Why the Court Is Independent of the Executive Branch

There are reasons the Founding Fathers of our fledgling Republic distributed power amongst three branches of government. They were well aware of the consequences of having power solidified in a single entity, the monarch. Hence, they created a checks-and-balances system of government to prevent the consolidation of power.

Currently there is an attempt to restrain the judicial branch of government in the United States. This is not an isolated incident. A brief review of history reveals numerous examples of how totalitarian leaders took measures against judges or judicial bodies for verdicts or decisions that went against their interest. Here are a number of notable examples:

1. Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union): During Stalin's Great Purge (1936-1938), many judges, prosecutors, and legal officials were executed or sent to labor camps. While these purges were often justified under accusations of anti-Soviet activities or conspiracy, many were targeted simply because they were perceived as threats or had issued decisions that were not in line with Stalin's desires.

2. Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany): In 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler's regime executed many political adversaries, including members of the judicial system who were perceived as threats or who had opposed the Nazi party. While not directly a purge of judges for specific verdicts, it was a clear message to the judiciary to align with Nazi policies.  

3. Mao Zedong (People's Republic of China): During Mao's Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards targeted many legal officials, including judges, for being part of the "old society" or for issuing verdicts that did not align with the revolutionary ideology. Many were publicly humiliated, imprisoned, or executed.

4. Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania): Ceaușescu's regime was known for its brutal repression of dissent. Judges and legal officials who issued decisions contrary to the wishes of the Communist Party were often removed from their positions, imprisoned, or executed under trumped-up charges of corruption or anti-state activities.

5. Pol Pot (Cambodia): The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, dismantled the existing judicial system entirely. Judges, lawyers, and legal officials were seen as enemies of the revolution and were often executed or sent to brutal labor camps.

6. Saddam Hussein (Iraq): Under Saddam Hussein's rule, judges who opposed or issued unfavorable verdicts against the regime were often executed or disappeared. The judicial system was heavily manipulated to serve the interests of Hussein and the Ba'ath Party.

* * *

In recent years I've been concerned about the manner in which our U.S. presidents create laws via Executive Order. It's true that presidential powers have been used from the. beginning. George Washington used an executive order to keep our country from getting tangled in a war between Britain and France. Thomas Jefferson also issued an executive order. Abraham Lincoln used his executive authority when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation.

The 20th century dawned with Teddy Roosevelt flexing his executive muscle, initiative 1000 executive orders during his presidency. FDR issued over 3700 executive orders to address the Great Depression and World War II. His attempt to stack the Supreme Court was especially noteworthy. Several of FDR's initiatives were determined to be unconstitutional and were struck down by the Court. In response he attempted to stack the court in his favor by adding six new Justices to the court for a total of 15. Critics saw it as an attempt to undermine the judiciary's independence and to consolidate executive power, which is exactly what it was. Ultimately, the Senate had its say, defeating the bill by a vote of 70 to 20.

Today President Biden is attempting to bring the Supreme Court under the wing of the Executive branch by doing away with lifetime appointments. He is currently pressing Congress to pass legislation that would establish term limits and a system enabling a sitting president to appoint justices every two years. This would give  the executive branch control of the jdcial branch of government, thereby weakening the original checks and balances system, changing our Constitution and threatening democracy. 

The unchecked consolidation of power is not in the best interest of the people or our future. When presidents can bypass Congress with Executive Orders and the Court becomes a branch of the Executive, we're getting closer to the political system our Founders railed against. 

Why Do Russia's Wars Always Start with Disaster?

 

Unherd, a publication whose mission is to push back against herd mentality, today featured a story titled "How Putin enabled the Wagner revolt." The article begins with the following opening paragraph:

"Why do Russia’s wars always start with disaster? The answer is straightforward: because the autocrats who rule Russia — be they Tsars (with the exception of Napoleon’s nemesis Alexander I), Joseph Stalin or Vladimir Putin — appoint obedient toadies sadly lacking in military talent to command their forces."

According to the Unherd piece by Professor Edward Luttwak, "And none is more out-of-his-depth than Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s minister of defence."

