Friday, October 5, 2018

Waiting for justice that might never come

Set, "Waiting for Godot"
   

     So now we wait.
     The Senate is expected to vote on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court some time over the weekend.
     And the Jason Van Dyke murder trial for the shooting of Laquan McDonald has gone to the jury.
Two events that mesh together, and not just because they are reaching their climax at the same time.
     Both involve the intersection of justice and politics, obviously. Both have been churning social media like a washing machine gone berserk, as partisans argue and evaluate. Like the famous blind men running their hands over an elephant, everybody describes what they perceive before them, never suspecting that the conclusions they reach are based on where they were standing when they began their exploration.
     Waiting is hard. The Kavanaugh hearings went on for only a few days, but transfixed the nation, with Christine Blasey Ford's testimony creating a rippled national shock that for one moment seemed to cut through our national divide into warring camp. Then our division returned, like the metal man in Terminator II, reconstituting itself, the red eye winking to life, raging back in the afternoon with Kavanaugh's angry, deeply partisan rebuttal that demonstrated his unsuitability for the court far more dramatically than the possibility of a 34-year-old drunken attack.
     The Van Dyke trial has been gathering steam for three years, since the release of the video cast a pall over Christmas 2015, and lit the fuse on the implosion of Rahm Emanuel's mayorship. The jury might have delivered its verdict by the time you read this.
     Both situations pivot around figures of authority: Kavanaugh, a right wing judge picked to push extremist positions like overturning Roe v. Wade, constraining voting rights, and unleashing the power of money to control even more than it does. Van Dyke, a cop, holding the power life or death in his hands, literally, working in a city with a national reputation for shootings and unsolved murders.

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4 comments:

  1. The vision of a washing machine gone mad will haunt my thoughts for a while. Thank you, Neil.

    Lose-Lose, Lose-Lose seems to be the order of the day. And Trump gets to blow his own horn some more. What's new?

    Kavanaugh was smart enough to sort of apologize for his over-the-top histrionics, which will probably be enough to get the wayward Republicans back in the flock.

    Van Dyke is probably going to get off with 2nd degree murder, just because he's a cop. But even that slap on the wrist will piss off the vocal cops who think the world is out to get them for doing their job.

    john

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  2. tate, you are a seer. Van Dyke found guilty and we wait to see the sentence and the reaction. Collins makes long case for Kavanaugh and we wait for her apology when he proves her naivete by finding a reason to overturn Roe as twisted as the logic Collins(and others) used to justify their cowardice. How many MAGA hats will it take to undo the damage?

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    1. Well, there's talk of impeachment when [if?] both the house and the senate flip, but we Democrats aren't as thick skinned as the Republicans and a blatant tit for tat won't go over that well. Plus, we counted our chickens early in 201 -- let's not go there again.

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    2. We are the good guys, not as comfortable with hypocrisy. We still feel shame. While the Right's policies are inconsistent with democracy and are driven by the profit motive, we care more about the people. I don't see the Democratic Party resorting to a scorched earth policy, despite the raw emotions that call for that today. And while impeachment of Kavanaugh sounds good now, and packing the Court if we gain control is an option, neither option may be a rewarding endeavor. But we do need some real fighters who'll take the gloves off in response to the two faced weasels like Grassley, Hatch and Graham. Sorry Barack, you should have shouted from the pulpit when they dissed you.

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