On February the 23^rd in 2022, Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations, issued a challenge to the governing body. He said: “Mr. Secretary-General, please instruct the secretariat to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly a decision by the Security Council dated December 1991 that recommends that the Russian Federation can be a member of this organization, as well as a decision by the General Assembly dated December 1991 where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization.”

The Ambassador also said it would be a miracle if the Secretariat could produce such documentation. He knew that the Office of Legal Affairs had been playing fast and loose with the Charter after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics finally collapsed in December of 1991. An entirely new government was formed, and the Russian Federation, in clear violation of the United Nations Charter, had arbitrarily assumed the former government’s permanent member position on the Security Council. This was clearly enabled through the inattention of the UN’s Legal Counsel. While Secretary General António Guterres sat stupefied, Kyslytsya referred to Article 4, paragraph 2 of the UN Charter which reads:

“The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”

Although the Russian Federation was formed in the hope that the people of Russia would finally become the true arbiters of their own destiny, it is now a kleptocracy. It is a very different country from the onetime ally that was among the 51 countries “committed to maintaining international peace and security” when the United Nations was founded on October the 4^th in 1945. According to Oppenheim’s International Law, as it refers to the United Nations, “Permanent membership in the Security Council was granted to five states based on their importance in the aftermath of World War II.”

That was long ago. The caustic mix of autocracy, inauthentic democracy, and kleptocracy on the Security Council has rendered the UN largely impotent. It is no longer an effective champion of those governments that derive their just authority by any informed consent of the governed. And the one thing that might make a difference, that might move the UN beyond the status of a debating society, the Secretariat steadfastly refuses to do. But, the General Secretary is not the only one.

In 2022, on the February 27^th episode of CNN’s State of the Union, Linda Thomas Greenfield – the US Ambassador to the United Nations said: Russia is a member of the Security Council, that’s in the UN Charter.” With this statement, Ambassador Greenfield has exhibited a reckless indifference to the truth. In actuality the Charter, in Article 23 states:

“The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council.”

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s seat on the UN Security Council was never legally transferred, by any due process, to the Russian Federation. There was no Union of Soviet Socialist Republics after what the Guardian newspaper described, as “the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history.” The dissolution of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991 was characterized by a process of internal political, economic and ethnic disintegration which resulted in the end of its existence as a sovereign state.

In late 1991, the leaders of three of the former Union’s founding and largest republics; the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Byelorussian SSR declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. They were later joined by eight more former Soviet republics.

The United Nations is willfully compromised. The member states, with the exception of Ukraine, have not taken any action to correct the problem/s with the Security Council. There was no recommendation by the Security Council and there was no decision by the General Assembly to “grandfather in” the Russian Federation or, for that matter, any other country that has undergone significant change since an original determination was made that it qualified for membership in an organization founded to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

Other commitments delineated in the Charter Preamble, such as the ones to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to preserve the dignity and worth of the human person, to insure equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom are worthy objectives. The problem is that certain members of the UN Security Council have exhibited nothing but contempt for these principles. The UN is defining itself every day through its sincerity or a lack thereof.

While Russia’s leader may surround himself with tacticians, he is by no means a strategist. There is no such thing as a coherent strategy in the absence of a coherent value proposition. And likewise, tactics seldom lead to meaningful victory when divorced from strategic thought. Like so many other kleptocrats, Vladimir Putin is willing to sink his own country for personal gain. His only motivation is one of self-gratification. He has no real vision for the future of Russia other than to siphon off any remaining equities from its people and to try and recapture past glories.

His terminal ego is looking to re-acquire former Soviet states that have intentionally moved on. He was late to the game in developing a focus on rare earth minerals, instead doubling down on fuels the rest of the world is actively working to phase out. And, he conducts himself in ways that have made him a pariah within the evolving world order. He’s not fooling anyone beyond those whose political discourse is fed exclusively by his state owned media.

Vladimir Putin surrounds himself with yes-men. And those who would keep him honest are Novichok’d, imprisoned, or otherwise marginalized in punitive ways. He has enriched himself at the the expense of the Russian people and plans to siphon the life plasm out of Ukraine in similar ways. The invasion of troops is just a precursor to an invasion by his wholly owned and operated oligarchs. And the outrage expressed by other world leaders only serves to underscore the impotence of the United Nations.

