SUPREME THOUGHTS

While the new Supreme Court nominee is apparently not quite the troglodyte that I anticipated Bush to nominate, I remain skeptical.

First, I cannot believe George Bush would actually nominate a good person for any office. He seems to bottom fish only.

Second, Roberts is highly approved by most of the neocons who have weighed in on the nomination. This is surely cause for suspicion, for they are the most destructive gang our nation has seen in its 200+ year history.

Third, Roberts is being mighty coy. Like the administration supporting him, he seems fearful, secretive, and defensive. From all the secretive defensiveness he's displaying, you'd think he was a doctor.

Fourth, to my mind, he just looks shallow. Perhaps he's not, but so far, despite presumed impeccable credentials, I see are sneaky, dishonest wrinkles about the eyes. This surface appearance may be just a perpetual sneer, reinforced by his aforementioned reticence to open up.

All in all, this is a package that I would be wary of. I hope, however, that I am proven dead wrong, for we'll not get anything better out of Bush and his minions.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Many thanks to the French government and people for their gracious and
enthusiastic celebration of my birthday. Only the French know how to do the day justice.

JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY

These two much bandied about terms evoke a similar response from everybody. In the courts, justice is the last thing any of us seek. What we want is to win our case. Justice is simply the least we're will to accept without crying foul.

Similarly, democracy is the least desired of all forms of government. But, a pluralistic society is full of competing factions seeking to gain control and impose their wills and agendas on everybody else. In order for such a contentious nation to function, the factions must establish a kind of truce. Democracy is acceptable because it is perceived as the least destructive of each faction's interests. Thus, democracy is a function of pluralism; it works because it is practical.

In the United States today that fragile truce is in great danger; practicality is losing way to ideology and greed. Clearly ascendant are agendas attacking values traditionally touted by Americans, equality, civil rights, and the virtues of different social, political, and economic perspectives. Leading this attack are religious fundamentalists and corporate millionnaires. Strange bedfellows.

A very different situation occurs in the Middle East where we are attempting to establish hegemony. There we are leading an agenda to set corporate greed in control of the society, but the indigenous people want a religious society. There, instead of cooperating as in the United States, corporate greed and religious fundamentalism conflict with each other. Separate beds arrangement.

We have tried to define our struggles in the Middle East as a war on terror. Maybe it is, but I'm less sure about that claim as time goes by. More interesting and important, it seems to me, is the role of terrorists in the struggle for control of the world. In the emerging war between established geopolitics and what for lack of a better name I'll call functional politics, who will win?

LITTLE THOUGHTS

If George Bush is going to save his schizy friend, he'd better hurry up and name his troglodyte to the Supreme Court.

The WSJ says Karl Rove is a whistleblower. More likely, both are just whistling "Dixie."

BEATIFICATION, ETC.

Well, looks like Sandra Day O'Connor is going to become a saint before John Paul 2. The stature of both has risen heavenward since they died. Neither had that much adulation in their so-called real lives. The poor Democrats. Their elevation of O'Connor, and her ilk, to near icon status reveals the helpless angst they're suffering and the poor quality of the nominee they are now willing to accept to avoid an ultra, superduper, screaming right winger. But this is precisely the kind of candidate that George Bush is almost certain to nominate to the Supreme Court. Worse, if he gets two (or three) shots at new justices, they'll all be so far right they'll make Genghis Khan look like a communist.

There's not a chance in the world that Bush will forego this wonderful opportunity to turn the Supreme Court into the juggernaut of juridical destruction that he and his neocons mentors have sought for decades. What could better please and inspire his base of corporate millionnaires and semi-literate hill-billy Christians than a divisive, destructive Court that will wipe out all unity and sense of justice among the American people? Not to mention destruction of civil rights and economic viability. The current crop of neocons thrive on hostility. By his nomination(s) Bush will deliberately stir up class and ethnic hatred to divide and conquer honest and well meaning citizens, leaving the nation ripe to greed and all the nation's resources and wealth in the coffers of a few huge corporations.

