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Scalia
My grandfather was an Italian American, a Catholic, and though not churchgoer, he was deeply religious. "He swore like a trooper and prayed on his knees like an altar boy," which was a description of General George S. Patton and my grand dad, Lou. I have searched deep into his various cultural experiences, geographically, theologically and intellectually. His Great, Great, etc. Grandparents came from northern Italy to southern Italy to escape religious intolerance and the dregs of the Inquisition. They hid out in a small hill town in the province of Salerno and made a life there until they came to America. My great grandfather led the trek to America shortly after the American Civil War. Northern Italy, Southern Italy and America, -Catholicism, which grew out of Judaism, his theology and anthropology studies gave shape to my belief system and to my understanding of empathy and a form of love even for one's enemies. I remember my grandfather as the toughest, kindest man I ever knew. He cursed the Nazi's for their torture methods. One of the many charges against them was their brutality and torture of the Jews, Italians and others. Once when interviewed as the President of the labor union affiliated with the AF-CIO, he was asked, what was the greatest fortune that ever bestowed upon him? His answer was, "That my Father and mother didn't miss the boat leaving for America!" If I heard that story once, I am certain I heard it a thousand times; it was his mantra. He was a professional baseball player and a professional boxer, he was also a sculptor and stone cutter and he read several books a week, everything from pulp novels, to the Great Books, Biographies, fiction/non-fiction, anything he could lay his hands upon, and he did so with relish, speed and alacrity. There was always an American Flag flying on a flagpole in our back yard and at our summer lake home. In WWI, he served in the US Navy as a cook. When we went to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs play, he stood proudly and sang loudly, our national anthem. Out of his own pocket, he funded a WW II War Memorial for the neighborhood. Every Christmas and Easter, and Hanukah he had Santa or the Easter Bunny or some other fictional associate character come and give away gifts to children of those not so well off. Even during the depression, he had nearly everyone in our neighborhood working. He bought or built four apartment buildings and two bungalows, housing therein-family members at extremely low to no rent, depending upon their income or lack thereof. When he died his wife, my grand mother said to me, "Had everyone who owed him paid him back, you would never have to work a day in your life." He was a psychic, (prophet) and many believed an uncanonized saint. He helped even those once his enemy. He never held a grudge. Whenever he would do something, nice for someone he hardly knew and I would ask him why he did so, he would say something like, "Because Jesus would have." More than once, also like General George S. Patton he rescued damsels or others in distress, publicly. Thrashing at windmills? Hardly. He often went to great lengths to untangle neighbor's crises with the authorities. His visits to hospitals and his paying of medical bills for those who could not, is legend and legion. That was a man! Then we have Antonin Scalia, whose latest comments and ruling about torture comes neither from Jesus, whom he hypocritically claims to follow, nor from Judeo/Christian Law. He claims that torture is not cruel and unusual "punishment" because it isn't punishment at all, it is merely a means of eliciting information." How twisted a mind, how sick a conscience, how rude and snotty a comment, are those? He seems to have a snotty remark for everyone, but especially the poor and the not so high up on the political ladder. The most disgusting thing is his fawning over Dick Cheney; it is stomach turning, at best. Pain and suffering inflicted, is inflicted, and even telling someone, "we are not punishing you, we are simply eliciting information..." is neither going to diminish the pain and suffering, nor make the person suffering fell any better. " Oh! I am not being punished this is merely an impersonal means of eliciting information. That makes me feel so much better! Now I can suffer with the joy of giving and peace of mind." Scalia, from everything I have read, is while pretending to be the man my Grandfather actually was, publicly, is in reality, in my opinion, a man who eschews his own background and anyone who cannot do him some good. He is a man who fawns, who tries to place himself on a pedestal of his own making, tries to distance himself from his peers and especially from the poor. He appears to want so badly to be admired, bowed and scraped to, worshipped, by kneeling, ring kissing, people which are, in his eyes far below him-He Is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the most prestigious court in all the world. He doesn't merely take pride his appointment, he swills in it. Trouble is, he was not appointed for his academic or legal accomplishments, he was a bought an paid for soul-seller, who had and still is selling his soul, for power, pride, prestige and worldly notoriety-all of the things Jesus rejected in the story of the Temptation in the Wilderness. Were he in France and done the same during WWII, his head would have been shaved and branded for Collaboration. Had he done it in Italy at the same time he would have been hung upside down like the man of whom he most pompously reminds me, Benito Mussolini. But since we are a nation of merciful people unlike Scalia, here, he should be hung in effigy, instead, and on a regular basis.
Scalia is a man who takes great cares to make pomp and circumstance of being photographed at mass. He loves the attention of speaking to the press on the front stairs of the church for all to see. He makes a ass of himself, but doesn't even know it. Scalia is also, in my view a wretch. He sucks up to power like a leech. He would have kissed Hitler's rear had he been brought up in Germany in WWII. How did we ever get such creatures on that court? Their souls were bought, but they are far lower than like street prostitutes infected with God knows what. We have seen appointed to this court the lowest of the low over the last few decades. It is a game of Russian roulette. We play the spin of the wheel for whoever happens to be in office to appoint sometimes several members for a lifetime to one of the most important positions in the nation. There should be no spin of the wheel. There should be a change of the guard incrementally, and staggered each several years. Judges should, like professors to tenure, be appointed on a regular basis whenever needed. To make that need a reality, their tenure should be limited to seven years. That would enable replacement on a regular basis with no advantage to one or another political party of whim. There should be a system as in academia, of tenure for the Supreme Court. No more than seven years, that is it. And there should a recall method. The man has neither conscience nor breeding. I say no more lifetime jobs for the Supreme Court. Seven years is enough damage. Further, we should amend the Constitution, what is left of it, to prohibit any president from appointing any more than one judge, and the congress of the opposing party should be allowed to match each appointment with one of their own. Not since Hitler, has a war criminal had the right to mock justice as has these administration-war criminals, and the Democrats have enabled them in their every whim since November 2007. What we have in the two men profiled above are two educated, Italian American, Catholics, born here in America, who remind me so closely of Superman and Bizarro Superman, of the Christ and the Anti-Christ, of a low-life and a saint.
