Elena Kagan's Thesis in 90 Seconds: Radical. Socialist. Marxist. She Must Be Blocked From the Supreme Court At All Costs.

RedState's invaluable Erick Erickson has published the full text of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's thesis. I have transcribed some of the key graphs, below. In fact, you can read her entire, 130-page thesis in 90 seconds here if you wish. I'm not joking about that.

It's now crystal clear that Kagan was nominated for one reason: to rubber-stamp Obama's radical agenda, including an individual mandate for socialized medicine.

She is a radical. She is a socialist. And she must be blocked at all costs.

Acknowledgements ...I would like to thank my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas...

...most historians have looked everywhere but to the American socialist movement itself for explanations of U.S. socialism's failure...

...the American socialists· "failure to build a movement that even resembled Sombart's idealized notion of a class-conscious party--a failure which they shared with most of their European counterparts--did not render their party any less significant. Nor did such a failure render their party any less successful...

[To explain why the] American socialist movement of the Progressive Era suddenly fell apart... we must turn to the internal workings and problems of the socialist movement itself.

...the dissolution of the Socialist Party resulted not from the walkout of the syndicalists in 1912 but from the infinitely more disastrous departure of the communists seven years later...

...[Early on] the [American] socialists divided into two camps: those of "constructive" and "revolutionary" socialism.

...the Russian Revolution set the spark to their long-smoldering rebellion, and the Socialist Party burst into flames. In 1919, the SP split into two, and the New York City communist movement emerged... by the last 1920's, the socialist movement in New York City was dead.

...The SP's first priority was to prepare for revolution than to work for reforms -- to bring ultimate salvation rather than immediate relief.

Conservative craft unions could not develop the unity and class consciousness that alone would lead workers to vote the socialist ticket. They could not compel a resistant capitalist class to accept an SP electoral victory. Nor could they prepare the workers for the administration of industry in the cooperative commonwealth. According to such left-wing leaders as Boudin and Slobodin, then, the socialists needed to do all in their power to set New York's unions on a militant path. If that meant interfering with some other "arm", so be it.

...Most historians have viewed World War I as an unqualified disaster for the American socialist movement...

[During the war] both local and national socialist leaders had taken their stand: they would condemn the war in the strongest terms... having formulated their policies, the socialists turned with rekindled enthusiasm to active propaganda work...

Leon Trotsky, living in New York..., urged the Socialist Party to adopt more daring tactics in its fight against the war. In particular, he suggested that the socialists publicy declare their intention to transform the international conflict into a civil one...

Finally, the Socialists began to hold mass meetings in Madison Square Garden, with audiences that even non-socialist newspapers estimated at some 13,000. Most often, the socialists simply protested the war's continuation, using arguments and rhetoric similar to those employed before the U.S. became a belligerent...

We are told that we are in war to make the world safe for democracy. What a hollow phrase! We cannot ... " force democracy upon hostile countries by force of arms. Democracy must come from within not from without, through the light.of reason and not through the fire of guns.

Prior to April 1917, the socialists had enjoyed relative freedom to oppose the war... however, the situation [then] changed considerably. The government prosecuted socialists; the police harassed them; crowds of hysterical citizens lent federal and municipal officials a helping hand. [Ed: Racist tea-baggers, I'd surmise]

...On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, which prohibited an person from willfully helping the enemy, inciting rebellion in the armed forces or attempting to obstruct the government's recruiting efforts... [Ed: sounds like the modern Democrat Party]

...[In 1919] the intra-party dissension that had built up for almost two decades came to a climax. In the wake of this battle, American communism was born... [which advocated a revolution in America]

[However] ...Revolutionary socialism... had never suited the conditions of American life, conditions which demanded a program with a "realistic basis."

...[The radicals caused the Red Scare, in which massive raids were launched by the authorities on revolutionaries]... The effects of the Red Scare on the communist movement were' nothing short of cataclysmic. Nationally, membershipship in the two communist parties decreased from an estimated 70,000 in 1919 to 16,000 in 1920...

...In 1933, the [Socialist-inspired labor union].ILGWU, along with many other formerly left-wing unions joined the mainstream of American political life by jumping on the New Deal bandwagon. These unions viewed the NRA both as a means of withstanding the depression and as an opportunity to recoup the losses they had suffered as a result of their struggle with the communists. To be sure, the NRA did enable the vast majority of these labor organizations to expand at phenomenal rates...

...There was, however, a price. In the pl:ocess.of ·endorsing Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the ILGWU ceased to be a radical oppositional force, with deep links to socialist politics and ideology...

Conclusion In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness... Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force?

...[America's] societal traits... a relatively fluid class structure, an economy which allowed at least some workers to enjoy [prosperity]... prevented the early twentieth century socialists from attracting an immediate mass following. Such conditions did not, however, completely checkmate American socialism...

...Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism... to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America.

...if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.

Their only hope for change, if you get my drift.

How anyone could perform this level of navel-gazing -- longingly pining for the joys of socialism -- after the utter failures of Marxism, is beyond me. It's not like 1910, Elena -- we know this crap doesn't work and has never worked!

Republicans: are you sick of being punched in the face by leftist Democrats yet? Are you sick of having sand kicked in your face? Then stand up and block Elena Kagan. A lifetime appointment for a self-described radical?

Call your Senators and demand they filibuster Elena Kagan. Call the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and demand they block Kagan's nomination.

A lifetime appointment for a crypto-Marxist is beyond the pale.


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