Too Many What?

Palestinian man murders
his wife when ultrasound
indicates she is carrying a girl.

So Pat Buchanan thinks if Kagan is confirmed there will be too many Jews on the Supreme Court (33% although Jews apparently make up only 2% of the population). Well, I think there are too many Catholics (5, I believe, and Catholics surely do not make up that percentage of the population). I also believe there are too many New Yorkers, too many Harvard people, too many elitists, too many judges, not enough Protestants, and not enough atheists. Not only that, I think there are also too many old White guys, and too many old people in general. There quite definitely should be a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices (when the court began the average age of life was far shorter than it is now). I would even go further and suggest there may be too many right-wing loonies on the contemporary court. I suppose if anyone could prove that Kagan is a Lesbian, it could be argued there would be too many Lesbians on the court (unless Lesbians make up more than 10% of the population). It doesn’t matter if she is a Jew, nor does it matter if she’s a Lesbian, nor does it matter that she plays softball, smokes an occasional cigar, plays poker, sleeps late on Sunday morning, and doesn’t love Jesus. What matters is that she has the proper credentials (which she surely does) and that our President wants to appoint her. Furthermore, everyone knows she will be confirmed so why go on discussing it endlessly. Put her on the court and let her do her duty. Aren’t we buried under enough utter nonsense without going on for months about this?

I find it absolutely unbelievable that in light of the total disaster in the Gulf there are still those, like Sarah Palin and others who still insist we should go on drilling. But I find it equally unbelievable there are people like President Obama who seriously insist we should also promote nuclear energy. I wonder if they are just in the pockets of the energy industry (I don’t really wonder much about it), or if they are just plain stupid. I suspect it is both. How can you speak of weaning ourselves from oil at the same time insisting on more drilling? Of course nuclear energy is an even worse proposition. Nuclear energy is basically a position that assumes life on earth is not as important as a bit more energy, and more drilling is not really much different.

Is anyone surprised that we may not withdraw from Iraq as soon or as massively as predicted? Remember, our projected withdrawal always came with a disclaimer about “the situation on the ground.” This creates a marvelous excuse for never withdrawing, because the “situation on the ground,” as long as we continue to be there, will never be propitious. The same will be true for Afghanistan. Thus it is we can continue our never-ending “wars,” and our never-ending support for our military/industrial/political complex, and also help us to keep unemployment from getting worse, and potentially postpone what will probably have to be a full-blown revolution before any meaningful change can take place.

Somewhere the other day I saw the question posed, “Do you think we need a third party?” I don’t think so, what we need is a second party, as we no longer have a genuine two party system. There is no longer any significant difference between Democrats and Republicans, they’re all “on the take,” and the only real issue is how to split up the loot. The corporations have so much money and so much power they control both parties, allow us to pretend we have a choice, and happily go on raping and pillaging the world’s resources (including labor) at will. If they were to decide we should have Sarah Palin as President we no doubt would. If you believe our corporate masters care one iota about abortion, gay marriage, immigration, habeas corpus, Miranda rights, environmental, or human rights in general, think again. It is quite clear they think only of short-term profits, the “name of the game.” Until corporations are deprived of their status as “persons,” and until they can be brought under citizen control, you can forget any meaningful changes in the lives of ordinary people. Sad, but alas, true.

LKBIQ:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens

TILT:
College graduation ceremonies are boring almost beyond belief.