A fitting epitaph for Antonin Scalia ‘The stink is off the court’

Not withstanding all the accolades being showered down from all the likely suspects and unlikely ones as well, when I heard Antonin Scalia had died, there was a saying we used to use fishing that came to mind. ‘The stink is off the pole’. Somehow that saying seemed appropriate here as well. Because if there is anything that Scalia’s death does it is to remove a stink from the bench of the supreme court. At least his stench will no longer encircle and linger around those who find themselves looking for justice in our highest court.

To be fair he was not the only smell around there, but one of the most pungent, and effectual in doing real damage. Which he did in spades as the longest sitting judge on the bench. Unquestionably the overwhelming expression of his tenure on the court was his political activism, and poorly veiled animosity and disgust for legal precedent set by previous courts ‘except’ for the ones that supported his bias and his friends politics.

As a justice he served the wishes and whims of plutocrats and right wing politics whenever it was expedient. Making spurious arguments often to bend the tone of the deliberations towards his bias and whoever he happened to be carrying water for at the moment. Even when right wing corporate and political questions were not the issue he operated out of his personal bias, interpreting the constitution through his own feelings and wishes. A real piece of work Scalia was.

I’ve tried to imagine how someone could get to be like him. A bad childhood? Beaten around the head too often and latent brain scaring turned him to the dark side? Yet to see him as a product of a dysfunctional family is hard to support, though it could make his actions a little more understandable. He did get a degree in law from Harvard after all which seemed strange until one remembers how far  ivy league institutions have sunk. But he likely could have gotten it through Boalt School of Law at UC as well. After all there are a lot of lawyers out there who are clearly clinical.


His father Salvatori Eugene Scalia was an educated man getting his degree from Columbia and going on to become a professor of Romance languages at Brooklyn Collage. Bad nurture didn’t seem to play as a reason for his actions. That left that he was just a nasty individual self absorbed, self assured and  personally bias. All which were hallmarks of his constitutional interpretations. If his actions had not been so destructive to so many lives he could be written off as just another ass who decided at some point to be a self absorbed power hungry operative for neocons and oligarchs. But the reality is that his actions did in fact inflict real damage to our nation, its people, and many individuals who had come before the court in hopes of justice and found Scalia.


No big surprise as Scalia started his public career as a hand picked activist judge of Nixon’s Administration eventually becoming the assistant Attorney General. He extricated himself from the Nixon\Ford debacle along with Rumsfeld and Cheney to keep out of the sights of the investigations and went to work teaching at the University of Chicago. Which like Georgetown is a holding facility for political cronies to ride out rough waters until they can be safely brought back into government.

Then in 1982 Reagan appointed him to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, another holding pen closer to the front lines. There he became a republican team court enforcer. In 1986 Reagan appointed him to the supreme court where he was unanimously confirmed. Whether he landed on the supreme court because of his willingness to be a political activist and make judicial judgment based on his friends political intentions, or because he had a general lack of care for anyone but  cronies it is hard to say.

He was instrumental in maintaining the interpretation of the second amendment as it now stands. A more ludicrous position would be hard to find by anyone who can actually read english. He was the strongest voice on the bench against affirmative actions, and civil rights legislation. He was a deciding vote on allowing corporations to be treated as individuals, as people, Or Citizens United,  and so much more. He was a constant and despicable voice in support of the super wealthy and extreme conservative few.

So I must say it is nice to have his stink off the bench. I don’t know if his mother is living. It’s doubtful I’m guessing. But I am sure she loved him deeply. That is good because given how he handled his public life, and his constant rhetoric dismissing anything that rang of reason care, justice, fairness, truth, I can’t imagine many besides his mom did.

Sure he was a voice of constant support for the party lines of his corporate masters and their tea party minions. He engendered lots of supporters and quasi friends along the road for sure as they all shared in common gain from his decisions, but love him, well I’m betting that’s pretty much his Mama… And maybe Cheney. After all they both like hunting.

                                                                      And behind door three!

If you are reading this you must be somewhat like me or you wouldn’t have found your way here. That being the case, likely you’ve spent some time these last few days pondering what happened Friday, June 19, 2015. When the Supreme court of the United States upheld the Affordable Care Act, established GBLT marriage as our National law and held up as lawful litigation over discrimination in jobs and housing…. and if that weren’t enough just today upheld Arizona’s ‘voted in’ civilian redistricting, to the consternation of the republicans in government who had gerrymandered Arizona so nicely for themselves for so many years.  