If the UN is unable to purify the body, through the removal of a war-mongering tyrant from the Security Council, than it is unable to hold the mantle as a champion of peace. Unlike the UN, NATO has the option to re-charter in ways that would get it out from under the limitations imposed by the Security Council. Within the UN, Putin can veto any resolution that would put his ego in check. The Security Council is an outmoded relic that may have been justified in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Today, it makes no sense at all. It gives an elevated platform and excessive prominence to those illegitimate leaders that hold power in their home countries, by arbitrary assumption, rather than by popular vote.

John Wycliffe, in the preface to his Fourteenth Century translation wrote: “The Bible is for Government of, by, and for the people.” As inauthentic republics and democracies come down somewhere between wishy and washy with respect to this principle, the world is largely without leadership and politics has eclipsed statesmanship.

This is the question that Putin has thrust upon the entire world. Will we continue to recognize tyrants, from inauthentic democracies, as heads of state? Or will we only recognize governments that are authentic democratic republics? The time for proactively straddling the fence is over. Sanctions that hurt Russian citizens rather than Vladimir Putin and his sycophants, are of limited value.

If Putin wants to recapture the “glory days,” when the Soviet Government was the focus of evil, than we should get focused on the individual that has defined himself as the real enemy. As one might expect, Putin’s value’s are so abhorrent that he must operate under the cover of darkness, suppressing anything that might give the people of Russia a government that derives its authority from informed consent.

On May the 14^th in 2021, the government of Russia designated Radio Liberty’s website as a “foreign agent”. The broadcast service’s bank accounts were frozen. The Russian mass media regulator initiated 520 cases against the broadcaster with total fines for the its refusal to mark its content with the “foreign agent” label estimated at $2.4 million. On May the 19^th in 2021, Radio Liberty filed a legal case at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the Russian government of violating freedom of expression and freedom of the media.

It is clear that Putin will not benefit from any close examination of the truth. He fears Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty almost as much as he fears NATO. He knows the broadcasters played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the rise of democracies in post-communist Europe. In light of this history and Putin’s ongoing acts of war, continuous saturation broadcasts into Russia should occur in every conceivable way. Every Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty asset should be brought to bear to insure the Russian people understand just what was taken from them and how.

Putin fully intends to pillage and plunder Ukraine in similar ways. The people of that country want an of, by, and for the people Ukraine. Whereas Putin wants an all for Putin and Putin for Putin Ukraine. Putin has no value proposition that will resonate with the people of Russia or Ukraine. Accordingly, he has no vision for anything beyond his orgy of darkness and death. If the people in those countries want a future of light and life, they must be intentional and work for it.

On February 23, 2022, the Ambassador of Ukraine issued a challenge to the Secretariat of the United Nations. He was highlighting the way the Russian Federation held, by arbitrary assumption, a seat on the United Nations Security Council after the demise of the Soviet Union. Such short circuiting of due process, within the United Nations, has enabled Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy to use its illegitimate veto power to quash any effort to insure world peace. In the long run, it may also point to a potential cure for the UN’s impotence.

Partial Transcript:

I would like to avail the presence of the secretary-general and request the secretary-general to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly the legal memos by the legal council of the United Nations dated December 1991, and in particular, the legal memo dated 19th of December, 1991. The one that we’ve been trying to get out of the secretariat for a very long time and were denied to get it.

The Article 4, paragraph 2 of the charter reads:

The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Mr. Secretary-General, please instruct the secretariat to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly a decision by the Security Council dated December 1991 that recommends that the Russian Federation can be a member of this organization, as well as a decision by the General Assembly dated December 1991 where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization.

It would be a miracle if the secretariat is able to produce such decisions.

There is nothing in the Charter of the United Nations about continuity, as a sneaky way to get into the organization.

In Washington D.C. on April the 4^th in 1949, the 12 founding members of NATO signed what became known as The North Atlantic Treaty. The agreement is short. It contained only 14 articles each characterized by internal flexibility. The treaty was founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. The signatories were determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of their people. 

In Article 1, the parties committed “to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” The Parties to the Treaty reaffirmed their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.

To effect this peace initiative, Article 2 and 4 encourage the members to “consult together” whenever they might consider it necessary. This process of consensus-building was to include the practice of regularly exchanging information and consulting together, to strengthen the links between governments and share knowledge of their respective preoccupations, so that they can agree on common policies and take action.