Is  Prof. Luttwak suggestion that Putin's minister of defense is the worst Russian war leader ever or the world's worst ever? Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 goes into great detail describing the ridiculous unpreparedness of the Russian army at the outset of WWI. The lack of preparedness included inadequate equipment, outdated tactics and a lack of direction which all contributed to abysmal morale. 

What's more, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich's military command structure suffered from massive inefficiencies and poor leadership. Decision-making processes were often slow and bureaucratic, hindering quick and effective responses to changing circumstances. As Solzhenitsyn discloses, the lack of clear strategic direction and coordination among the leadership contributed to disarray and ineffective operations. In the first month of the war the bumbling and blundering was so great that after a major loss in the Battle of Tannenberg General Samsanov took his own life. 

It isn't just Russia that is prone to this problem. G.J. Meyer's WWI overview, A World Undone, devotes a chapter to the incompetence of Britain's military leaders. When you see the consequences there's nothing funny about the tens of thousands of men whose blood was pointlessly spilt. (cf. The British Generals at the Dawn of World War One)

How ready are our U.S. troops should they be called into combat? Here are a few matters of concern.

Technological vulnerabilities with regard to emerging threats include cybersecurity vulnerabilities, potential disruption of satellite communications, and reliance on outdated systems in certain areas should concern us. Maintaining readiness across all branches of the military can be challenging. Aging equipment, insufficient training resources, and personnel shortages can impact the military's ability to respond promptly and effectively to threats.

The appalling amount of red tape in all levels of government will have an impact on our capacity to respond should there be a time of need. The acquisition and procurement process of new military equipment and systems can be lengthy, bureaucratic, and prone to cost overruns. Delays and inefficiencies in acquiring cutting-edge technology will hinder military readiness and modernization efforts.

It's true that Russia has been tested and found wanting. In this country, it waits to be seen how capable and effective we'll be until we're tested. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Read: How Putin enabled the Wagner revolt

 

Photo Credit: Photo by Dominik Sostmann on Unsplash

Two Films With Heart: One About Little League Baseball and the Other About Fencing

THE PERFECT GAME

OK, I'm not a huge fan of films featuring child actors (The Little Rascals being an exception) so I wasn't sure what to expect when I took out The Perfect Game from the library two weeks ago. But I loved baseball when I was a kid and right from the start I was so glad I went for it. It stirred up many memories, both from my Little League experiences and our year at an orphanage in Monterrey. In fact, I even got a little weepy toward the end. Yeah, the film won my heart.

The movie is based on a true story about a Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico that became the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.  There are some aspects of the story which are a stretch the way it is portrayed here, but if you go with it it's an enjoyable film. You can roll your eyes later. 

The film opens with a brief scene in which Cesar Faz (Clifton Collins, Jr.) is let go by the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though he never played with the Cardinals -- he washed their clothes and cleaned the locker room -- there was a mystique after he returned to Mexico about his having "been in the Majors." 

A few neighborhood kids in Monterrey persuade him to teach them what he knows about baseball, and he knows more than they do, even if he never played professionally. He had seen the game up close. One thing leads to another, and despite their seeming unreadiness and the coach's reluctance to lead them, the boys end up going North to see what competitive baseball is all about.

There's a love interest, and there's a religious aspect as their little Catholic church supports the team with prayers and cheers. (Cheech Marin, of Cheech and Chong fame, is Padre Esteban.) And then, there's baseball. 

There is a cute scene in which the boys are all kneeling before the padre who, instead of sprinkling them with oil, squirts oil into their open baseball mitts. As any serious ballplayer will tell you, rubbing oil into your mitt and taking care of the leather is an important part of the game.

The story takes place in 1957 where Jim Crow laws are still in effect. In various ways we see how the injustices of that period played out. Nevertheless, the team pressed on. 

As an aside, my mother's favorite baseball player back in the 1950s was from Mexico--Bobby Avila of the Cleveland Indians. When Susie and I were in Monterrey in 1981, we unexpectedly discovered Mexico's version of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, the Salon de la Fama. There we saw the uniform, and other Bobby Avila memorabilia.  