You may be like me at this point dope slapping yourself in confusion and saying something like  ‘Is this the same Supreme court that made corporate interests into US citizens, establishing that they were ‘persons’, regardless of how completely foolish that sounds on the face of it. Not to mention multi-national citizenships and affiliations corporations represent, just for starters. The same court that took away voting rights established during the civil rights movement which allowed for equal representations under the law; with a finding that discrimination in voting was no longer an issue in the USA? This court, essentially the same court that Coronated our first Un-elected President, George W. Bush? 

Well, not sure what you’d say but I’d say ‘no’! Except I’m a pragmatist for the most part and the faces of the judges, well they're the same, no stand-ins. So I’m at a loss understanding why this happened, albeit I admit a fantastic chain of events to be pondering. But such incongruity raises questions about what is actually happening here.

There are new Justices added to the court since the Coronation Crew crowned George & Dick, true, but they all have been drawn from the same section of sidewalk along the liberal conservative road as their predecessors, so that seems less of a reason then one might hope. That leaves a few other options hovering between, ‘evolution in the minds of (some) sitting judges. That they woke up and started processing some of the new information they seem to have ignored in the past, to it’s an anomaly that will never be understood.  

I like thinking there was some growth in understanding from sitting Judges who seem to have changed color for this day, but I can’t honestly go there. I know better. It seems to me that there must be varied priorities at play among the conservatives on the bench. Not unlike those with main line republicans and tea party and Christian religious bible thumping republicans. 

What June 19th 2015 has made apparently clear is that there are smart and reasoning individuals within the right wing of the Supreme Court. That as much as it might seem like they're all bozos on the bus all the time, there is an underlying current of intelligence and understanding of the bigger picture for at least a couple of them. 

Given the number of people who would be cut off of medical care if these couple justices voted their bias, which is their practice for the most part, the possibility of full on riots was very real. Given the number of states who have legalized gay marriage and the US military’s acceptance of GBLT folks, well that’s just too many enemies to light fires under in an election year.  And with the issues of immigration and fair housing in communities of color growing, in the end it was just foolish to play the privileged cards.  They know who is going to win in any court challenge between a poor family and a landlord with resources. So might as well not burn ones hands on that potato either. It is an election season, so balances need to be struck, trust nudged along. 

Some might call this view cynical, even disrespectful of the justices. What I have to say to that is simple. Remember, remember, remember. As much as I would love to think a zebra can change it’s stripes or a fish can breath milk, I know better. Now I would love to be proven wrong here and truly hope I am ,however the most recent decision to allow environmental standards for power production and mining, most notably those for Mercury and other heavy metals, to get struck down indicates I’m not. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m overjoyed with these good decisions. Celebrate them and cheer them on.  But I also know what complacency can cost. I’ll keep one eye open on all this until it becomes apparent that this is actually a change of heart. Because in the end that is what it has to be. It’s all about our hearts and how we care, and I don’t see that in these justices— yet. But I am willing to keep looking and hoping it becomes a matter of the heart for them. In the end it has to be if we are to survive. 

The Grateful Dead - Ripple (Studio Version)

“Another one in a long list”

You ever wonder how much the scale can take before it breaks? I am in that place right now as I try to recover from listening to the outcome of the grand jury investigation into the Fergusson Missouri policeman’s fatal shooting of yet another unarmed young black man. The announcement of their decision was like a weight just continuing to get heavier and heavier while all the mechanisms the springs, levers and gears inside squeak pop and make ominous noises of imminent failure. 

Listening last night to the grand jury decision on the Fergusson shooting as it went on and on about the way that grand juries are charged to do their work; how police are authorized to use deadly force in “certain kinds of situations” I kept waiting to hear what situations those were, what the guidelines were in regards to taking another human life? What was the call for the use of deadly force in this situation? But it never came… 

They went on about all the conflicting eye witness reports, the retractions of some of them and changing of others, as if for some reason that had any bearing on the question at hand, which should have been ‘what are the guidelines for using deadly force in a connivance store robbery of property valued at less the $20, by an unarmed individual?  Instead they spent their time talking about the grand jury and all the evidence it had to look at. How that was so difficult  and key to make a decision as to weather to bring charges. Never even mentioned the question, “Was there justification for shooting an unarmed man once while at the patrol car, then six more time after pursuing them. All over the theft of a hand full of cigars?”  

