Musings - on the editor's mind

Sometimes you have to face the truth. Sometimes reality is really real. Sometimes the evidence is indisputable. As Thoreau wrote, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.” Sometimes rants and screeds are necessary.

The Supreme Court has never been nonpartisan and seldom on the side of the common person.

There’s why it is called supreme. It is the court of final appeal to save the hides of the ruling class.

The Court did that in 1857 when it ruled that Dred Scott would be returned to slavery. In 1881 railroads were found to have due process when, protesting taxation, the Southern Pacific Railroad used the Fourteenth Amendment, passed to protect freed slaves, for protection from discrimination against it on the basis of its corporate identity. In 2000 George Bush won election with five votes when that narrow majority interfered with Florida’s ballot counting.

And in 2010 five justices once again went actively searching to support corporations, choosing to consider whether corporations are people, providing them unlimited campaign spending in Citizens United. Similarly, removing the protection of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 gave the green light to southern politicians to cook the books and reduce voter turnout

We poke fun at the hundreds of governments in Italy since World War II. Banana republics are South American countries run by U.S. corporations. Likewise, we point to African countries dominated by foreign powers. Well, it has happened here. How deeply do we have to think and poke and probe to find out who is really in charge?

The truth is that in 1971 Richard Nixon packed the court with four appointees, including two, Warren Burger and William Rehnquist, who became chief justices. A conservative court for a generation? It has been conservative for 47 years, and counting.

Last week we witnessed the spectacle of men in suits ramrodding their puppet – his anger mimicking his master’s in the White House – through the Judiciary Committee. That is only the latest rendition of stacking the deck.

But the issue isn’t the worst nature of our rulers coldly and cruelly exposed for all to see. The issue is us: me, you, our neighbors and community. What are we going to do with this cohort of crooks blithely acting as if all is OK, as if they are the victims?

This is not about others acting badly. This is about us and our facing up to them, or not.