over the last two years, the employment rate remains well below an all-time high of 91.9 percent, reached in 2007 before the financial crisis hit.
At the same time, law schools enroll students who will amass plenty of student loan debt in their three years of study. They hope for a job right out of school, with a big enough salary to cover loan payments and living expenses. But the field of law was hit especially hard by the 2008 crash and subsequent recession. Work dried up for many large firms, and what few clients were still hiring lawyers had more bargaining power. They demanded rate discounts (lawyers bill by the hour), and special—or alternative—fees. They also pushed back on the training of newbie lawyers on their dime.
Law firms responded by trimming their ranks and substantially shrinking the number of lawyers hired right out of law school. It’s not just big law firm jobs that went away. Public-interest, in-house counsel, and government positions also dipped.
In its survey, NALP measured the employment rate of 2013 law graduates as of February 15—nine months after the typical May graduation. The class of 2013 was one of the biggest in recent years, contributing to the decline in the overall employment rate. About 52,000 students entered law school in the fall of 2010, an all-time high. The graduates’ employment rate has rarely been lower. “Since 1985, there have only been two classes with an overall employment rate below [84.5 percent], and both of those occurred in the aftermath of the 1990-91 recession,” NALP reports.
There is bit of good news here: More than half the graduates with jobs are working in private practice (big, medium, or small law firms), and the number of large law firm jobs increased. Also, the national median starting salary moved up, to $62,467 from $61, 245. (Median salaries at law firms rose 6 percent, to $95,000.)
Despite modest improvement in some areas, more telling numbers demonstrate just how tight the legal job market is. Of those graduates included in the report, only 64.4 percent were working in jobs that required passage of the Bar Exam—jobs that directly relate to their pricey law degrees. That number has fallen by about 10 percentage points over the past six years. The unemployment rate for 2013 graduates ticked up slightly, to 12.9 percent, from 12.8 percent for the class of 2012.
When you consider that average student debt for private law school hovers somewhere around $125,000, the less-than-robust job prospects should focus current or wannabe law students on answering tough questions. Is law school really the right choice? Can you afford it? Do you have a plan for how to repay your loans if you don’t get a law job coming out of school? And are you all right with working at the local coffee bar, if that’s the only way to make ends meet after graduation?
Hopefully they won’t overlook the comments made by NALP executive director James Leipold in announcing the survey:
Law graduates must enter law school with the understanding that the jobs picture, while strengthening, is one that will continue to evolve, and in the course of that evolution it is almost certain that new opportunities will present themselves, just as it is certain that some traditional opportunities that law school graduates have long counted on will continue to erode. … It is not true that there are too many lawyers—indeed even today most Americans do not have adequate access to affordable legal services—but the traditional market for large numbers of law graduates by large law firms seeking equity-track new associates is not likely to ever return to what it was in 2006 or 2007, and thus aggregate earning opportunities for the class as a whole are not likely to return to what they were before the recession.
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Below you see an article written in 2002-----as Clinton era ended and Bush era began and as we all could see-----global corporations and banking was taking over our government. Social Democracy created the 3 branches of government for checks and balance of abuse of power and against corruption. If you have all three branches filled with lawyers and investment bankers----then you have a corrupted government.
Republicans like Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons sell the idea that deregulation and free markets grow economies and jobs----what is really does is break down all structures to keep corporations honest and acting like good citizens.
PLEASE STOP ALLOWING THESE GLOBAL POLS SELL THE IDEA THAT GLOBAL MARKETS AND DEREGULATION IS GOOD FOR AN ECONOMY.
When WE THE PEOPLE rebuild our government ----reinstating Rule of Law will mean----everyone is accountable under law---and that will take cleaning out our legal system of lawyers that SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, AND SPEAK NO EVIL.
Not all lawyers are bad---just as with any profession but the pendulum must swing away from this lawyer, investment banker, corporate executive as politician.
HOW DARK AGES OF THEM!
Published on
Saturday, January 19, 2002
by
Business Ethics: Corporate Social Responsibility Report
How Corporate Law Inhibits Social Responsibility
A Corporate Attorney Proposes a ‘Code for Corporate Citizenship’ in State Law
by
Robert C. Hinkley
After 23 years as a corporate securities attorney--advising large corporations on securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions--I left my position as partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because I was disturbed by the game. I realized that the many social ills created by corporations stem directly from corporate law. It dawned on me that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible. So in June 2000 I quit my job and decided to devote the next phase of my life to making people aware of this problem. My goal is to build consensus to change the law so it encourages good corporate citizenship, rather than inhibiting it.
The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Every jurisdiction where corporations operate has its own law of corporate governance. But remarkably, the corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical. That design creates a governing body to manage the corporation--usually a board of directors--and dictates the duties of those directors. In short, the law creates corporate purpose. That purpose is to operate in the interests of shareholders. In Maine, where I live, this duty of directors is in Section 716 of the business corporation act, which reads:
...the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders....
Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.
Section 716 dedicates the corporation to the pursuit of its own self-interest (and equates corporate self-interest with shareholder self-interest). No mention is made of responsibility to the public interest. Section 716 and its counterparts explain two things. First, they explain why corporations find social issues like human rights irrelevant--because they fall outside the corporation's legal mandate. Second, these provisions explain why executives behave differently than they might as individual citizens, because the law says their only obligation in business is to make money.
This design has the unfortunate side effect of largely eliminating personal responsibility. Because corporate law generally regulates corporations but not executives, it leads executives to become inattentive to justice. They demand their subordinates "make the numbers," and pay little attention to how they do so. Directors and officers know their jobs, salaries, bonuses, and stock options depend on delivering profits for shareholders.
Companies believe their duty to the public interest consists of complying with the law. Obeying the law is simply a cost. Since it interferes with making money, it must be minimized--using devices like lobbying, legal hairsplitting, and jurisdiction shopping. Directors and officers give little thought to the fact that these activities may damage the public interest.
Lower-level employees know their livelihoods depend upon satisfying superiors' demands to make money. They have no incentive to offer ideas that would advance the public interest unless they increase profits. Projects that would serve the public interest--but at a financial cost to the corporation--are considered naive.
Corporate law thus casts ethical and social concerns as irrelevant, or as stumbling blocks to the corporation's fundamental mandate. That's the effect the law has inside the corporation. Outside the corporation the effect is more devastating. It is the law that leads corporations to actively disregard harm to all interests other than those of shareholders. When toxic chemicals are spilled, forests destroyed, employees left in poverty, or communities devastated through plant shutdowns, corporations view these as unimportant side effects outside their area of concern. But when the company's stock price dips, that's a disaster. The reason is that, in our legal framework, a low stock price leaves a company vulnerable to takeover or means the CEO's job could be at risk.
In the end, the natural result is that corporate bottom line goes up, and the state of the public good goes down. This is called privatizing the gain and externalizing the cost.
This system design helps explain why the war against corporate abuse is being lost, despite decades of effort by thousands of organizations. Until now, tactics used to confront corporations have focused on where and how much companies should be allowed to damage the public interest, rather than eliminating the reason they do it. When public interest groups protest a new power plant, mercury poisoning, or a new big box store, the groups don't examine the corporations' motives. They only seek to limit where damage is created (not in our back yard) and how much damage is created (a little less, please).
But the where-and-how-much approach is reactive, not proactive. Even when corporations are defeated in particular battles, they go on the next day, in other ways and other places, to pursue their own private interests at the expense of the public.
I believe the battle against corporate abuse should be conducted in a more holistic way. We must inquire why corporations behave as they do, and look for a way to change these underlying motives. Once we have arrived at a viable systemic solution, we should then dictate the terms of engagement to corporations, not let them dictate terms to us.
We must remember that corporations were invented to serve mankind. Mankind was not invented to serve corporations. Corporations in many ways have the rights of citizens, and those rights should be balanced by obligations to the public.
Many activists cast the fundamental issue as one of "corporate greed," but that's off the mark. Corporations are incapable of a human emotion like greed. They are artificial beings created by law. The real question is why corporations behave as if they are greedy. The answer is the design of corporate law.
We can change that design. We can make corporations more responsible to the public good by amending the law that says the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the public interest. I believe this can best be achieved by changing corporate law to make directors personally responsible for harms done.
Let me give you a sense of how director responsibility works in the current system. Under federal securities laws, directors are held personally liable for false and misleading statements made in prospectuses used to sell securities. If a corporate prospectus contains a material falsehood and investors suffer damage as a result, investors can sue each director personally to recover the damage. Believe me, this provision grabs the attention of company directors. They spend hours reviewing drafts of a prospectus to ensure it complies with the law. Similarly, everyone who works on the prospectus knows that directors' personal wealth is at stake, so they too take great care with accuracy.
