By Sushil Kutty
To quote a TV anchor, not the one served with a privilege notice by the Maharashtra Assembly, “The future is unwritten and we’re in utterly uncharted territory.” This anchor wasn’t talking about the LAC and what would be unfolding there in the coming days. Nor was he presenting his two paisa worth on what’s gonna unravel in matters concerning mysterious deaths and ganja gangs and stoned superstars.
Other extraordinary things are happening around the world these days of the coronavirus and Covid-19. For example, a ‘Covid Jaziya’ or ‘Covid-fee’ is being levied on parents by private schools in Bengaluru. The money collected would go to pay for “covid-consumables” like facemasks and hand sanitizers. Stuff that would play a role in keeping coronavirus out of bounds of schools.
Parents are shocked, but the school knows better about children’s lives. The parents will pay up and without raising a ruckus. Simple calculation! The first-para anchor will, however, point to the ‘utterly uncharted territory’ that everybody’s in to justify the covid-19 fee. According to this guy’s reckoning, those placed cosy in uncertain times are always in a position to take advantage of uncertainty, of what’s waiting to happen.
Like in the case of the United States Supreme Court justice, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died the other night from pancreatic cancer. Before she quit this world and her mortal body, she sought to leave behind a certainty in anticipation of a living medium planning to take advantage of the uncertainty that will prevail post her death.
Justice Ginsburg’s death has left a hole in the top court’s tally of nine justices. Now President Donald Trump has a chance to swing electoral fortunes his way by appointing or promising to fill the vacancy created with a right-to-the-core justice. Like he did with the appointments of Justice Gorsich and Justice Kavanaugh.
This is what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sought to stop with her last wish, knowing that Trump will play on the uncertainty left in many a voter to deny late Justice Ginsburg justice after her death! Now, Trump has 44 days to either replace right away or appoint a replacement if and when he is reelected. There’s a load of uncertainty there. What Trump wants is a lode of luck. Like the lode of gold in the Sierras that changed the fortunes of tens of thousands.
For that matter, not just Donald Trump, Justice Ginsburg was also playing on uncertainty when she told her granddaughter her last wish: That her replacement should be named and appointed only after the “next” President took charge. She said that because she was certain of her death but uncertain of Trump’s reelection and her replacement!
Americans have the unpleasant task of setting a precedent as per last wish – a precedent for a President! Henceforth justices in harness when certain of death, whether it’s by cancer or covid-19, will because they would be uncertain of what’s gonna happen after their going, will try to preempt uncertain with something akin to the last wish thrown to the condemned prisoner! What a precedent!
Now half the United States is talking of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s last wish and how Trump cannot and should not be given another term so that he’s not in a position of certainty to be able to deny justice to “fair-playing” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who even President Donald Trump praised in so many words following her expected ‘certain’ death.
Justice Ruth Bader, appointed by President Bill Clinton, towed a different line from Trump’s current ideology. Earlier, Donald Trump was like Justice Ginsburg, a true-blue Democrat who smiled at Bill and Hillary Clinton and who the CNN, NYT, and the Washington Post did not frown upon. That certainty was derailed by uncertainty when Trump rode the elevator to the US Presidential race and won the Electoral College.
Now, there’s uncertainty staring Trump in the face as it stared Justice Ginsburg in the face before she cashed in her chips! The moral of the story is ‘uncertainty’ rules the stars and the world, except that in the case of stars uncertainty lasts billions of years and lighyears! Ruth Bader’s caution of uncertainty is beyond her after her death, but the uncertainty in the people she left behind will last till the next POTUS is elected; and till the replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is appointed.
Ultimately, the only thing certain was Justice Ginsburg’s impending death. Ditto the PLA! The PLA should dump Sun Tzu and think of what’s bound to happen to Justice Ginsburg’s last wish. The United States Senate has already decided, hardly hours after Justice Ginsburg’s death, that Trump’s SC nominee should get the vote, right away! (IPA Service)