WTF #11, “We are a nation of lawyers, not of men.”

Professional degrees in recent Democratic Party politics

Hillary Clinton P - Yale Law School

Tim Kaine VP – Columbia & Harvard Law Schools

Barack Obama P – Harvard Law School

Joe Biden VP – Syracuse University College of Law

John Kerry P – Yale University and Boston College Law School

John Edwards VP – University of North Carolina Law School

Al Gore P – Harvard College

Joe Lieberman VP -  Yale University, Yale Law School

Bill Clinton P – Georgetown University, Oxford, Yale Law School

Al Gore VP – Harvard College

Michael Dukakis P – Harvard Law School

Lloyd Bentsen VP – University of Texas Law School

Walter Mondale P – University of Minnesota Law School

Geraldine Ferraro VP – Fordham University School of Law

Jimmy Carter P – US Naval Academy

Walter Mondale VP – University of Minnesota Law School

George McGovern P – Northwestern University

Sargent Shriver VP – Yale University, Yale Law School

Hubert Humphrey P – University of Minnesota

Ed Muskie VP – Cornell Law School

John Kennedy went to Harvard University.  Before him Adlai Stevenson went to Princeton and Northwestern U Law School.  Only 4 did not go to law school.

Prospective Presidents:  (With net worth from Forbes just for fun)

Michael Bennet – Wesleyan University and Yale Law School – $15M. (business)

Joe Biden – Syracuse University College of Law - $9M. (book sales)

Michael Bloomberg – John Hopkins and Harvard (MBA) – $52.4B. (business)

Cory Booker – Stanford, Oxford, Yale Law School - $1.5M.

Pete Buttigieg – Harvard University & Oxford College - $100K.

John Delaney – Columbia University and Georgetown University Law School - $232M. (business)

Tulsi Gabbard – Hawaii Pacific University - $500K.

Amy Klobuchar – Yale and University of Chicago Law School - $1.9M.

Deval Patrick – Harvard University Law School - $1M.

Bernie Sanders – University of Chicago - $2.5M (book sales)

Tom Steyer – Yale and Stanford (MBA) - $1.6B. (business)

Elizabeth Warren – Rutgers Law School - $12M. (stocks and real estate)

Marianne Williamson – Pomona College - $1.5M. (self-help guru)

Andrew Yang – Brown and Columbia University Law School - $1M. (business)

9 of 14 are lawyers and 2 of the 5 have MBAs.  12 of 14 are millionaires.  Most went to upper-crust Ivy League schools. I’d hate to know about the Democratic Primary dropouts … Do you see patterns?

One Pattern:

Dick:  “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.” (Henry The Sixth by W. Shakespeare)

This is rebel Dick’s answer to his leader Jack Cade, who envisions a quasi-communistic social revolution without money, with everyone having enough clothes and food. In the play Henry the Sixth Shakespeare actually slanders Cade as an ally of the nobleman Richard of York instead of being an independent pre-proletarian and peasant rebel.  In this Shakespeare proves himself to be an ally of one wing of the nobility, the Lancasters, covering for Henry VI, a Lancaster. 

Wikipedia:  Actually Jack Cade's Rebellion was a popular revolt in 1450 against the government of England, which took place in the southeast of the country between the months of April and July. It stemmed from local grievances regarding the corruption, maladministration, abuse of power of the king's closest advisors and local officials, and recent military losses in France during the Hundred Years' War. Leading an army of men from southeastern England, the rebellion's namesake and leader Jack Cade marched on London in order to force the government to reform the administration and remove from power the "traitors" deemed responsible for bad governance. It was the largest popular uprising to take place in England during the 15th century.

Instead of class war, what followed was “The War of the Roses,” now made famous in an accidental way by Game of Thrones. 

Ultimately we have to eliminate the bourgeois legal system set up to protect private property and all its attendant consequences.  In a capitalist society where the favored and almost only redress for all kinds of conflicts is the monetized legal system, lawyers and lawsuits proliferate like cancer cells. 

Other prior reviews on issues of the law, use blog search box upper left:  “With Liberty and Justice for Some” (Greenwald); “The Divide” (Taibbi); “99 Homes,” “Legal Logic Behind Raids,” “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” “A Time to Kill” and “Gray Mountain” (both by Grisham); “The Trial Before the Trial,” “Eric Holder,” “Bad Cops, Bad Cops,” “Prison Strike Against Modern Slavery,” “Are Prisons Obsolete?” (Davis) “Slavery By Another Name,” “The New Jim Crow” (Alexander).

The Kulture Kommissar

January 10, 2020