That's an example of how corporate behavior changes when directors are held personally responsible. Everyone in the corporation improves their game to meet the challenge. The law has what we call an in terrorem effect. Since the potential penalties are so severe, directors err on the side of caution. While this has not eliminated securities fraud, it has over the years reduced it to an infinitesimal percentage of the total capital raised.
I propose that corporate law be changed in a similar manner--to make individuals responsible for seeing that the pursuit of profit does not damage the public interest.
To pave the way for such a change, we must challenge the myth that making profits and protecting the public interest are mutually exclusive goals. The same was once said about profits and product quality, before Japanese manufacturers taught us otherwise. If we force companies to respect the public interest while they make money, business people will figure out how to do both.
The specific change I suggest is simple: add 26 words to corporate law and thus create what I call the "Code for Corporate Citizenship." In Maine, this would mean amending section 716 to add the following clause. Directors and officers would still have a duty to make money for shareholders,
... but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.
This simple amendment would effect a dramatic change in the underlying mechanism that drives corporate malfeasance. It would make individuals responsible for the damage companies cause to the public interest, and would be enforced much the same way as securities laws are now. Negligent failure to abide by the code would result in the corporation, its directors, and its officers being liable for the full amount of the damage they cause. In addition to civil liability, the attorney general would have the right to criminally prosecute intentional acts. Injunctive relief--which stops specific behaviors while the legal process proceeds--would also be available.
Compliance would be in the self-interest of both individuals and the company. No one wants to see personal assets subject to a lawsuit. Such a prospect would surely temper corporate managers' willingness to make money at the expense of the public interest. Similarly, investors tend to shy away from companies with contingent liabilities, so companies that severely or repeatedly violate the Code for Corporate Citizenship might see their stock price fall or their access to capital dry up.
Many would say such a code could never be enacted. But they're mistaken. I take heart from a 2000 Business Week/Harris Poll that asked Americans which of the following two propositions they support more strongly:
If business people resist the notion of legal change, we can remind them that corporations exist only because laws allow them to exist. Without these laws, owners would be fully responsible for debts incurred and damages caused by their businesses. Because the public creates the law, corporations owe their existence as much to the public as they do to shareholders. They should have obligations to both. It simply makes no sense that society's most powerful citizens have no concern for the public good.
It also makes no sense to endlessly chase after individual instances of corporate wrongdoing, when that wrongdoing is a natural result of the system design. Corporations abuse the public interest because the law tells them their only legal duty is to maximize profits for shareholders. Until we change the law of corporate governance, the problem of corporate abuse can never fully be solved.
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Women had to listen as media hyped these Obama Supreme Court Justice appointments as being pro-women and liberal. What they are -----NEW WORLD ORDER DARK AGES. Obama chose these two because they came from Harvard and Yale law ----Ivy League law only recognizes Trans Pacific Trade Pact global corporate rule law.....not American Constitutional law. Clinton and Obama are from Harvard and Yale law schools and could care less about Rule of Law and US Constitutional rights. THEY ARE 100% GLOBAL CORPORATE LAWYERS WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATE FAMILIES AND THEIR WEALTH----THE DARK AGES LAWYER'S GUILD NO DOUBT SECRET SOCIETY.
Kagan and Sotomeyer represent that Supreme court dynamic of Jewish and Catholic that goes with global corporate/wealth control of church and will see no problem in TPP and corporations as writing legislation. Right now only 1 Protestant remains on the Supreme Court which is why it is called the most conservative court in US history. You see media plays on being LIBERAL ------pretending we are still dealing with social democratic liberals rather than the far-right neo-liberalism that Kagan and Sotomeyer represent.
PLEASE DO NOT BUY THE ANY-WOMAN-AS-CANDIDATE BEING A PERSON FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS. THESE GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PEOPLE---THEY WORK FOR WEALTH AND CORPORATE POWER.
About 6% of Americans identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 50% who are Protestants or another non-Catholic Christian religion, 24% who are Catholic and 2% who are Mormon.
Given the movement to austere orthodoxy in Catholics and Jewish groups-----and given that the DARK AGES were made up of these two groups-----NO PROTESTANTS AROUND FOLKS-----it makes a difference how our Supreme Court handles religious rulings in the future. You are not likely to get a CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE ruling by a Supreme Court not right-wing as this one is.
Jonathan Alter Public Prayer05.10.145:45 AM ET Daily Beast
Six Catholics, Three Jews and Not Much Memory at the Supreme Court
The Roberts Court’s cultural amnesia is shocking in Greece v. Galloway, especially considering the religious discrimination the justices’ own forefathers confronted.
So far, liberal analysis of the decision in Greece v. Galloway was best summarized by Andy Borowitz’s satirical headline: “In Landmark Decision, Supreme Court Strikes Down Reason Country Was Started.”
How did we get to a point where five members of the court would believe that opening a public town board meeting in the community of Greece, New York, with an explicitly Christian prayer about Easter is no big deal? That was the gist of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion and the (mostly) concurring opinions by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.
Beyond the constitutional ramifications, I’m curious about how the backgrounds and life experiences of the justices affected their legal opinions and their moral imagination. This is treacherous terrain. Jurists like to claim they are only interested in applying the law; recall how during her confirmation hearings in 2009, Justice Sonia Sotomayor had to back away from her earlier comment that the perspective of a “wise Latina” would be useful on the court. But every justice is shaped by his or her heritage, especially when the case involves religion. The refusal of most court observers to even mention the religious affiliation of the justices has hampered our understanding of this important case.
While Greece was decided 5-4, the religious split on the court is 6-3—six Catholics and three Jews. Sotomayor, a liberal Catholic, voted with Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a country founded by Protestants who still make up 48 percent of the U.S. population (22 percent of Americans are Catholic and 2.2 percent are Jewish), the absence of a Protestant from the court is extraordinary. It wasn’t until 1836 that the first Catholic (Roger Taney) was appointed and until 1916 that the first Jew (Louis Brandeis) made it to the high court. Now Catholics and Jews dominate, an only-in-America phenomenon. The flip-side of our unusual national talent for inclusion is the cultural amnesia displayed in this case by the court’s majority.
The Founders—so backward in their attitudes on race—launched the republic on the basis of religious tolerance. Benjamin Franklin believed in prayer but stressed the importance of ecumenical “public religion.” Thomas Jefferson did not include his service as president of the United States on his tombstone but requested that his authorship of the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom be included. James Madison believed that “religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” With God unmentioned in the Constitution, the Founders set a course that allowed, over Madison’s objections, for chaplains offering prayers at public meetings. But the tradition has favored deistic references (“God,” “the Almighty,” “the Supreme Being”) over sectarian specifics. “The Founders wanted to keep it general because theological disputes led to political upheaval,” says Jon Meacham, author of American Gospel.
In his majority opinion, Kennedy tried to argue that the court was merely upholding that ecumenical tradition. “Willing participation in civic affairs can be consistent with a brief acknowledgment of their belief in a higher power, always with due respect for those who adhere to other beliefs,” he wrote. But the prayers before town meetings in Greece, New York, were not about a “higher power,” which is a standard and unobjectionable prayer that would not have merited an appeal to the Supreme Court. Instead, the ministers in that New York town—who not once gave way to rabbis or imams, though they had Jewish and Muslim congregations nearby—opened a public meeting by stressing, “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We draw strength, vitality, and confidence from his resurrection at Easter…”
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In his concurrence, Roberts noted that “the prayers neither chastised dissenters nor attempted lengthy disquisition on religious dogma.” The chief justice seemed to be arguing that anything short of hostility or blatant evangelism was kosher.
Kagan was quoted in news accounts arguing that the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”
But deeper into her superb dissent, the junior member of the court, sensitized by her background as a Jew, got closer to the feelings of anxiety and exclusion that the court’s decision has heightened:
US Supreme Court OKs Public Prayer Before Government Meetings
WGNO - New Orleans, LA
Let’s say that a Muslim citizen of Greece goes before the board to share her views on policy or request some permit. Maybe she wants the board to put up a traffic light at a dangerous intersection; or maybe she needs a zoning variance to build an addition on her home. But just before she gets to say her piece, a minister deputized by the town asks her to pray “in the name of God’s only son, Jesus Christ.” She must think—it is hardly paranoia, but only the truth—that Christian worship has become entwined with local governance. And now she faces a choice: to pray alongside the majority as one of that group or somehow to register her deeply felt difference. She is a strong person, but that is no easy call—especially given that the room is small and her every action (or inaction) will be noticed. She does not wish to be rude to her neighbors, nor does she wish to aggravate the board members whom she will soon be trying to persuade. And yet she does not want to acknowledge Christ’s divinity, any more than many of her neighbors would want to deny that tenet.
