Corporatists Rule

I've been silent most of the summer months. There have been several reasons, the most paramount being despair… a deep foreboding sense of paralyzing hopelessness.

I guess I’ve been mourning the death of a childhood fantasy that my government is good and the people we’ve allowed to represent us have our best interests at heart. It’s been a post WWII, 1940s-born delusion of mine to believe that elected representatives will first do for the people of the United States before acting in self-interest.

The past “confirmation” carnival through which the Republican majority enshrined Mr. Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States clearly has shown that we, the 99.9%, can no longer fool ourselves with the fantasy that our elected officials will do “the right thing” for us, for the nation. No, in fact, rather than an open and honest review of Mr. Kavanaugh the nominee, we witnessed a replication of 1800s, backroom, partisan political gamesmanship to install a self-proclaimed, crony conservative and corporatist, to a life-term on our highest court.

I will be truly, and delightedly, surprised if Mr. Kavanaugh ever decides, even once, in favor of the best interests of common people of the United States over corporate or Republican party interests.

What can we expect the Court to render in the days ahead?

If historian Dr. Howard Zinn was right, and I believe he was, we will see more American injustice than "equal justice under law". Without a doubt the corporatists rule America.  In 2005 Zinn wrote:

"It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.”

"The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who solemnly invoke as their highest concern ‘the rule of law.’ The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king.”

"The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance.”

"The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, 'Equal Justice Before the Law,' have always been a sham."

"No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence--an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--be fulfilled."

Howard Zinn: Don’t Despair about the Supreme Court, Progressive.org, 21 Oct 2005.

The Politicians Song, Nigel Bradford, 2013