The Supreme Court Needs an Update

The highest court of the United States is in a dire need of an update. The current process of a justice’s nomination by the President who is in office at time of a justice’s death or retirement, followed by the nominee’s Congressional approval, has left us a court with a diseased and prejudiced mandate. We need to change to a system whereby the justices are elected by a majority of the people. This has become overwhelmingly obvious based on recent decisions. The highest court of the land has been highjacked by angry biased men, perhaps even vindictive men, with a very fixed set of agenda that does not consider the good of the country but only the benefit of a select few.

Jurisprudence, by its’ very definition, implies a common sense interpretation of the law. Instead we have a court in which the majority relies on a sense of exclusion, a catering to the elite, the wealthy, the constrained. No longer is the court basing its’ decisions on the will of the people, it has become the will of the corporate elite, in short an oligarchy. This is leading dangerously to a government teetering between a democracy and a plutocracy. It is said that every one has a price and it has become apparent that the majority of justices have been bought.

Sadly this is evident in recent deplorable decisions that would leave the Founding Father’s literally gobsmacked. We need to carry on the pure ideals of Democracy if we are to survive as a Democracy. The world and the multinational corporations that have usurped control are turning the globe into a giant Monopoly game. If you’ve ever played the game eventually all the resources and money are controlled by the few and everybody else has to pay and pay. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the bold and unflinching senator from Massachusetts has framed this reality quite succintly by stating: “The Game is rigged!”

No longer is the Republican Party the voice of the people. It has become the voice of corporate America. They are not conservative now. They are greedy, prejudice and irresponsible. Be not deceived however, all Democrats are not created equal. There are Democrats who would gladly uphold the corporate oligarchy just as the Republicans are attempting to do. The original purpose of establishing the Supreme Court as a branch of the Federal Government was to safeguard against such an environment. They were to exercise jurisprudence, a practical application of the law based on common sense for the benefit of the majority of the citizens of the United States of America. It is time we hold their feet to the fire before it’s too late!

We need to modernize the nomination process. Make it so that the Presidential appointment is not approved by Congress but instead by a public election. Another possibility is each Justice, upon announcement of their retirement, nominates their own successor, which again would require an election and be subjected to approval by the majority. The courts weild too much power and judges need to be vetted the same way we question our elected officials before the vote. We must amend the Constitution. The Constitution must be able to evolve with the times. The prescience of the Founding Fathers cannot be denied; however there is no way they could have foreseen the current boondoggle we find ourselves in and have written in a precise clause to protect our Democracy. It is up to us now as informed citizens of the United States to amend the Constitution and preserve its’ original intent. A government by the People, of the People and for the People. Not a government by the rich, of the rich and for the rich.

“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything!” — Alexander Hamilton

“Power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will.” —Alexander Hamilton

Get off the cell phone and Drive — Jake Shween

Occupy Wall Street Needs to get it’s Mojo Back!

I have noticed lately the Occupy Wall Street movement has been getting no media coverage. This is tragic because this movement was on the right track and should become very powerful. To help the cause I will list some suggestions for a new ultimatum.

Demand Number One: A national health care plan for every citizen of the United States. It’s been done in Canada successfully according to my cousins who actually live there. The issue in the United States is insurance lobbyists putting profits before health care. This practice should be outlawed. Obamacare to use the popular term, has gaps where it leaves some citizens with no care. In addition certain evil republican governors have refused medicaid expansion which exacerbates this situation. These governors do this simply to show that they hate President Obama and refuse to cooperate with him! This type of politics is petty and needs to be disposed of.

Two: Government funded education for everyone. We need an educated society if we are to compete in this age of technology and communication. The system of paying for education with real estate tax is outmoded and needs an overhaul. Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn. Furthermore it’s outrageous that the huge banks get to borrow money for little or no interest while student loans are gouging the pockets of young graduates! Senator Warren of Massachusetts put a bill before the Senate simply to let students refinance their loans with more reasonable terms and, you guessed it, the Republican legislators blocked it to illustrate once again their intractable attitudes.

Three: Strict controls on wall street. Junk mortgage derivatives and their disastrous consequences were the reason for the movement to begin with. We can’t let shady bankers and brokers control the destiny of the country let alone the world. Elliot Spitzer was on the right track his libido just made a wrong turn. It’s an enormous injustice that the very legislative bodies that should be enacting legislation for tighter controls on wall street regularly profit from blatant insider trading! We are already heading once again into a “too big to fail” system of regulatory loopholes leading to another redistribution of wealth where the middle class is screwed and eventually eliminated entirely.