So assume she declines to participate with the others in the first act of the meeting—or even, as the majority proposes, that she stands up and leaves the room altogether. At the least, she becomes a different kind of citizen, one who will not join in the religious practice that the town board has chosen as reflecting its own and the community’s most cherished beliefs. And she thus stands at a remove, based solely on religion, from her fellow citizens and her elected representatives.
You would think that these words would carry some meaning for the Catholic majority. It wasn’t so long ago that Catholics faced great discrimination in the U.S., especially outside major cities. Catholics launched parochial schools in the 19th century after finding that Protestant-dominated public schools made their children uncomfortable. While theocracy was a Catholic tradition for hundreds of years in Europe (where it was the Protestants who began by “protesting” the abuses of state religion), the Catholic Church in recent decades has gone to pains to stress inclusion. In 1965, the Vatican II encyclical declared discrimination as “foreign to the mind of Christ.”
Of course, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito aren’t exactly Vatican II Catholics; Kennedy can be a Pope Francis man on some days, but not in this case. All were born after the worst of the anti-Catholic bias had abated in the U.S. and suffer from a collective memory loss unworthy of their intelligence. They are often accused of lacking empathy, which is another way of saying that they lack moral imagination. With judicial temperaments abstracted to the point of indifference, they seem incapable of imagining themselves even in the shoes of their own grandparents, much less people different from themselves. This is among the worst judicial traits imaginable.
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The problem for the American citizens regarding Separation of Church and State comes with who the lawyers are interpreting these Constitutional laws. As this article states----there may be no formal writing of law supporting separation----but we have 200 years of Supreme Court rulings that make that separation legal. Of course that was 200 years of rulings by a Protestant Supreme Court. Flash forward to today and we have a Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts that ruled CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE----when over a century of Supreme Court ruling/precedent said NO---CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE. The Supreme Court is a body that rules on legal precedent as it interprets law so this Robert's ruling on corporations are people was IMPEACHABLE. What this ruling by a majority Catholic/Jewish court shows this GLOBAL CORPORATE AND WEALTH power taking our court. This means, that this same corporate-centered court will soon breakdown SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE----ignoring 200 years of precedence. It is this dynamic of lawyers and appointments to courts that are changing the US to a corporate/wealth-controlled entity and the breakdown in our public sector to church charity plays a great part in this.
THIS IS HOW THE US GOES BACK TO THE DARK AGES.
If WE THE PEOPLE can restore social democrats in our Congress, state houses, and city halls---we will have pols that will shout for IMPEACHMENT of judges ruling for corporations and against separation of church and state.
'Over the past 200 years the Supreme Court has shaped the constitution to contain a clear separation of church and state that protects every religion equally. If only those who argue against this separation could see how they benefit from it instead of inappropriately interpreting it as an attack on Christianity'.
Dale Hansen Become a fanPolitical blogger, Detroit News
Yes There Is a Constitutional Separation of Church and State
Posted: 09/21/2015 12:35 pm EDT Updated: 09/21/2015 7:59 pm EDT Huffington Post
Perhaps nothing is more important to American politics than a well-reasoned debate. Unfortunately, far too many people are ill-informed to make such discussions possible.
An excellent example of this comes from the responses to an article I wrote examining the concerns of conservative Christians over Tennessee schools' teaching the five pillars of Islam. While there were a number of topics that readers could have discussed, by far the most outrage centered on my statements regarding the separation of church and state. Comments included "Clearly, someone hasn't read the Constitution, because there is no such thing as "separation of church and state" in the US Constitution." "Where exactly in the U.S. Constitution does it address "separation of church and state?" and "Simply put, nowhere in the First Amendment does the phrase 'separation of church and state' exist."
It seems that to some people, if the words don't explicitly appear in the constitution then the idea they refer to isn't constitutionally guaranteed. Viewing it in these simplistic terms is meant to dismiss the entire argument; as if every decision based on the separation of church and state is somehow invalid because the term separation of church and state doesn't appear in the constitution.
Of course the problems with this assertion are many. First and most basic is the fact that the Supreme Court is the ultimate interpreter of federal constitutional law. This means that while the term "separation of Church and State" may never appear in the constitution itself, the Court ruling in the case of Everson v. Board of Education stated "the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'"
A quarter century later, the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman further defined this separation when it established the Lemon Test to determine if a law violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Every ruling since has confirmed that, in the view of the highest court in the land the Constitution created a separation of church and state.
Having said that, the separation of church and state is hardly the first unwritten concept that is protected by the constitution. In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established a women's constitutional right to have an abortion despite the word abortion never appearing in the constitution. In the 2015 case of Obergefell v. Hodges the Supreme Court established that laws against same sex marriage were unconstitutional despite the word marriage never appearing in the constitution. In the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright the Supreme Court established that the constitution guarantees the right to an attorney despite the words public defender never appearing in the constitution. In the 2010 case of McDonald v. Chicago the Supreme Court established that the second amendment right to bear arms included the right to bear arms for self-defense despite the words self-defense never appearing in the constitution.
It should also be noted that of the 112 Supreme Court Justices, none of them has been an atheist. In fact 92 pecent of them were Christian. What rationale would these justices have for making laws that would create a legal prejudice towards their system of beliefs, especially if the separation of Church and State is a misinterpretation?
The reality is that the constitution was never meant to be a stagnant document that was rigidly adherent to the words on the page. As Thomas Jefferson said "The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please." Over the past 200 years the Supreme Court has shaped the constitution to contain a clear separation of church and state that protects every religion equally. If only those who argue against this separation could see how they benefit from it instead of inappropriately interpreting it as an attack on Christianity.
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Again, the problem was not Obama's appointment of two black lawyers to US Justice Department-----the problem was they are both global corporate lawyers tied firmly to protecting corporate wealth and power.......NEW WORLD ORDER LAWYER'S GUILD.
These corporate lawyers do not even see civil rights, US Constitution, or legal precedence for centuries of WE THE PEOPLE having the power to legislate or protected by Rule of Law. That is why Obama's justice department SAW NO CORPORATE FRAUD----failed to enforce civil rights protections especially as regards policing. It is why Holder and now Lynch spends all their time as US Justices working on Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----International Economic Zone law----THEY ARE NO LONGER CONNECTED WITH US CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.....only when mass demonstrations make them throw a Constitutional bone.
IT MATTERS WHETHER WE ELECT SOCIAL DEMOCRATS OR CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS WHETHER WE WILL BE CITIZENS UNDER RULE OF LAW----OR PEASANTS UNDER GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE.
This is why today Americans are feeling they have no rights or protections---it is the DARK AGES corporation/trade guild/church trifecta
Holder and LynchAttorney General Eric Holder, second from right, and U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, right, listen to a major financial fraud announcement in July at the Justice Department.Alex Wong / Getty Images
'Floodgates
The Law Society Gazette reports that the change was a response to the rapid increase in foreign companies with operations in the US'.
As American law students are left largely unemployed------global corporations with the largest and highest-paying legal departments are going global with their hiring. So, the entire high-level corporate legal composition is moving to rich and global. Meanwhile, law schools are raising tuitions more so than public universities while grants and financial aid to law schools dry. WE ARE SEEING THE PURGING OF MAIN STREET AMERICA FROM OUR US LEGAL SYSTEM. The American Bar Association-----as with the Maryland Bar Association has gone completely global corporate.
1970
The Bar: Professional Association or Medieval
Guild?
Michael Bard
Barbara A. Bamford
US relaxes rules on foreign in-house lawyers
By James Barnes
JamesBarnes@globallegalpost.com
20 February 2013 at 10:15 BST
Lawyers who qualified outside of the US are to be allowed to work as in-house counsel at US companies in all 50 states, the American Bar Association (ABA) has ruled.
US: foreign lawyers rule change
A vote last week lifted the rule which had prevented foreign lawyers from working in corporate legal departments which existed in all but seven US states. However, the lawyers will only be able to practise with ‘limited authority’, reports the Memphis Business Journal.
Floodgates
The Law Society Gazette reports that the change was a response to the rapid increase in foreign companies with operations in the US.
