DEMOCRACY SOLD OUT

 

The Supreme Court of the United States is no longer to be seen as an independent institution and part of the checks and balances built in to the Constitution of the United States. The separation of powers in government is a bedrock of American Democracy and the independence of the judiciary is vital in upholding the rule of law. The judiciary is there to prevent the executive branch of government or the legislative branch from becoming a dictatorship.. The Supreme Court has been the final arbiter in the legal system establishing the limits to which the executive and legislative branches of local, state and federal administrations can exercise their power. The principle that no single individual is above the law within that framework is at the core.  The rule of law is paramount.

 

To even consider the argument that the head of any executive branch of any organisation is immune from upholding the law is tantamount to accepting dictatorship. To even make the argument is, in my view, an outrage. Mr Trump’s attorneys have stretched the concept of immunity for the holder of the office of President of the United States well beyond its limits. The argument that a sitting president is immune from prosecution of any kind unless or until he is formally impeached and found guilty by a two thirds majority of the senate is despicable. That any individual would be allowed to kill off any opposition and remain in situ is preposterous, or is it that Mr Trump would seek to emulate Mr Putin for whom it appears this doctrine applies.

 

The founding fathers, unfortunately, never contemplated a leader capable of such mendacity, chicanery and criminality as Donald Trump, and so, in deciding on the question of a finding of guilt by the Senate, chose a two thirds majority rather than a simple majority. They clearly shied away from unanimous as being too onerous or difficult to achieve. One also has to bear in mind that when the constitution was established the senate was a much smaller body of 26 people, which is only a quarter of the current membership; however, the fact of presidential impeachment has nothing whatever to do with the basic principle of law. No person is above the law, and most particularly when it comes to crime.

 

It is of course possible for a person to be granted judicial immunity by the State for individual offences, but only in exchange for testimony against other offenders. No one has blanket immunity because of office. That would be contrary to any public policy in any democracy across the world. Dictatorships are another matter, but be that as it may, for the Supreme Court of the United States to even hint that the lower courts’ unanimous decisions thus far need any examination or debate is, as one commentator put it, “selling American democracy down the river”.

 

Not only is the decision to accept the question atrocious, but the scheduling and delay is deliberate interference in an overdue prosecution of Mr Trump and his co-defendants, some of whom have already pleaded guilty. The court knows full well what it’s doing as they could easily schedule and settle the question in a matter of days. This court is no longer worthy of any respect and has merely prepared the planks for the coffin in which to bury the last vestiges of democracy in America.  

 

If the American voters do not come out in fury at this outrage then there is no hope for what we have come to think of as the free world. All we will have left is a Trump dictatorship and a Putin autocracy. East and west with the bodies pilling up in between or accumulating in the frozen north and south.

 

There are too many conflicting energies at large in the world. President Macron suggesting western troops on the ground in Ukraine which would no doubt lead to an escalation of war. There is also a call for a prolonged cease fire in the Middle East, which is having little effect in the face of Mr Netanyahu and his supporters. Violence in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and Yemen continues. The list of conflicts supposedly in the interest of restoring peace is growing. Why does it always seem necessary to create carnage to bring parties to a conference table?

 

My anxieties continue to fester, what with the inability of governments to come to terms with its citizens. Elected representatives are meant to work at improving the lot of the individual citizen by improving the lot of all citizens. There is dissatisfaction on all fronts. In France, farmers are turning signs upside down, to indicate their world has been turned upside down. In the UK strikes, never before contemplated by personnel in the NHS, have become repetitious, as have actions by rail and transport workers. Politicians are always declaiming what ‘the people want’ when in fact they are merely claiming what they want. Representatives no longer care about what their constituents actually think, but are so immersed in bolstering a party line that they will say anything and make the feeblest excuses and arguments to support the party line, and at the same time claiming opposing parties have no plan whatsoever. It is no longer about what the people actually want and need, it is about staying in power. Keeping the job is all that matters. Public service is mere lip service. In the UK the electorate is somewhat at sea, floating like refugees on the Raft of the Medusa waiving rags to attract the attention of some distant saviour on the horizon.  Never has a painting been more appropriate to the current human condition across the world. One can only ask, what has changed in the last 200 years besides the capabilities of a mobile phone, which is actually useless in the middle of the ocean without a network? We are left with waving rags for any kind of attention.