Sadly it was what I had expected from such a long song and dance with very little substance reflecting the actual situation at hand. It was a scripted announcement filled with pointless crap to attempt to soften the impact of their decision of ‘No grounds for charges’. One day this is not going to work so neatly as the tactic. And that day may not be so far off as these kinds of killings seem to be growing not diminishing.  Our so called “justice system” will be called to the floor by a very angry populace for what it actually is if this continues. 

OK I’m an adult and live in the real world. I know that the grand jury engaged in real work here trying to deliberate what their decision was going to be. I have no doubt that among those twelve people there were at least some who were unbiased and working to do their job the best they could. I can’t in good conscious dismiss all of them as having decided the outcome before entering the process. Some of them I certainly believe did, but not all. But from the report that came out last night what is clear is that our justice system is severely broken. If the important question about this incident is, was there any criminal actions on the part of the police who cares if the people interviewed on the scene have identical stories or not. The real question that was not asked was “Is there clear and indisputable evidence that deadly force was the appropriate and only action that could have been used in this specific situation.” 

Everyone who is paying attention and being honest about what they see here should agree that had this incident happened in a white suburban part of any city in the US, involving a young white male well dressed and acting out in inappropriate ways, the outcome would have been different.  

                                                                   

1. 

Nov 4, 2014       
9:00 AM 
                                 “I’m not looking at the election news, yet.”
                                Commentary by Chip Wright


I had thought that I would wait to write this blog until after the elections. But then decided it was not something which I wanted tempered by that outcome, whatever it may be. All I have heard during this midterm election cycle has been that the Senate is going to go to the Republicans. Granted that is a heart-skip-a-beat statement, and it may drive folks who generally don’t pay much attention to midterm elections to do so. But on the other hand I hear nothing about the millions of US citizens who now have health care available without it being denied due to PEC or “Pre-existing Conditions.” No one is talking about how Wall-street is posting its highest levels ever and that the world markets are responding in kind. That the housing market with the input of sensible lending practices has recovered in many parts of the country and in some areas is even showing higher property values and lower unemployment numbers than in 2007. All of this has happened with a President who has struggled against a Congress that has snubbed him at every turn. A conservative leadership that has publicly acknowledged that their bottom line is “If the President wants it, we don’t.” What is even more disturbing is the number of voices in this camp denying not only the best science of the day but basic common sense. It makes me look at the Islamic state situation we are facing and see all kinds of parallels with our own right wing here in the US and that is worrisome to say the least. 

So here I am a confirmed and proud liberal, way beyond what is now called progressive, sitting here in another round of ‘how in hell is this happening?’ It feels to me eerily like the last two Bush elections. Neither of which can be indisputably show that they were not fraudulently manipulated to assure their outcome; and in fact most the evidence would say they were. But evidence not withstanding does not seem to matter all that much. So it is not surprising we’ll likely see another Bush on the ticket in the not-too-distant future.

I just don’t get it. Look at what conservative folks are always saying they want, strong markets, smaller government, less controls, etc. Wall Street is at record highs regardless, while government has for the most part been neutered by the Republican party’s refusal to operate beyond obstructionism as long as there is a ‘darky’ in the white house. Of course they would never admit to that as their motivation but all one needs to do is look and listen to know it is the ‘Big’ unspoken issue.

I remember thinking when Obama got elected both what a marvelous and far reaching step my nation had made. I was proud and full of hope. And even then I thought he might not make it past the first few months without someone assassinating him. And had that election been in 1968 I’m quite sure that would have very possibly been the outcome. But putting aside the racism that is clearly playing a lead role in the political right and its motivations towards this President, I wonder about the strategy they have used to catch their Republican base and draw them to the poles. How anyone can even want to push back against an ongoing call for shifting our government towards a more enlightened and contemporary expression…towards establishing an important place in a new more tightly packed world population. What is it that makes people want to revert to enabling a reactionary Fascist oligarchy?