In 1949, the primary aim of the Treaty was to create a pact of mutual assistance to counter the risk that the Soviet Union would seek to extend its control of Eastern Europe to other parts of the continent. According to Theodore C. Achilles, there was no doubt that operations could be conducted worldwide. This interpretation was reaffirmed by NATO foreign ministers in Reykjavik in May of 2002 as they considered the fight against terrorism. They said: “To carry out the full range of its missions, NATO must be able to field forces that can move quickly to wherever they are needed, sustain operations over distance and time, and achieve their objectives.”

Some drafters were informed by the post-mortem New York Times reporter Clarence K. Striet published about the League of Nations. They also were influenced by his 1939 book Union Now which advocated for a federation of democracies. They wanted more than just military cooperation between signatories. They wanted to expand the organization’s influence to social and economic cooperation. 

The criteria for membership includes “a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions.”

Because collective defense was at the very heart of the Alliance, the drafters considered the strategic value of extending invitations to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Iceland and the Scandinavian countries. The alliance committed each member to share the risk, responsibilities and benefits of such mutual aid while promoting a spirit of solidarity.

The United States and the United Kingdom saw NATO as a regional organization while France thought it should take on a more global role. The negotiators had a difference of opinion concerning the area of responsibility although the geographical scope of the Alliance was partly conditioned on situations involving those countries that were more likely to fall to Soviet aggression. Sweden refused to have any links with NATO because of its strong commitment to neutrality.

In addition to the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the founding members in 1949 included Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Portugal. Greece and Turkey joined the Alliance in 1952. The drafters considered offering membership to Ireland, Iran, Austria and Spain, but the idea was dropped largely due to internal conditions in each country. Of concern to all was Germany, whose membership was not immediately considered due to the complexity of its internal situation. All member countries have joined freely in accordance with their domestic democratic processes.

And this brings us to the immediate situation. We must ask why Vladimir Putin objects so strenuously to NATO membership for any of the former Soviet states. NATO, with it’s commitment to consensus building in the interest of peace is not a threat to the Russian Federation. Authentic democracies don’t attack their neighbors. In Article 1, the parties committed “to settle any international dispute by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered.”

A functioning democratic political system based on a market economy is still part of the criteria for membership in NATO. The founding parties affirmed their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. The real problem for Putin and Xi is that there is no veto power for authoritarians such as that which exists on the UN Security Council. They know that NATO will likely be a greater force, for the extension of democracy worldwide, than the UN could ever be due to the veto power of totalitarian states that are represented by inauthentic leaders. At some point, in the evolution of this planet, the only heads of state will be those who are elected to a government truly of, by, and for the people.

Alexei Navalny is the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the leader of a party for Russia of the Future. Earlier, he was a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member. In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later. Navalny accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Navalny’s investigation into President Vladimir Putin’s alleged $1.3 billion palace was the most popular video on Russian YouTube in 2021 after he was detained upon his January return from Germany. Navalny’s team released an in-depth investigation alleging that Putin and his close associates laundered money to build the opulent Black Sea palace. By the end of 2021, it had been viewed over 119 million times.

The struggle between the the players and the owners within the USA’s National Football League is hardly unique within our country’s great economic divide. And, as similar struggles within major league baseball discount the interests of host cities that actively and financially courted teams, such marginalized stakeholders continue to eat major losses. Few citizens are sympathetic to the millionaire players or their team’s billionaire owners. Although, in the grand scheme of things and from the player’s perspective, these are games for the young. It is understandable that an individual athlete would charge a premium for their best years in the context of a career that is relatively short.

On August the 19^th in 2019, the Business Roundtable released what they billed as a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. It was signed by 181 CEOs. Those executives made a commitment to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. As the wealth of these executives and their companies continued to accrue throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, employees were unceremoniously dismissed. The feigned sincerity of the Business Roundtable leadership was, and still is, correctly perceived as a public relations head fake.

Any democratic republic that aspires to authenticity, while failing to address corporate subterfuge, is chasing a conceptual illusion. An authentic corporation is composed of people associating for a common purpose and acting corporately. The Roundtable’s attempt to obfuscate, with insincere proclamations, is designed to forestall any return to a true balance of stakeholder interests. Employee Owned Benefit Corporations represent the only path forward to building authentic democracies. They are the hope for building a global federation of democracies with tremendous potential for advancing world peace.

