“May you live in interesting times,
an people in high places know your name.”
Some of you maybe wondering what “Hari Seldon and the Foundation Novels have to do with the quote above. Bear with me and all will be made clear.
Let us start with what I’m going to be talking about, the great tumult about the nomination of Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court yesterday. I do not know enough about Judge Kavanaugh to hold a firm opinion of his nomination, but give a little time I will. What I’ve heard about his writings and ‘opinions’ (judicial) does not make me optimistic. But this is not what I’m writing about today.
No, it is about the reaction on the center to the left of his nomination and the dangers and opportunities it presents those who oppose what the Republican Party has become. This group includes not just Democrats but all those people of conservative political views who are aghast at what Trump and his sycophants are doing. Ever since Trumps election in 2016 I’ve been saying we are “Living in interesting Times”. These time are truely historic an will mark out country forever.
In the Foundation stories we are introduced to the idea of scientific manipulation of human political and social action. In the first stories this is done by means of what is called a “Sheldon Crisis” where the actions of the Foundation is narrowed down to only one action, actually two, but the second is always totally unacceptable. An these “Sheldon Crisis” are always “interesting times”. They’re rip roaring yarns after all. In real life things are seldom so clean and simple. But in truely “interesting times” they can be.
By my reckoning it has been just over 45 years since America and the world has been in interstesting times but now we are there, once more. Take a look at all the things coming to togeather. The Mueller investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The turnover rate of the Trump Administration along with all of the scandals. The horror that ICE is perpetrating on asylum seekers in our name. An now the sudden retirement of Justice Kennedy from the Supreme Court.
Democrats are justly upset about how political the Court has become and are well within their rights to object to who Trump has nominated. Not because of anything Judge Kavanaugh has done, yet, but because of the purely partisan actions of the Senate in 2016. All but the most partisan Democrat should be upset, not partisan reasons, but because this is the final move in making the Supreme Court once more partisan. Those of us who have studied the political history of both the USA and of it’s courts know that the Supreme Court has been politicized from time to time in it’s history. We who are alive today were lucky to have lived in a time when the court was kept non-partisan by the good offices of both political parties.
This is not the case now. Since the advent of hyper conservative ‘Think Tanks’ and the acceptance of the idea of the courts being the last bastion of ‘conservativisum’ we have been headed down this road. We have now arrived at an historical crux. What we do now will change this country forever and it is imperative that we all do all what we can every time we can. So I lay the second part of the curse upon you, my dear readers:
“An may people in high Places know your Name!”
Next up: “Opertunities and Pitfalls”