The ABA rebuffed suggestions that the reforms will ‘open the floodgates’ to foreign lawyers, as they are still unable to advise on US law without consulting an authorised US lawyer.
‘Foreign lawyers are already engaged as in-house counsel within the US, but are subject to relatively little oversight,’ said the ABA commission. ‘Adding foreign lawyers enables organisational clients to meet their needs with counsel of their choice, while ensuring foreign lawyers are identifiable, subject to monitoring, and accountable.’
PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW GLOBAL POLS PRETEND THAT IT IS GOOD TO REPLACE OUR PUBLIC SECTOR WITH CHARITY FROM RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.
As an academic I often think how I might get inside this secret society group just to verify what we hear. I see no problem until a certain point. I walk to the door of the secret society with the secret knock knock----the person inside opens the door and I am ready for the secret hand shake----having my funny hat on----but in an instance the person inside knows I am a poser----
BECAUSE HE LOOKS INTO MY EYES AND SEES A SOUL.....ONE CANNOT HIDE A SOUL AND YOU MUST NOT HAVE A SOUL TO BE IN A SECRET SOCIETY.
I want to end with the TRADE GUILD as the DARK AGES replacement of our social democratic labor unions----and the key to moving all wealth to the top by systemic fraud -----THE LAWYER'S GUILD.
If you look at the composition of America's political system at all levels----you see politicians as lawyers. Clinton and Obama tied to Wall STreet as lawyers. Maryland Assembly is almost all lawyers as are Baltimore City Hall. Government has always avoided both bankers and lawyers as politicians because ----they do not operate on morality, ethics, or legality-----they are trained to win for their clients. In today's case-------the clients are global corporations. This was what the move in the Clinton era was about----neo-liberalism comes with lots of financial and lawyers as politicians. It is also why the balance of justice went from Rule of Law to no Rule of Law or public justice......
Below you see the sentiment from a TRADE GUILD Master Craftsman when poverty was the best one could hope for----and knowing who is teamed with the rich------
Let's kill all the lawyers - Shakespeare Quotes
Shakespeare > Shakespeare Quotes > Let's kill all the lawyers
Let's kill all the lawyers
All:
God save your majesty!
Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.
Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78Dick the butcher, a character no one remembers, utters one of the few memorable lines from the entire three-part Henry the Sixth cycle. Dick's Utopian idea to kill all England's lawyers is his addition to the promises of the traitorous Jack Cade, who envisions a quasi-communistic social revolution, with himself installed as autocrat. Cade alleges that all lawyers do is shuffle parchments back and forth in a systematic attempt to ruin the common people. His demagoguery is simply a calculated appeal to simple folks' longing to be left alone. Yet one may recognize Cade's moral failings and still sympathize with Dick.
In 1987, three Supreme Court Justices convened for a mock trial, in which representatives of the poetaster Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604), challenged Shakespeare's authorship of the plays. The president of American University in Washington, D.C., which sponsored the event, "drew some nervous laughter from the legal contingent in the crowd," the New York Times reported, "when he yielded to the temptation to quote the world's most-quoted English author (whoever he was) by saying, 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. . . .'" Unsurprisingly, the justices ruled in favor of the Bard of Avon.
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If you look at the change in dynamics of the people's Democratic Party----you see the move towards this NEW WORLD ORDER structure-----most Clinton and Obama neo-liberals are either lawyers or investment.
THIS IS WHAT KILLED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ----AND LOOK----THIS 2016 PRIMARY ELECTION IS FILLED WITH LAWYERS ESPECIALLY IN BALTIMORE.
So, as we engage in politics and be citizens educated in public policy-----we also need to look at the societal structures leading to this capture-----and LAWYERS AND BANKERS AS POLITICIANS ARE AT THE TOP.
'Though I doubt we will ever see many social workers, teachers, nurses, retail workers, or blue-collar professions represented in politics, decreasing the domination of politics by lawyers will mean that we have achieved some progress in reigning in the influence of money'.
Invisible College Blog
Weblog of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research
Why are so many politicians lawyers?
Posted on January 25, 2008 by Nick LiBy Nick Li
Anyone observing the fireworks during the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in South Carolina on Monday can be forgiven for focusing on the glaringly obvious. The gloves finally came off as the first potential female and first potential black president of the United States slung the mud thick:
Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton: "Because while I was working on those streets [as a community organizer] watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart. Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama: "I was fighting against [the ideas of Ronald Reagan] when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago." And lest the lone white male contender feel left out, we had this little exchange: John Edwards to Hillary Clinton : When somebody gives you millions and millions of dollars, I think they expect something. I don’t think they’re doing it for nothing. Hillary Clinton: Well, John, trial lawyers have given you millions and millions of dollars. So… John Edwards: And what they expect from me is they expect me to stand up for democracy, for the right to jury trial, for the right for little people to be heard in the courtroom. And that is exactly what I stand up for. That is not the same thing. That is not the same thing as corporate lobbyists who are in there every single day lobbying against the interests of middle-class Americans.
While people tend to play up the minor policy differences and the major generational/racial/gender/personality differences of these candidates, what is most striking to me is that all three were lawyers before entering politics. Hillary Clinton graduated from Yale Law School and was indeed a corporate lawyer for a firm that represented Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, and other members of the Arkansas corporate elite. Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a civil rights lawyer focusing on discrimination and voting rights. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 11 years. John Edwards graduated from North Carolina Law School and had an extremely successful career as a Trial Attorney, winning over a hundred million dollars from corporations and medical institutions on behalf of his clients. It is probably fair to conclude something about these individuals from the type of law they practiced. Clinton is a member of the corporate and Democratic party establishment, Obama is more grassroots oriented, and Edwards is very confrontational when it comes to corporations and the healthcare industry. Clinton talks about "getting results" the way CEOs do, Obama is more philosophical (befitting a law professor) and Edwards always talks as if he’s making his emotional closing statement to a jury. This domination of politics by lawyers is hardly unusual of course. 25 out of 42 U.S. Presidents practiced law before becoming president including Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Woodrow Wilson in this century. This is quite a common pattern across many countries. An almost equally high rate of Canadian Prime Ministers – 11 out of 21 – and 2 of the last 4 British and Dutch Prime Ministers were also lawyers. [For our German friends, I’m afraid only Gerhard Schroeder, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and Konrad Adenauer, 3 out of 8 elected Prime Ministers, were lawyers since WWII]. Some other notable lawyers who went on to be successful politicians include Gandhi, Lenin, and Abraham Lincoln. In some sense this is an obvious and trivial connection. Lawyers help enforce and apply laws, while politicians write them. Top judges are usually appointed by politicians and sometimes even elected, making them de facto politicians. Many lawyers are good at public speaking and debating, which are important skills for a politician. I found an interesting discussion of this issue at LawClinic TV. They argue that there are some people who go into law who always wanted to be politicians but had to wait, because of age requirements, the need to be taken seriously (and not judged as a (gasp) career politician), and the need to make contacts and money. There are others who go into politics as a natural outgrowth of their professional activities, perhaps because they see particular laws that they would like to change or because they become acutely aware of issues of justice and equality and would like to make a difference on a larger scale. And yet, there are many drawbacks to having lawyers dominate politics. Lawyers and politicians are two of the most hated and least trusted groups of people, as the large number of jokes at their expense will attest, and this may be at the root of some of the public cynicism towards politics in North America and elsewhere. Although ethical conduct is considered central to both professions, they both seem to exhibit a higher than normal rate of professional misconduct and breach of trust, in the public perception if not in reality. For many lawyers and politicians, the point is to win at all costs – in trying to win on behalf of their client, or in trying to get elected, they often seem to push aside their convictions or sense of right and wrong in favour of expediency. Much of the vitriol directed at lawyers and politicians is directed at their rhetorical flair – they are good at selling things and telling people what they want to hear, skills that are also shared by that other most-hated profession, the used-car salesman. One cannot help but ask the question of what makes a lawyer particularly well-suited to running a country, as opposed to running for office. Many of our elected officials’ important duties involve running the economy, allocating resources and budgets, and analyzing policies based on their inputs and expected outcomes, yet lawyers have less experience at this than businessmen and economists (the next most common professions in politics). When it comes to deciding on whether to join a currency union, how to direct a trade negotiation, whether to cut taxes or how to design a social program, lawyers appear dangerously under-qualified compared businessmen and economists. When it comes to planning for and executing a war, lawyers appear to be dangerously under-qualified compared to ex-military men and women. When we are confronted with the greatest crises in the world today – global warming, disease, energy scarcity – lawyers appear to be dangerously under-qualified compared to scientists, doctors and engineers. Lawyers tend to have little substantive expertise in any of these areas, and it is their skill at "politics" rather than "policy" that seems to have enabled their political success. Despite these drawbacks, I believe that the most problematic aspect of the domination of politics by lawyers is that lawyers tend to be drawn disproportionately from the elite of any society. Whether they are born wealthy or made wealthy through their careers, a large part of their success, especially in the United States, has been their enormous personal wealth. Besides business people, few other professions can compete in the money game that has become essential to mounting a successful political career – certainly not academics, scientists, or even doctors. Though I doubt we will ever see many social workers, teachers, nurses, retail workers, or blue-collar professions represented in politics, decreasing the domination of politics by lawyers will mean that we have achieved some progress in reigning in the influence of money. Together with having a more balanced group of politicians with substantive expertise in areas of management, economics, science and warfare, this can only improve the quality of our political class. Unfortunately for Democratic Party members in the US, that will have to wait for another round…
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This is the first way I figure out when a supposed progressive democratic outlet is REALLY PROGRESSIVE---OR CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL POSING PROGRESSIVE.
