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Our View
Court’s decision a blot on rights in this nation
The trouble with the U.S. Supreme Court, at least in recent years, is that it’s too arcane for its own good – or for this nation’s. “Arcane” means “understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric.” In other words – in plain words – it means “abracadabra” nonsense. On Tuesday, the high court ruled, in Shelby County v. Holder, that Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. That provision requires some states to get pre-approval from the federal government for any changes to their voting-rights laws, based on those states’ discriminatory policies in the past. In a 5-4 ruling, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the court ruled Section 4 is no longer required because the times, more or less, have changed and the need to defend minority voting rights is no longer needed, the way it was in the racist South of the 1960s and before. Typically, to no one’s surprise, the majority members of the court – all appointed by conservative presidents, it should be noted – did at least admit “voting discrimination still exists,” but the Civil Rights Act of 1965 does not respect states’ rights because it requires only some states to justify certain aspects of their voting-access laws. In his written opinion, Roberts resorts to arcane arguments and invokes “states’ rights” to justify his and the court’s majority decision. The basic argument of the majority court is that almost all of the discriminatory laws against free voting by one and all have disappeared, that times have improved form those old ugly Jim Crow racist days, that we all live in a more egalitarian society. Tell that to those Afro-Americans who had to wait in line for hours and hours to vote in the last election. Those conservative justices should toss off their magisterial robes and visit the “real world” more often. They are apparently oblivious to the infinite variety of tactics tried in the last presidential election to keep ethnic minorities from full access to their voting rights. Such attempts were disgustingly blatant, from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Florida – in other words, in states where Republican Romney was in the most electoral trouble. The long and bloody struggle for voting rights for all Americans (the very basis of our democracy) has just been delivered a serious setback because of this lamentable court decision. It’s even more shameful than the court’s “Citizens United” decision of a couple of years ago, which declared sky’s the limit for anonymous corporate donors in elections. In their tortured reasoning, the court members who made this decision probably did not mean to be discriminatory, but – let’s face it – the end result amounts to the same thing. More people because of ethnic background or because of poverty will have more obstacles placed in their way when it comes to voting. The throw-back reactionaries and historical revisionists have won again, thanks to this unfortunate court decision. In other words, the long struggle for voting rights for all Americans will have to be waged all over again, like so many other great struggles we Americans thought had been waged and won.
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Opinion Patriot Act powers must be scrutinized I wasn’t very surprised to learn the National Security Agency had such an all-inclusive surveillance network that included virtually every American’s phone calls and internet interactions. I wasn’t too surprised because as soon as I saw the Twin Towers falling down on 9-11, my dread horror was instantly followed by the thought our civil liberties are bound to be infringed upon. Such a vicious attack out of the blue sky, I just knew, would require a massive retooling of all intelligence-gathering methods, foreign and domestic. And most of that gathering of information would, by necessity, require lots of secrecy and lots of spying. Prompted by the terrorist attacks, the so-called Patriot Act was approved by the U.S. Congress in 2001 and allowed the NSA to expand its massive surveillance powers. The Patriot Act is troublesome because it’s too open-ended and it grants powers that are kept from our scrutiny. Such powers can be dangerous and downright sinister, as has been proven time and again in the world’s vile dictatorships. We Americans would like to think proper congressional oversight and built-in checks and balances would prevent such abuses, but how can we know that for sure? Why, for example, does the NSA need to have access to virtually every phone call in the United States? As I understand it, by compiling lists of all phone numbers and calls made, experts can “connect dots” concerning terrorist communications and find out what they’re plotting. I don’t understand that and probably never will, because their
