We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, June 30, 2018

How the SCOTUS “Muslim Ban Ruling” Gives the President a Blank Check to Detain American Citizens

Click here to access article by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News
Mint Press speaks with legal expert and law professor Ryan Alford, who warns that hidden within the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Trump administration’s “Muslim travel ban” is a massive power giveaway to the executive branch that allows any president to order the mass detention of American citizens without worrying about a challenge from the courts.
This interview with Ryan Alford provides many illustrations of the theatrical nature of "the rule of law" that is so often touted by the capitalist ruling class in the USA. I am not referring merely to the robed costumes that the judges wear, that the justices are always seated in an elevated position above everybody else in the official proceedings, etc. The entire legal structure that the ruling class has constructed is of a theatrical nature in that the rulings are carefully scripted by appointees of the ruling class to protect and promote their class interests of profit and power. The fact that often these rulings are promoting an authoritarian, fascist-like government is carefully hidden behind legal jargon which uses such open-ended notions as "national security" to cover for racist and authoritarian directives of the executive branch that steadily weaken the legal protections for ordinary Americans supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. 

However, this tendency is an inevitable result of a system that gives overwhelming power to one tiny self-serving, segment of society. It is a symptom which indicates that this ruling class, the capitalist class, is in the final stages of its existence. The only problem is that this class is locked and loaded with nuclear weapons; and if this does not worry you, then you need to be reminded of their ongoing attacks on our planet's habitat which supports human life.