When a union of authentic democracies commits to democracy world wide, it will align its policies to that end. In trade, the most favored nation status will be keyed to the authenticity of whatever democracy is trying to peddle its product in the global marketplace. Only those leaders that were elected through the actual consent of the governed will be recognized as true heads of state. And, any leader committing an act of war upon any nation, will automatically become target number one for international armed forces.

As our planet evolves, sentient beings are looking for the kind of work that will help us transition from purely profit motivated labors to ones that balance profit imperatives with those endeavors that may be of service to a greater humanity. The entrepreneurial spirit, that activates a nation’s workforce, is always enhanced when the work is seen as purposeful in ways that go beyond transactional forms of remuneration. Benefit corporations appeal to a worker’s motivations yielding true job satisfaction. Companies that only enrich the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth do not inspire. The worker’s paycheck represents fleeting gratification at best.

Of course, there is no guarantee that a Benefit Corporation would not be re-chartered to become exclusively profit seeking, once outside investors gain a majority interest and install malleable managers. There is also nothing to prevent the majority of employees, within an employee owned corporation, to sell the whole enchilada to a well positioned buyer. It is the combination of an ownership stake and a commitment to providing a public benefit that has the potential to stabilize an organization that is truly integrity centered.

While the United States Supreme Court’s series of decisions concerning corporate personhood may be attributable to either a lack of integrity or a lack of intellectual rigor, granting citizen rights that are not coupled with responsibility is undeniable folly. In the case of inauthentic corporations, the foreign ownership and subterfuge is effectively masked through the dark money politics that the Supremes have also condoned in spite of serious implications concerning any consent of the governed.

In the United States today, there is a general distrust of government institutions. And this is clearly merited just to the extent that those institutions of government are no longer seen as of, by, and for the people. Our democracy has been surreptitiously hijacked and repurposed to benefit they the select few instead of We the People. The key to correcting this is Intentional Consumerism. We should avoid doing business with any corporation that distorts our national dialog or political discourse by the use of relentless messaging through captive platforms, or through the use of dark money.

Any politician accepting dark money contributions, or supporting judges whose nominations, confirmations, and accommodations are secured through dark money, should be shown the door. We don’t need the kind of political operatives, putting a wet finger to a political wind ,while masquerading as leaders. We need true statesmanship.

In 1870, James Freeman Clark offered the only litmus test that should be used as we consider how to cast our precious votes. He said, “A politician thinks about the next election. A statesman, the next generation.” As it is with our elected representatives, so it should be with the votes we cast using our hard earned dollars. Make every vote count!

Just why is it considered criminal to yell “fire” in a movie theatre? While the applicable law within various locales is nuanced, the common thread is that people rely on the word of the screamer to their detriment. Clearly, when the screamer deliberately misleads people, in a way that is the proximate cause for crush injuries and death, they should be held accountable for such an unconditioned and unintelligent exercise use of their free speech rights.

When we were children and if we were fortunate enough to have good parents, we learned early on that when privileges are abused we can lose them. I once had a really good dog that I had named Klaatu. He was named after the interstellar policeman in a movie titled The Day the Earth Stood Still. The essential message behind that ingenious movie was the axiomatic principle that, ideally, diminishing external external restraints are linked to augmenting internal restraints.

There are people on our planet that operate in accordance with the Luciferian belief that there should be no restraints; ever. They advocate for a counterfeit form of liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. What they push for is more properly defined as taking license rather than enjoying the gift of liberty. True liberty is always mindful of the affect any exercise of liberty would have on others. Though who have fought for liberty are fighting against tyranny that is seen, by the tyrant, as simply taking liberties.

The early Luciferian and more contemporary Goebbelian tactics are based upon the latter’s declaration that “If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.” Goebbels also said that: We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection.” Now consider that in the words of Donald Trump Junior as he addressed the Turning Point convention in December of 2021.

Junior told the crowd that the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.”

This contest between Luciferian and Jesusonian principle is now playing out in our schools, our churches, and within the halls of government. Many of the politicians who profess a faith apparently don’t believe in God’s justice. They act in ways and encourage others to act in ways that are clearly antithetical to almost everything Jesus taught and exemplified. They live by the sword, they champion unmitigated selfishness, and they seem intent on causing the little ones to stumble.

On this last point, they feign concern for the unborn while fighting against any program that would advance pre-natal care, provide supplemental nutrition assistance, support early childhood education, fund basic college education, and just about anything that might serve the highest and best interests of new generations.