 

WHAT'S NEW IN GEORGIA

I have a problem with certain aspects of the legal system. To begin with, I am a firm believer in the rule of law. I also believe it should be every citizen’s right to have recourse to the law in order to clarify a difficult and possibly injurious situation which affects them. This access to law is available not only to individual citizen’s but to groups, corporations large or small and the state itself. There are proceedings brought forth by the state. Criminal activity is an instance in point. It is part of the state’s duty to legislate for the health and safety of the nation, hence anti-social and criminal activity is, on the whole, prosecuted by the state. If the state itself falls short of its duty or makes serious mistakes in the performance of that duty, then it too is held to account in a court of law.

 

There are certain rules and regulations which the state must follow in order to proceed with a criminal or any state prosecution. It has a duty of care to observe the laws relating to the enforcement of the law itself. It must be seen to be fair, reasonable and accurate in the discharge of its duty. So if someone has a grievance and believes that the state is wrong in law, and is being unfair, unreasonable and inaccurate, then they can call upon the court to adjudicate as to the actions of the state, and decide whether the state is indeed wrong in law and being unfair, unreasonable or inaccurate. To that end there must be evidence that the state is wrong in law.

 

The personalities of the individuals involved, employed by the state, whose job it is to administer the law on behalf of the state, have nothing whatever to do with the law. For a complainant to state that they do not like a particular individual involved in the process is neither here nor there, if it has nothing to do with the law on the case in question. Some people are nice. Some are more efficient than others. Unless the individual is corrupting the evidence and manufacturing a case where there is no case, then the complainant has no case.

 

Therefore, to manufacture a complaint based on “I don’t like the way you have behave” is a complete sham and should be slapped down as soon as it arises. To even allow such a complaint is an abuse of the court. To allow it on the pretext of ‘being fair to all parties’ is an insult to the integrity of the court. A sham is always a sham and pandering to such duplicity demeans the court. A court of law is too important a place for such puerile debate. Any law officer who participates in such scheming and dishonesty should be ashamed and disbarred. Mendacity has no place in a room which relies upon individuals who are compelled to take an oath to tell the truth.

 

I realise that individuals do not always adhere to an oath in a courtroom, but for an officer of the court to violate their professional duty of care and participate in machinations which have no validity or scintilla of integrity whatsoever is beyond the pale. Therein lies my problem with certain aspect of the legal system as displayed in the United States and in particular the State of Georgia. Did someone say frivolous?

 

A flagrant attempt at obfuscation by attacking the character of a prosecutor, to divert the gaze of the public from gross criminal activity for which they seem to have no answer, is actually being allowed to take place. I find it incredible that behaviour of the kind so widely deployed during the prohibition era by the likes of Al Capone and other such gangsters is now being repeated by Donald Trump and associates, who have clearly modelled themselves on that gang.

 

Indeed they both have home retreats on the Florida coast. Mar -a-Lago and Palm Island are but 70 miles apart.  I would not be surprised if Mr Trump suffered from the same disease as Mr Capone, apart from psychotic narcissism.  

FROM ONE LANDSCAPE TO ANOTHER

The current political landscape is not one that can be appreciated in the same fashion as a pictorial landscape. It has nothing like the vision of a Van Gogh, Constable or Turner.  The present American landscape is particularly at odds with the beauty to be found in its actual landscapes. I am thinking of the paintings from the Hudson River School. The work of its founder Thomas Cole and later members Frederick Church, John Frederick Kensett and Albert Bierstadt are rather fine examples of  mid nineteenth century landscape paintings.

There is something about Bierstadt’s work that favours Turner.   

Rocky Mountain Landscape, 1870

,

Lake Tahoe, 1868

He was also a war artist, the Tim Page of his day.

Guerilla Warfare, Civil War, 1862

So where can one go from here? The seemingly endless exposition of Trump’s background and narcissistic behaviour has no effect  whatever on his Maga supporters. They have no truck with the written, photographic, filmed and other recorded evidence that shows him up to be a complete sham. He is the personification of the snake oil salesman that has been tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail since the pioneering days of the American landscape. Numerous writers and historians have depicted his kind for centuries and still they emerge to bamboozle the surprisingly vast numbers of ignorant and gullible citizens, who for some obscure reason are drawn to them. They think of Trump as ‘one of us’ despite every indication to the contrary. He speaks in their vernacular all the while proclaiming to be so rich that he is immune from corruption, as well as mendaciously claiming to be a self-made man. As to being self-made, one has to accept that he has constructed this dangerous duplicitous figure, himself, all on his own. He is indeed a self-made charlatan of the first order, despite all his advantages at birth. He has bribed, bullied and cheated himself into the spotlight and into the American landscape.