Most people understand this dynamic of lawyers not being very good politicians. We do not want the people enforcing law be the one's writing law---it breaks down the separation of legislature and courts. This is exactly what has captured our political system -----and when the Executive Branch becomes lawyers as well----as in President, Governor, and Mayor----
THERE YOU HAVE THE NEW WORLD ORDER. CORPORATE LAWYERS AS GOVERNMENT WORKING FOR THE WEALTHY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
The Lawyer's GUILD from the Dark Ages were from the families of the rich---just as the leaders of the Church. They see themselves as rich----as I was told at a Baltimore Jubilee tour of downtown Baltimore----LAWYERS ARE RICH.
Of course this has not been the case for most lawyers throughout American history-----Lincoln for example was a relatively poor political candidate. Those wealthy would be tied to business---corporate law. Now guess what?
LAW SCHOOLS ARE NOW MOSTLY CORPORATE LAW AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.....JUST AS WAS TRUE IN THE DARK AGES.
I used to support Russ Feingold as a Progressive until his group seemed to support mostly Clinton neo-liberals----and lawyers.
Below you see most new pols coming from Ivy League universities as lawyers.
That's because the US government is now ruled by global corporations needing lawyers as politicians. That's the opposite of WE THE PEOPLE WRITING LAWS AS THE US CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES.
WAKE UP AND CHANGE THESE POLITICIANS AND WE CHANGE THIS DYNAMIC OF GOVERNMENT RULED BY CORPORATIONS.
The Return of the Lawyer-Politician
By Joe Patrice
/ Nov 21, 2012 at 4:11 PM
Attorney retirement home?
Well, the election is over, and a gaggle of new Congressfolks and Senators are coming to Washington in January. Of this population, 43 percent are lawyers, reversing the decline in lawyer politicians. So let’s review the incoming class and you can not-so-quietly judge our new legislators for their education and experience in the comments.
Ten new members attended Harvard Law School, so congratulations Crimson for continuing your tradition as the shadowy institution ruling our lives. There are also some inspiring stories among the new members. Like Joseph P. Kennedy, who lifted himself up by the bootstraps and managed to get into Harvard without any connections whatsoever. Everyone’s education info and any interesting career tidbits are provided below.
Senate
- Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) — University of Wisconsin, 1989
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — Harvard University, 1995 (Also a clerk for Justice William Rehnquist and Judge J. Michael Luttig, before serving as Texas Solicitor General . If that isn’t a resume for a Tea Party candidate, I don’t know what is)
- Sen. Jon Donnelly (D-IN) — Notre Dame, 1981 (I don’t want to suggest anything about his zealous advocacy for his clients, but he left the law to run a rubber stamp company)
- Sen. Heidi Heitcamp (D-ND) — Lewis & Clark, 1980
- Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) — Georgetown University, 1978
- Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) — Harvard University, 1983
- Sen. Angus King (I-ME) — University of Virginia, 1969
- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) — University of Connecticut, 2002
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — Rutgers, 1976
- Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) — University of Kentucky, 2001
- Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) — Indiana University, 1985
- Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) — University of Pennsylvania, 1986 (Worked for his father-in-law’s firm in Scranton representing Dunder Mifflin)
- Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) — Harvard University, 2000 (The twin brother of Democratic keynoter Julian Castro worked at Akin Gump with his brother until they founded their own lawfirm and struck it rich winning a huge personal-injury case)
- Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) — John Marshall, 2008 (A general litigator with his own firm. According to the Internet, his website used to have funky music. Seems to be gone now though. I don’t trust a criminal defense firm that shows pictures of people in handcuffs…seems to be setting the bar kind of low)
- Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) — Harvard University, 2002
- Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) — Georgetown University, 1988 (Founded his own companies rather than sticking with the law. It seems to have worked out — he’ll be the fourth richest member of Congress)
- Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — Harvard University, 2004 (Served as a JAG lawyer in the Navy before teaching at Florida Coastal School of Law)
- Rep. Bill Enyart (D-IL) — Southern Illinois University, 1979 (Enyart ran his own firm specializing in Social Security disability work. He also served as adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, proudly defending Illinois from Iowa)
- Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) — Yale, 1985
- Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) — Georgetown University, 1973
- Rep. Pete Gallego (D-TX) — University of Texas, 1985
- Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) — University of Miami, 1991
- Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) — Harvard University, 1983
- Rep. George Holding (R-NC) — Wake Forest University, 1996
- Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) — Boston College, 1990
- Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) — NYU, 1997
- Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) — University of Dayton, 1982 (At age 30 he was elected the youngest prosecutor in the country…so there’s that).
- Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy (D-MA) — Harvard University, 2009 (Ending the 2-year drought with no Kennedys in Congress)
- Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) — University of Arizona, 1979
- Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH) — Georgetown University, 1984
- Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) — University of New Mexico, 1987
- Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) — University of Virginia, 1992
- Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) — Yeshiva University, 2002
- Koch Industries General Counsel
Rep. Luke Messer (R-IN) — Vanderbilt University, 1994 (Former legal counsel to Koch Industries where this speech is given weekly) - Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) — NYU, 1994
- Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) — University of South Carolina, 1982
- Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA) — Notre Dame, 1990 (Was an associate dean at Regent University School of Law, televangelist Pat Robertson’s pet school)
- Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — Arizona State University, 2004 (M.A., J.D., Ph.D. flipping back and forth between academia and law…best of both worlds I guess)
- Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) — University of Maryland, 2006
- Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA) — Harvard University, 1991 (Played pickup basketball against President Obama at Harvard)
- Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX) — University of Texas, 1987
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What we are seeing is the wholesale dismantling of public justice and all the court and judicial structures that went with our US Constitution and three branch government-----legislative----courts-----executive branches. If you are not enforcing Rule of Law for anyone other than the rich and corporations ----CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS AND BUSH NEO-CONS SAY----WE DON'T NEED LAWYERS OR LAW SCHOOLS.
Just as Obama and Congressional Clinton neo-liberals made the economic stimulus after the 2008 economic crash about hundreds of billions of dollars to mostly Ivy League universities to build corporate research facilities------it is these same Ivy League universities still having strong law schools from where most government pols are taken. At the same time----law schools are mostly offering corporate and international law degrees and students accepted reflect this movement to families of wealth.....and great increase in foreign students as global lawyers from US law schools
JobsJobs Are Still Scarce for New Law School Grads
By Dimitra Kessenides June 20, 2014
Columbia Law School's graduating class in New York
Job prospects for law school graduates aren’t improving much. The overall employment rate for recent law grads fell for the sixth year in a row, to 84.5 percent, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement, a professional association. The report, released on Thursday, surveyed the class of 2013 and found that even after slight improvement over the last two years, the employment rate remains well below an all-time high of 91.9 percent, reached in 2007 before the financial crisis hit.
At the same time, law schools enroll students who will amass plenty of student loan debt in their three years of study. They hope for a job right out of school, with a big enough salary to cover loan payments and living expenses. But the field of law was hit especially hard by the 2008 crash and subsequent recession. Work dried up for many large firms, and what few clients were still hiring lawyers had more bargaining power. They demanded rate discounts (lawyers bill by the hour), and special—or alternative—fees. They also pushed back on the training of newbie lawyers on their dime.
Law firms responded by trimming their ranks and substantially shrinking the number of lawyers hired right out of law school. It’s not just big law firm jobs that went away. Public-interest, in-house counsel, and government positions also dipped.