With the House of Representatives, the Senate, Executive, and now the Judiciary solidly under control of the most regressive regime in American history, we begin a new Dark Age. It is a sad fate and a sad ending to this great country. I've had the priviledge of living through the most prosperous and hunane period of the American experiment, so it is a sad ending to my life as well. I'm sorry to see it all end. But, as empires come and empires go, this one will go, too.


We really need to adjust our language in talking about liberals and conservatives these days, especially conservatives. As E. J. Dionne points out in a op-ed piece in the Washington Post of 7/2, todays's conservatives are hardly deserving of the name. Most, at least those in the administration, are hard right wingers for whom the virtures of the past are of scant value.

Taking my own tact here, I see the current crop of so-called conservatives as little more than thugs, narrow-minded, semi-literate fundamentalists and corporate wolves with no awareness, let alone interest, in right, wrong, civil rights, or human decency.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA

I wish you many more, but I don't think you'll have them. In a few years the great experiment will end. Destroyed by its own success. The very people who benefited most from the freedoms you offered have now, through that very prosperity that you made possible, given themselves over entirely to greed and are well on the way to destroying the society that made their success possible. In their short sightedness, they are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Not satisfied with abundant wealth and power, in their greed they have set themselves the task of taking even that meager share which before had been the portion of workers and the poor.

Is there no shame? Is there no human decency? I fear not.

WHO WILL IT BE?

Who will be the Supreme Court nominee? I don't know the name of the person Bush will nominate, but I do know (strongly believe) that it will be the most divisive, minimally competent person he can locate. The troglodytes, not all of whom are hill-billy Christian types, in Bush's base thrive on opposition. Mean spirited and small minded, they love nothing better than to rile up the "liberals" and get a good, dirty fight going. That solidifies them as nothing else can. Never mind that a nominee meeting their desires would be harmful to the country, to their interests, and to the constitutional principles that have carried them and us so far.

In private life, when we meet up with hateful people, the best tactic is to remain unperturbed and utterly reasonable. Never try to match virturpertion with them That's their forte. If you try to argue with them, you step into their territory where all the advantages are theirs. Stay calm, speak softly, and watch the wind fall out of their sails.

Unfortunately, in public matters the media step in and a moderate tactic simply plays into the hands of aggressors. Thus, if the Democrats adopt a reasonable and objective analysis toward the upcoming Supreme Court nominee, we can expect the media still to present the debate as a conflict, reason and balanced judgement to fall by the wayside, and the more arrogant side, the neocons, to walk all over the Democrats in public opinion and end up with the Court seat.

On the other hand, if the Democrats adopt a confrontational approach to the new neocon nominee, it will simply invigorate the nominee's right wing supporters. The Democrats will be unable to match the viciousness of the right's attacks against them, and the media will declare neocons the winner of the fight. The American public will accept that judgement and, sadly, our nation will move another step closer to fascist perdition.

Thus do hatred, division, and media greed play into the hands of the totalitarians bent on taking over the country.

A MEASLY $10 BILLION

Well, it looks like the big tobacco companies are getting pretty much off the hook after all. Instead of the $130 billion originally sought, a measly $10 billion will be sufficient, the Justice Department says. Never mind the millions of smokers who have died from the effects of tobacco. Hell, how much did they ever contribute to any Republican's re-election?

Truth is, no amount of money can compensate for lives lost, but it would be nice to see some indication of awareness of the magnitude of the crime, at least on the part of the government. And, I'm only referring to those who died, or suffered serious health effects from smoking, AFTER it became apparent to the government and tobacco companies that tobacco was a killer. Still, after all the medical evidence against their products, companies deny any wrongdoing and continue manufacturing and promoting tobacco products they know are injuring and killing millions of people all over the world just to enrich themselveds. For this they need to be held accountable.

I don't have figures on the number of persons who have suffered serious health problems or have died as a result of smoking since the manufacturers learned how harmful tobacco is. The numbers have to be in the millions, however, perhaps in the tens of millions, and growing, as the manufacturers move operations overseas and addict unsuspecting populations in undeveloped countries. Which, I think, makes tobacco companies the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. And they're getting off virtually scot-free.