As an undergraduate at Princeton, Kagan wrote a senior thesis titled
"To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933."
In the "Acknowledgments" section of her work, she specifically thanked her 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. In the body of the thesis, Kagan wrote:
"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 capitalisms glories than of socialisms greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nations established parties?...
"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York 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 socialisms decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight ones fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet 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."http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2398
Kagan and Obama Go Way Back
Kagan and Obama met at U of C in the ‘90s
The current Solicitor General and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice tried her best to woo Obama to a life in academia when the two worked at the University of Chicago, according to MSNBC’s First Read.
Kagan joined the staff there in 1991 and won tenure in 1995. Obama was a part-time lecturer there between 1992 and 2004, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but according to reports she tried to convice him to pursue a tenure track.
Obviously Obama had more grandiose ideas about where his career would lead him, but what a perfect bookend now that he’s poised to nominate her to become the next Supreme Court Justice.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Kagan-and-Obama-Go-Way-Back-93267019.html
That is pretty damn HEAVY. Thanks for the post!
She’s no socialist...you gonna believe your own lying eyes?