In its survey, NALP measured the employment rate of 2013 law graduates as of February 15—nine months after the typical May graduation. The class of 2013 was one of the biggest in recent years, contributing to the decline in the overall employment rate. About 52,000 students entered law school in the fall of 2010, an all-time high. The graduates’ employment rate has rarely been lower. “Since 1985, there have only been two classes with an overall employment rate below [84.5 percent], and both of those occurred in the aftermath of the 1990-91 recession,” NALP reports.
There is bit of good news here: More than half the graduates with jobs are working in private practice (big, medium, or small law firms), and the number of large law firm jobs increased. Also, the national median starting salary moved up, to $62,467 from $61, 245. (Median salaries at law firms rose 6 percent, to $95,000.)
Despite modest improvement in some areas, more telling numbers demonstrate just how tight the legal job market is. Of those graduates included in the report, only 64.4 percent were working in jobs that required passage of the Bar Exam—jobs that directly relate to their pricey law degrees. That number has fallen by about 10 percentage points over the past six years. The unemployment rate for 2013 graduates ticked up slightly, to 12.9 percent, from 12.8 percent for the class of 2012.
When you consider that average student debt for private law school hovers somewhere around $125,000, the less-than-robust job prospects should focus current or wannabe law students on answering tough questions. Is law school really the right choice? Can you afford it? Do you have a plan for how to repay your loans if you don’t get a law job coming out of school? And are you all right with working at the local coffee bar, if that’s the only way to make ends meet after graduation?
Hopefully they won’t overlook the comments made by NALP executive director James Leipold in announcing the survey:
Law graduates must enter law school with the understanding that the jobs picture, while strengthening, is one that will continue to evolve, and in the course of that evolution it is almost certain that new opportunities will present themselves, just as it is certain that some traditional opportunities that law school graduates have long counted on will continue to erode. … It is not true that there are too many lawyers—indeed even today most Americans do not have adequate access to affordable legal services—but the traditional market for large numbers of law graduates by large law firms seeking equity-track new associates is not likely to ever return to what it was in 2006 or 2007, and thus aggregate earning opportunities for the class as a whole are not likely to return to what they were before the recession.
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Below you see an article written in 2002-----as Clinton era ended and Bush era began and as we all could see-----global corporations and banking was taking over our government. Social Democracy created the 3 branches of government for checks and balance of abuse of power and against corruption. If you have all three branches filled with lawyers and investment bankers----then you have a corrupted government.
Republicans like Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons sell the idea that deregulation and free markets grow economies and jobs----what is really does is break down all structures to keep corporations honest and acting like good citizens.
PLEASE STOP ALLOWING THESE GLOBAL POLS SELL THE IDEA THAT GLOBAL MARKETS AND DEREGULATION IS GOOD FOR AN ECONOMY.
When WE THE PEOPLE rebuild our government ----reinstating Rule of Law will mean----everyone is accountable under law---and that will take cleaning out our legal system of lawyers that SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, AND SPEAK NO EVIL.
Not all lawyers are bad---just as with any profession but the pendulum must swing away from this lawyer, investment banker, corporate executive as politician.
HOW DARK AGES OF THEM!
Published on
Saturday, January 19, 2002
by
Business Ethics: Corporate Social Responsibility Report
How Corporate Law Inhibits Social Responsibility
A Corporate Attorney Proposes a ‘Code for Corporate Citizenship’ in State Law
by
Robert C. Hinkley
After 23 years as a corporate securities attorney--advising large corporations on securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions--I left my position as partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because I was disturbed by the game. I realized that the many social ills created by corporations stem directly from corporate law. It dawned on me that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible. So in June 2000 I quit my job and decided to devote the next phase of my life to making people aware of this problem. My goal is to build consensus to change the law so it encourages good corporate citizenship, rather than inhibiting it.
The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Every jurisdiction where corporations operate has its own law of corporate governance. But remarkably, the corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical. That design creates a governing body to manage the corporation--usually a board of directors--and dictates the duties of those directors. In short, the law creates corporate purpose. That purpose is to operate in the interests of shareholders. In Maine, where I live, this duty of directors is in Section 716 of the business corporation act, which reads:
...the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders....
Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.
Section 716 dedicates the corporation to the pursuit of its own self-interest (and equates corporate self-interest with shareholder self-interest). No mention is made of responsibility to the public interest. Section 716 and its counterparts explain two things. First, they explain why corporations find social issues like human rights irrelevant--because they fall outside the corporation's legal mandate. Second, these provisions explain why executives behave differently than they might as individual citizens, because the law says their only obligation in business is to make money.
This design has the unfortunate side effect of largely eliminating personal responsibility. Because corporate law generally regulates corporations but not executives, it leads executives to become inattentive to justice. They demand their subordinates "make the numbers," and pay little attention to how they do so. Directors and officers know their jobs, salaries, bonuses, and stock options depend on delivering profits for shareholders.
Companies believe their duty to the public interest consists of complying with the law. Obeying the law is simply a cost. Since it interferes with making money, it must be minimized--using devices like lobbying, legal hairsplitting, and jurisdiction shopping. Directors and officers give little thought to the fact that these activities may damage the public interest.
Lower-level employees know their livelihoods depend upon satisfying superiors' demands to make money. They have no incentive to offer ideas that would advance the public interest unless they increase profits. Projects that would serve the public interest--but at a financial cost to the corporation--are considered naive.
Corporate law thus casts ethical and social concerns as irrelevant, or as stumbling blocks to the corporation's fundamental mandate. That's the effect the law has inside the corporation. Outside the corporation the effect is more devastating. It is the law that leads corporations to actively disregard harm to all interests other than those of shareholders. When toxic chemicals are spilled, forests destroyed, employees left in poverty, or communities devastated through plant shutdowns, corporations view these as unimportant side effects outside their area of concern. But when the company's stock price dips, that's a disaster. The reason is that, in our legal framework, a low stock price leaves a company vulnerable to takeover or means the CEO's job could be at risk.
In the end, the natural result is that corporate bottom line goes up, and the state of the public good goes down. This is called privatizing the gain and externalizing the cost.
This system design helps explain why the war against corporate abuse is being lost, despite decades of effort by thousands of organizations. Until now, tactics used to confront corporations have focused on where and how much companies should be allowed to damage the public interest, rather than eliminating the reason they do it. When public interest groups protest a new power plant, mercury poisoning, or a new big box store, the groups don't examine the corporations' motives. They only seek to limit where damage is created (not in our back yard) and how much damage is created (a little less, please).
But the where-and-how-much approach is reactive, not proactive. Even when corporations are defeated in particular battles, they go on the next day, in other ways and other places, to pursue their own private interests at the expense of the public.
I believe the battle against corporate abuse should be conducted in a more holistic way. We must inquire why corporations behave as they do, and look for a way to change these underlying motives. Once we have arrived at a viable systemic solution, we should then dictate the terms of engagement to corporations, not let them dictate terms to us.
We must remember that corporations were invented to serve mankind. Mankind was not invented to serve corporations. Corporations in many ways have the rights of citizens, and those rights should be balanced by obligations to the public.
Many activists cast the fundamental issue as one of "corporate greed," but that's off the mark. Corporations are incapable of a human emotion like greed. They are artificial beings created by law. The real question is why corporations behave as if they are greedy. The answer is the design of corporate law.
We can change that design. We can make corporations more responsible to the public good by amending the law that says the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the public interest. I believe this can best be achieved by changing corporate law to make directors personally responsible for harms done.
Let me give you a sense of how director responsibility works in the current system. Under federal securities laws, directors are held personally liable for false and misleading statements made in prospectuses used to sell securities. If a corporate prospectus contains a material falsehood and investors suffer damage as a result, investors can sue each director personally to recover the damage. Believe me, this provision grabs the attention of company directors. They spend hours reviewing drafts of a prospectus to ensure it complies with the law. Similarly, everyone who works on the prospectus knows that directors' personal wealth is at stake, so they too take great care with accuracy.
That's an example of how corporate behavior changes when directors are held personally responsible. Everyone in the corporation improves their game to meet the challenge. The law has what we call an in terrorem effect. Since the potential penalties are so severe, directors err on the side of caution. While this has not eliminated securities fraud, it has over the years reduced it to an infinitesimal percentage of the total capital raised.
I propose that corporate law be changed in a similar manner--to make individuals responsible for seeing that the pursuit of profit does not damage the public interest.