Dennis Dalman Editor explaining exactly how it works would tip off terrorists. In cases of widespread spying, some say, “Well, if you are doing nothing illegal, you have nothing to worry about.” That’s a foolish reassurance. In the 1970s, a “no-knock” drug law was approved that gave agents the right to burst into suspected drug places without knocking. We were told only the bad-guy druggies should fear such a law. Not so. On many occasions, drug agents mistakenly broke down the doors of innocent, law-abiding residents. In one tragic incident, agents shot and killed a grandmother who was rocking her grandbaby. The trouble with the Patriot Act – and all other powers that have no direct citizen oversight – is such powers can be extended and used at the slightest pretext and can quickly reach the point of overkill. It’s a bit like letting a mad genii out of a bottle. The visionary British author George Orwell continues to “speak to us” across time. His cautionary novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, is about a society controlled by massive surveillance and all forms of mind control under the power of Big Brother, the Inner Party leader. Besides constant surveillance into people’s private lives, the Big Brother
functionaries keep people cowed through the complete degradation of language so words come to mean the opposite of what they should mean. The Ministry of Love, for example, conducts torture and brainwashing. The Ministry of Truth takes care of propaganda and historical revisionism. The world of the novel, eerily so, is very much like that of North Korea. Orwell wrote his sinister book long before ubiquitous computers and decades before the internet and cell phones. Big Brother’s surveillance methods were rather “quaint” at that time – big TV monitors aimed at people in every nook and cranny of their lives, and people snooping and tattling on one another as they did under Hitler and Stalin. Today’s dazzling technology makes the possibility of massive, intrusive, unnecessary surveillance much more likely. Of course, we would like to think there are good, responsible people overseeing these spy programs, but how can we know that? Another great novelist, Sinclair Lewis, wrote a book entitled It Can’t Happen Here, in which he proceeds to show quite convincingly the forces of fascism could, indeed, “happen here.” There’s no doubt we need some Patriot Act provisions in the (probably never-ending) fight against terrorists, but we’ve reached the time when that Act must be scrutinized to ensure it can stop the bad guys dead in their tracks without trampling wholesale on good people’s liberties. And that’s a tall order.
Fourth of July wasn’t always that fun
I remember when I was growing up on a farm in central Minnesota that the Fourth of July wasn’t always a real fun time. In many ways, it was just another summer day. Besides working on the farm, my dad also worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud. He often worked on July 4. My mom didn’t have a driver’s license during my childhood years so that meant when Dad left for work, our means of leaving the farm were limited. So, on those festive Fourth of July holidays, I was stranded. As cars drove by our house headed for parades and for fun on the area lakes, all I could do was watch. And even when Dad arrived home, and going to a firework’s display was still an option, he was tired and had to head to work the next day. And since fireworks don’t occur until after dark, we often were in bed trying to fall asleep as the bursting of fireworks could be heard coming from a distance. So, we were often left to our own devices to find entertainment. My mom was aware of our plight so she tried to make things as merry as possible. When I was real young, I remember her giving me and my siblings a cap gun that didn’t hold up to use very well
Mike Nistler Reporter and was soon broken. We improvised by taking the caps and exploding them by hitting them with a rock on the sidewalk. This of course made a noise, but it also left cap residue and marks on our sidewalk. This was not OK with Mom. So, we wandered out to the road that ran in front of our farm and smashed the caps there. This also was not OK with Mom. After all, she didn’t want to end up celebrating the Fourth in the hospital emergency room if one of us youngsters was hit by a passing car. If we wanted a more safe activity, we could always wander out to the cornfield and measure the height of the corn to our knees. The adage is corn should be kneehigh by the Fourth of July. Often, the corn was up to our waists, so this gave us a passing moment of pleasure and pride. But really, how much of a celebration is that? One year I remember my younger brother, Kevin, and I finding a stash of
firecrackers my older brother, Dick, had purchased out of state. These were illegal in Minnesota at the time, which made finding them all that more intriguing. Kevin and I knew we couldn’t light the fireworks at our farm or they’d be heard and we’d be busted. So, we biked to our uncle’s neighboring farm and went deep into his meadow to ignite the firecrackers. I would hold the little stick of paper-wrapped powder and Kevin would strike the match. I would then fling it into the air and it would explode. This worked fine until one of the wicks on one of the firecrackers extinguished as I threw it. I picked up the unexploded firecracker and noticed a bit of the wick remained. Since we only had a few firecrackers, we decided not to waste this one so I told Kevin to light it again and I would fling it fast. Well, he did just that and as I drew my arm back to throw it, the firecracker exploded right by my right ear. I was not only deaf in my right ear for the rest of the day, but my right hand stung like crazy. That ended our thrill-seeking for the day and no one ever found out until years later when we confessed to our chicanery. Here’s wishing you all a safe and happy Fourth of July holiday.
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