They are the advocates for unbridled greed, complaining about inflation while enabling the kind of price gouging that causes it. They go a-whoring for any corporation that is willing to pay them. And this includes the ones where those our nation’s founders called “foreign potentates” have a controlling interest in the company; a company that, thanks to our addled Supremes, have unfettered free speech rights. Then the prevaricating politicians whine about foreign interference in our elections.

They rage against socialism just as their donors privatize profits while offloading the cost of doing business onto the rank and file taxpayer. Their dumbed-down interpretation of the cardinal precept “provide for the common defense,” gives them license to fight on the side of microscopic foes during a global pandemic while also gutting the nation’s economy on behalf of the military industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. They wear their hypocrisy as a badge of distinction, in which they vest tremendous pride.

The Luciferians operate in accordance with a playbook that wasn’t written by Joseph Goebbels or his protege’s Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson or any of the other latter day prevaricators. The dystopian future they advance was made possible by Supreme Court Justices that love dark money. Their values are abhorrent. And while God covers himself in light, politicians cover themselves in lies and any other form of deception that can be brought to bear.

While the act may be ours; the consequences are God’s. There are those who will faithfully follow in the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There are others that long ago traded their witness for a masquerade. They have been actively promoting reckless indifference to the truth in ways that support the planet’s ongoing orgy of darkness and death. There will be a time when their grandchildren have blown through the money and developed some situational awareness. History will judge today’s politicians without the dollar skew.

As Biden’s push to defend democracy is seen by many as too little too late, the twenty first century’s John Birchers continue to deny that the United States was ever intended to be a democracy. They parrot the talking points of earlier demagogues while exhibiting no depth of knowledge and little interest in developing any. They say the word democracy doesn’t appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, even though the first three words of the Preamble clearly define it.

Excessively prominent, mammon serving evangelicals, continue to hijack pulpits once used to glorify the Way, the Truth, and the Life. They instead use them to promote numerous backroads to Hell, a reckless indifference to the Truth, and a perpetual orgy of darkness and death. On January the 13^th in 2022, the Republican National Committee publicly announced it may prohibit future GOP presidential nominees from participating in official general election debates. Their scheme, to compel the most uninformed consent of the governed, is intended to bring government of, by, and for the people to an end.

Corrupting the election process, under the banner of Election Integrity, is the inevitable consequence of dark money politics. The foreign potentates, that exploit the so-called free speech rights of American corporations, gained that advantage through the Supreme Court’s sociopathic notion of corporate personhood. Autocrats have been granted the license they use for distorting our national dialogue. When every debauched value proposition is packaged for simpleton consumption, our only option for going forward is to stop acting like simpletons.

In 1765, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote six books. The last in the series contained a sentence that has gracefully transcended the intervening centuries and is commonly translated as: “I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: “Then let them eat cake.”

Whenever a controlling interest in a corporation is held by outside investors, the corporation is no longer composed of people associating for a common purpose and acting corporately. It becomes systematically dumbed down. The employees suffer tamped down wages and hollowed out benefits packages at the behest of despots, the likes of which have been handling slaves for thousands of years. And now they complain about people’s reluctance to again participate in an economy replete with dead-end jobs. The Great Resignation may just represent a glimmer of new hope on the horizon. As people reduce their dependence on those industries with a history of exploitation, the implications for democracy are slowly coming into view. 

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev promoted glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) in an attempt to overcome the Soviet Union’s economic stagnation and stunted growth. These initiatives promised the “utmost respect for the individual citizen and favorable consideration for protecting one’s personal dignity.” By creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress, Gorbachev hoped to encourage initiative and creative endeavor.

Gorbachov gained authority to create joint-stock companies out of state enterprises. The shares became available on stock exchanges. As privatization became a primary goal of the new Russian Federation, vouchers were circulated equally throughout the general population between 1992 and 1994. The wide distribution, which included minors, had a participation rate of 98%. It started as an equal distribution of national wealth, based upon the conversion of state-owned enterprises to promote share-holder stakes that would be held, enjoyed, and controlled by Russian citizens.

Self-centered forces wasted no time in turning that benevolent vision into a variety of schemes to exploit the poor. What started as a largely equal distribution of national wealth became concentrated within the ranks of management as the starving masses relinquished whatever they may have held of any value, including personal shares, settling for fire-sale prices just so they could buy foodstuffs. When they did scrape up a little cash, they faced the bleak reality of purchasing power that was dramatically reduced.