* * * 

THE FENCER

This is a similar story in which a "coach" trains a ragtag group of kids and transforms them into champions. The setting in this instance is Estonia after World War II, which was under Soviet rule during the Stalin era. And like The Perfect Game it is also based on a true story.

An understanding about the history of that period is useful though not necessarily essential to appreciating the story. Nevertheless, I will give a quick sketch of the backstory.

In 1940 the Soviet Union invaded Estonia and the Baltic States of Latvia and Lithuania. Stalin was fighting the winter war with Finland and they essentially abducted the young men of these countries for the Red Army or to work in the mines on behalf of the war effort that was coming. In 1942, the Germans liberated the Baltic States so that for two years these three countries were "free" from KGB night raids and abductions. 

In 1944, the Red Army began its million man march on Berlin. To give you an idea how much the Soviets under Stalin were feared, 10% of the Estonian population fled West in a single day. (My screenplay and unpublished novel Uprooted is about that period of Estonian history.)

The Fencer involves an Estonian named Endil Nelis who has lived his life on the run. Any Estonian who had anything to do with the German army was a marked man. They would be sent away to Siberia for betrayal. On the other hand, anyone who had been in Estonia from 1942-44 would have had no choice but to be drafted. Those who did not flee when the Red Army came West ran off into hiding. 

Endil Nelis, an award-winning fencer, survived after the war by living a life on the run. Early in the film his friend urges him not to come to Leningrad but to stay in a remote town outside the view of the authorities. He does so, and gains employment back in Estonia as a phys ed teacher. One thing leads to another and the children all want to learn fencing, which they essentially know nothing about.

He proceeds to teach, and he himself is a master, but he has no real ambition for the kids other than to give them an opportunity to learn. One of the children finds an advertisement for a tournament, which brings Nelis to a decision point. If he brings the children to Leningrad for the tournament he risks being identified and sent away.

Knowing Estonia's background is useful for understanding the complicated decision he must make. Many, if not most, of these children have no fathers. He has become a father figure for them. To avoid the tournament would be a massive disappointment. On the other hand, he has grown weary of living life in the shadows and ever fearful of discovery.

Little does he know that the Secret Police have already been making inquiries, so he is a trapped rabbit either way.

Märt Avandi, who plays Nellis, does a superb job of showing how complicated life is when you know what is going on but can't be transparent about it. He is burdened by the secrets he carries, but does not want to burden his students with this. 

The Fencer is a foreign language film with English subtitles that was nominated in 2016 for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Some would criticize it's formulaic standard fare rags-to-riches, David & Goliath arc. For me, that was not a distraction, just a backdrop. The film says much about freedom and repression without saying it in a cliche manner. 

The story moved me and I recommend it.

Complicit Support for Stalin Showed Media's Lack of Integrity: Mr. Jones Tells the Story

Over the years I've had a number of writers influence me in significant ways. Upon discovering a writer I resonated with I would dig through their works the way a miner follows a gold vein through a mountain, reading everything I could get my hands on. Hemingway, C.S. Lewis, Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene are a few such writers whose works I collected.

Another was Andre Gide (1869-1951), the 1947 Nobel Prize winner who was at the center of the French literary scene for decades. An author of more than 80 books, he exemplified beautiful writing, integrity and original thinking.

At some point in the mid-nineties I read The Journals of Andre Gide, all four volumes, from which I learned much about the writing life and have frequently shared insightful quotes. One incident especially stuck with me, from his 1936-37 journal notes.

While the Great Depression rocked America, economic trauma was also eroding European confidence about the future. As Marxist/socialist idealism swirled through intellectual circles, the notion emerged that over there, in the Soviet Union, a Golden Age was dawning. The workers paradise was being praised and the promise of a brighter future.

