Dare I Say Anti-Trust?

 Below is an excerpt from Franklin Roosevelt's message  to Congress about curbing monopolies.

"April 29, 1938

To the Congress:

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."

This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole."

I am not going to say that history repeats itself, but FDR's message to congress is as relevant today as it was back in 1938. Today we have a major nuclear power, Russia, being ruled by a kleptocrat, Putin, who is invading a neighboring country in an effort to live out his fantasy about being Czar Peter the Great. Furthermore, the wealth, resources, industry, and political power in our own country are being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. As the real income of the middle class declines, and the wealth of the few increases to unprecedented heights the anger of a restive citizenry continues to grow. This decline in real wages combined with the rise of minority ethic and racial groups make white men without college educations particularly susceptible to the fear and loathing demagoguery of the extreme right, including the fascists. The danger posed by that susceptibility and discontent can be seen in the election of America's kleptocrat and would be autocrat, Donald Trump, who went so far as to attempt a coup d'etat in an effort to avoid having to turn over the office of President of the United States to Joe Biden, who won the election to that office.

Many will say that America dodged a bullet by electing Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump in 2020, but the danger to our freedom is far from over. A very large percentage of our citizens do not understand what a president can or cannot do to improve the economy, nor do they understand that democracy and prosperity are so intertwined. If those ignorant and fearful people are presented with the false choice between democracy and prosperity they will choose prosperity, thereby losing both their freedom and prosperity! Unfortunately, soaring inflation caused by the rapid recovery of jobs lost during the pandemic and by a disruption in the supply of oil due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine are now fanning the flames of anger and discontent by lowering real wages at a time when increased employment opportunities seemed to indicate so many good things to come. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that the major oil companies are taking advantage of the disruption in supply by gouging the consumer. Since gouging the consumer has become much easier for the oil companies because of all the mergers that have taken place over the last forty years, I think we need more competition in the market place. J.P. Morgan damned all Roosevelts; I bless them. At the very least, I think we should seriously threaten some anti-trust action against those price gouging multi-national corporations! Doing so is a sound economic act, and a political act aimed at the undemocratic Republicans who place a higher value on increasing their power than they place on preserving our democracy and advancing the interests of our people!

The Damp Judicial Loincloth

The leaking of Injustice Alito's draft of the majority opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Women's Health Org. has Chief Injustice John [Taney] Roberts scrutinizing the halls of justice for damp spots that might reveal who wet the judicial loin cloth. While doing so he is also expressing what passes for righteous indignation by calling the leak a “singular and egregious breach” of trust. I do not mean to make light of this breach of confidentiality because making such drafts public could discourage the candid deliberations the court needs in order to reach well reasoned decisions. In this instance, however, the draft opinion, which would strike down Roe v. Wade, is incredibly oppressive, dangerous, and anything but well reasoned. Many women are quite correctly saying that Alito's opinion is misogyny wrapped up in the dogma of an outmoded religiosity that regards women as nothing more than the intellectually inferior helpmates of men.

If a majority of the court adopts Alito's draft they will be ignoring fifty years of judicial precedent, not to uphold or protect the rights of individuals but to destroy some of those precious rights. In light of that, I consider leaking the draft of Alito's opinion to be analogous to leaking the Pentagon Papers. It is not that we did not know the government was lying to us during the Vietnam war, and it is not that we did not know the (mistakenly called) conservative justices were lying to us during their confirmation hearings. In both instances, however, the proof of the dishonesty revealed by the leaked documents is shocking, and the consequences of those lies are far more extensive and damaging than we feared. If you read Alito's rationalizations (reasoning would be a misnomer) you will see that any right not stated as such in the constitution is not considered a right by Alito, and he believes the government can violate and/or take those unstated rights away from you as it deems fitting and proper! Do not call this judicial activism! Judicial activism is a pejorative term conservatives use to describe the overturning of well established but unjust precedents. It would also be wrong to call this draft opinion conservative. Conservative means to preserve or resist change, and the intent of the majority of this court is harmfully radical change!

Strangely enough Alito is wittingly or unwittingly fulfilling the wish list Moscow Mitch stated when he, Mitch, packed and politicized the Supreme Court. I say strangely because although Moscow Mitch (forever the Machiavellian fascist) wants to deprive women of the freedom to make their own health care decisions and reproductive choices, he knows that actually depriving people of such popular rights so close to an election where they can make their displeasure known in a meaningful and consequential way is probably not a wise thing to do. All I can say about that is let your displeasure be known in a meaningful and consequential way; vote the sanctimonious fascists out of office. “Kill The Damn Elephant Before He Kills You!”

I might add here that if Chief Injustice Roberts is really concerned about the reputation of the Court, he will do something about the egregious violations of ethics so frequently committed by Injustice Thomas! I presume that Injustice Roberts can look for the source of the dreaded puddles at the same time.