Vladimir Putin commanded the FSB, a successor to the KGB, as Director. He was later appointed as Prime Minister and uniquely positioned to benefit personally from the rise of the oligarchs. Because he had organized the transfer of the assets from the former Soviet Union and Communist Party to the Russian Federation, he knew where the real value was. As a former Lieutenant Colonel of the KGB, he also knew where the bodies were buried.

As the gamesmanship over vouchers and loans for shares played out, one such grabber, an oil oligarch, ran afoul of Putin and was put on trial. Putin arranged for the Defendant to be seated in a cage at the center of the courtroom. According to the prevailing legend, one by one the other oligarchs came to Putin and asked: “How do we stay out of cages?” Putin’s answer: “Fifty percent.”

For Putin, working “useful idiots” like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump is child’s play. For us, the challenge is to recapture the wisdom of the American colonists. Edmond Burke once described them as “able to sniff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” Can we regain that ability while mustering the courage to confront Putinesque prevaricators?

On March the 7^th in 2021, on Fox News Sunday, Senator Joe Manchin said “The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we’ve made it more comfortable over the years.” On NBC’s Meet the Press, Manchin also said “If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk.”

The filibuster was originally established to protect the rights of a Senate minority. It gave senators the ability to slow down or block a vote on any bill by talking, extensively, about the issue at hand. Senators could thereby draw attention to their own priorities. And the country would derive an important benefit when bills were fully and openly debated.

As the Senate became more compromised in an era of dark money politics, a creeping cowardice took hold through a series of rules changes. Where the original filibuster required members to stand up for their principles and actively engage in debate, senators could now avoid a vote without ever having to justify their positions. 

There was a time when the Senate called itself the world’s greatest deliberative body. It no longer has any real credibility with respect to that particular claim. When our leaders were required to stand up for their principles through the talking filibuster, they would proclaim their beliefs and explain why they disagreed with the majority. When they instead began to insert cookie recipes into the record, it became clear that any informed consent of the governed was not held to be of value.

Today, the filibuster is simply used as a pocket veto. Standing on principle and openly defending one’s stance is seen as an arcane banished idea by self-serving politicians with an insatiable appetites for dark money. It is understandable that a politician, intent on promoting an abhorrent set of values, would be reluctant to engage in honest introspection as he or she surreptitiously sells out the nation. In that context, the secret filibuster is a useful obfuscation device.

The filibuster was never a part of our Constitution. It was also not a part of the original Senate rules. Vice President Aaron Burr removed the rule, which allowed a simple majority to force a vote, in 1806. Senator Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest individual filibuster. He spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. A few years later, Democrats led by Richard Russell Jr. famously held up the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 60 working days.

After the Supreme Court of the United States gutted the major provisions of these Civil Rights Acts, Republican Senators led by Mitch McConnell, in January of 2022, have clearly defined themselves as they refuse to put a check on states that are still fighting the Civil War. Such senators refuse to engage in reforming those police departments that maintain a cop culture deeply rooted in the traditions of the slave patrols. They enable state legislatures and governors that are intent on sustaining the last gasp of the Three-Fifths Compromise which insured a black man or woman would never amount to more than three-fifths of a person at the ballot box. 

Senator Manchin’s fetish of bipartisanship, together with his reverence for a filibuster that is actively corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic, are a great delight to real enemies of the United States. When the Senate rules were changed, so any Senator could block any bill from consideration or debate without having to explain or defend their action, the electorate was thrust into darkness.

The ability to block legislation, without ever engaging in open debate, helps senators to keep their dark money secrets. The “nuclear option” that then Senate Majority Leader McConnell used in 2017 to undermine the historic precedent of appointing judges that could draw consensus from both parties, was pivotal. The only ones that seem to be concerned about setting precedent, in punching through the filibuster, are those who have failed to learn from McConnell’s history of duplicity.

Any rookie salesperson could tell you that the Reconciliation Process would likely fail to deliver the Build Back Better legislation. Declaring the price up front, without first running through the features and benefits, was, to put it charitably, exceedingly stupid. But, it was the only option because of the filibuster. Likewise, all the voting rights initiatives are doomed to fail unless Senators are forced to stand in harsh lighting that is likely to penetrate any thin veneer of religiosity.

