Supremely Assaulting Court

(Prepare for a rant. A rant is a meager response to the dismal, dangerous place our society is in right now. Outrage is suitable. This is the most important year in American history, one that calls on us all as citizens of a self-run government and society. There are reasons beyond these to be upset, and there are reasons not elaborated on here (but are elsewhere on this site) to be realistically hopeful.)

Our Supreme Court now implements the extremist agenda of the fascistic Republican Party, assaulting our bodies, society, and planet.  They exemplify the brain imbalance endemic in our culture.  These blatant, divisive, destructive decisions could foreshadow an even worse future, or we could awake from the befuddled hypnosis afflicting our society. 

You have to hand it to the Republicans, or they’ll take it from you.  This set of slam dunks has been a long-time coming.  Republicans co-opted the conservative Catholic and evangelical Protestant movements back in the 60s and 70s, rousing up emotionalized punitive responses to abortion while pepping up self-righteous “patriotism.”  They flap the flag, but in doing so, defile it. They push the Bible or their perverted version of it.

The Moral Majority was neither moral nor a majority, but it made for a convenient charade that allowed corporations and the ultra-wealthy to profit from our people, society, and the planet while protecting them from paying any taxes on their filthy lucre.  Republicans systematically ensconced themselves into every level of government, from the PTA to the county, to the state, to the Senate, to stacking the Supreme Court.   They’re good at what they do, but what they do isn’t good.

As black-sheep Frank Schaffer has recounted on his upbringing in a core Christian family (Why I am an Atheist who Believes in God, And God said, “Billy,” “The Great Evangelical Disaster,” etc.) recounts, the pairing of faith and politics was a deliberate ploy by Republicans.  It was a deal with the devil which seemed innocuous, even laudable, at first.  Only recently does it glare in our faces, pushing their punitive laws into the wombs and lives of women, pushing concealed guns into our formerly safe places, and pushing fossil fuel pollution into the face of Mother Nature despite the ruin it is creating and will create for centuries – for all. 

Like many Christians, Frank Schaffer opposes abortion but doesn’t presume to impose his values into the wombs and lives of millions of women.  It isn’t “The Freedom of Choice” so much as “The Burden of Choice.”  Abortion ends those cells that might go on to become persons.  But those who would insist on that birth then abandon the mother and the eventual person.  If such votes were paired with having to financially support the mother and the child, the votes wouldn’t be so flip.  Who owns the self-cells embedded in the ovaries of females from their birth?  Who says what she must do within her own body and lifetime?  Those who would “get government off our backs” don’t mind it being imposed into women’s uteruses.

Nor does the Supreme Court mind imposing their fearful, hateful, utterly dangerous gun policies on states trying to protect themselves from gun violence.  For abortion, they revert to “state’s rights,” while for the gun and fossil fuel lobbies, they advance federal broadsides over state’s rights and even the EPA. 

I agree with Noam Chomsky.  He warns us that “the Republican Party is a candidate for the most dangerous organization in human history.”  It doesn’t participate in government so much as obstruct and attack it, gumming up the works while letting people complain about the ambiguous “dysfunctional government” and “Congress.” It blatantly undermines, impedes, and prevents fair voting while claiming to protect it.  It tries to rig elections while accusing others of that.  It allowed a violent coup attempt, only to complain that the violent mob members are subject to the law.  The warnings of a fascist take-over of our government and a new civil war are frequent and not misplaced.  Republicans and Trumpists regularly try to intimidate with “2^nd Amendment solutions,” though they haven’t slaughtered the innocents like Hitler did, yet. 

They love to tout the 2^nd Amendment while ignoring what it says.  It says, “A well-regulated militia …,” not an “any fool can wield any gun in any situation.”  Do they really think more guns will make us safer?  Why worry about 100-round magazines or 50-caliber sniper rifles capable of exploding someone from a mile away?  Why not allow rocket-propelled grenades or Howitzer canons or even personal atomic bombs?  Don’t we have the right to protect ourselves from others who might have them?  /s

Now they want to ban the EPA from Protecting our Environment from the industrial fossil fuel fart that is ruining it.  Big, secret money has helped put these supreme lackeys in place.  First, they say corporations are “persons.”  Then they say those “persons” do not have to disclose how they effectively buy Congress, that their “free speech rights” extend to the multimillions they secretly spend.  We don’t get to know the forces that buy ad time to ensconce their pawns into our government and hide their tactics of denial, delay, and disinformation. 

From our bodies to our society to our government to our environment, Republicans and the Supreme Court they have imposed – are evil.  I can call them that because I have not applied for a religious 501 c3 that is supposed to prohibit political speech (which evangelicals especially have flouted since the 60s).  Their appearance of sanctimony doesn’t sanctify their evil attacks on our persons, society, government, and environment.

The only relief from this dismal onslaught is the January 6^th Commission and the clear and skillful presentation of their findings.  They help restore my faith and hope in our government and media.  Brave and principled Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney helped spearhead other Republicans to meet their oaths of office, defending our government and constitution from “… all enemies, foreign and domestic …”  They have carefully detailed how the insurrection was deliberately planned and encouraged by some.  It isn’t a political ploy; the insurrection was, the worst in our country’s history.

If those “some” get away with their deviltry, you can grieve the death of America and begin looking for a place to hide.  If Americans don’t vote these traitors in our midst down – who attack with our flag in phony “patriotism,” who hold the Bible upside down in forced publicity stunts, who rose up the vilest and most dangerous zealot traitors this country has ever seen – we can look forward to decades of disruption, disinformation, lies, insults, and assaults.  The Supreme (ly Catholic, chosen by the Federalist Society) Court will permit and impose a fascistic take-over.

I hear the mantra that the election in 2024 will result in Republicans gaining seats in the House, Senate, and states.  If the Democratic Party doesn’t alert Americans to the deadly menace Republicans have become (“The party of Lincoln” is RINO, Republican in Name Only) and offer a realistic vision of the problems and possibilities in our homeland with innovative ads and techniques, and if people are so cynical and exhausted with the seemingly endless morass of the expanding swamp, we can be subsumed in a trans-historic, worldwide tragedy. 

Instead, the Democrats and others, including principled Republicans, could rouse up the voting to elect a solid majority (we haven’t had it for decades) that can continue the progressive benefits FDR started, rescuing us from the dismal doom the Republicans have imposed, restoring America as the hope of humankind. (My rant on Republicans also includes criticism of Democrats pushing their woke superiority on us, ad nauseam, as if the only suitable agenda for us, and Biden’s rousing up NATO against Russia and China. His NATO moves serve only the arms industry.)  We could follow Bhutan’s lead in pursuing Gross National Happiness, built on fair and sustainable socio-economic development; conservation and promotion of a vibrant culture; environmental protection; and good governance.

Our heads and hearts are reeling in insult and injury so it’s hard to imagine how much material and spiritual progress is possible.  Armageddon need not be our inevitable future.  Ubiquitous clean, renewable energy, the restoration of the health of our soils, oceans, and spirits, visions of happy, free, secure persons, and the artistic and political means to achieve all these are equally ours.  The future for us and for all could be better than we can imagine right now.