To pave the way for such a change, we must challenge the myth that making profits and protecting the public interest are mutually exclusive goals. The same was once said about profits and product quality, before Japanese manufacturers taught us otherwise. If we force companies to respect the public interest while they make money, business people will figure out how to do both.
The specific change I suggest is simple: add 26 words to corporate law and thus create what I call the "Code for Corporate Citizenship." In Maine, this would mean amending section 716 to add the following clause. Directors and officers would still have a duty to make money for shareholders,
... but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.
This simple amendment would effect a dramatic change in the underlying mechanism that drives corporate malfeasance. It would make individuals responsible for the damage companies cause to the public interest, and would be enforced much the same way as securities laws are now. Negligent failure to abide by the code would result in the corporation, its directors, and its officers being liable for the full amount of the damage they cause. In addition to civil liability, the attorney general would have the right to criminally prosecute intentional acts. Injunctive relief--which stops specific behaviors while the legal process proceeds--would also be available.
Compliance would be in the self-interest of both individuals and the company. No one wants to see personal assets subject to a lawsuit. Such a prospect would surely temper corporate managers' willingness to make money at the expense of the public interest. Similarly, investors tend to shy away from companies with contingent liabilities, so companies that severely or repeatedly violate the Code for Corporate Citizenship might see their stock price fall or their access to capital dry up.
Many would say such a code could never be enacted. But they're mistaken. I take heart from a 2000 Business Week/Harris Poll that asked Americans which of the following two propositions they support more strongly:
- Corporations should have only one purpose--to make the most profit for their shareholders--and pursuit of that goal will be best for America in the long run.
--or-- - Corporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities.
If business people resist the notion of legal change, we can remind them that corporations exist only because laws allow them to exist. Without these laws, owners would be fully responsible for debts incurred and damages caused by their businesses. Because the public creates the law, corporations owe their existence as much to the public as they do to shareholders. They should have obligations to both. It simply makes no sense that society's most powerful citizens have no concern for the public good.
It also makes no sense to endlessly chase after individual instances of corporate wrongdoing, when that wrongdoing is a natural result of the system design. Corporations abuse the public interest because the law tells them their only legal duty is to maximize profits for shareholders. Until we change the law of corporate governance, the problem of corporate abuse can never fully be solved.
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Women had to listen as media hyped these Obama Supreme Court Justice appointments as being pro-women and liberal. What they are -----NEW WORLD ORDER DARK AGES. Obama chose these two because they came from Harvard and Yale law ----Ivy League law only recognizes Trans Pacific Trade Pact global corporate rule law.....not American Constitutional law. Clinton and Obama are from Harvard and Yale law schools and could care less about Rule of Law and US Constitutional rights. THEY ARE 100% GLOBAL CORPORATE LAWYERS WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATE FAMILIES AND THEIR WEALTH----THE DARK AGES LAWYER'S GUILD NO DOUBT SECRET SOCIETY.
Kagan and Sotomeyer represent that Supreme court dynamic of Jewish and Catholic that goes with global corporate/wealth control of church and will see no problem in TPP and corporations as writing legislation. Right now only 1 Protestant remains on the Supreme Court which is why it is called the most conservative court in US history. You see media plays on being LIBERAL ------pretending we are still dealing with social democratic liberals rather than the far-right neo-liberalism that Kagan and Sotomeyer represent.
PLEASE DO NOT BUY THE ANY-WOMAN-AS-CANDIDATE BEING A PERSON FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS. THESE GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PEOPLE---THEY WORK FOR WEALTH AND CORPORATE POWER.
About 6% of Americans identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 50% who are Protestants or another non-Catholic Christian religion, 24% who are Catholic and 2% who are Mormon.
Given the movement to austere orthodoxy in Catholics and Jewish groups-----and given that the DARK AGES were made up of these two groups-----NO PROTESTANTS AROUND FOLKS-----it makes a difference how our Supreme Court handles religious rulings in the future. You are not likely to get a CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE ruling by a Supreme Court not right-wing as this one is.
Jonathan Alter Public Prayer05.10.145:45 AM ET Daily Beast
Six Catholics, Three Jews and Not Much Memory at the Supreme Court
The Roberts Court’s cultural amnesia is shocking in Greece v. Galloway, especially considering the religious discrimination the justices’ own forefathers confronted.
So far, liberal analysis of the decision in Greece v. Galloway was best summarized by Andy Borowitz’s satirical headline: “In Landmark Decision, Supreme Court Strikes Down Reason Country Was Started.”
How did we get to a point where five members of the court would believe that opening a public town board meeting in the community of Greece, New York, with an explicitly Christian prayer about Easter is no big deal? That was the gist of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion and the (mostly) concurring opinions by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.
Beyond the constitutional ramifications, I’m curious about how the backgrounds and life experiences of the justices affected their legal opinions and their moral imagination. This is treacherous terrain. Jurists like to claim they are only interested in applying the law; recall how during her confirmation hearings in 2009, Justice Sonia Sotomayor had to back away from her earlier comment that the perspective of a “wise Latina” would be useful on the court. But every justice is shaped by his or her heritage, especially when the case involves religion. The refusal of most court observers to even mention the religious affiliation of the justices has hampered our understanding of this important case.
While Greece was decided 5-4, the religious split on the court is 6-3—six Catholics and three Jews. Sotomayor, a liberal Catholic, voted with Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a country founded by Protestants who still make up 48 percent of the U.S. population (22 percent of Americans are Catholic and 2.2 percent are Jewish), the absence of a Protestant from the court is extraordinary. It wasn’t until 1836 that the first Catholic (Roger Taney) was appointed and until 1916 that the first Jew (Louis Brandeis) made it to the high court. Now Catholics and Jews dominate, an only-in-America phenomenon. The flip-side of our unusual national talent for inclusion is the cultural amnesia displayed in this case by the court’s majority.
The Founders—so backward in their attitudes on race—launched the republic on the basis of religious tolerance. Benjamin Franklin believed in prayer but stressed the importance of ecumenical “public religion.” Thomas Jefferson did not include his service as president of the United States on his tombstone but requested that his authorship of the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom be included. James Madison believed that “religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” With God unmentioned in the Constitution, the Founders set a course that allowed, over Madison’s objections, for chaplains offering prayers at public meetings. But the tradition has favored deistic references (“God,” “the Almighty,” “the Supreme Being”) over sectarian specifics. “The Founders wanted to keep it general because theological disputes led to political upheaval,” says Jon Meacham, author of American Gospel.
In his majority opinion, Kennedy tried to argue that the court was merely upholding that ecumenical tradition. “Willing participation in civic affairs can be consistent with a brief acknowledgment of their belief in a higher power, always with due respect for those who adhere to other beliefs,” he wrote. But the prayers before town meetings in Greece, New York, were not about a “higher power,” which is a standard and unobjectionable prayer that would not have merited an appeal to the Supreme Court. Instead, the ministers in that New York town—who not once gave way to rabbis or imams, though they had Jewish and Muslim congregations nearby—opened a public meeting by stressing, “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We draw strength, vitality, and confidence from his resurrection at Easter…”
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In his concurrence, Roberts noted that “the prayers neither chastised dissenters nor attempted lengthy disquisition on religious dogma.” The chief justice seemed to be arguing that anything short of hostility or blatant evangelism was kosher.
Kagan was quoted in news accounts arguing that the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”
But deeper into her superb dissent, the junior member of the court, sensitized by her background as a Jew, got closer to the feelings of anxiety and exclusion that the court’s decision has heightened:
US Supreme Court OKs Public Prayer Before Government Meetings
WGNO - New Orleans, LA
Let’s say that a Muslim citizen of Greece goes before the board to share her views on policy or request some permit. Maybe she wants the board to put up a traffic light at a dangerous intersection; or maybe she needs a zoning variance to build an addition on her home. But just before she gets to say her piece, a minister deputized by the town asks her to pray “in the name of God’s only son, Jesus Christ.” She must think—it is hardly paranoia, but only the truth—that Christian worship has become entwined with local governance. And now she faces a choice: to pray alongside the majority as one of that group or somehow to register her deeply felt difference. She is a strong person, but that is no easy call—especially given that the room is small and her every action (or inaction) will be noticed. She does not wish to be rude to her neighbors, nor does she wish to aggravate the board members whom she will soon be trying to persuade. And yet she does not want to acknowledge Christ’s divinity, any more than many of her neighbors would want to deny that tenet.