The changes, carve-outs, and exceptions have been playing out for decades. And yet, the secret filibuster continues to undermine the will of the majority in America. When Senators who want to block a vote must stay on topic, doing the difficult and open work of holding the floor; When they must explain why votes should not be honored, why healthcare should not be a basic right, why early childhood education should not be the norm, the content of each Senator’s character will be, as it should be, center stage. Talk about painful.

Inscribed over the doors of the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC are the words ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’ Unfortunately, those words have never rung true within the United States. They are now hardly even seen as aspirational by several of the justices currently occupying the high court. Consider, for example, the court’s sociopathic notion of corporate personhood.

While certain addled jurists have proclaimed that corporations are persons with rights, such as those of free speech, executives are seldom held accountable for policies, even when it is shown they are the proximate cause for death and destruction. Fatalities from the daily use of opioids as promoted by the owners of Purdue Pharma, or those brought about by executives at Pacific Gas and Electric through their criminal negligence, occur behind the corporate veil and are not of interest to pretenders in law. They might gratify themselves by declaring the non-corporeal entities are guilty of manslaughter, but the actual persons behind the decision making routinely get a pass.

The Supreme Court of the United States has consistently placed the proposition of societal equity on a plane of unreality. Members of the judicial monastery are fully immersed in a fantasyland of their own making. They display none of the intellectual rigor that was touted when they were nominated and, once seated, publish incoherent opinions that clearly advance the corporate sociopathy that secured their nominations, confirmations, and accommodations. They enjoy lifetime tenure and are therefore the primary beneficiaries of the dark money politics they have not only permitted, but intentionally and willfully advanced.

The ideal expressed in the Declaration of Independence, as the ‘consent of the governed,’ has been held in high regard since the Ordinatio was published in the 1290s. And yet, the kind of “informed consent” that would typically be required before having a mole removed, is not considered important by certain misfits occupying positions of honor and trust. Their form-fitting seats notwithstanding, they are the ones that have brought their fitness for high office into question.

They respect precedent when they want to double-down on dumb-assed decisions. And they simply ignore it when they find it inconvenient in light of their political ideology. They sit idly by as unqualified members are seated, after politically corrupted FBI investigations put the vetting process and the reputation of the bureau squarely into the category of hocus-pocus. And then they have the gall to whine about the reputation of the Court. They don’t just have a perception problem. They have an integrity problem that is undeniable.

Justices, masquerading an originalists and textualists, routinely set aside the cardinal precepts of the Constitution as they were so carefully delineated in the Preamble. They support the nefarious schemes of grifty politicians that consistently place donor interests above voter interests. They have gutted the voting rights legislation of the sixties and have enabled media monopolies to the point where a handful of billionaires control the information flow to about three-hundred and thirty-million American citizens. They have, bytheir decisions, converted the whirlpool of information into a malodorous cesspool of disinformation. And, they have no plausible deniability on that.

SCOTUS is keenly aware of just how integrity challenged state legislators have been laying in wait for the court’s ideological balance to shift. They have resisted the kind of change that would provide for randomizing the seating of panels, that hear any given case, so that the will of ideologues would no longer be so predictable. When an unprincipled Senate Majority leader, in collusion with a one term President, can pack wing-nuts into one third of the seats on the high court, claims of judicial impartiality and independence are not credible. And, those making such claims are either intent on deceiving the public, or are themselves delusional.

There is only one way to purge the court of integrity challenged justices. And that is to legislate against the grift and dark money politics that have eclipsed the promise of a great nation. When people who are elected or appointed to high office operate with impunity, in ways that are so far afoul of their constitutional oath that the electorate has lost confidence, no amount of blame-shifting to We the People will restore their reputations. Their posterity will hold them accountable even, if their contemporaries are unwilling, lacking the courage to ask a career ending question.

While SCOTUS justices have enjoyed a safe work environment during the COVID pandemic, the average worker in the United States is subject to the whims of a government that has consistently failed to “provide for the common defense.” The pattern of judicial conduct, as revealed in an array of decisions that demonstrate contempt for any obligation “to promote the general welfare,” while imposing conditions of peonage on average people, is troubling.

If the individuals involved were not held in such high esteem and considered above reproach, such predictable deference to corporate interests would seem very suspicious. Of course the general public is not generally aware that, unlike all other federal judges, the justices of the Supreme Court are not subject to a code of ethical conduct.