Four: Regulations that protect our environment. If you think climate change isn’t real please visit the Northwest Territories and talk to some native Americans. Before we strip mine Canada for oil sands let’s shift our energy needs to renewable resources. We have bowed to the oil companies at our own peril. Look at the never ending debacle in the middle east. Imagine all the good that might have been done if instead of spending four trillion dollars on the war in Iraq we had concentrated that money on the betterment of life for all Americans! Instead we made a huge mess. We now have a religious civil war on our hands. What a shame that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had not read Prince Machiavelli before sending our own sons and daughters off to protect corporate oil. Notice they were both draft dodgers and none of their sons or daughters served in the Armed Forces.

Humans are social creatures by nature. Some socialism is necessary for our own basic survival. What does it profit anyone to pillage the planet and leave little for the next generation? This is not the direction of any sane theology or philosophy I know.  Whether you believe in a higher power is beside the point. Think rationally of the big picture then you’ll get it.

Quite frankly I’d like to give my children’s children an existence where people sojourn in the stars together as opposed to their subsisting on Soylent Green, and worrying about finding water that’s uncontaminated by fracking!

“If I have seen more it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”.                               —Sir Isaac Newton

“Contrary to a tenacious myth, France is not owned by California pension funds or the Bank of China, any more than the United States belongs to Japanese and German investors. The fear of getting into such a predicament is so strong today that fantasy often outstrips reality. The reality is that inequality with respect to capital is a far greater domestic issue than it is an international one.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Get off the cell phone and DRIVE!  —Jake Shween

The Supreme Court Needs an Update

The highest court of the United States is in a dire need of an update. The current process of a justice’s nomination by the President who is in office at time of a justice’s death or retirement, followed by the nominee’s Congressional approval, has left us a court with a diseased and prejudiced mandate. We need to change to a system whereby the justices are elected by a majority of the people. This has become overwhelmingly obvious based on recent decisions. The highest court of the land has been highjacked by angry biased men, perhaps even vindictive men, with a very fixed set of agenda that does not consider the good of the country but only the benefit of a select few.

Jurisprudence, by its’ very definition, implies a common sense interpretation of the law. Instead we have a court in which the majority relies on a sense of exclusion, a catering to the elite, the wealthy, the constrained. No longer is the court basing its’ decisions on the will of the people, it has become the will of the corporate elite, in short an oligarchy. This is leading dangerously to a government teetering between a democracy and a plutocracy. It is said that every one has a price and it has become apparent that the majority of justices have been bought.

Sadly this is evident in recent deplorable decisions that would leave the Founding Father’s literally gobsmacked. We need to carry on the pure ideals of Democracy if we are to survive as a Democracy. The world and the multinational corporations that have usurped control are turning the globe into a giant Monopoly game. If you’ve ever played the game eventually all the resources and money are controlled by the few and everybody else has to pay and pay. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the bold and unflinching senator from Massachusetts has framed this reality quite succintly by stating: “The Game is rigged!”

No longer is the Republican Party the voice of the people. It has become the voice of corporate America. They are not conservative now. They are greedy, prejudice and irresponsible. Be not deceived however, all Democrats are not created equal. There are Democrats who would gladly uphold the corporate oligarchy just as the Republicans are attempting to do. The original purpose of establishing the Supreme Court as a branch of the Federal Government was to safeguard against such an environment. They were to exercise jurisprudence, a practical application of the law based on common sense for the benefit of the majority of the citizens of the United States of America. It is time we hold their feet to the fire before it’s too late!

We need to modernize the nomination process. Make it so that the Presidential appointment is not approved by Congress but instead by a public election. Another possibility is each Justice, upon announcement of their retirement, nominates their own successor, which again would require an election and be subjected to approval by the majority. The courts weild too much power and judges need to be vetted the same way we question our elected officials before the vote. We must amend the Constitution. The Constitution must be able to evolve with the times. The prescience of the Founding Fathers cannot be denied; however there is no way they could have foreseen the current boondoggle we find ourselves in and have written in a precise clause to protect our Democracy. It is up to us now as informed citizens of the United States to amend the Constitution and preserve its’ original intent. A government by the People, of the People and for the People. Not a government by the rich, of the rich and for the rich.

“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything!” — Alexander Hamilton

“Power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will.” —Alexander Hamilton

Get off the cell phone and Drive — Jake Shween