Writers were being invited to come see with their own eyes what was taking place so they could tell the story of what was happening. One of these was Andre Gide. He went expecting to see something promising, or at least evidence that something promising was happening. Instead what he saw and learned resulted in a book that discredited what many other writers were saying. His 1936 book of essays began with "delightful approval" but ended up a denunciation.

I'd never read that book, but saw clearly in his journal entries for 1936 that things were not what they purported to be and he could not, with good conscience, parrot what others were saying. His September 3 journal entry begins, "A tremendous, a dreadful confusion." Then he describes a conversation with another who spoke of his "disappointment" with the U.S.S.R.  Gide responds that the word disappointment is not really accurate, "but I do not know what to suggest in its place."

Because he was expected to come away from his U.S.S.R experience with a book that praised Stalin's achievements, he writes in a later journal entry that he must write an introduction that "warns the reader at the outset." It took courage to publish this book so out of alignment with what his peers were saying.

The book he published was titled Return from the U.S.S.R. Here are excerpts from a review on Amazon that offer a snapshot of what Gide saw.

Publicity still from Mr. Jones

The political situation André Gide noticed that now that the revolution had triumphed, those who kept the revolutionary ferment became an embarrassment and were hated by the powerful; worse, they were simply swept from the earth. What the Politburo demanded, was a full endorsement of all that happened in the USSR. 

Attitudes
André Gide saw the inertia of the masses, the complete depersonalization of the individual.

Education
Critical thinking was forbidden and soviet citizens remained in an extraordinary ignorance of what happened in foreign countries.

The Social Situation
André Gide saw the emergence of a new aristocracy ... of conformists. Joining the Party was the first and indispensable step for a successful career.

Art
In the USSR, an artist had to follow `the line'. Art had to be popular; otherwise it was branded as 'formalism'. But André Gide correctly stated that without liberty art loses all its meaning and value.

André Gide expected to find in the USSR at least the beginnings of an anti-capitalist State. But, his hopes were bitterly dashed and he had the courage to publish his devastating verdict. He should be an example for all commentators and writers today, who should speak out and tear the curtain of the virtual world created by the media.

* * * *

All of the above came to mind when I read about a new film called Mr. Jones that has been released on Amazon Prime. I read about it in a review titled The Media's Role in Concealing Stalin's Evils Exposed in Mr. Jones.

The setting is Moscow 1932. The review begins (T)wo reporters are in a venomous argument. One has just admitted to filing false stories attributing miraculous economic achievements to Joseph Stalin while ignoring the fact that he's systematically starving peasants by the millions. Hitler, she declares, is on the march in Germany and, soon, the rest of the world, and without Stalin's help, he'll never be stopped.

"You sound like you work for Stalin!" the other reporter declares in horror.

"I don't work for Stalin," the first reporter haughtily insists. "I believe in a movement that's bigger than any one person."

The convergence of all these things is somewhat striking. The movie that had circulated through European film festivals in 2019 finally came to theaters in February and now to the public right in the middle of a new historical zeitgeist involving clashing cultures and competing worldviews. Notions of right and wrong are being turned on their heads.

A second article from Reason this week highlights a new attitude being proposed by some journalists. The article is titled Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral. There are journalists who wish to abandoned the notion of objectivity. My response is two-fold. First, it's long been apparent that news is not always objective. Second, isn't this why Opinion pages exist so that people can express opinions on whatever is happening?

Maybe the solution to the latter problem would be to make larger opinion pages. As for the former issue, every fiction writer knows that if you want to create empathy between a reader and a character in a story, you hurt him or her. It's a normal human response. So it is that when covering riots, by focusing on rioters being hit, you create empathy for these "victims" of brutality. Why do we never see all the bricks and bottles that have been smashing into the faces and heads of police, sending them to hospitals around the country?

The coverage this past month has not been objective. Neither was the journalistic coverage of Stalin's atrocities.

Related Links
The Death of Stalin
The Media's Role in Concealing Stalin's Evils Exposed in Mr. Jones
Carol Veldman Rudie Sheds Light on Soviet Era Art in Lecture at the Tweed
Local Art Seen: Tweed Spotlights the Art of Russia
Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple In Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941