I truly hope the clear minded, bright and caring population of this nation who voted this administration in twice, steps up and makes a clear and solid statement about what they want and will support today. That after all the votes are counted we still can see the people through the smoke and not just the corporate feeding frenzy that is poised to happen if Congress goes to the right.

                                                

                              “Dija’vu”

                           By Chip Wright 

The other day when I woke up to the the news that the United states was bombing Iraq (again). It was hard to avoid that feeling of being stuck on a track. Like that movie where the whole of humanity is roaring through cold unforgiving landscapes on a single train. A stark metaphor and very existential statement. Albeit a bit impersonal the word existential in this case. Depressing would actually be more accurate.

Speaking of metaphors ‘The cats out of the bag’ seems to fit in here. It’s hard to tell just who opened the bag or when. There are numbers arguments to be made about that but no mistaking that the cats running all over the place using anywhere it can as its box.

So enough with the metaphors and back to waking up…. Can anyone make a reasonably sane argument why what is going on is? In Northern Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, on an on in the whole crazy world. Whats with Israel, and the perpetual denial that they are colonizing a nation year after year? Just do it and be done, whats with the needless killings? The same with Russia and the Ukraine. Be honest, your taking lands you want and feel you can reasonably hold on to. OK, it’s a time honored activity you should be unconcerned about how it looks. Or if you play in that game you may lose. After all you are blatant about doing it so why try and play it off as something else? Like South Africa or all of the rest of the checker-board world. Why wait for history to codify it. Like taking of Native lands in the Americas to make the United states, and all the rest of North and South America, it’s a proud tradition. Taking others lands world wide is human history emblematic of our cultures. It does say something about quality of human culture however…. Still it certainly has been profitable for a few.

Understandably we like to go with the sweeter stories about all this. Call it by different names, nation building, democratic evolution and to make hollow apologies for our ancestors. After all it’s easier to tell our kids stories that make it seem softer. Here in the United States stories like anyone can be president; policemen are your friends; George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln ran miles to give back a forgotten penny. Less disturbing then say the Doctrine of Discovery, Wounded Knee, small Pox blanket trade along the Erie Canal, the lynching and systematic genocide of native people from Canada to Chile.

And all the while the Plutocracy actually makes the decisions about how plots of land and the people on them are divided and used. Formed into what we call Nations with their organized pacification programs we call governments. Yep those plutocrats just love that we’re so easily pacified. I can just hear their chit chat before dinner “What limp minded fools ‘people’ are” they chuckle as they nibble black caviar canapé’s over napkins of Egyptian cotton and platypus wool awaiting the first course of shark fin sea turtle soup.

So you ask is there some point here? Yep, we are in one hell of a mess all over the world. However we still manage to offer up all those feel better stories. As if we can just ignore the fire in the living-room and it will go out on its own.… It seems to me with so many really bad things going on in the world there has to be something fueling it? In turn something that can be learned here that might help shift it. Wishful thinking but somehow we must learn to think differently about these things. Dig deeper if we are ever going to move on and get this ship of life up and running smoothly.

One of the things waking up to this latest news did for me was to cause me to recall the day when the Taliban blew up the Buddha in Afghanistan. Having slept at the foot of that buddha when I lived in Afghanistan I still remember the tears welling up that day when it was destroyed. Of course like every one else who was paying attention I knew they were planing on doing it. It had been in the news for weeks. Yet when it actually happened and they blew it, it hit home like no other time.

There I was having spent a life opposed to war and violence and yet this act of destruction on an old piece of carved rock, made even more visceral for me by the daily reports of disgusting sub-human treatment of women. All of it performed by this same group, ‘The Taliban’ had left me reacting like those I’d judged and felt so unlike so often, screaming “Shoot those bastards!”

Catching myself, uncomfortable in my reaction, I went first to self assessment then thoughts of who these guys were that had done such things and then how they had become what they were.

For Hundreds of years Afghanistan had held this statue and numerous other archeological treasures of various cultures and peoples on their lands long predating islam. Sure they had broken off a nose or two after Islam colonized the lands around the Hindu Kush. But this Wahhabi fundamentalist fervor going on was not the Afghanistan I knew. Why had this happened and what did it signal for the future.

