Land of the free
4 September 2005 @ 10:25
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America. Most powerful nation in the world. Free to invade whenever and where its need for oil takes it. Free to pollute the rest of us with impunity. And yet, this ‘leader of the free world’ cannot save its own - poor - people from the horrors first of a hurricane, and then, and perhaps even worse, the horrors of life in a flooded and destroyed city. God bless America… Further on those across the water: US Chief Justice William Rehnquist has passed away at the age of 80. Not a bad innings, really; indeed, he has been a serving justice of the Supreme Court since 1972. Rehnquist was a deeply conservative choice for President Nixon (and one of the examples used by students like me to show the political bias within even the supposedly immune SC, which in turn could be countered with the recently retired Sandra Day O’Connor who appeared conservative, but in fact then voted in support of abortion laws!), and was a firm supporter of states’ rights, believed in the death penalty and opposed abortion (arguing against the right of the woman in the Roe V. Wade case). He also sided with Bush in the election debacle of 2000. We’ll miss him then. |