So assume she declines to participate with the others in the first act of the meeting—or even, as the majority proposes, that she stands up and leaves the room altogether. At the least, she becomes a different kind of citizen, one who will not join in the religious practice that the town board has chosen as reflecting its own and the community’s most cherished beliefs. And she thus stands at a remove, based solely on religion, from her fellow citizens and her elected representatives.
You would think that these words would carry some meaning for the Catholic majority. It wasn’t so long ago that Catholics faced great discrimination in the U.S., especially outside major cities. Catholics launched parochial schools in the 19th century after finding that Protestant-dominated public schools made their children uncomfortable. While theocracy was a Catholic tradition for hundreds of years in Europe (where it was the Protestants who began by “protesting” the abuses of state religion), the Catholic Church in recent decades has gone to pains to stress inclusion. In 1965, the Vatican II encyclical declared discrimination as “foreign to the mind of Christ.”
Of course, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito aren’t exactly Vatican II Catholics; Kennedy can be a Pope Francis man on some days, but not in this case. All were born after the worst of the anti-Catholic bias had abated in the U.S. and suffer from a collective memory loss unworthy of their intelligence. They are often accused of lacking empathy, which is another way of saying that they lack moral imagination. With judicial temperaments abstracted to the point of indifference, they seem incapable of imagining themselves even in the shoes of their own grandparents, much less people different from themselves. This is among the worst judicial traits imaginable.
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The problem for the American citizens regarding Separation of Church and State comes with who the lawyers are interpreting these Constitutional laws. As this article states----there may be no formal writing of law supporting separation----but we have 200 years of Supreme Court rulings that make that separation legal. Of course that was 200 years of rulings by a Protestant Supreme Court. Flash forward to today and we have a Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts that ruled CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE----when over a century of Supreme Court ruling/precedent said NO---CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE. The Supreme Court is a body that rules on legal precedent as it interprets law so this Robert's ruling on corporations are people was IMPEACHABLE. What this ruling by a majority Catholic/Jewish court shows this GLOBAL CORPORATE AND WEALTH power taking our court. This means, that this same corporate-centered court will soon breakdown SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE----ignoring 200 years of precedence. It is this dynamic of lawyers and appointments to courts that are changing the US to a corporate/wealth-controlled entity and the breakdown in our public sector to church charity plays a great part in this.
THIS IS HOW THE US GOES BACK TO THE DARK AGES.
If WE THE PEOPLE can restore social democrats in our Congress, state houses, and city halls---we will have pols that will shout for IMPEACHMENT of judges ruling for corporations and against separation of church and state.
'Over the past 200 years the Supreme Court has shaped the constitution to contain a clear separation of church and state that protects every religion equally. If only those who argue against this separation could see how they benefit from it instead of inappropriately interpreting it as an attack on Christianity'.
Dale Hansen Become a fanPolitical blogger, Detroit News
Yes There Is a Constitutional Separation of Church and State
Posted: 09/21/2015 12:35 pm EDT Updated: 09/21/2015 7:59 pm EDT Huffington Post
Perhaps nothing is more important to American politics than a well-reasoned debate. Unfortunately, far too many people are ill-informed to make such discussions possible.
An excellent example of this comes from the responses to an article I wrote examining the concerns of conservative Christians over Tennessee schools' teaching the five pillars of Islam. While there were a number of topics that readers could have discussed, by far the most outrage centered on my statements regarding the separation of church and state. Comments included "Clearly, someone hasn't read the Constitution, because there is no such thing as "separation of church and state" in the US Constitution." "Where exactly in the U.S. Constitution does it address "separation of church and state?" and "Simply put, nowhere in the First Amendment does the phrase 'separation of church and state' exist."
It seems that to some people, if the words don't explicitly appear in the constitution then the idea they refer to isn't constitutionally guaranteed. Viewing it in these simplistic terms is meant to dismiss the entire argument; as if every decision based on the separation of church and state is somehow invalid because the term separation of church and state doesn't appear in the constitution.
Of course the problems with this assertion are many. First and most basic is the fact that the Supreme Court is the ultimate interpreter of federal constitutional law. This means that while the term "separation of Church and State" may never appear in the constitution itself, the Court ruling in the case of Everson v. Board of Education stated "the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'"
A quarter century later, the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman further defined this separation when it established the Lemon Test to determine if a law violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Every ruling since has confirmed that, in the view of the highest court in the land the Constitution created a separation of church and state.
Having said that, the separation of church and state is hardly the first unwritten concept that is protected by the constitution. In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established a women's constitutional right to have an abortion despite the word abortion never appearing in the constitution. In the 2015 case of Obergefell v. Hodges the Supreme Court established that laws against same sex marriage were unconstitutional despite the word marriage never appearing in the constitution. In the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright the Supreme Court established that the constitution guarantees the right to an attorney despite the words public defender never appearing in the constitution. In the 2010 case of McDonald v. Chicago the Supreme Court established that the second amendment right to bear arms included the right to bear arms for self-defense despite the words self-defense never appearing in the constitution.
It should also be noted that of the 112 Supreme Court Justices, none of them has been an atheist. In fact 92 pecent of them were Christian. What rationale would these justices have for making laws that would create a legal prejudice towards their system of beliefs, especially if the separation of Church and State is a misinterpretation?
The reality is that the constitution was never meant to be a stagnant document that was rigidly adherent to the words on the page. As Thomas Jefferson said "The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please." Over the past 200 years the Supreme Court has shaped the constitution to contain a clear separation of church and state that protects every religion equally. If only those who argue against this separation could see how they benefit from it instead of inappropriately interpreting it as an attack on Christianity.
___________________________________________
Again, the problem was not Obama's appointment of two black lawyers to US Justice Department-----the problem was they are both global corporate lawyers tied firmly to protecting corporate wealth and power.......NEW WORLD ORDER LAWYER'S GUILD.
These corporate lawyers do not even see civil rights, US Constitution, or legal precedence for centuries of WE THE PEOPLE having the power to legislate or protected by Rule of Law. That is why Obama's justice department SAW NO CORPORATE FRAUD----failed to enforce civil rights protections especially as regards policing. It is why Holder and now Lynch spends all their time as US Justices working on Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----International Economic Zone law----THEY ARE NO LONGER CONNECTED WITH US CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.....only when mass demonstrations make them throw a Constitutional bone.
IT MATTERS WHETHER WE ELECT SOCIAL DEMOCRATS OR CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS WHETHER WE WILL BE CITIZENS UNDER RULE OF LAW----OR PEASANTS UNDER GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE.
This is why today Americans are feeling they have no rights or protections---it is the DARK AGES corporation/trade guild/church trifecta
Holder and LynchAttorney General Eric Holder, second from right, and U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, right, listen to a major financial fraud announcement in July at the Justice Department.Alex Wong / Getty Images
'Floodgates
The Law Society Gazette reports that the change was a response to the rapid increase in foreign companies with operations in the US'.
As American law students are left largely unemployed------global corporations with the largest and highest-paying legal departments are going global with their hiring. So, the entire high-level corporate legal composition is moving to rich and global. Meanwhile, law schools are raising tuitions more so than public universities while grants and financial aid to law schools dry. WE ARE SEEING THE PURGING OF MAIN STREET AMERICA FROM OUR US LEGAL SYSTEM. The American Bar Association-----as with the Maryland Bar Association has gone completely global corporate.
1970
The Bar: Professional Association or Medieval
Guild?
Michael Bard
Barbara A. Bamford
US relaxes rules on foreign in-house lawyers
By James Barnes
JamesBarnes@globallegalpost.com
20 February 2013 at 10:15 BST
Lawyers who qualified outside of the US are to be allowed to work as in-house counsel at US companies in all 50 states, the American Bar Association (ABA) has ruled.
US: foreign lawyers rule change
A vote last week lifted the rule which had prevented foreign lawyers from working in corporate legal departments which existed in all but seven US states. However, the lawyers will only be able to practise with ‘limited authority’, reports the Memphis Business Journal.
Floodgates
The Law Society Gazette reports that the change was a response to the rapid increase in foreign companies with operations in the US.
The ABA rebuffed suggestions that the reforms will ‘open the floodgates’ to foreign lawyers, as they are still unable to advise on US law without consulting an authorised US lawyer.
‘Foreign lawyers are already engaged as in-house counsel within the US, but are subject to relatively little oversight,’ said the ABA commission. ‘Adding foreign lawyers enables organisational clients to meet their needs with counsel of their choice, while ensuring foreign lawyers are identifiable, subject to monitoring, and accountable.’
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