The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court are the High Priests of Democracy, divining the will of the Founding Fathers through their interpretations of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other ancient texts. They use Legalese to explain their decisions, for only this elevated tongue can encompass the full measure of the Founders' thoughts. 

Their interpretations tend to carve out expansive freedoms for the elite, i.e., those with the money, influence and wisdom to know what’s best for everyone. But it is beyond the laity to understand the Founders, for they wrote in mysterious ways and their reasoning was superior to our own. Only the Supremes can understand what the Founders intended and translate their intentions into common speech. 

The previous paragraphs were just a bit of fun, of course. Only fools and Democratic politicians believe that. (Not even Republican politicians are so naive.) I don't even think all Democratic officeholders buy into that bullshit. Most of them probably just use the specter of the Supreme Court as an excuse for why we can't have nice things like student loan forgiveness and abortion. It's a lot easier to explain your "failures" to your base when you've got a reactionary (but untouchable) institution standing in the way. 

We really need to get over this idea that the Supreme Court Justices are above politics. They've always been mired in the mud of politics, down here with the rest of us. But they've never had to get their hands dirty. They can deliver seemingly impartial decisions in the mumbo-jumbo of Legalese without revealing their political biases. Even now that the MSM has abandoned its slavish adoration of the Supremes, Democrats in Congress offer no more than token resistance to the corrupt decisions of a far-right-wing Court. 

Clarence Thomas has been exposed as a prostitute and Samuel Alito as a blatantly political partisan. The Court's reputation is in tatters, and yet the Democrats refuse to even try to impeach them. At best, the Dems are cowards. More likely, they're hiding their own conservative and right-wing tendencies behind the Court's intransigence. Whatever their reasons, they've made it clear that they can't be trusted to halt or even slow our march toward Fascism.

Israel is Digging Its Own Grave

 

 

What Israel is doing right now in Gaza is genocide. They're using the Hamas attack of October 7^th as an excuse to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel had a choice. They could’ve chosen to live in peace with the Palestinians and their neighbors. Or they could’ve chosen expansion. They chose expansion. Ever since, they’ve annexed Palestinian territory in violation of international law and carried out inhuman massacres of Palestinians and Arabs. Since its founding, Israel has killed at least 10 Palestinians for every Israeli killed by a Palestinian.

Peace does not come through oppression of one
's neighbors. It comes through recognizing their humanity and treating them accordingly. The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians "human animals." The Israeli government has no respect for Palestinian humanity, as they've shown through decades of cruel oppression and mindless slaughter.

Israel is eager to kill as many Palestinians as it can without the least pretense of targeting Hamas militants, much less trying them in a court of law, as a civilized society would. What are we to say about a country that targets ambulances? If these are our allies, then God help us, for no earthly power will show us any mercy, just as we refuse to show any for the sick, the old or the children of Gaza.

We’re still operating in the mindset of Pax Americana, when our actions against other countries had no consequences for us. That’s why we were able to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, killing millions in the process, without any real blowback. Israel is just following the example we set in the War on Terror. We killed over a million people supposedly to avenge the fewer-than-3,000 people who were killed on 9/11. Israel has so far killed at least 40,000 supposedly to avenge the 1,200 who were killed on October 7^th, so their revenge ratio is still much lower than ours.

But Israel is digging a hole that it won’t be able to climb out of. The US seems to be losing power quickly and likely won’t be able to protect Israel from the consequences of its actions for much longer. The Western colonial powers have kept the Arabs at bay since the end of World War I. Their desire for justice (and revenge) has been building for over a century.

When these people are released from their bonds, they will be difficult to contain. The more Palestinians Israel kills now, the more terrible the Arabs’ revenge will be. It may be too late to save all the Jews of Israel. But the more Palestinians we save now, the better our chances of saving Israeli Jews down the road.

An Unfortunate Racial Encounter

Last summer I was at Best Buy and had an unfortunate racial encounter. (If you’re thinking, “Well, your first mistake was going to Best Buy,” I can’t argue with that. They email me a $5 “reward certificate” every few months, and I just can’t resist the urge to sample the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar experience.) There was a Black guy with a bunch of facial tattoos staring at me as I approached the DVD section. I briefly made eye contact and half-smiled in an attempt at politeness.

I didn’t think much of it. My time was spent slowly wending my way through the toy, DVD and gaming aisles in the middle of the store. I saw the guy a few more times as I wandered, but I still didn’t think much of it. I found a Super Mario Bros. Lego figure for my nephew and took it to the checkout area, but my reward certificate couldn’t be applied to it because the price (before taxes) was $4.99. So I went back and found another Lego toy for $9.99.

On my way back to checkout with the $9.99 Lego kit, the guy walks by me and says something to the effect of, “I don’t appreciate being followed. You made this a very unpleasant experience for me.” I wasn’t looking at him as he spoke, so I wasn’t even sure if he was talking to me. But it seemed like I was the only one he could’ve been talking to. Dumbfounded, I looked at his back as he walked toward the exit. A White woman looked inquiringly at him and then me. I gave her a confused look to indicate that I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

I would’ve liked to reassure him that I wasn’t an undercover security guard tracking him, but I was afraid to contradict him. I thought it might set him off. He was clearly in a bad mood. He was being paranoid, but it’s a well-founded paranoia. I’m sure he’s been followed around stores by security guards many times. But this time it was all in his head (unless there was someone else following him around. Who knows? Maybe I was an unwitting decoy for an actual security guard.).

Well, I know I’m not “The Victim” here, but it was just so fuckin’ frustrating. I felt like the Bad Guy even though I’d done nothing wrong. Could I have said something to disabuse him? Maybe, but likely not. It’s not like I was prepared for the accusation or quick enough on my feet to come up with a witty rejoinder. I think I just have to accept that I got winged by Racism and move on. (For the record, I have moved on. I wrote this shortly after it happened. It just took me until now to polish it off and post it.)