Winning formula for Obama—People remain hallowed in democracy

Robert Bork rejected 58-42 in U.S. Senate after
citizens mobilized against Bork's authoritarian vision

Update: Katrina vanden Heuvel: "Unless the Supreme Court becomes a central issue in this election, progressives are at risk of losing everything they care about, fought for and won.

This is no exaggeration. Let’s not forget that Mitt Romney has resurrected Bork as his chief judicial adviser. This is a man who would overturn Roe v. Wade, who doesn’t think the equal protection clause applies to women, who consistently favors corporations over citizens, who opposes voting rights. He originally opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act! As Sen. Edward Kennedy said before the Senate rejected the nomination, in Bork’s America, “the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.

With Mitt Romney in the White House, Bork would be in a position to reverse the progress the United States has made to expand its democracy."

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Defeating fascismI have my rights is winning message against Bork-Romney-Tea Party Rule of Corporate power over People 

The Robert Bork nomination for U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1987 was an epic battle that saw a united front of citizens triumph over a genuine fascist movement that is embodied in today's GOP-Tea Party presidential ticket.

Bork now serves as Mitt Romney's co-chair of the GOP ticket's Justice Advisory Committee as Ted Kennedy's early warnings about Bork and the New Right appear prophetic.

We have seen economic catastrophe, profiteering and obstruction of the recovery by the Tea Party-Republican movement.

Now, the Obama presidency is poised to articulate its vision of rights—to health care, to voting, to sell our labor, and the preservation of social insurance in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that enjoy the wide support of the American people, but remain targeted by corporate interests and politicians such as Romney, Ryan and Walker.

"Without even being asked to do so, five Justices in 2010 overrode their colleagues in the Citizens United case and bestowed upon the CEOs the power to spend trillions of dollars from corporate treasuries promoting compliant politicians to the public in campaign season," notes Jamin Raskin.

Their hands out, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Scott Walker reap the corporate payout—for everything from power over the people's right to vote to funding Walker's criminal defense fund.

Fighting for the rights of Americans to work, the right to health care, and the right to Social Security against the forces who would deny these rights will determine the winner of the 2012 race for the presidency.

Look for a rout, as the NYT's Nate Silver's analyses predict.

What manner of human being is so sacred as to be endowed with rights? Citizens of the United States of America.

Robert Bork disagrees, and was rejected for his vision of Americans without rights.

Defending this American status of expansive rights against economic royalists and their cronies is a winning electoral formula.

As Noam Chomsky writes this morning:

The most prominent news story of the day here is the U.S. election. An appropriate perspective was provided by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who held that 'We may have democracy in this country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.'