Well that future is here now. And when I look back over the years to when the ‘Djihad' was called in Afghanistan for fighters to come and oppose the ‘Russian infidels’ I can see that bag of cats opening. Just one of numbers of bags to follow. And now here we are adding ISIS to the equation while looking at a steady roll out of fundamental Islam from both Sunni and Shea camps. Now this call for the formation of a new Caliphate, that would affirm legally beating wives to death when agreed upon by a bunch of old sexually repressed men in robes and funny hats. Along with their need to dehumanize women, anxious to be there to decree by whim and arrogance chopping off body parts in the public square. Ostensibly to keep folks in line. ( I must say It would have such an effect on me!)

The real frightening thing here as if that is not enough, is that it seems a no brainer that a dominant faction of this kind of Wahabbi islam would have risen up and organized these lands. Particularly after they were so neatly disassembled and left open for the taking. I could have predicted this if someone had asked me to put my mind to possible outcomes. I know the powers involved have brighter and smarted resources available to them then me. So the question is not did good assessments happen but what was the discussion and to what ends were decisions made. Undoubtably they were held over the Shark fin turtle soup and subsequent main dish of roast Meercat in Marsala glaze. The conclusion being to leave the door open for this to happen? Why? Speculation for another time but I have no doubt that dinner party or a few like them is where the course was charted.

So now once again I find myself, a life long anti war guy hoping for those ignorant sots in Northern Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, the Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia and more - along with their fascist equals in the Israeli parliament and leadership, here at home in the US , our tea party, with the whole bloody lot of arrogant followers of Abrahamic religions to join hands and take a walk off the edge of the flat world they promote.

It seems the cold war —not the easier one of fable we all put into that story of the US and Russia, but the real ‘cold war’ that has simmered hot and cool for hundreds of years ‘the Crusades’ is coming to a boil.

The question is, for me, when I wake up to such news as our bombing Iraq, ‘again’. How can we start to shift the story and change the voices at the dinner table? Struggling again with the tears, anger, the confusion hearing the news that we are bombing Iraq (Again).

The Devil makes three

Why should Iraq hold to borders the British drew? Oligarchs will tell you it’s about stability in the region. That translates as oil, black gold, Texas ’T’. (Earl Scruggs pickin’ hillbilly music in the background). The truth is Iraqi borders and oil both are anachronisms. Why not let the Kurds the Sunnis and the Shia slice up the place on their own? 

We live at a juncture in history where technology can supply all our energy needs from renewables. Time to let go of fossil fuel.  Same with Monotheistic Zealotisum (I can feel the grammar police moving in to slap on the cuffs saying ‘there’s no such word!)  you get the picture right? The my God is better then your God crap pollutes our minds like carbon dioxide from fossil fuel does our air. Combine that with a corporatocracy that holds economic and media control and you got real issues. 

That being the case what we need now from technology is a new way to do revolution. If possible, a way that no one will get until it’s over. Come on all you brilliant young minds out there, if you can build a smart phone you can figure this one out.The old style revolutions can’t work in todays world.  Regardless of what NRA dimwits think. All it takes is a few generals to give the order and the whole population of the United States could be mowed down or signed up in a week or two. So we need a new way. 

When we hear ‘stability in the region’ and think it has real meaning, our planets stability continues to decay. So stability is a non-sequitur if we keep doing what we are doing. As we focus on Iraq, Iran, and the “stability of the region” we don’t work on the real task, which is fundamental and sustained change. Which by definition defines the opposite of conservative. Up to now the conservatives have run a bate and shift game with obscene profits being made by the neocons at the helm.  Don’t be fooled, they know what they are doing.  

So let the Iraqi’s draw their own lines in their lands. What’s wrong with three autonomous nation states, The Kurds in the north, the Sunni in central, and the Shia in the south? The Sunni and Shia will have to come to some agreement on how they behead each other, or not that’s true, but we are pushing seven Billion of us on this little ball after all.     

So lets forget oil as an energy source and work on retooling our planet earth for continuing its journey, with us on board. It’s never easy rebuilding in flight but we have no place to land. So we really need that new way of revolution because sure as dogs get ticks plutocrats and their corporate offspring will be their, Army, Marines, Navy, National Guard and who knows how many  pea brained yahoos with personal Walmart and Cabela’s armories waiting. 

How hard can it be? A new revolution stabilizing what is now a cracked and braking world. I know if we put our minds together this new way of revolution can be discerned. And until then lets let the Kurds, Sunni’s and Shia sort out their issues among themselves.