Image by Brad Dougherty via Flickr
with Abby Martin
Empire Files on Oct 30, 2020
What’s the solution to this far-right Supreme Court steamrolled over the feckless Democrats?
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From the archives:
Ralph Nader: What It Takes To Create Social Change Against All Odds
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and America’s Priestly Class, by Kenn Orphan
MFTN: I Call For A Constitution 2.0
The Openly Plutocratic Domination of U.S. Politics by Paul Street
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Well said Abby.
All law is contingent and contextual, whether it be quantum, common or sacred. Former UK Supreme Court Justice (Lord) Jonathan Sumption addressed the historical currency of questions of constitutional law most adequately in his BBC Reith lectures last year ~ https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player
As I understand it, any genuinely coherent thinking will be some unique variant of symbolic logic; the general object being to arrive at a satisfactory formula or explanation of ideas or events that may be suitably applicable to specific situations. However, constructive movement can sometimes be advanced in unexpected, quite unanticipated ways. Even by so simple a corrective as attending precisely to grammar. This was brilliantly illustrated by another prominent UK (but political) figure, Sir Malcolm Rifkind in an excellent IQ squared debate about 20 months ago held in London, entitled China: Friend or Foe? ~ in which he made a most lucid observation, about the critical distinction between the lofty principle of the Rule of Law, and the significantly debased notion of “rule by law” & its abysmal consequences. Confer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAuXOoiMckM&t=8s
It is precisely the proliferating abuse of this fundamental principle that perpetuates so many problems around our finite globe.
If the United States is/are to adequately and proactively face the present ecosystemic (world) crisis ~ a nightmare of cumulative error that is a direct result of all the moral failures that have accrued ever since the earliest days of European settler colonialism in the Americas ~ then “which” Rule of Law prevails will obviously be the basis of all viable foundations of future governance both at home and abroad; especially given the colossal influence and momentum of US cultural continuity.
The focus will be on China, no doubt about that. How China is accommodated therefore &/or restrained (ie, reconceptualised…) both within and without its political-economic boundaries, will determine the future dynamics of all Earthly life. The example(s) set by the USA will thus be vitally significant and most probably, critical.
The cosmic health of our Sacred Biosphere must be the supreme priority of all sentient, thinking beings ~ whether this be expressed in Pinyin Mandarin or Universal English…
Thanks for the commentary, David, as always.
Thank you Lo.
Rifkind’s observation was not attributed but I think I have found the source; Li Shuguang who according to this WP article back in 1995 was “a constitutional law expert at the University of Politics and Law” who had “first hand experience with China’s brand of the “rule of law.” He “was arrested in the crackdown on democracy activists after the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. In repeated rounds of questioning, he told Chinese police his arrest was illegal; they told him they did not care. After spending 10 months in jail, he was released….” According to Li “under the rule of law, the law is preeminent and can serve as a check against the abuse of power. Under rule by law, the law can serve as a mere tool for a government that suppresses people in a legalistic fashion….”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/03/05/chinese-movement-seeks-rule-of-law-to-keep-government-in-check/f8d6a688-d57a-4938-87da-f721c7e7cb1a/
Thanks, David.